This week will really be short swipes at various topics. I’m utterly up to my eyeballs… so the rascals are safe!
State of It. Republicans and Democrats sat together, nice-nice, during the State of the Union address. Such an endearing sight, was it not? In some cases, it seemed like something they may actually have wanted to do; others seemed pressed to do so by a sense of the public mood, perhaps. Either way, it’s a bit like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic or spec’ing new curtains on the top floor of the Towering Inferno. (Name checking Irwin Allen here.) Congress is poised to choke ordinary Americans off from a range of federal benefits and services, just as they are dealing with similar reductions at the state and local levels. They have the votes to do it.
Sad thing is, Obama seems ready to assist them in this. His somewhat schizophrenic SOTU lurched from major investments to multi-year spending freezes. Domestic spending kept level for five years? Sounds like McCain. What would the impact of that be on all of these domestic initiatives he’s mentioning in the same breath? We shall see how that shakes out. Of course, the CBO came out with dire estimates regarding both the federal budget and Social Security practically while Obama was speaking. The primary culprit? The tax cut deal, which is blowing the predictable hole in the Federal budget and starving Social Security of its payroll tax funding. Guess how they’re going to try to fill that hole. Ask Paul Ryan.
World Service. The uprising in Tunisia has sparked some pretty serious protests across the Arab world, most notably Egypt. That oppressive regime for which torture is as fundamental a part of the penal system as iron bars is a bit unnerved, to say the least, and will no doubt rely upon the good graces of its sponsor the United States more heavily than before. It’s hard to imagine Egypt without Mubarak, but it will come one day. What that will look like I can only guess.
Goodbye and Good Luck. MSNBC’s firing of Keith Olbermann is not good news in my house, particularly around the 8:00 pm hour. I don’t think I need comment on the stupidity of this decision, but I feel compelled to say that coverage of it has been pretty lame. NPR’s Talk of the Nation is one example, which featured Bill Carter of the New York Times talking about how NBC thought him too “aggressive” and how they were concerned about incitement to violence. No comment on whether that was a reasonable position to take – just bland assurances from the man whose very tempered paper helped get us into Iraq.
Science! The internets are abuzz with speculation about NASA chief scientist Waleed Abdulati and his mysterious past. Stop guessing, conservative bloggers – I know right where he comes from…. across the street from my childhood home in New Hartford, NY, that’s where! He lived there from about 4 years old until after high school, and a brighter and more decent guy you couldn’t imagine – so stop obsessing, you knee-jerk racists.
luv u,
jp