A Perfect Storm

Todd Gross, the affable Boston weatherman, didn’t invent the phrase, but he certainly coined it for popular use back in the fall of 1991, as three powerful weather fronts crashed as agents of true serendipity to create as he so succinctly described, “A Perfect Storm”, over the waters of the Georgia Banks to forever change the way we view causation and the sheer brutality of circumstance.  The movie, of the same name, detailing the drama of a small Glouster fishing boat’s tragic contribution to that moment in meteorological history, drove that moniker

A Moment in History

I have absolutely nothing to add to this. Enjoy this moment in political history.

In 1960, no one knew that Jack Kennedy would someday be seen as John F. Kennedy. They knew he was charismatic and capable as a politician, but that’s all they knew. They, who were there at the time, now know better

Good Ol’ Time Spam

I got this spam email today from one of my GOP loving pals. It was kind of nostalgic in how it shilled the 2004 GOP talking points as if the last few years had never happened. I don’t believe that anyone actually still agrees with this laundry list of assertions, but I felt like putting them all into 2008 perspective. Sort of a “let’s look at where we are now” kind of thing.

A Gospel of Controversy

So, I actually took a few days off from the political stuff to delve into my other hobby. Playing music in nightclubs. I love that part of my life, and I’m glad I didn’t “grow out of it”, making it something I miss. I still get to jump up there and make way too much noise for small money and tips.

It’s good to be back at my keyboard though. It seems like there’s been some noise being made out on the DNC campaign trail while I was busy. Something about a fire and brimstone preacher pissing off the white folks

The Lies that Matter

It’s been a hell of a couple weeks for lies and the liars that tell those lies. With all the veiled and not-so-veiled lies about Barack Obama’s fitness for the presidency, to the man’s choice of gods to focus his devotion to, to who approved what for whose surrogate to toss out into the sewer of public discourse, to ex-NY Governor Eliot Spitzer and his lies to the woman he married, one might begin to get the impression that the Democratic Party couldn’t get its moral compass to center on true north if the future of mankind depended on it.

Which it just might.

I’ve even gotten sucked up into the vortex of it all, as it’s swirled and spun around me. The pull is strong, and I’m as much a sucker for controversy as anyone. In fact, I tend to get even more emotionally involved in it all that some. I don’t know. Maybe I need yet another hobby in my life?

Today, however, I woke up and had a quiet moment

“What the hell are you thinking?”

Okay, so I’ll admit that I don’t always see things the way that most people see them.In fact, I think it’s fair to say that I often don’t see things the way that most people see them.It might even be suggested that I have a way of seeing things that lies just on the other side of “What the hell is he thinking?” from just about everyone that I know.And yet, I have a high enough rate of successfully nailing the truth behind complicated issues and convoluted scenarios to allow me to feel

Old News is Good News

So, I had a few emails come in yesterday that were pretty insistent that I weigh in on that Eliot Spitzer story. That’s the one about the NY state governor who got caught in a call girl sting operation. Another “surprise” investigation of a Democrat governor (shades of Alabama) by a GOP controlled Department of Justice that has been in the headlines in the last couple years for politicizing the legal system.

To me, it’s a clear case of an idiot with his own money, blowing some of it on a hooker while on a business trip. Nothing spectacular, except for the fact that he’s the guy who ran through Wall Street like the Black Death, and then turned that holocaust into

A Blue State Strategy

Okay, so when was the last time planning a fall presidential general election around the traditional Blue States campaign strategy for a Democratic nominee actually worked out to give that candidate a 51% majority of the votes cast? If you say 1996, then you’d be wrong. Remember Ross Perot? Yep, Bill Clinton never broke the elusive 51% barrier in either wins, and we all know what happened to Al Gore and John Kerry – framing that sea of red with isolated smatters of blue for back to back losses against a pretty weak GOP offering. George Bush had his core constituency, but the man was no Ronald Reagan when it came to electrifying the electorate across ideological lines.So again, when was that old standby – the Blue State Strategy – ever a winning strategy for the DNC?The answer is – never.The truth is that this idiotic reaction to the easily disrupted GOP political strategy that leans entirely on nebulous and unattainable goals like Christian family values, morality in government, and the Holy Grail of “Right-To-Life” legislation, has

Another Saturday… Another Story

So, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas out here in the heartland. March 8th, and I’m seeing white-out conditions outside my window. I moved away from the Northeast specifically to avoid these March blizzards, but I guess Al Gore and his damn global warming crap have junked up the climate so bad, there’s no escaping anything anymore.

So, I’m feeling in one of those “staying indoors and watching TV with lots of booze for the whole day” moods. Like how it generally goes for most Wednesdays.

Only this is Saturday.

So, gather ’round kids, and let me tell you a Christmas Story in honor of this unseasonable weather pattern that’s ripping through the southern Midwest, hinting at the global climactic catastrophe that lies just over the horizon, gathering itself

Oh… And One Other Thing…

I was going to do a piece today about Richard Nixon, the notoriously legendary 18 minute audio tape gap, and the miserable state of healthcare in the USA, but the last couple days have put such a sour taste in my mouth that I need to rinse and spit this one last bit here before I can clean up and get on with issues other than the DNC primary circus that blew through our area earlier this week. I promise. Just a few small items and then this Greek tragedy can playing itself out, and I’ll be content to have had my