Must Visit Websites, #10: Real Clear World
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Links, News, politics
I am putting together a list of the ten most important sites, to my use of the web.
My #10 pick is Real Clear World (www.realclearworld.com), a site that collects news and features from around the world. A sister site to RealClearPolitics, which I became hooked on during the recent Presidential Campaign, this is a superb resource for anyone as into foreign affairs (stop snickering) as I am.
The Pretendent’s Obit
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under politics
Joe Klein nailed the coffin for the final days of the Bush II (the lesser) presidency in his article in the latest Time, entitled The Lamest of Ducks.
View it here.
Thank you, Times of London
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under politics
With all the America-bashing that occurs in the world, it is nice to once in a while get credit for getting things right.
An editorial in today’s Times of London entitled "A Masterclass in Democracy" that praises the American system and her people in the way this Presidential Election played out was extremely gratifying (yes, be shocked, I regularly read news from other nations…London, Eastern Europe, China, Japan, Paris South America and occasionally even South Africa…I like to know what the unfiltered truth is, as our media does have its biases (even without softcore tabloid Australian billionaires trying to control the definition of "American conservative values" by buying up and/or creating news outlets)).
For the full text of this all-too-kind editorial, see
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article5093551.ece
Sunday evening notes
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Journal
#1: If you are an American citizen: On Tuesday, save yourself ad your friends and neighbors and family. Vote. Vote Obama.
#2: Working hard on a couple of enhancements to my sites, but already a few hours behind. Sigh.
#3: Listening to Rick Derringer’s "Still Alive and Well" right now feeds my soul.
#4: I am profoundly moved by the depth of emotions I have been been witness to in the last few years. God is good.
#5: Update on my Grandmother. Still convalescing. She has her good days, she has her bad days.
#6: I will take my rest when it is given, to steal a line from one of my own poems.
the 2008 US Presidential Elections at a glance
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under politics
For those of you who live in foreign countries, under a rock, or only get information from Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News, here’s a quick check on the status of the current candidates for President of What’s Left After Bush Gets Through Screwing Things Permanently Up and Starting Wars with the Muslims, the Chinese and The Russians All At Once.
Barack Obama: Nice guy, Big smile. Will probably get the Democratic nomination. The question is whether the people with the real dirt on him wait until after he is nominated, elected or sworn in before they make their move. His wife is very lovely, but seems to be a little angry. Not quite She-Hulk angry, more like Martha Mitchell angry (for you old timers out there).
John McCain: Nice guy. War hero (although, to be honest, most guys become heroes by taking a hill against overwhelming odds, not getting shot down and forced to rot in North Vietnamese POW Camp that is substantially less hygenic than the restroom at the average service station). Trying hard to be a nice guy and keep the Karl Rove Mindless Zombies of the Right happy. Wouldn’t wish his job on an enemy. Would’ve been Republican nominee is 2000 if not for his own party playing the race-card against his adopted daughter. Bastards.
Hillary Clinton: Tough lady. Big smile. As usual, the more experienced woman who is in line for the job gets leapfrogged by a junior manager because he’s a guy and, in the end, we are more sexist than racist in this country. One in three minorities in this country do not get assaulted at some point in their life, just because they are minorities. One in three women do. I’m writing her name in on Election Day.
Joe Biden: May be named VP running mate to Obama so that rednecks can vote for a white guy. While I am on the topic, will someone explain to me why we allow people flying the Confederate Flag to get on airplanes? They are flying the symbol of an anti-American organization that took hundreds of thousands of lives in a treasonous action against this country. I digress. Hey, wasn’t Biden’s own campaign a decade or so ago derailed by a scandal about plagiarism?
Tom Ridge: May be named VP running mate to McCain so we have someone who doesn’t have to totally cave to the Religious Right on the ticket. Former head of Homeland Security, which still sounds to me like a department under the Politburo, not the US Government. (For the glorious Homeland…)
Evan Bayh: May be named VP running mate to Obama so that Hillary can’t gripe too much, as he was her 1st choice for dance partner. If there is a whiter man on the planet, he’s albino.
Bill Richardson: Nice guy. Hispanic, which may really confuse rednecks if Obama names him as his running mate. Amazing guy, hope he keeps the beard. Was a good friend to the Clintons. Note: Was. Endorsed Obama, may not get invited to the Clinton Christmas Party this year.
Mitt Romney: Too Mormon for the mainstream. Evangelicals who haven’t read the Constitution may throw a fit if McCain asks him to the dance.
Third Party Candidates: Laughing, insanely, here.
back to the race for that big, white house on Pennsylvania Avenue…what do they call it?
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Uncategorized
It looks like Ralph Nader is going to throw his rumpled, self-important hat back in the ring to run for President. The guy needs to find a nice tree, cut it down, make a center pillar and a crossbar and get someone not nail him to it. He obviously has that strain of senility that manifests itself as a Messiah complex.
His self-indulgent headline grabbing, which initially was for the common good…40 years ago when he was outing the Detroit auto industry’s safety record…now drives him to sabotage national elections because he lacks the fiber to work within the system to accomplish change. In the mean time he allows real issues to go unaddressed so he can feel he still has a voice and a purpose in this world.
Lacking any real shot at winning, he wants to make sure the game is unplayable for others. Or, at least certain others.
I am one of those people who doesn’t hesitate to point out that had he not insisted on this very conduct eight years ago, we might have been spared 9/11, the War in Iraq and an economy that went from record surpluses to record deficits while gas prices tripled. And President Gore might have gotten us a running start on Global Warming action, against a threat that even now may challenge the survival of modern society and the human species.
The two party system is lame, superficial and self-destructive? Yes. Most of the leaders are self-important boobs who either know they are sucking from the common teat rather than get a real job or have deluded themselves into thinking they are making real change and progress while being compromised agents of, at best, inertia.
That Ralphie boy may be about to dive in to a race where he can deny this country its first black or female President isn’t lost on most people. Ralph is prepared to wave his hand-drawn banners of legitimacy and self-delusion, ensuring that the line of white, male Presidents is an unbroken one.
The attitudes of his generation is one of the last real barriers to a better society, where it isn’t astonishing to find women, blacks, Hispanics, or any other historically disenfranchised group playing leadership roles and making sure that issues are addressed that need to be addressed for all Americans.
I have nothing against John McCain, I think he has served this country honorably and well and would make a decent President, certainly better than the one we are about to relegate to the pages of a groaning history. If he is the nominee of his party I will give him a listen. But to place him in office purely because he is a white male shows that the hard work of people of real historical purpose and sacrifice, like Bobby and Jack Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. and Susan B. Anthony still has a long way to sink in.
Paint it any way you want. Nader running for President is not progressive. I encourage those of good conscience to not donate to his campaign, to discourage him from doing this again, and from seeking to keep women and blacks in the back of the (now made overseas) bus.
Giving aid to the enemy
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Uncategorized
Call me crazy, but the National Rifle Association’s call to the White House to back down on supporting a bill that would allow the Attorney General to ban the sales of weapons to suspected terrorists is incredibly insane. Story
We are willing to put our men and women on the front lines in Iraq to fight and die long after there is any reasonable rationale for their presence, but we want terrorists who may have already infiltrated our shores to have free access to weapons?
Charlton Heston, have you lost your mind?
~so while hanging out in your corner...