When You Don't Have Anything Nice To Say...

Andrew Breitbart is dead.

All I can say now is that I have to change my banner: quoting Breitbart Delendus Est is in poor taste now...

P.S.: the early report is saying "Natural Causes" but dying at age 43 isn't natural unless there was a serious medical condition.

Welcome To Florida, 2012 Year Of Election

Just as the month ends, I get a blog entry in, with a hopefully subtle insert of my estory available for download from BN.com right in the post title...  :grin:

As I type this, the Republican primary race is counting up votes for delegates right here in the Sunshine State.  Since my last observation about the GOP primaries, there's been a few changes: Perry and Huntsman both dropped out, Newt Gingrich actually won a state that shouldn't have been so surprising (South Carolina...), and even with the state of Florida already projected to go heavily to Romney, there's every sign that Newt is determined to stick in the race well up to the convention.  Partly because he thinks he's got a shot at winning the Deep South/Baptist type of voters like he did in SC, but mostly because of that damned ego of his.  (NOTE: Ron Paul was obviously in this race to the end, like in 2008.  Mostly on principle, but partly because he gets to hang out with libertarian-esque celebrities...)

What's different this year is the money.  The sheer amount of it.  An insane amount of money that can allow a losing candidate to keep running when in previous election cycles anyone stuck behind third place when Florida's primary kicked in would have dropped out for lack of funds.

Say hello to the world created by the Citizens United ruling.  This allowed third parties - deep pocket rich people, corporate lobbyists, unions - to form their own "committee" (PAC) in support or opposition of any candidate.  While they could do this before, laws were passed to cap the amount of money raised and donators had to be identified.  But Citizens United dumped the cap and the requirement to ID the big donors, meaning an unlimited amount of money can now flow into a third party Super-PAC that could aid a candidate.  As long as the Super-PAC and the candidate's official campaign did not coordinate with each other (YEAH RIGHT), it was "perfectly legal".

What this has done has allowed candidates and any campaign for that matter to raise as much money as they can without fear of revealing who is sending in the million-dollar checks.  As long as it goes to that Super-PAC, which can then pay for the expensive television ads, campaign gatherings, etc.

Fund-raising for official campaigns seem to be a bit low (UNDERSTATEMENT) compared to the amount of money the Super-PACs flout.  But basically the problems are right there for all to see (if they want to see it):

• The assumption that candidates will NOT coordinate with their Super-PACs is ludicrous, laughable, or worse (Romney and Gingrich have to know full well what their PAC buddies are doing when creating attack ads against each other);
• This allows the richest of the rich who can afford to toss $30 million at a candidate and not even blink to basically buy the favors of that candidate.  Anyone thinking there won't be any quid pro quo doesn't understand the concept of a bought politician;
• Only the rich can even consider running for office, not because of the seed money to start a campaign but because poor people don't know anyone able to afford $30 million for a Super-PAC;
• This is, simply put, legalized bribery.

The only noticeable effect, the one everyone does notice, is that it can prolong a primary season.  Where I complained previously about how the state-by-state primary system was broken because most of the choices had dropped out by the third or fourth state, making it unfair that only the early states - Iowa, New Hampshire - got to decide for the rest of us, now the opposite problem arises: the possibility of the primary season turning into one long slug-fest between deep-pocket campaigns that will tear each other down to the point that whoever wins the primary will be too unlikeable to win the general election come November.
 
The solution I have about a One-Day Primary for all states is still a good idea.  But first we gotta get the legalized bribery out of our elections process.  We need public financing for elections.

And the Primary results in Florida?  I hope the winner is None Of The Above...

Saturnalia Wish List 2011

Io Saturnalia!

In this time of winter solstice and festive good cheer...  I'm still out-of-work, still job-hunting, still coping with writer's block the size of Wisconsin, and coping with the recent loss of a beloved pet cat... Poor Page...

In this grey mood on a grey day, I realize I haven't yet sent Saturn my Saturnalia Wish List.  I know this is a tad rushed, but here goes:

1. Wishing for a full-time job as a librarian assisting people with research needs;
2. Wishing for an election primary that ends with the Republicans putting up for 2012 the WORST possible Far Right Wingnut candidate... whadda ya mean, Gingrich is slipping in the polls?  Anyway, a GOP candidate so reviled by the moderate and independent voters that massive turnout for Democrats overturn the GOP-controlled House and keeps Obama in the White House for another four years;
3. Wishing that the superhero movies scheduled for 2012 don't suck;
4. Wishing that Mayans return to our world and carve out a replacement calendar so that the doomsayers ranting about Dec. 22, 2012 being the END OF ALL TIME will shut it (dudes, it's the end of the fourth or fifth Mayan calendar: it just means there's no Mayans left to carve out another one!).

There, I hope this helps, O Saturn, in determining just how wacky the next year is gonna be.

Can I get a Io Saturnalia from you seven readers?

EDIT: I TOTALLY FORGOT THIS!  My bad, Saturn, there's one more thing this Unitarian Pagan is hoping fer...

Wishing for the new MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic!  Oh man, the chance to play a Jedi Knight again... ooooooooooooh yeah...

As Fox-Not-News' War On Saturnalia Continues Unabated

...I mean, seriously, I can't find any Greco-Roman pagans who even know what Saturnalia is, for Athena's sake...

I just wanted to make this observation about the ongoing disaster that is the GOP 2012 Primary race.  All the insane debates, the rise and fall of various wingnut candidates all because Mitt Romney is a flavor most primary voters didn't like the last time he ran in 2008...  I mean, we've gone from Trump to Bachmann to Perry to Cain and now Gingrich of all people is in the lead in Iowa and even now Gingrich's lead may be slipping to where Ron Paul is surging...  All of this, all of the crazy going on, it made me realize this:

Doesn't the 2012 Republican primary race look and feel EXACTLY like Monty Python's Upper Class Twit of the Year decathlon?

 
I know, I know.  This is awfully Classist of me to wage such bitter, savage rage against a select group of idiots who can't realize their grandstanding on the debate stages highlight exactly how elitist, out-of-touch, and flat-out insane they really are.

And I honestly do not encourage this year's grouping of Upper Class Twits uh Republican Presidential candidates from shooting themselves in order to win the Upper Class Twit award uh the Republican nomination.  Mostly because it would be a waste of bullets when a humiliating Electoral College result (I mean, at this rate the Republican candidate will get only South Carolina, Texas, and Idaho this November) would be more satisfying.

Now I understand why Huckabee and Christie and Daniels refused to sign up this round.

Having typed this, I just want to say to all Greco-Roman pagans out there Io Saturnalia!

As the GOP Primaries Race Toward Destruction...

It's pretty much turned into a two-horse race.

It's a race between Mitt Romney.

And with whomever the Teabagger wingnut division of the GOP likes instead of Romney.

Currently that is, shockingly, Herman Cain.  Which kind of caught me off-guard because Cain's resume was one lacking in campaigning history, campaigning skills, campaigning savvy.  Something he still demonstrates even today.

But a lot of it had to do with how each of the Far Right wingnut candidates - Santorum, Bachmann, Newt, Paul, and then Perry - just flamed out too quickly or never had a serious chance.

I originally thought Bachmann had the wingnut vote all to herself.  But somehow Bachmann failed to win over her own crowd, leaving room for Perry to sneak in and steal her theocon base.  When Bachmann tried to sell a plan where as President she'd cut gas prices down to $2, she lost everyone (seriously, if a President had that kind of power, why didn't Dubya use it back in 2007 when the gas prices went to $5-$6?).

And then it was Perry as "the Savior" candidate (saving the Far Right from Mitt, that is).  But then Perry faltered when it came time for him to do something he'd NEVER DONE BEFORE: Debate.  He came across as more incoherent than Dubya ever did: Considering Perry has to overcome the impression of him being a Dubya clone when a majority of the electorate still hates the Bush The Lesser Years, that was pretty much that.

Newt Gingrich had run a sloppy, lazy campaign from the get-go.  Whatever wunderboy qualities he "had" back in the 1990s (which were overinflated anyway), he doesn't have anymore.  And on the matter of "Family Values" he's a proven hypocrite: all it will take is Bill Clinton making an ad saying "Hey, this boy was committing adultery when he tried impeaching me for adultery!" and Newt will be finished.

Ron Paul has his devoted followers, sure, but like any libertarian cult idol he's only of interest to fellow libertarians, who by the by ARE NOT THE MAJORITY EVEN IN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.

And I'm pretty sure Santorum never had a snowball's chance in the Flames of Perdition to begin with.

So why not Romney?  Well, I've mentioned it before: Mitt has an electoral history he can't openly support (a health care plan that Obama duplicated for Obamacare); Mitt has a terrible history of flip-flopping so much he could work with Cirque Du Soleil; and Mitt is Mormon in an evangelical-led party that views his religion as a cult.

So it's become a race of Mitt vs. Not-Mitt: simply because Mitt is the party establishment's preferred choice (he's rich, he knows how to campaign, he's not scary to the moderate and independent bases), but he's not the preferred choice for the Far Right voting base that dominates the primary system.

This is where Cain re-enters the stage.  Because what happened a few weeks back, when Cain offered up a simplified flat-tax plan he called "9-9-9".  While the commentators, economists, and sane people reviewed the plan's basic details, they quickly determined it was a tax plan that would 1) make the federal deficit worse and 2) kill the economy.  But for the voting base of the GOP - the Teabagger crowd, the ones who can't cope with concepts larger than what can fit a bumper sticker - that plan struck a chord.  Mostly because it was a plan.  Who cares if it worked?  Cain got his surge by doing something the other candidates hadn't done, and because he was the first to propose a flat-tax plan that could fit a bumper sticker, he's getting all the attention now.

Even though Cain himself has changed the "9-9-9" plan to appease the critics (into something more horrific).  Even though Cain doesn't even know how his tax plan really works.  And even though Cain is now the subject of an erupting scandal surrounding a past history of sexual harassment when he worked for a lobbying firm.

Just try to remember: the "sane" ones in the GOP - Huckabee, Daniels, Christie - stayed out of this race even though they could knock Mitt off the podium inside of 10 seconds.  It's because they know they'd have to cope with the Not-Mitt wingnut candidate as well: and the wingnut base of the GOP is behind the steering wheel, not Karl Rove or the campaign managers.

You know, they say you watch time moving faster as you get older.  But I swear these election cycles are putting the brakes on...

Current Political Mood

I'm just not inclined to think much about politics these days.

Even with the sudden uptick in the Occupy Wall Street news - and the Far Right blowback to something that can successfully counter their Teabagger movement - for some reason I'm neither thrilled nor contemplative.

There's still a lot of protesting and military action going on in the Middle East for example.  Meh.

There's the economic meltdown in Europe still happening in slow motion.  Meh.

There's the anti-voting BS the Republicans are attempting at the state level to suppress minorities, the poor, and college-age voters.  Meh.

Just not feeling connected to the world at the moment, that's all.

Too much outrage burn-out?  Too much stress coping with unemployment?  Dunno...

A Repost of A Remembrance

I posted this back in 2009.  This is the tenth anniversary of the tragedy of 9/11.

I was at the main library in downtown Ft. Lauderdale meeting with other librarians in the tech lab (computers) departments. The library was switching to a new email system (groupwise) and they wanted us to perform the in-house training. Meeting started at 9 am. One of my coworkers was late, coming in and saying there was news a plane had hit one of the Twin Towers...
...When we finished the meeting, we left the classroom and walked out into the foyer area and up the escalator to the library’s main floor. They had dragged out a TV on a cart and was trying to get a signal. For some reason, TV reception was lousy in that building, and they didn’t have cable connection. I saw an old boss of mine who was also at the library for a meeting and approached her, asking what was going on. “Oh my God,” she told me. “There was another plane hitting the other World Trade Center tower.”
It took a few seconds. It took a few seconds to realize that one plane was an accident. Two planes, one right after the other… hitting each tower…
I knew then it meant war...

Not much has changed since 2009.  Except that our fighting in Iraq is lessened now that our military and political presence there has dropped.  The fighting in Afghanistan has increased, mostly through an attempt to finish the nine and a half years we've been there trying to keep the allies of Bin Laden from regaining power there.

A lot has changed since 2001, but most of it is due to political partisan BS that isn't appropriate to note during this somber moment.  The one thing I can note is that Bin Laden is dead, answering for his part in the attacks ten years ago among some of the other sins he'd committed the years before.  It may have been a bloody justice without the courtroom, but this was a man who admitted to his part and sought to commit more acts of war to prove himself mighty rather than decent.  It was a bloody justice but it was done.

We are as a nation today opening memorials at the ground of the World Trade Center, and near Shanksville PA.  There will be remembrances and muted celebrations across the country today.  There isn't much more to do other than mourn the dead and build again...