What Obama can learn from Bush. What Pelosi can learn from Hammer

Taibi sums up my feelings on the healthcare bill and the D's succinctly, here.

While he remains much maligned among a portion of the electorate, I have a healthy respect for President Bush. The guy barely won and came into office and did whatever he wanted. He didn't ask questions, he didn't placate congress he acted like he owned the place, and the rest of us were to shook to notice differently. Contrast that with Obama and the D's. The one thing I can say about DeLay and Bush they didn't play for friends.

Wenya Ommaaaa

Youtube is awesome because it allows you to relive that which has since faded in your memory. When Lion King came out, I was well into my teens, and was thus forced to enjoy it in the secrecy of my parents basement after my elementary aged siblings and parents had been thoroughly entertained. I too was thoroughly entertained, the graphics and soundtrack were second to none and it was hard to not find a parallel to my own life. Other than Simba being a complete punk, the movie still stands as one of the better stories of nucleality in families.

Naaaaa, sinwaitszaaaaaaa....aaaaaaaah...babaaabaakabki....(if you do nothing else, listen to the first 20 seconds, the best 20 seconds!)

Really President Bush?

You were considering using military forces to affect an arrest on US soil? Really? The FBI or the Marshalls weren't up to the task? Methinks the FBI and/or Marshall Services were more than up to the task but that you, in some misguided effort to again feign toughness thought this would be a plus in the cap of your base and moderates. Boy were you wrong. Good to know you finally decided against it.

Full story here, this would be comical if it weren't true.

To My Guys

Carlos Wilcox

I'm Minnesota through and through and all though I never met any of them I want to send a heartfelt thank you to Carlos Wilcox, Dan Drevnick and James Wertish, fellow Minnesotans who died this week in Iraq. Thanks, posthumously, guys for your lives, for your sacrifice, for your heart. Regardless of political affiliation Minnesota and the nation is forever in your debt. Thanks again.

SBUX to sell dro?

Just kidding. However, they are getting ready to begin selling liquor. I guess to get all those coffee heads through the 2PM hour. Any of my colleagues or friends with working ears have heard me opine ad nauseam on the impending tectonic cultural, business and social shift we as a nation and western society are getting ready to undergo. I surmise the number one retail coffee shop EVER choosing to become a bar is just a start.

My other prediction is that this period will see the largest transfer of wealth in the history of the world. I'm hoping to be the tranferee!!! Here's to dreams, a hunch and a sense of timing and action!!!

Zuck on the Stimulus

Mort Zuckerman sums up my feeling of Obama and his stimulus well. You can read the whole article here.

Second, the stimulus package may have been well intentioned, but it was too small and too badly constructed to get money into the economy fast enough to replace lost consumer and business spending and to slow unemployment. Workers' pessimism is justified: About 40 percent believe the recession will continue for another full year. As paychecks shrink and disappear, consumers are more hesitant to spend and won't lead the economy out of the doldrums quickly enough.

It may have made him unpopular in parts of the Obama administration, but Vice President Joe Biden told it as it is when he said the administration misread how bad the economy was. The administration inherited the problem, but then it failed to understand how ineffective its solution would be. The program was supposed to be about jobs, jobs, and jobs. It wasn't. The recovery act may have been a single piece of legislation, but it included thousands of funding schemes for tens of thousands of projects, and those programs are stuck in the bureaucracy as the government releases the funds with typical inefficiency.

Letter to the Prez

Dear Mr. President-

Back in January I blogged ad nauseam about the stimulus and how it needed to be spent as quickly as possible (on needless projects even) to ensure people stayed employed and spending didn't drop off a cliff. Instead of listening to me you played weaksauce with the Rs in some ersatz notion to garner bi-partisan support from a group of pols who are sworn to oppose you and see your demise. As a result we've got 10% unemployment about 5 months ahead of schedule and countries like France are kicking our tails when it comes to real stimulus WPA STYLE!!! Whats more your failure to listen to me has forced you to run a second stimulus up the flagpole through your advisor (backdoor style eh?). Not very leaderly dude, get it together. Seriously, you should have listened to me and asked for 1.5T of spending, the goal wasn't to play nice, it was to keep people employed. Now the mud hole is even larger and the public, in their ignorance, is all hyped on anti-deficit juice and will never swallow another stimulus.

I must admit I respect your Presidential bona fides, but this was a Bushian sized blunder. Please don't let this happen again.

Sincerely
Ryan Culver

Letter to Venus Williams?

Dear Venus-

You're tall and kinda hot. Are you ever gonna beat your sister when it counts...little sister to be more specific?

That's all.

Sincerely,
Ryan C.

Palin Please

If Bill Kristol really is advising Sarah Palin he should be jettisoned from her camp immediately. The bumbling, incoherence that was Palin circa September 2008 could have easily been written off as a novice in the spotlight simply not being herself. It was explainable because the McCain campaign did in fact handle her like all VP nominees, elects and VP's get handled. But the bumbling, incoherence that was her resignation press conference is all on her.

Btw - I hooped D1 and her analogy bewilders me. Pass the ball. Keep an eye on the ball. Dribble the ball. Hold the ball. Win. Head up. Head down. National Security. Freedom. Huh?

BtwII - Palin's got to, I repeat got to stop making herself the victim all the time. That gets old. Every time she talks it's "the national media this" or "national media that."