After putting up 4 fairly long posts in less than 24 hours yesterday, I need to take some time to attend to the kiddies and my gardens. But I’d hate the leave my minions without their Upside Down World fix (that’s a joke, btw 
). So I thought I’d pass on my take on a couple of recent news events which have been bugging me.
1. Oil. Obviously oil costs too much. Obviously we need to find ways to cut back. Obviously what we are doing isn’t sustainable in the long term. However, the reality is that our best case scenario right now is to cut back and go through a transition period away from heavy dependence on oil. Which means that for the foreseeable future we will still need the stuff. So, it drives me nuts that we refuse to allow drilling and oil exploration either on or off shore in the USA. Now, I’m not saying we can become self-sufficient by drilling in the USA. However, the main protest against drilling seems to be environmental. Normally, I’m very sympathetic to environmental causes. However, do other oil producing countries not have environments? Are we to believe that Russia and Nigeria and Argentina are taking their oil from lifeless wastelands? Is the USA the only place on the planet where there is an environment worth preserving? Come on people! At least in the USA we can be assured that best practices will be used to protect the environment. Can we really have have any confidence that Gabon will do the same? It seems to me that from a global level, those who really want us to do the least amount of environmental damage possible would be trying to get oil production moved into the places like the USA. IMO, our current approach is silly and selfish.
2. Scott McClellan, as you have surely heard, has written a tell-all book which repeats the same things every other book about the Bush administration has said (ie he’s an incurious baboon). What I have found amusing about this is the press reaction to the book. Now, I know that the press, having dealt with McClellan as press secretary don’t care for the man. However, they keep saying, “why didn’t he say anything when he was in office?” Yeah, I can see how that would have worked: “Thank you for coming today, ladies and gentlemen of the press. The president has asked me to tell you that things are going well in Iraq and we’re making adjustments on the ground as needed. However, I would personally like to add that the president is delusional and he was picking lint from between his toes during the morning briefing, so I doubt he has any real idea what’s going on. I’ll open the floor for questions now.”
3. Kathleen Parker, the (I hate to say it) conservative columnist has apparently taken up the use of psychotropic drugs and is now acting as a propagandist for various white-power groups. If you were fortunate enough to miss it, Ms. Parker wrote a column about voters looking for a “full blooded American” to vote for. Thanks to newspaper editors across the nation who just can’t figure out where to find other female writers, this horse turd was published far and wide through syndication. From this lovely piece of work:
It’s about blood equity, heritage and commitment to hard-won American values. And roots.
Some run deeper than others and therein lies the truth of Josh Fry’s political sense. In a country that is rapidly changing demographically — and where new neighbors may have arrived last year, not last century — there is a very real sense that once-upon-a-time America is getting lost in the dash to diversity.
We love to boast that we are a nation of immigrants — and we are. But there’s a different sense of America among those who trace their bloodlines back through generations of sacrifice.”
Um yeah. She starts the column by quoting Josh Fry, a 24 year old mouth breather from West Virginia as explaining that despite being a democrat, he won’t vote for Obama because “I want someone who is a full blooded American as president”. A full blooded American would no doubt be someone like Josh Fry whose people joined in a rebellion to destroy the USA a while back and then spent a hundred years working to subvert the constitutional right to equality for all Americans I suppose? As wonkette put it “
Barack Obama is half muggle! . . . and Kathleen Parker is married to Lord Voldemort.”
4. Father Phlegm, I mean Pfleger, a Catholic priest and long time supporter of Barack Obama stood up at Obama’s old church and made an arse out of himself mocking Hillary Clinton. I was pretty nonplussed at the Rev. Wright stuff. What he was saying at least had some relevance to the idea of social justice which at least has some relevance to Christianity. Plus, it had quite evidently been taken out of context which I simply don’t have any tolerance for. However, to stand up in front of a church and mock Hillary for crying about a black man beating her is so far out of range of church business as to be indefensible. How are these people keeping their tax-exempt status? Thankfully, Cardinal George in Chicago who oversees Father Pfleger stepped in immediately to deal with the man and get him to shut the heck up.
So, there ya go. My take on some of the news stories of the day. I’m sure you’re all glad I shared.
