Common Sense

Rather anticlimactic

Bill O'Reilly released his "list" today of media organizations that have besmirched his good, loofah-waving name. If that doesn't make sense, it is because I'm pissed that I'm not on it. I mean, the NY Daily News, MSNBC and The St. Petersburg Times are it. WTF?

O'Reilly you son of a bitch. I push just as much stuff from "left-leaning Web sites" as they do. Do I need to start making stuff up? Do we need the headline "Bill O'Reilly caught in gay porno tape scandal" or something? Cause I'll do it! I own nothing, so I'm not afraid to get sued.

You know, you try so hard and get no recognition. It is almost discouraging.

Something to at least think about

Coming up on the 2-year anniversary for Common Sense, I feel that a fresh look might be in order. I've done a number of site redesigns in that time, and I'm always adding and changing things.

But maybe a whole new template, new colors, a new subhed, whatever the imagination can come up with. Being so static and colorless doesn't attract readers, I think. And having something new every once in a while is fun.

I just want to know what some regular readers, or those that happen by, think about a redesign. Should I, shouldn't I? Buy a really nice template or find a cheapo one? Hire a tech person to do it or try it myself? Drop in your input.

Is our presidents learning?

Or is he just delusional? That's the question "Up In The Air" with Seymour Hersh's latest piece in the New Yorker. See, I can write like a real reporter.

Sy writes more about our president's paranoia and general batshit insanity:

Current and former military and intelligenc officials have told me that the President remain convinced that it is his personal mission to brin democracy to Iraq, and that he is impervious t political pressure, even from fello Republicans. They also say that he disparage any information that conflicts with his view o how the war is proceeding

Bush’s closest advisers have long been aware of the religious nature of his policy commitments. In recent interviews, one former senior official, who served in Bush’s first term, spoke extensively about the connection between the President’s religious faith and his view of the war in Iraq. After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the former official said, he was told that Bush felt that “God put me here” to deal with the war on terror. The President’s belief was fortified by the Republican sweep in the 2002 congressional elections; Bush saw the victory as a purposeful message from God that “he’s the man,” the former official said. Publicly, Bush depicted his re-election as a referendum on the war; privately, he spoke of it as another manifestation of divine purpose.

But what happens when that former official tells Bush the bad news?

The former senior official said that after the election he made a lengthy inspection visit to Iraq and reported his findings to Bush in the White House: “I said to the President, ‘We’re not winning the war.’ And he asked, ‘Are we losing?’ I said, ‘Not yet.’ ” The President, he said, “appeared displeased” with that answer.

“I tried to tell him,” the former senior official said. “And he couldn’t hear it.”

None of this is really news to some of us. We've felt that the president was trying to stay detached from reality. Capitol Hill Blue ran a series of stories last year about him taking pills (of course that's just Capitol Hill Blue being themselves. Yet there were echoes of this in other more mainstream stories. And the quote from the "senior administration official" that Ron Suskind ran with last October about "making reality" really tipped us off.

The difference now seems to be how the majority is perceiving these leaks to reporters. What used to sound like "resolve" now makes the president sound like "Nanananananana. Lalalalala. I can't hear you. Stay the course. Blahblahblahblah." And it's kinda creeping some people out. Well, welcome to my world.

This is just the latest in the revelations, which hopefully reaches more people than my little blog.

Hersh went on Wolf Blitzer to talk about this, only adding to the creepy factor.

BLITZER: In this new article you have in The New Yorker, you also write this about the president: " 'The president is more determined than ever to stay the course,' the former defense official said. 'He doesn't feel any pain. Bush is a believer in the adage, "People may suffer and die, but the Church advances." ' He said that the president had become more detached, leaving more issues to Karl Rove and Vice President Cheney. 'They keep him in the gray world of religious idealism, where he wants to be anyway,' the former defense official said."

I'd say it would be time to put the president on permanent vacation and allow the veep to step up, but our veep is a comic book villain from a campy 60s TV show. He'd try to take over the world with a surplus WWII sub painted like a penguin. Thanks a lot Bush voters.

Any and all hope of ending this conflict with the fewest American casualties possible is out the window with these two in office.

Austin bloggers kick ASS

Or is that AAS? I forget the full name of the Statesman sometimes.

Pink Dome has some info on a blogger who was interviewed for a UT journalism class.

I think another aspect of uniqueness regarding the Austin blogosphere is the relative levels of civility between Bloggers on the Left and Right. You see much more intelligent and civil debate and disagreement between Austin blogs than you do in other cities. Austin bloggers, for the most part, conduct themselves as if they might actually run into each other at the local coffee shop or diner. And that’s probably because there’s a good chance that they will.

A few things. 1. People say diner still? 2. There are Austin bloggers who are right-leaning? I guess I'm not paying enough attention. 3. Civility?

I guess I'm just hanging out with the wrong crowd. Story of my life. Cuz I'd be ready to throwdown at Starbucks, even though nobody in Austin with any pride goes to Starbucks (except maybe Paul Burka). Still, I'm ready to kick ass for my ideology.

Really, I'd like to meet somebody who blogs for Republicans and conservatives in Austin. That's gotta be hostile; sorta like blogging for Democrats in Bush Country. Maybe we can have a cup of coffee.

Something I'm really looking forward to

I didn't mention it last week, but one movie that I really want to see this holiday season is Syriana.

With Clooney doing two stupendous movies in one year, I don't see how he doesn't get an Oscar. Do you hear me Academy Awards? Clooney. Oscar. Do it.

The review in Slate makes it seem like I'm going to be hopelessly lost trying to follow the grand conspiracy. Luckily for me, I'm hopelessly obsessed with conspiracy theories and I should be able to follow this one. Or make up my own. You know, whatever.

Maybe, now just follow me on this, maybe George Clooney killed JFK? Bearded guy on the grassy knoll? Maybe? Well, we'll all have to see this movie for ourselves and decide.

Stop copying us!

Is this really how childish these people are?

The White House for the first time has claimed possession of an Iraq withdrawal plan, arguing that a troop pullout blueprint unveiled this past week by a Democratic senator was "remarkably similar" to its own.

Like a damn four year-old.

The really sad thing is that this is all a smokescreen. The people want troop withdrawl (well not the crazy residents of Crawford) so in a week we suddenly have a White House plan. No, it's going to be just like the billions we promised Africa for AIDS prevention last year, it'll never happen. It's all tell, no show.

There are some parents who are angry about the loss of their children, and there are some parents very anxious about the lives of their children who are still in the hell-on-earth we've created. To play politics with those people's emotions is truly pathetic.

I guess I should be happy that he's at least acknowledged that withdrawl is a political necessity. I just can't bring myself to believe that any of this is in the best interest of anybody but George W. Bush. Have I become that jaded? That cynical?

Yes.

A young person like me should be happy that the tide has turned and that we are even alking about withdrawl when two weeks ago I was still "aiding the enemy." Instead, my stomach turns, and I don't think it is from yesterday's bug.

God, when will the grown-ups get here?

Holidays are still evil

Everybody is writing about "Black Friday", so I guess I should as well. But I'm lazy, so I'll just quote from a post I wrote nearly two years ago titled "Holidays are Evil."

That title should give some indication as to how my holiday season has gone. It is not so much the holidays themselves, but the hassles associated with them. Restaurants being closed, stores overrun and the general bestial nature of human beings leaves me with no alternative than to stay at home. I have made it a point of fact to not visit any retail store in the Christmas shopping season. Which means God help me if I need a something, because there is no chance I will risk my life to buy a new DVD. My friends get Christmas cards; that's it. I have never understood why human beings act so strangely in groups, or so foolishly. When human beings are are assembled, they tend to become unruly animals and will trample each other in whatever rush they may be in. In this case, holiday shopping. People are so dangerous in groups, that stories of holiday auto accidents are taken in stride. The deeper evil, though, is why there are so many people shoppping all at the same time. Somehow, a religious holiday has come to be symbolized by large sales in department stores. What Baby Jesus would think of you celebrating his birth by spending a lot of money you don't have on your children, thus teaching them to spend even more money on trivial pieces of modern life, I can only speculate. But I don't think it would be good. I have talked before of the culture of ignorance. Well, that ignorance feeds directly into a culture of consumerism. No one stops to ask why we need DVD players when our lives were complete already without them. This consumer culture is a pure byproduct of corporate overgrowth. Yes, corporations can get overgrown. When you don't tend them, they grow wild, doing there own thing, like a weed. A direct manifestation of this are the scandals we have been seeing the past three years. This sort of thing has happened before in our country, and will undoubtedly happen again in the future. But we need to tend the garden so that it will prosper. We have done it in the past. We simply passed laws and regulations prohibiting certain practices in business. We limited the size of those businesses. We regulated them. Many of you have heard of deregulation. Many of you are probably in favour of deregulation. And maybe some things don't need to be regulated. Business is fairly good at controlling things through competitive pricing and unions for workers to organize. But some things do need to be regulated. There can be no competition if only 11 companies own 94% of what people read or see on television. Workers cannot organize if companies do not allow them to meet or fire those who do. It has been the job of the federal government to step in to see that certain compromises are seen. The current political philosophy of neoconservatism does not look out for those on the receiving side of the deregulation. It does not allow for more competition, it merely allows big companies to swallow the smaller companies and thus control more of the market, and the price. Because it suits me, I will also point out that laissez faire capitalism does not do other things, like protect the environment. It is not in a company's best interest (at least short term interest) to worry about the environment. Cleaning up and stopping contamination in the first place cost money. I say short term, because the PR damage of being a polluting company, the cost of lawsuits when people find out (they always find out) and the subsequent cleaning up could all be avoided by simply thinking a little ahead. That will become more clear as more and more lawsuits are filed. I should also point out that appointing people who are part of that industry to regulate itself is just a shameful practice. But I'll get to that some other time. Businesses are in the business of business. They are there to make money. And that is alright. That is what keeps this country going, economically at least. But making money usually means someone else doesn't get the money, and all to often, it is the person who worked the hardest or the consumer being gouged or poisoned through pollution. So we need to be able to tell businesses what to do, so that some kind of balance can be achieved. I have tried to paint a map, from unregulated corporations to a consumer culture, to a sign of sickness in our society when material goods are valued above human life. In my mind there is a clear, definite link between the ethics of business and the minutiae of our daily lives. Between the advertisements we see everywhere and the tragedies of shopper injury and auto fatalities. Two philosophers, St. Augustine and the French Enlightenment go to guy Rousseau, both believed that human beings were inherently good. If that is true, then somewhere along the line we become obsessed with our material world and would rather drive a nice car than stop to help someone else in a Wal-mart. And what bigger influence on our lives is there than our commerce? Anyway, I'm not going in a department store until all of the decorations are down.

Oh to be young again. Just remember this is when I was still very new to blogging, so cut me some slack. I've gotten better, haven't I? With paragraphs and whatnot?

I love my mom

But she can't write for shit.

I'm back. Somehow, I didn't die after a very fast-buring something or other. All I had to do was drink a gallon of water and nap while being incoherant most of the day. But I'm alive and ready to bring you the news you can use after a long holiday break.

damn hippies and their flu bug

common sense Mom says:

Nate was down and out today, think he had too much of the Cindy flu bugitis

wasn't able to go and get any new news of the dueling war protesters
like a good bloggers mom,  I'll link to an actual news story and let you find out for yourself.

The Great Cindy Hunt

I was all set to do nothing today, it being No Buy Day after all. That's when the call came. Common Sense Mom calle dmy cell after a day of shopping to tell me she wanted to go to Crawford and get her picture taken with Cindy Sheehan.

So we were off to Crawford.

We arrived at the Crawford Peace House shortly after 1 for the unveiling of a statue in a garden to one side near the parking lot. The granite for the "monument" came from the foundation of a 19th Century Baptist church in Western Pennsylvania. It should have included a warning that 'no soldiers were saved in the making of this statue.' I share many of the same goals as the peace movement, but I don't see how this hunk of rock does one iota of good in that goal.

If you want to change things, big protests and a statue in the middle of nowhere Crawford aren't going to do it. People should have been focused on raising money and recruiting anti-war Congressional candidates for the upcoming midterms. Instead, me and a lot of national press were there to see a rock.

Oddly enough, I can't pinpoint exactly when my view of Cindy Sheehan soured. When she first arrived in Crawford in August, I thought it was great the way that a whole movement galvanized around a grieving mom. But then she was just an angry mom who was very vocal about her opposition to this war that took young Casey's life. No she's the "face of the anti-war movement" in so many words. To me, that sullies the message and takes away from the impact. Now, she's just a leader in a movement getting into trouble for the sake of getting in front of a camera.

But we press were there to see her anyway. In fact, more than half those in attendance were press, and three-fourths of those were photogs and cameramen. The rest were almost all hippies.

You people know I don't like hippies. I'm never sure why, but I don't. Mostly I just view them as simplistic children waiting for their chance to put flowers in the barrels of rifles... if only the people with rifles would show up.

I was there in their midst though, listening to them speak about the sacrifices that American soldiers made in the cause of peace, trying to give this whole misadventure meaning even if there was none.

Driving through Crawford, we saw the other side of the debate. Yard signs that read "Stay the Course" and "America Doesn't Wimp Out." I suppose they didn't read this week's Washington Post story about plans to begin troop withdrawl after the December elections. Somehow I think they never read the Post.

That's where we are as a country, torn between hippies talking about peace and love in a world torn apart by animus and war, and knee-jerk Bush-supporting retards who have no idea what is really going on in the world. They are just members in a cult of personality around a president who has shown himself to be wholly incompetent. Depressing choice, really.

In there somewhere, the rest of us fit. We've either known or along or have come to the conclusion that this was a mistake made on a huge scale. Things will change because of that.

And my mom got her picture.