Kvetching - feel free to skip. No wait - expressing self-important opinions!!!!

Memeo-Blogger Round Up Thingy.

For no other reason than I haven’t kvetched in a while.

So Bill Kristol, who has proven himself to have zero credibility by being wrong just about every time he’s opened his mouth has this bon mot to share….

But wait--what about last couple of weeks? Some serious people thought the United States could do some good by weighing in on behalf of the Iranian people against their regime. President Obama apparently believed that nothing much could be done. Wasn’t he the one playing the couch potato in the midst of an international crisis?

I can only respond with what I’ve seen and heard from the talking heads and my response is this:

The only ones making those noises were Neocons - the very group whose policies led to lying to the American people so we could overthrow Saddam. You know, people like you. People who have been shown to have no clue about what they heck they were doing for eight long, horrible years. People, such as yourself, who seemed to specialize in being shown to be wrong only days after opening their yapper on the Sunday shows. So, excuse me if I continue to ignore you now. Everything you say is so much hot air... a noxious gas event... and nothing more.

Thank Christ that the Neocon agenda has been thoroughly rejected.

And I would add, Shut Up Kristol… you’re a discredited clown. No doubt the answer is to declare war on yet another nation in order to change the regime, and drop lots of pretty bombs, right Neo-Right Wingers?

You know what? Say what you want about America and point out all of the problems we have as a nation or even a people….

But at lease we’re not using Democracy as an excuse to try to alter the Constitution in a way that will allow a President to wrap his strangling fists around the office. And, we don’t have the Military kidnapping Presidents whether independently or because the Courts said so.

I fail to grasp why Democracy… real Democracy as we understand it in the U.S., Canada, Britain, France, etc. is so difficult for South America and African nations. Guess what? Democracy isn’t just a word for the soundbites:

Sunday the Honduran Congress voted him out of office, replacing him with the president of Congress, Roberto Micheletti.

The military offered no public explanation for its actions, but the Supreme Court issued a statement saying that the military had acted to defend the law against “those who had publicly spoken out and acted against the Constitution’s provisions.”

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Mr Mugabe remains in power, calculating that the privileges afforded the top echelons of the security forces and the ruling party, Zanu-PF, will not only keep him there until his term ends next year but, through a constitutional amendment, could extend his rule to 2010.

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President Hugo Chavez presented his long-awaited plan to revise the Venezuelan Constitution on Wednesday, including a proposal to eliminate presidential term limits -- a move critics fear would allow the fiery anti-U.S. leader to further concentrate power in his hands.

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Ukraine and Belarus have already shown the world a democratic transfer of power. Yet in a profound disappointment to western democrats, both Kuchma and Lukashenko are loath to relinquish power the same way they won it a decade ago - in fair elections.

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So, whatever our problems are as a country, we are – bar none- the Greatest, Most Stable Democracy on the pitiful planet – and for that we can be very proud.

Oh, look… blogging on the Global Warming Crisis/Conspiracy… damn. Looks like I’ll have to wade into this, then.

First, let me say I’m not a scientist – but I can recall very clearly that here in S.E. Michigan we used to get snow no later than the end of November. We nearly (there are always ‘off years’ that deviate, but usually) always had snow for Thanksgiving. I can’t remember the last time that has been so. These days we’ve been lucky to have a White Christmas. But, that’s anecdotal and not evidence. Very much like this nimrod is not a scientist and ergo should not be opining (expertly) on whether we’ve got a CO2 problem or not.

After reviewing the scientific literature that the EPA is relying on, Carlin said, he concluded that it was at least three years out of date and did not reflect the latest research. "My personal view is that there is not currently any reason to regulate (carbon dioxide)," he said. "There may be in the future. But global temperatures are roughly where they were in the mid-20th century. They're not going up, and if anything they're going down."

Sounds good to me, yes? We’ve not got the problem we think and we’re getting a snow-job (heh-heh, get it? It’s a weather related pun… oh, never mind…) about a catastrophe just around the corner and are about to waste mega-kazillions on nothing. Okay. Ooops, but wait a minute, this guy isn’t even a climatologist. He’s not even a meteorologist! And, of course this climate data is notoriously easy to interpret depending on what you want to be true… and as we can see, Mr. Carlin’s claims that global temperatures are not rising is disputed:

With pretty graphs, even….

So, what exactly are we supposed to believe about what is happening and what should we do about it… and really, that question should actually be rephrased to how much money should we spend on it, because that’s really what it comes down to at the end of the day.

Fivethirtyeight had a breakdown of likely costs to each citizen broken down by state– but they freely acknowledge in their article that there’s a lot of assumptions being made (including by the CBO, which as a government bureaucracy, you always need to take with a liberal pinch of salt). You should read the entire breakdown article, Nate Silver is pretty good at these sorts of analysis from what I’ve read in the past. I should also note that the benchmark year is 2020 – so these costs won’t immediately hit us and there will presumably be tax credits and the like to cushion the blow because Americans are generally spoiled. Taking these numbers at face value, and recognizing the problems inherent in trying to predict the future without help of Gypsy tealeaf readers, I could probably live with the tax, myself. Especially, since I could very well be dead by 2020, so it’s hard to get too upset in the here and now. Although, there will be plenty of folks who won’t let that stop ‘em, of course.

And in a subject close to my home:

Political Shifts on Gay Rights Lag Behind Culture… yes, well, not exactly a scoop, is it?

But, just so we don’t forget… we are not the victims here!

Wonkette and Legal Insurrection have differences of opinion on Trig Palin and whether it is ever appropriate to photo-shop the tyke into insulting or jokey pics to make fun of Sarah.

Actually, I’m not really sure that is what Wonkette meant and maybe William should have taken a breath and re-read the post before rushing to his computer to post an outraged response.

The Wonkette piece ends with this: … the [website removed because I don’t want to give them traffic] goons have unleashed a pack of Photoshop Dogs From Hell …

And, the entire article seems more interested in slamming Palin’s supporters for trying to wage a war they cannot win, as they’re just going to bring more traffic to the ‘goons’ with their OTT ranting about it.

On the other hand, I do find her characterization of Palin carrying her baby as somehow making it alright to use him to slam her rather appalling. I won’t link to the ‘goons’ site, because I do find them using pictures of Trig to be stepping over the line. On that I and Legal Insurrection are in total agreement. I’m just not sure why he’s slamming the Wonkette blog, rather than the website doing the photo-manipulating. I suppose he’s taking her to task for encouraging people to click through to the site in question, which again, I’d co-sign even though politically I’m sure I’m far closer in spirit to the Wonkette’s of the world, than the Legal Insurrectionists.

We all know that politicians use their sweetly smiling cherub’s faces in order to garner in sympathies and ergo, votes. But that shouldn’t put the kids in the line of fire when it comes to mean-spirited pranks. Even though I can’t stand kids and cheer on any slasher flicks who aren’t afraid to kill ‘em off, in the real world they should remain above the fray in the nasty world of political points.

All of the Palin children, including Trig, are off limits. Now, as soon as he turns eighteen and is caught in a circus-sex and drugs scandal, that’s fine. But that isn’t for a long, long way off.