We the 'Little People' of the United States

"Congress shall pass no law" is how some of the first 10 amendments to our constitution begin. This is our Bill of Rights.
There is an unwritten bill of rights for members of Congress, apparently. It is that they can pass all kinds of laws, while remaining completely exempt for life from these laws' impacts. Nepotism laws-those are for the little people. The same applies to all other laws skirting ethics in business and society. Everyone else must suffer the consequences of the laws, but members of Congress do not. Hence the totally unsurprising revelation that members will hear of things to come and immediately take action to profit from it, by buying or selling with their inside information. That is so illegal for all of the rest of us, but not for them.
What a corrupt, self-serving bunch of people!
It is why this page has the name that it does.
They need to leave office sooner rather then later, and they need to be cut off from pension benefits that get better the longer they 'serve'.
I think they have things good enough as it is. They totally stack the deck in their favor.
The rest of us can just eat cake.

What is Up with Celebrating a Murder?

Osama Bin Laden, the baddest of the bad, is dead. Navy Seals went in and eliminated him and grabbed a bunch of material to study.

And in many places in this country there was jubilation in the streets, as if we had won a championship or a war had ended.

Neither is the case here. We sent in a hit squad and they performed their duty as our brave president ordered them to do. See http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2011/05/osama-bin-laden-dead.html for an explanation of that.

The thing is, for me, we do not celebrate something such as this. As well, this war is not over and eliminating the head of the beast may spawn others, as in hydra-headed al Qaeda.

There should be solemn consideration that a human being has died, even if a monster.

There should be prayers for peace in the world, since this will stir that famous Arab street into action.

And I prefer if we do not act as if we have the same behaviors here on our streets.

If We Held to First Principles...

But many in Congress show us on a despairingly regular basis they have no principles at all. We've lost our way when no one can point to an activity and say "this is a conflict of interest" and should be barred. Not in Congress, nor on Wall St, nor in any aspect of the financial or media interests does a conflict of interest get acknowledged. It is refreshing to see Fox News with their "in the interests of full disclosure" statement whenever a sister organization is discussed.

A freezer full of cash, the House Bank scandal, the cash for stamps scandal. The entire state of New Jersey, it seems. Certainly everything that comes out of Chicago's Daley machine and this includes the current bunch in the White House.

Can you imagine a nation that will not impeach an Obama because of the real horror that would come from a Biden administration*? That is where we may be if the Chicago pols keep doing their thing and those chickens come home to roost.

* also known as a gaffe-a-thon

It's a Crazy World Out There: How Can Obama Get People to Love Him Again?

It's a Crazy World Out There: How Can Obama Get People to Love Him Again?

How Can Obama Get People to Love Him Again?

At last President Obama has fallen to earth, as far as his poll numbers go at least. Today he is 48-51 on Rasmussen, and low on all others--Zogby, etc.

What can he do to offset this? What can he do to make himself popular again?

Can he do anything? I've tried to think of anything, and am coming up pretty blank. Because I am not looking for anything that costs money. No enhancing the deficit, in other words. He overspent and probably is burning out the printing press at the Mint.

So no big giveaway programs, no new entitlement, any preferential treatment to one group pushes another group away from the love for Obama.

Unpopularity is something he is completely unfamiliar with and I think he is not comfortable. He prefers the love and popularity, and even the adulation of the masses.

He's getting into Carter troubles early in his term, his "first term." He already referenced his second term in his "state of the union" type speech before both houses of Congress.

Hubris is what he has in abundance, so he may have a far way to fall still.

On Complacency-It's a BAD Thing So Pay Attention!

Complacency: n, A feeling of contentment or self-satisfaction, especially when coupled with an unawareness of danger, trouble, or controversy.

In other words, complacency means clueless.

If you walk down the meanest street in town with earphones in and you get mugged, did you contribute to that outcome?

Politically we Americans have been THE most complacent people around. We seldom have total participation in an election, of any sort.

My personal history saw complacency lead to embezzlement of my homeowners association. No one paid attention, everyone trusted the guy who did it. The treasurer never looked at the accounts and the guy forged signatures on all these checks.

And so it goes in larger political entities. There is a price to pay for not paying attention. We keep sending the same people back term after term. Who is minding the store? They are busy lining their own nests with relatives in lobbying firms and multiple conflicts of interest.

The Alinsky Radical and What's Going on in Washington Now

In November voters punished the Republican party for the perceived harms of the Bush administration.
In January Barack Obama took the reins of government and galloped into the future still proclaiming "It's Bush's fault!"
He sends his forces marching out on a multi-front assault on our way of life and our entire system of government.
This follows several decades of lax regulation and harmful lending practices promulgated on American banks by long-standing Democrat politicians. These were the same people who denied there were any problems and now blame the Bush administration for the troubles.
He is forging far ahead of where the country is willing to go, in a classic operation out of Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky. He is shooting for 100% of the community organizer's ideal programs in a shot gun broad approach.
He surely knows there will be a backlash, and the Alinsky advise was to accept the amount you always thought you would be able to get.
When the backlash comes there will be a rollback, but probably not all the way. There will have been an incremental creep toward socialistic governance.
And that is fine with a community organizer in the Saul D. Alinsky model.

Forward the Revolution?

The political party that has long resembled the Soviet Politburo in its actions won total control of our government with last November's election.
Now we are in a period of steam-rolling legislation to further an agenda that has long been a frustrated hope on their part.
Our eloquent young president put it so well: "We won--we write the bill."

And the Chicago gang let Pelosi and Reid and the rest of the gang in Congress load it up with pork and earmarks.

And a little bitty tax cut. That is to appease somebody, though some people, maybe most, do not seem to buy it.

As good socialists trying to push forward their agenda, they could have made it a little sweeter for the people they need to keep on board, but they just could not bring themselves to do that.

So the socialist revolution moves forward inexorably, or does it?

Serious and thoughtful opponents of socialist theory are people who are more likely than not to have actually read the founding documents on which our Constitution and laws were originally based.

So, a question arises--Which group will do a makeover of the American political system?

Will the college radical types prevail and make this a "fairer" country by causing incomes to become equal under heavy government control?

Or will that vast middle majority only beginning to realize what is afoot stir itself into taking actions unthinkable until now?

Which group will take to the barricades?

Who Invented (Nasty) Partisanship?

George Washington warned us about this—that is, the dangers to our form of government from “factions,” the term he used for parties, and cited a “frightful despotism” when they alternate power one after the other and extract vengeance for slights real and perceived while out of power.
Those founders—they were giants. What do we have now? Midgets, that is what we have, mental midgets to be more precise. Factionalism, that party first mentality has taken over and we the people suffer for it.
When did it start, the party first mentality? A few examples place this problem in the hands of the Democrats with the mention of just two names: Robert Bork and John Tower. These were two men nominated by Presidents for important positions in government.
Judge Robert Bork was nominated by Ronald Reagan to be a Supreme Court Justice in the seat vacated by Justice Lewis Powell. Within the hour after his nomination, Sen. Ted Kennedy was orating on the Senate floor in a famous stem-winder of a speech throwing out threats of returning to a time of back alley abortions, renewed racial segregation, and general Gestapo tactics by the government. You know, jack-booted thugs beating down doors in the middle of the night like we just had with the current Bush, at least in online rants if never in reality.
Incidentally, Democrat operatives massively invaded Bork’s privacy by going over his video rentals hoping but failing to find some good dirt there and which led to more laws to protect Americans from (Democrats’) secret police tactics. At any rate, the Democrats held together and denied this nomination to Reagan and a new verb came into use thereafter—to Bork. .
In the other case former Texas Senator John Tower was to be Secretary of Defense in the first Bush administration, but Democrats were angry about losing the 1988 election, even though this was what loser Michael Dukakis helped to achieve. Still they blamed Bush and his campaign, with the key factor seen as paroled murderer Willie Horton, a gift from Democrats’ opposition research that Bush’s team used in the general election. At any rate, Tower was a drinker, a shocking thing about a current or former Senator. Also he was a womanizer, another shocking and disqualifying factor, despite his years of service in government in military matters, particularly in the Vietnam War time, and something Democrat President Lyndon Johnson appreciated in his time in office. The information came from Tower’s ex-wife, a woman with an ax to grind and the Democrats used it for grist in their mill of personal destruction.
But Johnson was not a rabid partisan since results were what he wanted, not open warfare in the halls of Congress. And he certainly knew the halls of Congress.
And rabid partisanship is pretty much where we are just now. Rabid partisanship is seen in every budget. How many know the conference committees were Democrat-only in many instances. They “forget” to invite the Republicans and do not publicize where they are meeting. Sometimes Republican Congressmen have the nerve to knock on the door and ask admittance, only to be told their input is not needed.
Sounds like a bunch of petty and arrogant partisan mental midgets to me. The only interest is their own interests—self-enrichment or even some pet political issues, but never the good of our country.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the people who blather on about their lives in public service were actually serving the people of our nation and not their party or themselves?

21st Century Architecture--I Think It Has a Curve

I live on the edge of a city, a fairly dynamic place by most accounts. There is active building in commercial areas. There are centers going in and office towers and banks and all sorts of building.
One design motif I notice repeated is a curve somewhere. Usually it is on the roof or a portico. In no instance is the curve incorporated into the structure of the building.

I saw one tower where the curve was not concave. There are two convex edges moving up to join at the upper edge, much like the prow of a ship. But of course we must have asymmetry, so they meet off center so to speak.

Concave is a shape such as the inside of a bowl, while concave is the outer surface of a ball.

I think this is because the clients may allow the architects to put their curve on, but not where it will really cost money in the construction or the maintenance of the structures.

And to my mind, it is like teenagers and fashion. The trend makers all dress exactly alike. Iconoclasm has one visualization it seems.