Archive for August 30th, 2009
Ted Kennedy must be honored. The perfect opportunity is to build the Wind and Tidal Energy Project in Massachusetts and name it after him and his wonderful family.
Ted Kennedy must be honored.
An enormous amount of taxpayer money must be spent to immortalize the liberal’s great, mythic lion.
Since he’s not getting a pharoah’s tomb, and has been laid to rest below a simple cross like his brother Bobby’s at Arlington, a massive structure must be built somewhere so that no one ever forgets Senator Edward Moore Kennedy.
Such a project exists in Massachusetts that could not only spend a lot of money, produce a great many jobs, and permanently leave a mark for Ted Kennedy in this world…but it could also be a small step towards making this country energy independent as well.
For years, the Kennedy family has personally block a wind and tidal energy project from being built near their compound at Hyannis Port in Massachusetts. The project would have obscured Ted Kennedy’s views of the ocean, which he loved, but since Ted Kennedy is now, according to the MSM, enthroned on a cloud high above surrounded by adoring angels, there is no longer any reason the wind and tidal energy project should not be built.
Ted Kennedy is no longer at Hyannis Port…but just imagine the wonderful legacy of clean energy his spirit could create if only the Edward Moore Kennedy Memorial Tidal and Wind Energy Project was allowed to go forward. The whole thing could even be shaped like his face, Ozymandius-style, where it could weather in the salty air and stormy sea, like Kennedy himself through the years in the endless tides of politics.
As so many rush to force projects through bearing Kennedy’s name…it seems wise for Americans of the moderate and conservative persuasions to also appreciate the power of “Ted Kennedy Memorial” this or that.
Any project stalled, or repeatedly defeated by liberals, could get a sudden boost if it was renamed “The Edward Moore Kennedy Memorial” whatever, or designed to look like Kennedy in some way.
How could the Kennedy family continue to fight against something worthwhile to the public that would also be built in their royal honor?
How long does mass-hysteria mourning last? The Michael Jackson example.
This is all anecdotal to our lives in Chicago, but today we are thinking about the mass-hysteria phenomena that afflict this country from time to time. Like the wave of imagined grief that swept the whole world, really, when Princess Diana died. Or the post-911 hyper patriotism that forbade any criticism of the government or President Bush for several years after the attacks on the Trade Center and Pentagon. Then, there’s the Hope! and Change! MSM-fueled hysteria that propelled Dr. Utopia into office (the expiration date on which we’re still waiting for).
After Michael Jackson died, there were all manner of tributes to him here in Chicago, from the ridiculous to the sublime. On the day he died, we remember walking home from work, on a gorgeous day, hearing Billie Jean and Beat It playing out open windows in every neighborhood we passed. People on their sun decks were doing the Thriller moves, spontaneously. One group of very talented high schoolers breaking out into an impromptu rendition of Man in the Mirror that literally stopped everyone in their tracks on an El platform, letting trains pass and deciding to wait for later rides because they didn’t want to leave before the song ended (they were seriously THAT good).
In Boystown, Jackson died a week before Pride, and all during Pridefest whenever a band played anywhere, they did covers of his old hits after the crowds shouted MJ! MJ! MJ! repeatedly. In bars, when VJs spun Jackson’s remixes, people would cheer, some would shout “King of Pop!” or “Long Live the King!”, and everyone would get giant smiles on their faces grooving to Billie Jean, in particular.
Notice how everyone choose to remember Jackson as he was up to 1983 or so. Jackson Five songs got people on their feet. Anything from the Thriller album was well-received…but people completely ignored the Jackson of the 90s and beyond.
Now, finally, they’re just ignoring Jackson period.
Last night, we were out in Boystown and for the first time people didn’t cheer when Billie Jean came on the screens at Roscoes. They just reacted to it the same way they used to, before Jackson died, the same way they react when Lady GaGa comes on, or Madonna, or Cyndi Lauper, or whomever. Just another song. No MJ! MJ! MJ! cheers. No King of Pop accolades. No special attention at all.
The mass-hysteria passed. People moved on. It took awhile, but whatever need people had to deify Jackson was filled, and now they’re on to something else.
In light of everything Jackson did in the 90s and 2000s, we say NOT SOON ENOUGH.
It’s interesting to see this all play out every now and again…some event triggers the MSM’s wall-to-wall coverage. The talking heads tell Americans how historic the moment is. People are oversaturated with tributes to someone who may or may not actually deserve them. And then the bottom falls out of it. The MSM moves to something else, the public forgets, and the whole thing starts up again with the next “historic event”.
We seem to get one or two of these “historic events” a year. And usually when the MSM wants to drive ratings, or has nothing else on the books to fill all that 24/7 cable air time.
Funny how that works.
Quick! Look out your window. Cats are chasing dogs. Rain is falling up. Barney Frank is right about something. Audit the Federal Reserve.
Over Fourth of July weekend, we talked to our friend Wess about starting to organize in Chicago so that we’d be ready in 2011/2012 should either Sarah Palin decide to run for President or Hillary Clinton decide to challenge Dr. Utopia for the Democrats’ nomination. This came on the heels of Sarah Palin’s resignation as Governor, which we see as the first step towards such a presidential campaign — and it echoes the retrospective wish we’ve long had that we organized better for Hillary Clinton back in 2007 so that the massive ACORN-fueled caucus fraud that pushed Dr. Utopia to the nomination would have never succeeded. Wess is obsessed with the 2008 Democratic primaries — he has stacks of papers from the caucuses, and from the convention in Denver, and still talks to Hillary delegates all the time…where some of them, including Wess, have a hard time moving on and seeing what lessons can be applied to the future (as opposed to every day reliving the past, and pouring over all the ways the DNC gamed the system for Dr. Utopia). We are all about the future.
We were there in the caucuses. We know what happened. We don’t want that to ever happen to Hillary Clinton again, when she next runs for elected office. We don’t want that to happen to Sarah Palin either.
So, Wess set up a conference call with us that we assumed would just be us and him — only Wess had several other people on the call, which was supposed to be about exploring what we could do to organize a Hillary or Sarah contingency force to hit Iowa depending on how things shake out for 2012. But, instead of talking about Iowa, or Hillary, or Sarah, the conference call got hijacked by one of Wess’ friends in California, who is obsessed with the Federal Reserve. She kept chanting, “End the Fed! End the Fed! End the Fed!” over and over again. This woman’s mad at Hillary Clinton because she hasn’t gone to war with the Federal Reserve. She says she’ll only support Sarah if she makes taking down the Fed the cornerstone of her campaign. It was crazy. We had no idea what to say. As much as we hate conference calls (as it’s so hard to hear all those people at once, on just the phone), we went through with the call because we wanted to talk Iowa…not lunacy about taking down the Federal Reserve.
We were totally unaware of the “End the Fed” zealots, and after that conference call, we thought they were nuts.
BUT, that call made us actually look into the issue…and we realize, like so many things, the “End the Fed” people have a major problem with branding, marketing, and their spokespeople. The crazy person on the phone is not the best person to bring someone to the table to talk about the fact that the Federal Reserve is a private — NOT GOVERNMENT — institution that has operated with complete impunity for decades. IT HAS NEVER BEEN AUDITED. No one really knows what goes on there. Very likely, the Federal Reserve is the cause of a great deal, if not all, of our current financial problems.
No one can tell for sure, since THE FEDERAL RESERVE HAS NEVER BEEN AUDITED. Ever. And the American public has no idea, really, what the Federal Reserve even is.
So, in the month since July, we’ve come around to fully support a detailed audit of the Federal Reserve. Today, we were stunned to learn Barney Frank is pushing for just such an audit…along with Ron Paul calling attention to the Federal Reserve as well.
Great Merciful Zeus, that’s a double-whammy for us.
Ron Paul supporters were some of the most fun to hang out with during the 2008 campaign. They would dress up as “V” from “V for Vendetta” and did crazy things like holding Ron Paul signs up at intersections in freezing cold pre-caucus Iowa, dressed only in red, white, and blue speedos (“Vote”, “Ron”, and “Paul” written in masking tape on what remember to be very perky swim team butts…which more likely than not ended up with hypothermia).
But, we’ve always thought the Ron Paul-Dennis Kucinich orbit was nuts. The two of them were hilarious on the campaign trail, and wildly entertaining in the debates, but the things they push are so out of left field most times.
But, there’s no reasonable or rational excuse NOT to audit the Federal Reserve. We aren’t advocating “ending the Fed”, as Wess’ zealous friend wants; we just want the Federal Reserve audited to determine what the Hell’s going on there.
How can anyone ever argue with an audit? Audits are how you determine where money’s going, and if anything is amiss.
There is no valid reason the Federal Reserve should not be audited.
Now, this is where there’s great danger of drowning in conspiracy, squarely on the back of Big Foot or Elvis (or, most recently, people who believe there’s really footage of Michael Jackson climbing out of the coroner’s van, Death Becomes Her style, after faking his own death). Because one of the things Wess’ friend insists is that John F. Kennedy was killed because he wanted the Fed audited…and five years later, his brother Bobby was killed because he wanted the Fed audited…and every other crisis or tragedy we’ve endured the last 50 years is somehow linked to someone wanting to audit the Fed, with the Fed striking back through shadowy agents to protect itself.
If you swim too deeply in these waters, you’ll end up in a speedo in Dubuque when it’s 10 degrees outside. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.
But, you can never say the Federal Reserve doesn’t need to be audited.
It’s been years, if not decades, since we’ve had any respect for Barney Frank or agreed with him on anything. In high school, as young gay guys, we instinctively supported Frank because we liked having an openly gay member of Congress. But, as adults, we’ve got Tammy Baldwin who’s a respectable person we support, who’s also openly lesbian…and we’ve got other members of Congress who we hope will come out someday soon, like a certain young Congressman from Peoria (who sure has no trouble hanging with the Aberzombies at Minibar whenever in Chicago). So, we long ago stopped supporting Barney Frank just because he’s gay. Frank’s behavior at the Town Halls he’s been hosting underscored that for us, big time.
But, Frank’s right about auditing the Fed. As right about that as we are that Frank’s a gross and generally crazy person who should be booted from office.
But he is right about auditing the Fed.
The Federal Reserve needs to be audited.
Sunday Open Thread, August 30th 2009
What’s on your mind this Sunday?
It's her again…on Facebook
This video is great…made by our friends over at Conservatives4Palin…alluding to the fact that Governor Palin will indeed stop Dr. Utopia’s Deathcare plans dead in their tracks…and the woman is doing it using only Facebook.
Let that sink in…the White House has a fawning press in full propaganda mode. Democrats are using millions of lobbyist money and all the muscle of the unions and other cronies to intimidate, cajole, and recklessly force through Deathcare.
All Sarah Palin has is Facebook.
And Sarah Palin is WINNING.
How funny is it that an effeminate black man always seems to be up against a wily white woman for a nemesis?
And it would be HILARIOUS if, in 2012, Hillary Clinton yanked the Democrats’ nomination from him, just as Sarah Palin geared up to run against Dr. Utopia, so in essence he’d be hit from two sides, by the two women who probably give him nightmares.
And that’s not even getting into the nightmare Dr. Utopia sleeps next to.
No wonder the man’s wee-weeing all over the place these days.
