Saul Alsinsky once reassured the troops in his grassroots reform organization during a brief moment of adulation, " Don't worry guys, soon it'll back to normal and they'll all hate us..." or words to that effect. Well, the AXE was doing something worth while, teaching graduate economic theory and was able to skip the thing last night. A call to the significant other who is en route to Ireland for a family emergency resulted in her asking, "Do we care about the President tonight?" getting the measured and considered response that "hell, no...it's either lies or incomprehensible babble..." So, I guess I missed it.
His epiphany. Since he's a born again type, I guess it would be incorrect to say the dude may have gotten religion on something, or maybe the soma that Dick Cheney keeps putting on his barbecue has passed its expiration date, but the Dubya Tse-Wha may have said a few things that made sense. Since this is rare, we ought to note it. "Addicted to oil...might as well face it we're addicted to oil!" Can't you see him in the white suit with the Robert Palmer Lobotomized Bimbo Band whaling away behind him...as opposed to Cheney manually controlling his pacemaker and Ted Stevens swallowing his tongue. The solution: TECHNOLOGY; and Nukes. Cool, nuclear powered cars.
"30 thousand more math and science teachers for advanced placement...more opportunities for advanced placement math and science..." Numbers in the commentary made limited sense, but where the hell are we going to get 30000 math and science competent people to teach in, oh, Stockton or Incest Clinch, Arkansas? Instead of downsizing the Navy, send them all there?
Unemployment is supposedly at 4.9%; I wonder what the underemployment figure is and I wonder how the hell they came up with that number. We need to "maintain our pre-eminence..." So does GM. Guess what...wishing doesn't make it so.
How the hell do we pay for this stuff? It's good stuff. Getting the miltary fixed is good stuff. How the hell are we going to pay for that? The way we're going to end the trade imbalence is what, devalue the dollar til it's one to one with Chinese RMG or Yuan? Why not one to one with the yen? Or the turkish lira?
Ike the Dwight was able to warn against the miltiary industrial complex because of what he was; Nixon could open things up to China because of what he was -- paranoid, insane, unprincipled; Reagan could do things like Iran Contra and "Mr Gorbachov, tear down this wall" because of what he was...not very bright. Bush has led us well down the garden path on a lot of things, and maybe he can say this stuff because of what he is -- an incompetent frat boy made president because of the worse incompetence of the state of Florida and the ignorance of the American people.
Now, what are they going to do about it? My bet, less than on social security reform which was a bad idea carried to an extreme. These are good ideas, but since these guys are addicted to tax cuts and deficits, they aren't going to happen. On the other hand, the world is safe from middleaged women in T-shirts...
And then, he goes to the Grand Old Opry and calls himself the Educator in Chief; sheeeeeeeittt.
The speech seemed like it was specifically geared toward a class of fifth graders. My favorite part was Bush's stern warning against "human animal hybrid cloning". Jon Stewart said it best when he mentioned the plight of the goat people from Chronicles of Narnia.
And whatever happened to Mars? I guess Iraq ate up all the funds for space exploration...
Posted by: comandante agi | 02 February 2006 at 06:12 AM