Welcome to the US Midterms! Please pass the popcorn!

The word 'Midterm' is defined as:

1. a. The middle of an academic term

    b. an examination at midterm

2. the approximate middle of a term of office

Now unless you've been living under a rock in the US (or simply haven't been paying much attention), the 2010 US midterms are really heating up, and it feels like the midterm elections are becoming midterm exams for the Democrats. After two years of a Congress with the Democratic Party controlling both House and Senate, it seems that the public is quite unhappy with them. 

Current projections show the Republicans taking over the House, and making major gains in the Senate. Looks like the Democrats are failing this exam.

Of course, the actual election is still 10 weeks away, so this is all subject to change. 

Here's the Zen Master's opinion:

If the Republicans do take the House then it means that Pelosi loses her position as Speaker of the House. Good riddance. The last thing we need is a Speaker with an agenda and a lame duck House (currently, the Republicans are looking to pick up at 35+ seats, which would put any agenda Pelosi has in jeopardy). 

Now we go to the Senate, where one of the senate seats from Washington, currently held by Patty Murray, is up for election.

Her opponent is the Republican Dino Rossi, who has run for governor twice and got cheated out of his victory both times: first was a bunch of new ballots were suddenly 'found' in King County during a third recount against Christine Gregoire. The second time was because Washingtonians foolishly believed Gregoire's lie that she'd balanced the state's budget. Guess what happened after she was re-elected? "We need to make 'vast spending cuts' to help close a massive hole ($6 billion shortfall) in the state's budget." Of course, this was after she said a few days after she was re-elected that she would balance the budget with out raising taxes, even though there was already a $3.2 billion shortfall being predicted. That was two years ago.[/tangent][/rant]

But I digress.

As a 'radical centrist' I intend to cast my ballot (actually, insert it in the mailbox. We don't get the fun of going to voting booth here anymore) for Dino Rossi.

Why, you may ask? 

Now that Obama's no longer a member of the Senate, Murray is now the most liberal Senator in Congress. I like liberals as much as the next guy, but I don't want the Senator who's voting record places her farthest left from the center representing my state. 

Rossi on the other hand, is more of a moderate with a bit of conservative flair about him. Not only am I voting for the guy who would remove Murray, I'm doing it because a lot of the issues Dino brings up I actually agree with, like fixing the healthcare bill, reducing government spending (Lord knows we need to do that), and promoting renewable energy.

As it stands right now Murray and Rossi are in a statistical dead heat, with Rossi possibly winning by 1.8%.

Who's going to come out on top in November?

As the Zen Master says, "We'll see."

My Encounter with a Tea Partier

Damn it's been a while since I posted here. I should start posting more regularly..."We'll see."

Anyways, on to the main topic of this post.

So I'm flying back from Philadelphia after a family reunion in Pennsylvania, and on the connection from Dallas/Fort Worth airport to SeaTac I get a window seat next to a woman in her late-forties mid-fifties. I managed to sleep through most of the flight (there was a screaming kid a few rows back, so it wasn't easy), but when I woke up I started listening to the woman as she had a conversation with the man sitting in the aisle seat on the other side.

Turns out she was from Massachusetts, and active in the political scene. I entered the conversation and we got on the topic of the elections, I soon found out she was a Tea Party member. She talked about how the American people had to take the government back and all that jazz, and how we had to make Obama 'impotent'. She also stressed how crucial voting the incumbents out was this election. As in do-or-die kind of crucial. Then the woman ranted on about how Obama was looking for an excuse to make martial law and suspend the election, and then made a joke about how if a nuke went off in Phoenix he be able to kill two birds with one stone.

When we landed she gave me the advice: "Buy a gun. Arm yourself, just arm yourself."

So after my encounter with a person in the Tea Party movement I've come to this conclusion: Tea Partiers are very paranoid, and really passionate about stopping Obama's "hidden agenda". In a nutshell, they're misguided zealots.

Will the Tea Party be able to oust the current incumbents this midterm election?

The Zen Master says, "We'll see."

ED-P: Reflecting on 2009

As the year 2009 draws to a close,
There is a question that one must pose.
The political scene has been one hell of a show,
But here’s what the world really wants to know:
What did the ED-P regulars do this year?
That is what they really must hear.

Anarcho’s still the P.M. and the guy in charge,
Comrade Mann became a criminal at large,
(But not anymore)!
Dermie’s still China’s whore,
While pockybot’s still ED-P’s Conspiracy King, no surprise there!
METALFumasu’s now in charge of the Death Star,
But that’s not the strangest thing in the forum by far.
Mann’s President of Apocalypistan, a country of zombies,
We’re not exactly sure if they wear Abercrombie.

BlueCollarJoe’s still the oldest reg here,
In other news, political geek turned 17 this year.
Omnileech tried to correct facts on every page,
And mitoguard's still the lurking political sage.
Curse brought us the latest on Australia’s proposed Great Firewall,
Conroy’s still pushing it forward, damn it all!
Meanwhile Amora and Mokie went at it like cats and dogs,
And some of the Regs made a group blog!

As the collective ED-P flips 2009 and the rest of "Big Zero" the bird,
From the depths of the subforum a newb’s tiny voice can be heard.
It asks: “What sort of political year will 2010 be?”
The Zen Master say, “We’ll see.”


© METALFumasu aka The-Metal-Maniac

Honor a Veteran! Today's Veterans Day in the US!

Today in 1918, at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, an armistice was signed that officially ended World War I. President Woodrow Wilson declared the first Armistice Day the following year.

In May of 1938 Armistice Day was declared by Congress (and FDR) as a legal holiday designated as: "a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated and known as 'Armistice Day'." In 1954 President Eisenhower signed into law a bill that changed 'Armistice Day' in the US to "Veterans Day", and it has been known in the US as Veterans Day ever since.

[Shamelessly hijacked and summarized from Wikipedia]

Today (unless your Australian, you've got to wait until April 25th for Anzac Day) we honor and give thanks to the veterans of our military for their service in protecting our country from danger. And we also honor those who gave their lives to defend our homes from those who threaten our glorious homeland.

May there come a time when war is a thing of the past and our governments find peaceful solutions to the problems of the world. But until that day comes, the men and women of our armed forces will continue to defend this beautiful country from harm.

Will there ever be world peace?

The Zen Master says, "It's an idealistic goal...But we'll see."

All this talk about Health care reform...

...will amount to nothing if the Democratic members in power (Nancy Pelosi, this means you) don't bring HR 3200 to a vote.

It's interesting though. This was brought to my attention by TheTick900, a partisan for the Democratic party on the ED-P who apparently loves to taunt the conservative reg known as Amora about the health care debate.

Case in point, the OP post by TheTick:

According to CNN, HR 3200's support has now jumped double digits and now people overwhelmingly support the bill:

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Two out of three Americans
who watched President Barack Obama's health care reform speech Wednesday night favor his health care plans — a 14-point gain among speech-watchers, according to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation national poll of people who tuned into Obama's address Wednesday night to a joint session of Congress.
Sixty-seven percent of people questioned in the survey say the
support Obama's health care reform proposals that the president outlined in his address, with 29 percent opposed. Those figures are almost identical to a poll conducted immediately after Bill Clinton's health care speech before Congress in September, 1993.

Take that, Amora Bun Buns.

Amora bashin' aside, here's my thoughts on the poll results.

Sixty-seven percent of people questioned in the survey say the support
Obama's health care reform proposals that the president outlined in his address,
with 29 percent opposed. Those figures are almost identical to a
poll conducted immediately after Bill Clinton's health care speech before Congress in September, 1993.

Bolded and italicized for emphasis.

Doesn't TheTick realize that it is never wise to count one's chickens before they hatch?

Remember what happened after Clinton's health care speech in '93? Health care didn't pass.

CNN Polling Director Keating Holland agrees with me on that point:

"But the real question is whether those conversions will last. Bill Clinton
got similar numbers after his 1993 address to Congress, but five months later a
majority of the country no longer supported his plan."

Moving on...

Let's get to the main point of this post. All this talk about health care has been going on since the middle of the summer. Why hasn't there been a vote on the damn health care reform bill yet? Is it because the Democratic party wants to get the Republican party on board so they can blame the "Evil, Fearmongering Republicans" if it tanks after passing,or so they can look 'bipartisan' when it does pass?

The Democratic Party has a clear majority in both houses of Congress but yet they still seem to lack the spine and balls to put this bill to a vote. Of course all the barking by the Blue Dog Democrats hasn't helped the courage of the collective Democratic mind. And with the Blue Dogs and the Far Left bickering over that public option, the Democratic Party's doing its old implosion routine again, and all the while its getting sucker-punched by the so-called 'rich white' Republican Party. (And seriously guys on the left, stop generalizing the Republicans. I may be an independent but generalizing your opponent starts getting annoying after the hundredth time).

Will HR 3200 come to a vote in the near future, if at all?

As the Zen Master says, "We'll see."

The Cop, the Prof, and the Pres.

So you've probably heard about the arrest of a certain Harvard professor in the town of Cambridge. That means you've probably heard about how Obama shot his own face off during the last thirty seconds of a 55 minute, primetime speech on what was supposed to about healthcare.

Events like this are quickly picked up by one of the regulars on Gaia Online's Political forum, given a cynical title for the discussion and create a new thread to discuss/troll. This thread had the witty title "Ooops! No teleprompter this time, Obama...", and was written by Semper Ducemus, one of the forum's few conservative regulars.

Anywho, another reg, GunsmithKitten, pointed out that Sgt. James Crowley (the "racist" cop) should have left Gates alone when the prof showed him his ID.

(Notice: the rest of this blog post follows along similar lines with the thread response)

Except that according to the police report Gates did not show his ID. (Gate's attorney disputes this claim.)

The report says Crowley had asked Gates for some identification and Gates
shouted that he would not give any information and called the sergeant a racist.
According to the report, Gates then yelled, "This is what happens to black
men in America." When Crowley tried to calm him down, Gates shouted, "You don't
know who you're messing with."

I'd like point out that Gates is the head of Harvard's African and African American Research. Given Mr. Gates' job he may have immediately jumped to the conculsion that Sgt. Crowley was being a racist cop, even though the officer was following procedure, according to the Cambridge police commissioner (who is black).


I'd also like to point out the little, but very significant fact, that Sgt. James Crowley teaches a course for cops on how to avoid singling out people based on race.

For five of the past six years, Crowley also has volunteered alongside a black
colleague in teaching 60 cadets per year about how to avoid targeting suspects
merely because of their race, and how to respond to an array of scenarios they
might encounter on the beat. Thomas Fleming, director of the Lowell Police
Academy, said Crowley was asked by former police Lowell Commissioner Ronny
Watson, who is black, to be an instructor.

Because of this fact I find it very hard to believe that Mr. Crowley is a racist.


In the end our new president looks like a complete fool on prime-time television, but the good news is that almost publicly apologized to Sgt. Crowley and even invited him and Gates over to the White House for a beer.

Will those 'two words' come back to bite Obama later?

As the Zen Master says, "We'll see."

In case you've been living under a rock...

China's on the another anti-protest crackdown. Again. This time it happened in the western region of Xinjiang.

There were at least 156 fatalities and over 800 casualties on Sunday, according to official reports.

This time the protesters are a group of oppressed Muslims called the Uighurs. They started protesting in response to a deadly brawl last month. The brawl happened someone posted rumors that six boys from Xinjiang had raped "two innocent girls". Apparently that sent people over the edge because it sparked a particularly nasty fight between Han Chinese and Uighurs at a factory. The fight killed two Uighurs and left 118 people injured. Police say this claim was false so the brawl was probably pointless.

China seems to have a problem with possible independence movements on the western edge of their massive country (Tibet, though powerful Tibetan figures such as the Dalai Lama are actually willing to accept a mostly autonomous region that is still a part of China).

But instead of sealing off the region from outside reporting, China is letting reporters inside the region. They're playing this off as ethnic tensions between two different groups: the Han and the Uighurs. It seems the Chinese have learned that hiding something from the rest of the world makes it look like you are, in fact, hiding something.

Completely unrelated note: Some singer named Michael Jackson got buried in a gold coffin this week and the American media covered the funeral like flies on a pile of dung.

What will happen next in the world?

As the Zen Master says, "We'll see."