Awaken Your Inner Elephant
Because you know, we all must be mental if we’re thinking recession.
Another stroke of genius by Lee Stranahan.
Sphere: Related ContentJohn McCain Thinks I’m a Whiiiiiner
According to Senator John McCain and Phil Gramm, foreclosures, high gas prices, the jobless rate, high food prices and people picking through their sofa pillows for change (the kind McCain believes in), is symptomatic of our imaginary need to be negative.
Seriously, he is trying to tell us all that we’re just imagining a bad economy, that those bills piling up next to the checkbook in my dining room that have doubled in some cases are just figments of my own worried imagination.
John McCain, what crack are you smoking exactly? While I’m trying to figure out how to pay the same bills I had last year which are now twice as much in some cases, you’re calling me a….WHAT?
Yes, Phil Gramm, McCain’s surrogate, is saying we’re all a bunch of whiners inventing a ‘mental recession’. That 2,000 point dip in the stock market? Nah, not to worry about it, because we’re all just whining, imagining, and living in a different reality than Gramm/Bush/McCain. Or vice versa.
First, a few facts about Phil Gramm. As one of the architects of the undoing of the Glass-Steagall Act, which permitted brokers and bankers to blend mortgage and securities into these incredible subprime funds, Gramm owns a large part of the problem. Not only that, but after razing the walls that kept mortgages separate from securities, he went to work as a lobbyist for UBS, one of the primary marketers of those very same subprime mortgages and one of the brokerage houses clamoring for US bailout assistance.
The folks who got caught in the spiked rates were funding investors’ gains — gains in the funds Gramm was lobbying for and profiting from.
Isn’t it conveeeeenient for Phil Gramm to tell the VICTIMS of his scam that they’re WHINERS? And McCain is no better, endorsing the statements Gramm makes about our current economy being a ‘mental recession’.
There is no question that the state of the economy is far beyond imaginary distress. When real people are losing their homes, unable to keep their utilities on, can’t afford the gas to commute to work, are skipping meals or buying carb-laden fast food because it’s cheaper than nutritious food, we have a problem that far transcends our imaginations or ‘mental outlook’.
This is a classic Bush strategy. When George Bush doesn’t want to deal with real facts, he comes out and just tells us all over and over again that we’re not having a problem, we’re not in a recession, we’re winning the war (whatever that means), we’re seeing success in Iraq, and hey, here’s a stimulus check to stimulate the imaginary sluggish economy.
Where is the mainstream media in this? After the media firestorm about ‘Bittergate’, where is the outcry over “whiners”? I assure you, I am no more a whiner than McCain is a woman, either in imagination or reality.
Women and working class white folk who seem to have an Obama aversion, take note. Your candidate is either calling you delusional or stupid. Take your pick.
Sphere: Related ContentOballs: The (un)Official Response to Jesse Jackson
Courtesy of the ever-creative Lee Stranahan
Congressmen, Censorship, and Social Media
Congressmen John Culberson (R-Tx) and Tim Ryan (D-OH) are on Twitter, and regularly send updates to Twitter directly from the House floor. Rep. Culberson in particular understands the value of interacting with others via Twitter and Qik, and has engaged me and others in some spirited discussions of issues coming before the House. He’s great at engaging and discussing the issues transparently, even if he is a Republican. 
I view this as a huge leap in political communication. No longer constrained by the “official” responses, these representatives choose to directly speak to anyone who follows them on Twitter, and tell us what’s going on.
Unfortunately, there are some Democrats in Congress who take a dim view of any communication with voters that isn’t “official communication”. This includes video and text communication, evidently. Earlier today this came through Twitter from Rep. Culberson:
I just learned the Dems are trying to censor Congressmen’s ability to use Twitter Qik YouTube Utterz etc – outrageous and I will fight them
Based on the rules set forth in the document below, every communication any House member sent to Culberson would have to be vetted and disclaimed before it could be posted. Obviously that’s not acceptable.
Although I won’t go so far as to call them “Supreme Soviets” as Culberson did in a followup on Twitter, it’s obvious that the folks who drafted these rules have no understanding of what Twitter is, why it matters and why they cannot and should not attempt to squelch communication from elected Representatives to the people who elected them.
At this point I’m assuming that it’s ignorance and not malfeasance. But Culberson is right about this: If we don’t protest this obvious violation of the First Amendment they’ll succeed at silencing someone who is attempting to actually do what he was elected to do — represent the people in his District and communicate with them. The fact that his communication is in real time makes it more meaningful than any vetted and disclaimed statement would be.
I suggest writing Nancy Pelosi and Michael Capuano to let them know that the Congress should not be BANNING social media; it shoudl be embracing it.
Remember, the First Amendment specifically applies to speech in public places. I can’t think of a more public place than the floor of the House of Representatives.
(h/t Technosailor)
UPDATE: The GOP suggestion for added language to allow for Twitter, Friendfeed and other social media sites. Be sure to check Aaron Brazell’s post (Technosailor) for other updates.
Sphere: Related ContentThe President Assesses Devastation Caused by his Presidency
Bush Tours America To Survey Damage Caused By His Disastrous Presidency
Thanks to Doc Searls for the great pointer and thanks to The Onion for the better laugh.
Is Waterboarding Torture?
Ask Christopher Hitchens, who writes about his firsthand experience with it.
Sphere: Related ContentThe “board” is the instrument, not the method. You are not being boarded. You are being watered. This was very rapidly brought home to me when, on top of the hood, which still admitted a few flashes of random and worrying strobe light to my vision, three layers of enveloping towel were added. In this pregnant darkness, head downward, I waited for a while until I abruptly felt a slow cascade of water going up my nose. Determined to resist if only for the honor of my navy ancestors who had so often been in peril on the sea, I held my breath for a while and then had to exhale and—as you might expect—inhale in turn. The inhalation brought the damp cloths tight against my nostrils, as if a huge, wet paw had been suddenly and annihilatingly clamped over my face. Unable to determine whether I was breathing in or out, and flooded more with sheer panic than with mere water, I triggered the pre-arranged signal and felt the unbelievable relief of being pulled upright and having the soaking and stifling layers pulled off me. I find I don’t want to tell you how little time I lasted.
