Blog Of Nothing

Clinton, Bush, and McCain in triple-suicide deathpact! All three dead in apparent drug overdose!

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 11:01:50 GMT

Happy April First.

Wow! Hillary fired from Watergate job for lying and conspiring to violate the constitution

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 10:48:53 GMT

The NorthStar Writers Guild website has this story detailing how House Judiciary Commitee General Counsel and Chief of Staff Jerry Zeifman fired 27 year old Hillary Clinton from the Watergate investigation for trying to deny Nixon and his witnesses their right to counsel by removing the relevant public documents from the public records office and stashing them in her office, and then writing up a deposition that the right to counsel in impeachment cases didn't exist.

Just how did the MSM miss this one?

I wanted Gore before I wanted Obama

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 07:29:11 GMT

...But that was more than a year ago. Since then I've become rather impressed with Obama, and frankly haed I known a year ago everything I know now, I'd have been a fierce supporter of his then.

Al Gore is a great speaker. He get's the tech biz better than anyone else in the politics biz. He is really gifted at seeing the synergy between technology, economics, and ecology, and putting that synergy into workable programs.

He's also just about the worst politician in history. If I could think of anyone less charismatic on a presidential campaign trail, it would have to be Fred Thompson. Fred Who? Yes, that guy that ran for president this spring that everyone has already forgotten.

Hillary Clinton and the Real Estate and Entertainment industry mafia have made it clear they have no qualms whatsoever about overturning the will of American voters if they can. This, more than anything else, I think, has to do with Hillary's continuing decline in the polls, and her steady decline in credibility.

So why on earth does Joe Klein that a brokered candidate is the way to avoid a brokered convention?

Let's please get this thing straight, Joe. This is not about whether the American people can make up their minds or not. This is about whether or not the Democrats have the courage to nominate the man the people have already chosen. That man's name is Barack Obama. It is not Al Gore, or Hillary Clinton. If we wanted the Democratic Elders to nominate a Democratic Elder, we would have voted for her. Swapping in an Old White Guy in place of an Old White Woman is not going to solve anything but the Republican's dilemma over how to beat the Democrats in November.

Liar, Liar (Hee hee hee)

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 10:47:23 GMT

I've been meaning to comment on the Hillary Hilarity the last couple days. But gee, at least her preacher didn't make any off-color remarks, right? I've always wondered why journalists let politicians get away with sanitized euphemisms like "I mispoke", when the correct wording is "Okay, Okay, I lied through my teeth. I spoke pure, unmitigated bullshit." But at least her preacher didn't make any off-color remarks, at least, off-color when taken out of context that is. Agggh! I can't go on. Watch it yourself, courtesy of Veracifier

Friendly race riot at Dave's

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 07:47:15 GMT

There's a really good thread going at Scripting News on the role of race in the 2008 election. You can find it here. I'm going to go over my posts there and tidy them up and re-post them here. Sometimes I really do hit a stride, if I do say so myself.

Just what can the next president do?

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 00:11:07 GMT

That question has been tugging and tugging at me. We're in a mess beyond historical imagining, and as of yesterday's Bear/Stearns debacle, even previously moderate economics wonks are starting to whisper "depression" where before they murmured, "recession".

I've done a couple of all-nighters thinking about this. We're in much worse shape than we were in the '30's going into this mess. We were a creditor nation then, we are a debtor nation (the most awesome debtor nation of all time!) now. We were a manufacturing nation then, we are a service economy now. Without credit, and the consumption it fuels, whihc is what drives world demand for our services, we are dead.

So, the following suggestions for the next president's first 100 days:

A one time 10% tax on the total assets (without exemptions for trusts, annuities, IRA's or other usually tax exempt shelters) of every american household whose average annual income over the last 10 years exceeded $1000000.

An across the board 10% increase in the income tax.

A tax deduction allowing citizens to deduct the total purchase price of any 100% renewable energy powered device every year for 5 years as long as the entire renewable energy power supply, including batteries, was manufactured in the United States.

The first two are obviously going to hurt, but we have no choice. We have to pay off a large chunk of the debt, NOW!!! While everyone should shoulder some portion of the burden, those who clearly benefited from the carnage should pay the most. I suggest that if your income exceeded a million a year, you benefitted. sorry.

The second item is a no-brainer. Taxes will have to rise for a while. We need operating capital.

The third is the debtor nation equivalent of the WPA. It makes demand for labor-intensive manufactured goods, and thereby creates jobs, tax revenue (from the workers incomes) and an export market, while leaving a place for imports. Only the solar cells, wind up motors, hyper capacitors or fuel cells have to be domestically made. The rest of the gizmo can be made in China, thus priming the pump at both ends.

We actually have a robust alternative energy industry. It has been growing silently like the internet did, for the last 38 years since the Carter administration. Give it a market and it will blossom, and like computers, software, and the internet a decade ago, it will give us something to sell to the world.

Now, which candidate has the courage to allude to this before November?

Nuff Said.

The petition is up and running.

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 00:07:21 GMT

Finally! The Holtzman petition is up. Sign on!

The Petition Site SUCKS!

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 23:53:22 GMT

For the last 5 days, I've been trying to set up an online petition at the petition site. For 5 days now, the result has been a blank petition, or the system informing me that someone else (me, actually) has already registered an account with my name.

The problem is basically the worst web interface (well, one of them, anyway) that I've ever used. Really, really byzantine. Can anyone offer another site with similar capabilities that uses standard html to do this, and not some hideous proprietary big-co crap like these people?

Thank you.

The NYC Real Estate Mafia finally begins to crumble

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 21:39:32 GMT

Between Geraldine Ferraro's mouth, Hillary's stumbling campaign, Eliot Spitzer's resignation, and the impending loss of the Republican majority in the state Senate, will the NYC Real Estate Mafia have anyone left with any clout after November?

Hillary: Change the rules so I can win an election I lost.

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 20:40:12 GMT

I don't think I know enough expletives to describe how this is starting to make me feel. Of all the crass, vile, infantile acts one could take to cheat an election, this is right up there with Bush's vote rigging in 2000. Who the hell does this lady think she is? The most vile part of this isn't even her asking for the delegates from Florida and Michigan to be seated, so much as it is her assertion that "The results of those primaries were fair and they should be honored". I guess her idea of a fair race is one in which her opponents names weren't even on the ballot!

Again, I've used the phrase "neo-royalist" to describe the republicrat junta's ideology for about 10 years now. A sense of royal entitlement and divine right to run the affairs of our country regardless of the voter's choice. This isn't new, it has it's roots in the creation of the super-delegates and the punditocracy over the last thirty years, and can honestly be traced all the way back to the constitutional conventions in the revolutionary period.

For almost 200 years, we steadily extended the franchise. Beginning in the aftermath of the '60's, this elitist clique has done everything they can to reverse that trend. Let's make sure this election ends that trend, and we can start by ending the careers of everyone in either party who thinks like this.

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 16:59:38 GMT

Liz Holtzman for VEEP!

Think about it. Liz is a veteran, who had her career shredded by the
republicrat wing of the Democratic party for being an uncompromising
progressive, and she's been on the right side of every fight there's been
in the last 40 years. Further, as the feminist's feminist, she brings back
many of the women who'll be stewing over Hillary's defeat, and brings a real
feminist,someone with decades of her own accomplishments (not her
husband's, as her principle qualifications), with a legislative career
second to none, into Obama's tent. Add to that her strong jewish cred
(and she's from Brooklyn, which goes nicely with Obama's Chicago), and
you've got a real winner. not only that, but she is devastating in a
debate. I can't think of a better choice, and she's been sitting on the
sidelines way too long.

In addition, her years as Brooklyn DA make her an
excellent choice for veep, since no doubt one of the principle priorities
of the incoming Obama administration will be (had better be) pursuing
criminal indictments against many of the Bushies. Liz has, shall we say,
had a little experience in that area. Elizabeth represents a faction of
the Democratic party that has been in exile for almost 30 years. Along
with people like Shirley Chisolm and Bobby Kennedy, these people broke
the barriers and are responsible for most of the positive feelings people
of my generation have for the Democrats. When we say "What the hell
happened to the Democrats, dammit?" what we mean is, what the hell
happened to Democrats like Liz? I grew up in the part of Brooklyn that
both Liz and Shirley Chisolm hailed from, so I have a special place in my
heart for them. We were a very poor community, but they gave us something
to be proud of. One more plus for her is also demographic: If you
combine Africans, Women and Jews, you have something like 2/3 of the
democratic party's constituency. Add unionized labor (Obama's weak
point, but one of Elizabeth's strong points), you have a real crowd
pleaser ticket, and, oh, oh, oh, can Liz fight with that mouth of hers!
She is, after all, a Brooklyn girl, from East Flatbush.

Since Obama has placed himself in a position of being the soft spoken
one, he really does need a fighter on the ticket. There is a special joy
that goes with having Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly get beat up by
a girl. Especially a geeky old jewish girl with glasses. While some might
object to her age, I think it's actually a plus. Having her on the ticket gives the
booomers (who will just never go away, sorry) someone their age to vote
for, and she also won't be a potential successor, so the republicrats
won't be able to spend Obama's time in office targeting the obvious heir
like they did Gore. Having a veep as your successor has not really worked
out very well for the Democrats, anyway. The last time a veep succeeded a
Democratic president into office was Johnson in 1964. Since then,
Humphrey, Mondale, and Gore have certainly gone a long way to proving
it's no advantage, and the current contest has been so compelling
largely because it has been wide open. People have felt like their vote
mattered because of this. There's no sense of "Oh, well, we get to vote
on who they say we can vote for" vibe in this contest, and that has a lot
to do with the enthusiasm around Obama.

Finally, the "two urban yankees won't play well in the south" rap is
just noise. Are you going to also tell me that two rural southern males
won't play in the urban north? Bill and Al were two southerners from
rural states that basically live off the tax largess of the coasts and
great lakes. I, for one, am rather tired of seeing the same people who
have failed to solve the poverty of lower middle class rural americans
when they were governers and senators from Tennesee and Arkansas,
also fail to solve this issue when they were president or veep.

We have not had a northerner elected to the white house since Kennedy.
It's about time that the two thirds of the US population, who are also
responsible for two thirds of the United States GDP, and who's taxes
subsidize the broken economies of the rural states, had appropriate
representation on the Democratic party ticket. If you look at the county
by county demographics
of the last two races (scroll down a bit for the appropriate details),
urban areas vote Democrat.

Anyone want to start a buzz on this? We could actually make this happen.