Aaaargh!

They're back.

The streets are crowded. With slow drivers. With no turn signals. And with no clue. Braking at green lights. Changing lanes at random. Living in the left lane at 35 miles per hour.

The grocery store is packed. With octo-couples. Wandering around looking in vain for the Cream of Wheat. And reading the ingredients like Campbell's soup contains plutonium. It's the same soup as you buy up north, folks. We just get fresher plutonium. One of the perks of Florida.

The restaurants are packed. With octo-early birds. Having dinner at 4:30 p.m. to save 10 percent. So they can have another mojito at an extended happy hour.

And I noticed a decided shortage of beer and wine at the local Publix. Look out for tipsy granny and gramps.

Must be season.

The money's welcome.

It's the 'serve me NOW' attitude I could do without.

And so it goes

Sore losers

The GOP is saying the Nobel Peace Prize has become irrelevant. Because it was awarded to a Democrat, President Barack Obama.

The backlash has become so polarized (and so utterly ridiculous) that the Nobel Prize Jury felt compelled to defend its choice. Quite eloquently and successfully, I might add.

To those who say a Nobel is too much too soon in Obama's young presidency, "We simply disagree ... He got the prize for what he has done," committee chairman Thorbjorn Jagland told The Associated Press by telephone from Strasbourg, France, where he was attending meetings of the Council of Europe.

Jagland singled out Obama's efforts to heal the divide between the West and the Muslim world and scale down a Bush-era proposal for an anti-missile shield in Europe.

"All these things have contributed to — I wouldn't say a safer world — but a world with less tension," he said.

The Jury went on to report that the vote was unanimous. Which they said is a rarity. But of course, our Repugnicant Party isn't gonna take that lying down. There's no issue that they can't play politics with and drag through their slime.

The Nobel Prize went to a Democrat. So it's irrelevant.
If it were to be awarded to a Republican (pretend for a moment that a worthy one could be found), that Republican would turn the award down. Because it's irrelevant, right? Wait, if it were to be awarded to a Republican, then it wouldn't be irrelevant, you say? NOW I understand.

The Nobel Jury explains it far better than I can:

"Alfred Nobel wrote that the prize should go to the person who has contributed most to the development of peace in the previous year," Jagland said.

"Who has done more for that than Barack Obama?"

Who indeed?

Iowa proud

How to tell that there's not much to do in Iowa:

This is the Iowa State Fair parade in Des Moines, Iowa.

Really.

And so it goes.

Whose health?

Gotta love the GOP and conservative hate radio.

They say they want an honest dialogue about health care reform. But when it comes, they shout it down instead of talking.

Yeah, that's the American way. There are no ideas but my ideas.

And of course the GOP haters insist it's all a grassroots movement:

“Become a part of the mob!” said a banner posted Friday on the Web site of the talk show host Sean Hannity. “Attend an Obama Care Townhall near you!” The exhortations do not advocate violence, but some urge opponents to be disruptive.

“Pack the hall,” said a strategy memo circulated by the Web site Tea Party Patriots that instructed, “Yell out and challenge the Rep’s statements early.”

And the hate mongerers continue to insist it's all an innocent grassroots movement.

Some of the protesters told local reporters they had been urged to come by a local activist group promoted by the conservative radio and television host Glenn Beck. Others said they had received e-mail messages from the Hillsborough County Republican Party that urged people to speak out against the plan and offered talking points.

Apparently, no tactic is too low for the conservative demagogues.

The tenor of some of the debates has become extreme. Ms. Pelosi has accused people at recent protests of carrying signs associating the Democratic plan with Nazi swastikas and SS symbols, and some photographs showing such signs have been posted on the Web.

On Thursday, the talk show host Rush Limbaugh said the administration’s health care logo was itself similar to a Nazi symbol.

On Friday, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Anti-Defamation League released statements criticizing the comparison.

“It is preposterous to try and make a connection between the president’s health care logo and the Nazi Party symbol, the Reichsadler,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, the founder and dean of the Wiesenthal center.

Yeah, that's the way to have an informed discussion.

Makes me proud.

And so it goes.

No quitter

Still chuckling about Sarah Palin's announcement that she's quitting as governor of Alaska.

Her largely incoherent resignation speech indicates she doesn't have the heart (or smarts) to run a state as complicated as Alaska.

Plus, while she was quitting, she had the guts to say she's no quitter.

Oh, really.


Speculation is that she's trying to set herself up for a presidential run in 2012.

Setting herself up by quitting the only major elected post (mayor of Wasilla really can't count) she's ever held (and managed rather poorly)? If she gets a little heat and quits in Alaska, what could happen if she ever were to set foot in the White House?

She lasted 16 months in Alaska.

Could she last 16 days in the White House?

Doubtful.

Once a quitter, always a quitter.

Thanks, Sarah, for clearing that up.

And so it goes.

Beyond the weird

As weird as it sounds, I think I'll miss Michael Jackson.

Most of what MJ was I pretty much detested. His lifestyle, his playing with little boys, his crotch-grabbing, his showing off 'his' babies and hanging them over balconies. His obsession with plastic surgery. His desire to change from a black man to a white woman. His overall bizarreness.

But dammit, beyond that, I liked a lot of his music. You hear Thriller or Billie Jean on the radio and don't find yourself singing along or having it run through you mind, you may not be normal.



Beyond all the bizarreness, he was a fine musician.

On the other hand, just try to imagine Jackson as a 70-year-old man/woman/whatever.

It does not compute.

His music (some of it at least) will persevere.

And so it goes.

A trend?

Secretly, it sounds to me like the GOP is actually relieved to find that its latest sex scandals have been heterosexual affairs.

After all, the Repugnicants are the party of family values. And gays aren't invited to GOP parties.

Whatever happened to Toe-Tapping Larry Craig, anyway?

And so it goes.

I Ran?

Been trying to put together a blog on Iran's election uprising and the U.S. response but I haven't been able to get it together.

And it kinda feels like the U.S. as a whole hasn't, either.

Congressional Republicans, of course, want Pres. Obama to be much more hard-line. Wave a few swords, rattle a few cages.

I really don't see the point in that or what good that might do. If you wave enough swords, sooner or later, someone's gonna challenge you to use them.

And I'm not all to sure we need another war/war front in the Middle East right about now. We've got our hands full with an illegal war in Iraq, a defensible but repugnant war in Afghanistan and I suspect a clandestine action in Pakistan. We're spread pretty thin.

That leaves a measured but firm denouncing of the election and the repression in Iran. That's been Obama's stance so far.

Still, as bad as it is over there, I still end up wondering 'Can't we somehow do more?'

I doubt it, but it is a totally repugnant situation with no real way for outside interests to intervene.

What to do, what to do?

I told you, I can't quite get it together. Sounds like out administration can't either.

And so it goes.