ISSUE INVENTORY
As I was doing my daily run through the net today, I kept track of the issues that seem to be burning everybody up.
I was surprised that my pulse rate rose on some of them and hardly gave an extra tick on others.
A quick run through. They are not in order of anything.
Iraq: I didn't support it but know that we are there. Aren't we? And that we can't just pick up and leave. We have to phase it. So I want a phased out removal of US troops. My pulse on Iraq is surprisingly steady until I see a body bag, a bloody child, another bus on fire; all that. Iraq Incompetence: This administration couldn't fight its way out of a paper bag; even if Halliburton was running the bag factory. (heh heh) Furthermore, it is experimentation at the mega level. Cheney, Rumsfeld and the boys are playing war games with live soldiers and civilians. It is like what the Italians and Germans did in Africa in the runup to the Second World War. Ethiopia. Gunning down peasants for practice.Global Warming: Well, it is! Warming. The pseudo-science and non-science of the administration is evil. It is not because they are dumb. The bastards should be hung over a CO2 belching stack in one of their contributors' factories. I have no low pulse on this. I have a more or less continuous anxiety about it. Truly, nothing is cool about global warming. I have these visions of polar bears drowning. The cruelty of it is beyond belief.Immigration: A dead letter and hardly on the blogs this week. The republikans have capitulated to themselves on this one. As I predicted, no law is or will be passed anytime soon. I still feel very strongly about it and believe that the street action had a lot to do with the non-action. It is a typical pol-paste up. Everyone got credit for saying what everyone said and that is that. No action. Often, the best action.Iran: More incompetence and shilly shallying. Does it bother me? No more than Pakistan who already has it and fucking India who the bushies want to send more nuke-stuff to. Keerist what a bunch of assholes. The bushies and the Indians. No that is not racist. Maybe ethnicist. I don't worry about it. Or the NORKs either. I am a child of the cold war.Abramoff and other corruption: Throw the rascals out and make as much political hay as you can out of it while they are flying through the door. Is it a GOoPer problem? Yes, but only because they are the ones who are in. When it is the Demos turn, the same thing will happen. And did. Yeh; and throw Jefferson out too. No slack because he is black. He gets no jive while he's alive.The Biennial Election-2006: Right now? Yawn. It is too fucking soon to be looking at polls and all. Do I look? Yup. Do I want to see Joe Lieberman get his ass kicked. Uh-huh. But these are side issues. I have some mild anxiety that there will be no real change at all but we are not there yet.2008: Zzzzzzzzzzzz Bill Richardson is gaining.Limp Dick Democrats: Kerry, Biden, Lieberman, Hillary (well, of course she has a dick), the DLC and the rest. I cannot abide the Demo-professional pol establishment. I like Harry Reid. But, no one gets money or time from me. Not the party, not the people, not the campaigns. I like Dean's building the party and I get bullshit whenever I read criticism of him.Gay Whatever: We are the on-going saga of the civil rights movement; the last gasp. I have to admit that the battle has been won and all this is skirmish. There are bits to do like 'don't ask don't tell'. Civil unions are fine with me incidentally. I know there is gay bashing and other isolated trauma. But, they fade into the general problem of violence in our society. Sorry, I can't get all het up about it anymore. HIV? It is preventable. Don't come to me now and tell me you bare-backed and were high and all. That is suicide. You are not a victim.Privacy/NSA and other spying: I get the mild jitters over this but not too much pain. It is cyclical. The technology improves on both sides. The listeners and the hackers who will find them out and prevent them.The Christists / Religionists: Separation of church and state? OK. Just keep it over there please. Do what you want. End times. The rapture. OK. Don't mess with me. High pulse rate here. Motherfuckers! Net Neutrality: I think that I care about this but I really do not. I suspect that there will be some commercialization of the cables and fibers. It is true that we have ridden for free for a long time on much of this infrastructure and it is being filled up. The good thing is that commercialization will lead to regulation of the carriers. I think that is good. Not much of an uptick here.Islamism: See 'christers'.Have I left anything out? Sure. That is just today on the net.
This was good for me to do.
It helps cure knee-jerkism.
Oh. Did you notice that Medicare drugs is not on the list or on the blogs? We have moved on. Some people are still getting screwed but that is normal bureaucracy. I'm all right, Jack!
