Tuesday, September 13, 2011

[1728] DEBATE- WEEK IN REVIEW

Let’s do another ‘week in review’ at the beginning of the week. I now realize why it’s easier to do them now- because I usually read about 10 papers over the weekend- and the stories are fresh in my mind.

First- last night we had another debate- I don’t know how many more I’ll watch [well- probably all of them- but I’d like to pretend I’m above it all]. We basically know the positions of these guys- and if they want to get lost in cervical cancer vaccines- or Ponzi schemes- or any of a number of hot sound bites- then the debates will not really accomplish much.

Just a few points- let me make another Fire Dept. confession [by the way- those of you who are not familiar with the fire service- you might read a post every now and then and think it might sound strange- or dangerous. Like when I spoke about the school fire- I said the only thing that survived was the wall. Of course the school was empty- no one died! So in the fire service the other shifts that are not on duty will come in and kid you about a fire the night before ‘hey- I heard you guys saved the wall’ and stuff like that is an on house joke- but the average folk might not get that].

Okay- one of my pet peeves was every year our chief [and other city administrators] would have a meeting or 2 with everyone about the FISCAL condition of the dept/city- you know the usual routine of fighting wasteful spending.

In most cities the Fire dept and Cops are the single most expensive depts. for the city. But for whatever reason- these guys got into the habit of pronouncing FISCAL- by saying physical. Now- one time I tried to ‘change the tide’ on this if you will- you know- leave a legacy of at least getting the guys to say the word right.

I told one of the Captains ‘you know Cap- you guys are not pronouncing the word right’ he quipped ‘o- you can say it both ways’. Now- I know YOU can say it both ways- I mean if you want you can say MOONWALK instead- but the point was- well never mind- I just gave up.

Okay- I will now admit- A year or so ago I saw a news clip from Perry- and yes- he said it. That dreaded word- the word that I heard all those years- sort of like little Ralphie [you know- Christmas story] when he blurted out the big one when his dad was changing out the flat tire.

Yes- when I heard Perry say it- well I couldn’t help but view him in a negative light [and was also shocked that what I thought was an in house problem- actually spread all the way to Austin!]

So last night- if you watched carefully- he did it again. Yes- it was sort of a hybrid though- between Fiscal and Physical- but for us pro’s- you knew he was falling off the wagon.

Then- my fears were confirmed when he gave another talk and when he got to the point of saying fiscal- he stopped- one of those moments where you could tell he was coached to avoid the word- and after a second of reflection said ‘monetary policy’- at that point I knew he too was infected with the disease- so sad- so very sad.

Okay- on a more serious note- I also was surprised that the talking heads did not really mention the biggest so called phopar from Perry- he took a very liberal- pro immigration stance with Mexico.

This stance is in the tradition of Texas- both Bush and Perry are pro Mexican immigrant- Texas is not Arizona when it comes to illegals.

There are various reasons for this- like our farmers having benefitted from those who are willing to pick real cheap- but overall Texas is an immigrant friendly state.

Anyway- Perry said it last night- and got booed by the Tea Party- why do you think the media didn’t make a big thing about it later? Because if you have a conservative Texas governor- loved by many- and at the same time might garner lots of Latino votes- well then Obama won’t stand a chance at another 4 years.

So all in all- it was pretty interesting.

Okay- just a few points of interest. Last week we met the other G-7 states and we tried to push a Stimulus mentality [the G-7 are the developed economies- U.S., Canada- France- Italy- etc.]. Our treasury secretary- Tim Geithner- wrote a piece in the Financial Times that tried to nudge the E.U. [the 17 nation states that make up the common currency in Europe] to work with a stimulus mindset.

Basically the Fiscal [or should I say physical?] problems of the E.U. are not going away- and we wanted the stronger economies of the Euro Zone to keep spending money- instead of taking the conservative view of cutting back- called austerity.

These nations- the cradle of socialism, fascism, communism- they all told us that our economic policies were too liberal for them- I mean what a final death blow to Obama’s economic team- to be turned down by this crowd!

How sad. We also had another revelation of Fast and Furious guns showing up at another scène where our law enforcement people were involved. These are the illegal guns we let walk- the FAST AND FURIOUS scandal [I have written about before]. The govt. just admitted that a few of these guns were found in a stolen vehicle that rammed a law enforcement vehicle a year or so ago.

So it looks like this story will not go away.

I also read 2 articles from the A.P. [associated press] now- those of you who are big news paper readers- whenever I read an article- I always look at where it came from.

If it’s a N.Y. time’s piece- or an A.P. piece- I take that into consideration- they are almost always pro Obama.

So to my surprise these 2 A.P. pieces were both negative- even demeaning. They came out a day or so after the president’s job speech- which angered some of his supporters. And the obvious ‘in your face’ style of these articles- well it showed you that these reporters indeed have a love hate relationship with the president.

Okay- the first one critiqued his jobs speech- and blasted him for lying. They even said ‘maybe he meant to say this instead’ now- that’s bad.

The other article exposed an ongoing false claim by our govt. that the Wiki Leaks ‘leaks’ are very dangerous- that they have put many people’s lives at risk.

Now- this is another thing I have written about lots- The Wiki Leaks story is the Julian Assange guy who got a hold of thousands of defense dept. ‘secret’ emails and began leaking them on line.

Last week he dumped another load and this time he did not black out the names of people. Once again the U.S. govt. came out and made it sound like these leaks were getting lots of people killed- which is not true.

Finally- the A.P. said they interviewed the people whose names appeared- and they found no case where lives were at stake- in fact many of the people said they did not know what the big fuss was all about- these ;leaks amounted to nothing- except they exposed the hypocrisy of the U.S.

So yes- the A.P. even got tired of covering the story the way Obama wanted it to be covered. It was only a matter of time before the media got smart with this one.

I mean this story is one in which the prime source for media info- leakers- were gone after like no other president has ever done. The supposed soldier who leaked the stuff to Assange- Bradley Manning- is an openly gay young kid- it’s obvious he had problems in the military- and we have had this kid in 24 hour solitary confinement FOR A FEW YEARS NOW.

This really is unacceptable- to just keep the kid like that. Even P.J. Crowley- a former defense spokesman who toed the Obama line- he had to quit because he made a statement one day that what we are doing to Bradley is stupid.

Okay- all in all we see the tide turning some- the media are tired of doing the presidents dirty work- and they are letting it show.

As we come closer to the end of this year- there are still lots of global economic problems going on- and like I said a few weeks back- I would not be in the market right now. When Buffet ‘invested’ [more like a private ,money bailout if you ask me] 5 billion into Bank of America- that’s a sign that the banks are still in trouble.

And AIG just sued Bank of America for 10 billion- because they sold them all those bad mortgages- so to still be facing possible bank problems- this late in the game- that’s not good.

Okay- not here to give ‘psychical’ advice- but just thought I’d be upfront with you guys.

When you watch/read the news- be skeptical- not cynical- but skeptical- don’t believe everything that’s passed on- because if you do- you might end up in the state house one day- saying physical [instead of fiscal].

Note- I still have lots of people claim that you can say Fiscal either way- Look- I’ll admit that it is being used that way a lot- and maybe you ‘can’ say it like that- sort of like after using any word a certain way for so long eventually ‘allows’ that word to be used like that. But if you read the actual word- I think my position is right.

www.corpuschristioutreachministries.blogspot.com

No comments:

Post a Comment