Just what might they be smoking?

President Obama is picking up criticism for his handling of the attempted terrorist attack by such characters as Dick Cheney, Pete Hoekstra, and a couple of the other losers on the right. That Dick Cheney can contribute anything meaningful to the world is doubtful at best and a sorry indictment of the garbage the media likes to spew forth. Anyway the Republicans are trying to use this to their advantage, despite the fact that the democrats did not act in this way when a similar event occurred. I give you Politico´s take on it as well as Time´s Joe Klein.

I am afraid for the United States. If this party ever gets back in power there is no telling what they might stoop to. With a Republican at the helm it seems that there is a middle ages just around the corner. German political commentators have noted that they have never heard a condemning like the one Obama has made of the governments after this incident. Nice to hear some honesty, instead of continuously talking about brave men and women and so on...

On a happier note the Winter Olympics are coming up and Sweden has a pretty nice team that is going to play for the repeat of the gold medal from Torino. Peter Forsberg made the squad and for those who don´t remember what this man is capable of I give you this video to remind you of the time he took his first olympic gold back in 94. A real classic but watch it for Forsberg´s second shoot-out goal.
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Those days in between

Outside little boys are playing with firecrakers in the middle of the afternoon. It will never cease to amaze me that others are so amazed with these little exploding things. Emergency rooms and four-fingered hands seem to have no effect on their popularity. That is not what this post is about.

This post is about the days in between. The days when we survive on eating left-overs of Christmas dinners and do little tasks here and there to get to the next year. Some of us have to work and others, like myself, have to look for work. Many things have happened this holiday season. For one it appears that the health care reform is really beginning in the US after all this time. The bill is of course imperfect, but as of yet no government has put forward a perfect bill, and when it does one day happen it will be criticized as being too perfect.

A man got past all the airport security measures and tried to blow up a plane on its way into Detroit. Of course this has led to the GOP criticising the current administration. They would have criticised the administration without the terrorist as well for not being like the GOP. I made the mistake of reading comments on news sites after the attacks and was impressed with the general level of bigotry and fear available in mass doses. The solution is really quite simple: stop bying oil from shitty little dictatorships and this won´t be so much a problem. Besides its not like its something new that there are crazies in every country trying to kill people. Closing borders is something a crazy dictatorship would do and not a democracy and it wouldn´t stop the McVeighs among us from doing what they want to do.

Enjoy the days in between as soon the in between will be at its end and we will have a whole year in between the next in between.

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Things on my mind: Krauthammer and Tarantino

Let us begin with Charles Krauthammer. This man is arguably one of the few conservative intellectuals left in a party that is slowly but surely turning into right-wing bottom dwellers. He went ahead this week and made the comment that "Environmentalism is the new socialism." Of course the lovely hosts that had him on their show didn´t really question him on such a broad statement (with all due respect, his bed buddies at Fox News don´t know how to ask serious questions). What could this really mean? For one thing it could mean that there is some conspiracy (like the Reds in the days of yore) to take over the world with Environmentalism as the banner to unite us all. That would be what is known as a conspiracy theory. Is Krauthammer that dumb or is he playing to the generally white, middle aged male audience who is watching? He could be suggesting it is a threat to our freedom (which is the standard Republican playing card) like socialism was (that is of course a matter for another debate). How would he imply freedom here though?

Most likely he is suggesting that governments are using environmentalism to interfere with our everyday lives and ability to make a living. Because you own a piece of land does not mean you can do whatever you like with it. For instance if I wanted to build my own nuclear powerplant on my property, it does not mean that my rights are violated if the government says no (instead it means they are looking out for a more common good). Of course now I am a socialist by making the suggestion that government is for the benefit of their own citizens. If it wasn´t then there would be no point in having it (as we could all do so much better). The market economy of the world has failed to solve our problems and instead of curing our cancer has given us viagra.

Let us return to the environmentalism. There is no secret group of environmentalists infiltrating the government in an attempt to take over. This is Fox News fantasy at best and pure stupidity at its worst. Note also that a clean planet would be a lot better for people then some smog chocked world where industry is given all its desires on a silver plate.

To other things then. I recently watched Tarantino´s Inglorious Basterds and had some after thoughts. The only actor worth a damn was the German who played Hans Landa SS. Tarantino plays with history here and the effect is actually disturbing: in his version a crack group of violent murderers is able to end the war and by doing so will have an SS officer, whose job it was to track down Jews, as the allied hero. Seen from that angle the story falls apart. I would have preferred a western approach that stressed character development a bit more. The time issue could have been stretched a bit more and not hurt the overall final version. Tarantino can do better than this, a lot better.

Todays Profile: a man who is a threat to the very country he claims to serve

Ladies and Gentlemen, today I present you with Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) as the biggest threat to the United States. Of course Mr. Inhofe doesn´t think of himself this way in the least and instead thinks of himself as someone who is protecting the United States from everything Mr. Inhofe is against (which is a lot of things). If the right wing dominionist movement would ever have a sympathetic ear in the US government, that ear would certainly belong to Inhofe.

He believes that the United States is a Christian nation (despite the founding fathers saying otherwise) and he does not believe in Climate Change (no not one little bit). In fact he believes it to be the biggest hoax ever played against the United States (right behind his belief that there is no separation of church and state). This also makes Mr. Inhofe a conspiracy theorist: meaning he believes that there is a giant conspiracy between the media (so wise to lump them all together) and scientists to destroy the US government´s standing through climate change laws. He is also an avid hater of gay people and thinks in fact that they should be discriminated against. Anyone who votes for such a man should take a good long look in the mirror and ask themselves whether or not they are in touch with reality.