McGillvary coming into the 20th Century?

The Billings Outpost reported the other day that some of our legislators are twittering. One of those quoted was my very own man of no talent, Tom McGillvary. Of course, he would tweet. The man only has about 140 words in his mind at a time. And those 140 words may be dictated by his church since he managed to insert the "fault" divorce bill of the extreme "religious wrong" into the Legislature this time around. How can anyone with his beliefs get elected out of my district? We've had John Bohlinger, Kelly Addy, Brent Cromley and other good representatives, but now we've got an ass. Of course, we also have Roy Brown in the Senate, but he doesn't seem to be following a preacher's menu even if he is right wing business oriented.

on Republican arrogance

Once again, the Republicans in the Legislature in Helena are trying to tell the people of Montana that they don't know enough to vote on an issue. My so-called representative, the empty-headed Tom McGillvary, has said we didn't know what we were doing when we voted for the child insurance program and seems to think that the earnings which will allow people to qualify are too high. However, he doesn't seem to realize, as most Montana legislators don't, that the amount is below what makes people middle class in the rest of the country. But then McGillvary is an idiot, who also thinks climate change or global warming is not human caused. He will let his opinions sway the scientific facts by saying they aren't scientific facts. However, the vast majority of global weather scientists support man-caused effects. I guess he just doesn't read science magazines, even those he could understand.

on campaigns and their advertising

I just read that KTVQ and other television stations in Montana have said they will not run a television ad from the Democrats about Fox that claims he has been fired from three jobs. If the ad is inaccurate then I salute them for not running it. But what I don't understand is why they then keep running Republican ads attacking Schweitzer and Bullock. The cited source of the Bullock ad has said that it is inaccurate and asked to have it taken down, but the stations haven't stopped running it. And they are also continuing to run the nasty attack ads run by Cynthia Lummox of Wyoming which are full of big buzz words, once very upstanding words like socialism and liberalism that have become Republican buzz words. They are empty of context anymore just as the other dirty word, conservative, has no meaning any more. Essentially it seems to mean someone who watches the dollar until it blushes; but, no, it means someone who doesn't believe in abortion or gay marriage and wants to tell the rest of world how to act; but, no, it means someone who wants to go back to a dream world that never was; but, no, it means someone who is mean spirited and doesn't believe in people's right to be free to make our own decisions; but, wait, it means..... It's become a dirty word.

The National Republican Party decided to put some ads into Montana to counteract all the ads that Obama has been running. They are claiming that he has not been tested in a crisis and has no administrative experience. If they truly believe that, then they are telling the world that we will be electing a President this Tuesday who doesn't have any administrative experience and actually has never been in a position to make a President's life and death decisions: If you read his biography, McPain doesn't have any administrative experience either and has never been in a position where he has had to make a critical decision that would affect anybody but himself. Why is he a better leader for a crisis? My suggestion is that he wouldn't; he would let his emotions handle too much of his decision making. You have to have emotions working to make good decisions, but his seem awfully limited and narrow.

This election seems to me to be the most malevolent of any I've seen since I voted absentee for Eisenhower in 1956, the first vote for President I ever cast. I'm beginning to believe that not only should the regulators bring back the Fairness Doctrine for both radio and televisiion, but that they should also ban all attack ads by political candidates and force those candidates to only run ads where they tell their platforms and what they will do if elected. If they talk in generalities, then the general public may reject them. At least we would have an idea as we get this election with the Weasel and some of the legislator candidates as to how all they can say is lower taxes and create new jobs and new programs. It's inance. Or they will freeze all government spending, which didn't work the last time the Republicans tried it back in Clinton's terms when the got nasty about funding that national government.

McCain was one of those people in my mind who was a survivor; he survived Annapolis (probably only with the help of two admirals, his father and grandfather); he survived Vietnam; he survived the Pentagon; and he survived the U.S. Senate. Which doesn't make him a good candidate for President. His judgment seems to be lacking in two of the key people in the last stages of this campaign: his choice of Sarah Pain for vice president and his sudden burst of appreciation for Joe the Plumber who isn't a licensed plumber and probably will never be a small businessman making more than 250,000 a year in his own business. The odds are against him even when he buys an existing business. So much dirt is mucking up the hems of Pain's 150,000 worth of hems, etc., that she is having some problems. So I would suggest that McBush's judgment was not active or he didn't vet these two people properly before mixing them into his campaign. The first question he should have asked about both is if there was anything that could come back and bite them on the butt. But he didn't and both have a few bite marks there even though they try to pooh-pooh them.

The biggest question that exists is Pain's history and acceptance in a big way by the religious wrong way out in la la land. I have always understood that abstinence and standing away from sex until marriage was the good old religious wrong's standard for teens. But they cheer on Palin and her daughter as they hold forth with what looks as if it's a family tradition. Apparently Sarah herself had a seven-month baby and now her daughter is about to have a child before she's married. Why have the religious control freaks changed their minds on this activity? Despite what the parties and the wingnuts on both sides say about the mainstream media, they do a good job of reporting the facts. Basically, those people who are at odds with mainstream news are those who are unwill to accept the facts because they file them in a section of their brain where everyone is a villain or a loafter, etc., and want the msm to print and air the facts with that slant. They do get some hacks in news room that have political biases. A headline on the Billings Gazette this morning about Obama's 30 min advertisement on television last year obviously was written by a very biased head writer. The gist of the head was that McCain, mentioned in one small paragraph about three or four down and the last paragraphs on the end, had criticized the ad. But the bulk of the page 1 story was about Obama and the tv show and not about McBush. For those of you who are disdainful of the daily newspapers in the country, the biggest failure I see so far is to ask some of the questions I've asked before. But we've become such a lackluster news nation any more that nobody asks the really hard questions for fear of offending someone.

on the vp debate

Sarah Agnew-Pain did a better job than I expected in tonight's debate but she did do what she has been doing in the interviews that she's had with news people: every time she did not to answer a question, she went off on the scripted comments she's been making for weeks about her "experience" as mayor of a small town and as the governor of Alaska, or cited her mantra of change (which the Republican ticket adopted when they realized how Obama was benefitting from its use of the word), or changing the subject when she had opportunities to say how McCain's policies would differ from Bush's, or going to the flag, motherhood and apple pie when cornered; or talking about how she's middle class when she's worth at least $1 million. I don't know many middle class people who are worth that much. At least some of the people interviewed afterwards realized that she didn't answer the questions. And I think people who said they were impressed by her insistence that she was one of the people are swayed not by the issues but by the flag waving and identification.

The talking heads said she didn't make any mistakes, but she did make at least two in foreign policy. At one point she seemed to equate Al Quaida with the Shiia as terrorists when Al Quaida is actually mostly Wahabi, which is a fundamentalist Sunni sect. A moment later she linked Al Malaki, the current leader of the government of Iraq, which we support with the Taliban, the ousted government of Afghanistan which has apparently joined with Al Quaida on the Pakistan/Afghanistan border. She also seemed to say that Israel should have a blank check when dealing with Iran. And on another note, she created a funny point that no one seemed to catch when she talked about the Obama/Obiden ticket. People praised her for standing tall and seeming sure of what she was saying. But she also did that when she bungled news interviews so badly. And she keeps smiling when she has nothing to smile about.

But Pain refuses to answer questions. Even when she seemed to agree with Biden, as on the gay marriage iissue, she still waffled. Will she allow civil rights for same sex couples? She never answered that. She mentioned contracts which is basically dodging the issue. Will she support enabling same sex couples government support for their unions? I would suggest that her refusal to answer questions is part arrogance and part ignorance.

One other item that I almost forgot: She also repeats the same red herring about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Yes, they were doing things that perhaps they should have been more careful about, but they were also doing the job they were set up to do which is to provide a secondary market for mortgages. And blaming the laws against red lining for the mess is just ridiculous. Under the law, banks couldn't red line any part of a community, but they still could use sound banking practices in making loans.

on brown and mcgillvary

The weasel, Roy Brown, came out with his first television ads this week. As expected, he attacked his opponent without citing anything about his own role in the Legislature or about what he would do for the state except for very general statements. The problem with his ad is that he did say Montanans don't like liars, so why does he expect that they would vote for him? The weasel is probably one of the biggest liars in state politics. He will stand and lie to you with a straight face but if you watch him he will look to the left and crinkle his eyes in such a way that you know he is aware that what he is saying is not truth. He will tell you that he favors funding education in the state but his actions in the Legislature do not prove that and he knew several years ago that the state had not fully funded education. He told me that it had but two years later, or less, the state Supreme Court ruled that it hadn't. If you really want someone who won't tell you the truth and who will vote against the interests of the people of Montana vote Brown. Remember his tax cuts, as are most Republican tax cuts, will not benefit most of us, including small businesses, but they will benefit out of state firms operating in Montana.

At the same time as his tv ads, Brown also started posting signs around the city. In my area, they are mostly accompanied by signs supporting an incumbent who, beyond a doubt, is one of the lesser lights in the legislature, Tom McGillvary. Now Tom says he is supported by groups who say he has one of the "best" records in the Legislature of voting against government spending, something of which he should ashamed, not proud. He told one of his constitutents last time that he would cut taxes. When that constituent asked him what programs he would cut to do that, the only one he could come up with was one that spends less than $100,000 a biennium to pay counselors so that parents adjudged to be possible dangers to their children can visit with those children in a chaperoned milieu. Do we want to deny those parents visits with their children? He actually did vote in the last legislatu, twice, against expanding the child health insurance program to more Montana children. And while his campaign literature says he wants to be a force in the legislature for bringing people together, he actually voted against any compromises, including the one that finally ended the special session. I am ashamed that my neighbors elected both of these men.

again on the bailout

The talking heads have been yakking all afternoon about the failure of the U.S. House of Representatives to pass the bailout and about how the Republicans failed to follow their glorious leader or even the Lone Ranger of the Presidential Campaign, John McBush. Perhaps the most surprising comment came from a Republican supporter who actually seemed angry that we were blaming free market capitalism when, he claimed, it had never been tried, that there still had been too much government interference in the markets. Dumb as a box of bricks. Free market capitalism, like Libertarianism and other far right economic schemes, are just pie in the sky. I would like Libertarianism, except we had a little example of that back in Medieval days where the strongest ruled. Now, it's the economic strongest who are ruling us. Someone once said that business destroys itself by its excesses under Republican governments and only gets well again when the Democrats are in control with regulations that keep business from eating its own tail. I think that is not only well said, but correct. Those who support such plans don't seem to take into consideration human nature. A little power, be it financial or political, leads to a desire for more. In the markets it creates greed and that, in turn, destroys any trace of free markets. We see that happening with the death or purchase of industries other than banks until just a few are left in a kind of business oligarchy.

For those who are so against a bailout of any kind, and I have all kinds of concerns about giving this Administration so much unfettered ability to wheel and deal in the financial markets, we have to remember that it will not be the fat cats who have made the decisions that led to the economic crash who will feel the pain. Most of the working people that I have come in contact with in Montana have employer sponsored retirement plans that they invest in the market in several ways including buying stock or buying mutual funds that in turn invest in stocks. Each of them has lost a bit of the $1 trillion that the markets reportedly lost today. Not a pretty picture for those who may retire in the next 10 years, says Suze Orman. Paulson, I admit, scares me. I expect he's pretty ruthless when he wants something. After all, he was CEO of Goldman-Sachs, one bank that seems to not only be surviving but growing in this financial meltdown. Yet something has to be done if the stores down on Broadway and on Grand Ave and other Billings shopping areas are going to be able to continue. They may be in great financial shape, yet it has been the rule for farmers and business to borrow operating capital that is later paid off when goods and products are sold. If credit locks up, they may have to lock their doors. It is a conundrum.

on the failure of the bailout

The bailout went down in the House this morning with enough Democratic votes against with the Republicans. It is rather amazing that the Montana echo in the House, Denny Living-off-the-taxpayer Rehberg, did not follow his esteemed leader's position but voted against it. Maybe it was for the best. At this point I would suggest that the Congress now look at other ways to unlock the bank credit lockup without having to bailout the Wall Street wealthy for their gambling. One way may be to look at making credit and money available to those banks that now can't get money and actually make the loans to keep businesses and farms operating. Seems to me that's what we are really looking. The U.S. can actually get away, I think, without the big stock markets as long as trades can be negotiated between brokers on line. It seems to me that putting the markets on line without a central point to amass gambling wealth they could be made more transparent and more easily regulated. If we were to bypass Wall Street, it might really be the best thing for the country and would help the Main Street far better than the bailout. I've really changed my mind on this since watching Paulsen on 60 minutes last night. He's scary.

Several people said on radio that Republicans and Democrats who are in close contested races are wary because their constituents are angry about the bailout of the rich. Certain minority caucuses came down against the bailout, possibly because of the number of far right comments concerning the laws that demanded that banks take chances on mortgages in more rundown areas or areas considered more risky. That was a no brainer then, and a no brainer now. If banks are going to take a chance they should be required to use the same standards in measuring a risk as they do in other areas. No wonder the minority caucuses and members voted no. They may have been afraid that the racists would prevail.

on more of the bailout

Saw Scott Pelley interview Sec. of the Treasury Paulsen on 60 Minutes tonight. It was almost enough for me to decide to abandon the whole idea of a bailout. Paulsen, former CEO of Goldman-Sacks who got into government after people began to see the future, was just a bit scary. Pelley did a much better job of pinning him down to specifics than he did McBush last week, but there were still some pretty hazy statements. I can understand that if we don't unlock the money flow between banks, the ability to pay bills and provide loans could become a crisis and is a crisis. What I don't understand is why we should reward the money men for getting us into this crisis in the first place. They know that in the daily operations of business companies and farmers borrow money to fund operations until the items produced begin to get paid for. The fear is that the collapse of the banking system will shut down those loans, shut down production and shut down jobs. But, maybe, giving it to Wall Street and the money world is not the best response. Maybe we should give it directly to the companies who need loans for operating capital on Main Street and by-pass the idiots on wall street, the gamblers in particular. In particular, I would like to know how Treasury came up with this plan and the costs, given all the uncertainties that Paulsen has. It smells like a dead Rainbow.

I have read one very good article calling for a return of the CCC, the Civilian Conservation Corps, of the 1930s to help rebuild our infrastructure. It would certainly provide jobs as it did then and with 700 Billion of infrastructure work we might be able to stop fires, build roads and bridges, fix up schools that spend maintenance money on textbooks and work on adequate medical facilities for all. It would also provide a culture of community service. A rather good idea and one I would support. (My dad was in the CCC and while he didn't talk about it a lot, he did seem to have some feeling for it.) The insurmountable problem with the bailout, as it was with the response to 9/11, the Iraq boondoggle, and the Iran nuclear conundrum is that this administration seems to be as in a rush to "cure" the financial collapse as it was to create Homeland Secuirty with the Patriot Act and that was bollixed up pretty badly, a result seen not only in the Katrina aftermath but in following the two big hurricanes this year. Maybe this fix is too quick and there's a more thoughtful answer out there.

on the bailout

Congress is supposed to be in agreement, finally, on the proposed $700 Billion bailout of the big banks and of Wall Street. The devil, however, is in the details and I haven't seen the final elements. However, I think these should be included: help for the middle class mortgage holders; ownership of at least part of any firms that obtain money through the bailout; oversight of the Secretary of the Treasury who will oversee how the money is used; elimination of salaries higher than the U.S. President's for the CEO of any company that takes the money; and limiting the blank check to $250 Billion now with control of the remainder to come later. NO TAX CUTS. The GOP minority in the House can have a stipulation that the secretary can sell insurance on bad debt to firms who prefer to go that way rather than give up their bad debt to the government, but NO TAX CUTS FOR THOSE FIRMS.

And whomever the next president is, we need to regulate the stock markets to prevent this from happening again. One of the basic elements to consider is forcing the markets to return to their essential job: making it possible for people to sell their securities and for other people to buy them when the time comes. The casino players should be told to go play the games in Lost Wages, Nev., or in Atlantic City, N.J. It seems to me that both in 1929 and now, the problems in the market occurred because people were playing games with stocks to the point where the money was not in the market to the extent that it had to be and speculators were driving the boards up and down. Back in, I believe it was, 1968, Big Blue, IBM, had one quarter during the inflation of Guns and Butter when it didn't earn more money than it had the previous quarter. It didn't earn any less, either. But its stock took a tumble.

I have claimed for some time that we have two economies in this country: the great national economy centered on the stock and futures markets and the Main Street economy that most of us spend our money in. From my observations, I would suggest that those economies are represented in the stock markets in two ways. What I'm about to say may seem more general than it should be and some players may be active in both markets, but I think we can break out, at the minimum, two categories. The first is the Main Street investor who has a 401K with his employer and/or an IRA who puts his or her money into stock or mutual funds with the intent to watch them build up over the years until he or she is ready to draw them down for some special need such as education or a first home or retirement. The second is the gambler (the most notorious were the day traders who lost a lot of member in the first years of this administration). These are the people who sell short, buy puts and calls and derivatives with no intention of hanging onto them more than a few minutes or a year plus one day (if they want to get capital gains tax rules on their increase or decrease). These are the people who make the markets risky. Another word for them is speculators. And until their role in the stock market declines we will keep having this problem.

on the presidential campaign

In the past week I've seen McBush and Obama on television twice, once on 60 minutes a week ago today and again on the debate last Friday. I think McBush is fading and I am not referring to the polls. He seemed weaker in the 60 minutes interview and more general than I had expected. He couldn't seem to focus on the issues with any specificity. Part of that may have been that interviewer Scott Pelley (sp?) did not conduct a particularly good interview. His first question was what McBush as president would have said to the American people as the financial crisis became so clear. McCain started to give some details including saying he would have told the people the cause and Scott cut him off before he could amplify his remarks. And Scott did not then ask him to get specific about the cause. It may have been more of the blame game of greed and corruption and lack of regulation but I would have liked to have heard an answer even if I am obviously not enamored of McBush. Overall, however, I felt that Obama had a much more reasoned approach and had much better details in his plans.

The same thing happened during the debate. McBush cited his experience in foreign policy, but it seemed little more than having been to some of the trouble spots without citing anything he learned there (except for the terrain, in one instance) or what influence he had there. He also spent a great deal of time citing Gen. Petraeus' views on Iraq and Afghanistan without mentioning that as president he would be the one to make the strategic decisions. And, as David Crisp said earlier, he didn't seem to have a good hold on the difference between strategy and tactics. In my opinion, McBush did not do as well against Obama as he was expected to in the debate on foreign and one of his weaknesses was his feeling that if we leave Iraq whatever happens there will be our fault and we will lose that war. I respectfully beg to differ with him. The "war" was won years ago when Saddam fell; now we are trying to nation build to our specifications without realizing the tribal and ethnic realities of the country. We can drive out El Quaeda but the chances are much more than 50% that we will have a civil war between Shia and Sunni no matter when we leave with the Kurds staying out of it if they can. John McBush is defending the things that have led Baby Bush into a very bad relationship with U.S. citizens as far as Iraq is concerned. His daddy knew better and should have spanked him on day 1 of the invasion. And McBush really didn't say anything about the financial crisis that indicated he understood that the middle class has been in crisis since at least 2001 and maybe longer while the business fat cats have been padding their bank accounts and shortchanging the rest of us on their taxes. One thing we have to wonder is why, as Left in the West asks, does McBush hate Montana? Once again he has questioned the "earmark" that helped lead to the delisting of the grizzly bear with the resulting opening up of some Montana land to exploitation. Maybe it's because our senators are Democrats rather than the Republicans whose "pork" is for buildings named for themselves and highways in Texas that no one wants?

Obama has seemed much more reasoned and much more aware of what's going on with the average American than McBush. There is none of the tired rhetoric of a wholesale plan to "cut taxes" as if that will solve the problems of our economy. Both of the candidates are pushing a tax cut: Obama for those making under $250,000 a year and McBush for everyone. According to a tax checking group, a married couple with two children making $100,000 a year would see their taxes go down about $50 under McCain's plan and down about $500 under Obama's. A single person could expect his or her taxes to go up about $10 under McBush's plan and down about $500 under Obama's. I also felt that Obama was stronger on his emphasis on going after the terrorists rather than shooting our entire wad in Afghanistan. McBush seemed to support him in this by citing Petreaus' support for putting more troops in Afghanistan. But without pulling them out of Iraq where are they coming from without conscription (i.e., a draft)?

One other note on the debate: We found out for sure that Sarah Agnew-Pain is really following the script set down by the McBush campaign when he used, in the discussion of Iran, a phrase identical to the one that she used in her interview with Katie Couric. And, a question: Was Katie working to keep from laughing at the end of that interview? One other point that I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere but Biden, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, was asked for his opinion on who won, but Palin did not appear. I wondered until I read online that CNN and NBC (and probably the other major networks) had asked to interview her but she was unavailable.

on earmarks

Earmarks have become one of the big issues in this current campaign, so let's talk about them. First, what are earmarks? Answer: they are money approved by Congress at the urging of individual Senators and Representatives at a point in the spending process where they are not subject to the usual reviews. They amount to a little over 1 percent of the Federal Budget, but seem to have more press and more consideration than does the lack of oversight of the Iraq peace-keeping spending. (Iraq has not really been a war since the fall of Saddam.) Second, who dislikes earmarks? Generally, no one if they put money into my Congressional District (in this case, Montana). In fact, it may prove detrimental to a Congressperson who does not support such money for his constituents. I recall back in the bad old days when the pundits said a very conservative Montana representative (Orvin Fjare) lost the 1960 election to a Democrat (and we came close to having the heavens fall on us back then) when he did not support money for Yellowtail Dam. So earmarks are bad only when they are in some other jurisdiction. Afterall, Montanans have cheered the Bozeman library money and the funds spent on Taxpayer Acres (otherwise known as Dehler Park).

So that brings me to the issue of the Bridge to Nowhere which is raising a big stink in the campaign because Agnew-Palin is saying that she told Congress no on the bridge. I ask, what difference does that make? She may not have supported the bridge (the evidence says she did up until Congress said no) but as governor of Alaska she took the money and has distributed it to other projects in the state. So is she telling a lie when she says she said no to the Bridge to Nowhere? Maybe not, but she took the money and has spent. So what is the issue here: the bridge or the money? By my reading of the attacks on earmarks it's not necessarily the projects (some of which are rather criminal in nature or at least very unusual) but it is the money. So is it a lie or a rather slippery notion of facts? I would suggest that morally, she lied.

on "reform" vs. "change"

We all know that Washington must change. What we may fully understand is that our view of the world must change as well. There is no room left in today's world for the shibboleths of the past. If we don't fully grasp the world in which we live, then we will be doomed to lose it. Some of us may say we already live in a two-tiered world: people like John McBush who believe that we can ignore the technology, ignore the changes forced upon us by technology, ignore the changes that will occur when global warming creates a world without us, ignore the changes in biology that the next century will bring. We already, for instance, have medical technology that will enable many of us to live longer and put more strain on medical and financial worlds, while not really having a much better life in the long run. But even more so, as I've said before, we face significant changes in homo sapiens over the next century: gene manipulation for certain traits and to cure genetic diseases and other things too strange to come to mind. What will happen when the people living in the coastal areas of the U.S. move to the central cities, when Denver becomes the capital because politicians don't want to have to wear scuba masks to move in D.C.? What will happen when the island nations in the Pacific become unlivable? When New York is underwater so far that Wall Street has to move out? When the people of Bangladesh and other Monsoon countries find themselves having to move out of their national boundaries or drown? What about those things that change that are unexpected? I was born before computers and television, before jet planes and super highways, before instantaneous communication around the world, before cell phones and photo exchanges on the Internet, and long before the Internet. Many of these things were not even thought of when I was born. This is not the world of 1900. It is a totally different world and yet we like to react to it the same way. Now we have the great tunnel in Europe that may tell us about the origin of the universe. And we have some people who still don't accept evolution although there is no other scientific argument.

Now we have a presidential race in which "change" has been a key issue. Obama and the Democrats realized for the start that this was the world we would need, a changed world. Now McBush has picked it up. But recently he seems to have been modifying that with "reform." You can reform the current system which means changing the atmosphere but not the policies or you can change the system which means accepting more meaningful symbols. For instance, McCain and Agnew-Palin keep talking about tax cuts for everybody, but as is usual with the Republicans, they mean tax cuts that will give most of us a few hundred dollars, but give the wealthiest thousands. This is change? If a person doesn't know how many houses he has, what can we think of him? He didn't say five, omitting rentals, which would be reasonable. He said he didn't know. He thinks you have to have $5 million to be rich. He seems to think that life is for the rich. And he would continue to send our disposable government income to Iraq. I'm not sure this is either reform or change.

On Agnew Palin's homecoming

I think we now know what we'll be doing the rest of this campaign: watch Sarah Agnew Palin's concern about her son in Iraq. It seems to me that her son should be treated by our military in the same manner that Prince Harry was by England: keep him out of harm's way. I know we're not supposed to talk about family in this election, but what would be the rebound effect ont he election if he gets hurt or killed in Iraq? Or captured? Keep him home.

In her homecoming speech, she once again attacked the "pork" that Congress pours into member's individual districts like the half million for Taxpayer Acres here in Billings, the $4 million for Bozeman's library and money coming in for Shiloh and Airport roads, among others. Let's remember that, except for curmudgeons who hate all government money, one person's pork is another person's long-awaited ball park or library. Congress may not be well like in the polls but most individual congressmen will be re-elected this fall. And most of those re-elected will have as part of their re-election plank the money they brought home to their district.

And what is this change that she says McBush is offering? In his list of programs I see neither a long list of reform or a long list of changes in D.C., exept for going after earmarks which make up but a small portion of the federal budget, about 1%. What about the big spending on the Iraq war which we should never have been involved in. We can leave Iraq anytime we want to: we won the war. It was over when Saddam fell. What we are doing now is empire building. And because of Iraq we now have a tough job to cleanup in Afghanistan.

on the Palin speech

I guess I'm in the minority. I got a chill down my back watching Agnew Palin's speech the other night, only it was one of fear. First, I though that my high school and college speech teachers would not have given her more than a C for the talk despite the choreographed responses to it. It was flatly presented, without a great deal of inflection except for slyness she interjected with the way she moved her head and smiled. Besides having eyes just a bit too close set, often the sign of a fanatic, she looks as if she has a mean streak. That's not unusual for Republicans who often seem to feel that people are not worthy of their attention unless they are executives in oil companies or other big multi-national firms. I also thought it unworthy of her to parade her pregnant daughter (who didn't show the signs of pregnancy) on the stage when the fact of the pregnancy indicates that her family values are not particularly high. I hope she does better by a younger daughter than teaching her to depend on saying no in the heat of a moment. And I hope 18-year-old Levi knows what he's getting into and the limits that will place on his future. I've known several shotgun marriages that lasted and a lot that didn't and the kids suffer. But what I don't understand is how this is a "family value" after what the Republicans have been pushing with the "silver ring thing." And I wouldn't vote for Palin, even if she was a Democrat (which she never would be) because she's mean. It's in her eyes. It's a sign, just like Baby Bush was lying every time he leaned forward on his left forearm. She's doing the same thing when she turns her head to her right.

what's happening to the election?

Oh, boy, the sleaze is hitting. At first, I thought the selection of Sarah Qaylin or Sarah Agnewlin (take your pick) was a cynical choice to try to take from Obama the former Hillary supporters who supported her only because she was a woman. Now it looks as if she was selected because, if elected, she will help continue the ruthless political basis of government in Washington that the current administratiion has pursued. And her 17-year-old unmarried daughter is pregnant and is expecting to be married to the father. Shades of the bad old days. We used to call that a shotgun wedding (formal if the shotgun was silver plated). A lot of people's lives went in different directions because of that back before the pill and more open access to contraception. I wonder if Agnewlin thought to tell her daughter about contraception or did she rely on just saying no? Obama is being nice to say a politician's family should be sacrosant as far as criticism after his own wife has been attacked. I seem to remember other family members coming under scrutiny in the past, including the brothers of a couple of Democratic presidents.

I suggest that John McBush may have made a mistake in his selection and that someone did not look at the impact of what's coming out about Agnewlin now. Are we going to have a makeover in this convention? Remember, the selection is not final until the convention makes it so, usually just a formality. And so McBush can still change his mind.

on the candidates

So now we know how the political season will shape out on the national scene. On one hand we have a career politician whose major claim to fame is his wartime experiences and who was rejected by his own party a few years back in favor of a man who had no war experience, no foreign affairs experience, and no intelligence and whose administration is the worst in the history of this nation. Now that makes him eligible to replace the stupid. On the other hand we have a man who is a self-made individual coming out of what is today's equivalent of a log cabin who knows what has made this country great. The racists say he's "black." But he's also "white" by the same degree. He's running on change, change for a corrupt Administration, change for a political world in which even when we elect people we hope will make changes (congressmen who say they will vote for impeachment, for health care, for getting out of the war in Iraq), we don't get those changes. We need to take on the big industries and business men who corrupt our very society away from its roots.

John Bush is not a self-made man. He is a son of privilege; perhaps not quite as privileged as the current spoiled brat in the White House, but his entrance into Annapolis was surely greased by having two admirals in his background. He's primarily a candidate because he is a war "hero", although I didn't know they gave medals to prisoners of war. As a military man, he attacked his enemies from hundreds or thousands of feet in the air without warning. That's not quite what we talk about when he talk about warriors. But his biggest problem is that he doesn't seem to have any idea about foreign policy. He supports Baby Bush in Iraq, which is the biggest mistake we've made in the history of this country, and he made the statement after Russian tanks rolled into Georgia that "we are all Georgians." Silly! We are not all Georgians. Look at that country. It is not a nation like ours. It is more like the dictatorships that the "sainted" Ronald Reagan (who began the moves that led to today's teetering stock market) supported. Yes, Russia needs to be pulled back but that sort of rhetoric has more to do with the memory of the Cold War than the world of today. Domestically, McCain doesn't seem to understand the America of today: $5 million before you're rich? Not knowing he owns and probably pays taxes on 7 houses? Not understanding that other people who have had his medical problems in this country would probably be bankrupt or dead by now because they can't afford health insurance that probably wouldn't pay enough of the cost anyway? Not understanding that keeping the tax cuts for the rich does nothing but keep this country sinking deeper into the red? And then he cynically chooses a woman, Sarah "Quayle" Palin, from a smaller state than Montana where the political system is corrupt to be his vice presidential candidate hoping to draw Hillary supports who vote vagina rather than issues. McCain is not good on those issues: He's anti-life. (Being in favor of population growth in today's crowded world is anti-life.) Palin supports creationism in science classes, despite the opposition of the scientific community (the argument is only religious and political). To me, the Republican candidate, who is one year younger than I, has turned into the typical codger who thinks yesterday was great and the good old days actually existed. The past is gone. It is over. We have a future that will change the order of this country forever and we have to hope that it will be better than the past. We cannot live on the glory of the past, but must carve a future that keeps this country as great as it has been.

on being a crackpot

I love science (and science fiction). In SF authors frequently drift into time travel through worm holes or other means and thus create a paradox (two physicians walking down a corridor) that threatens the real world. And I read claims made in scientific magazines or books that mathematically it should be possible to go back in time just as we can go forward in time. But I'm a crackpot. So I don't think it should be possible to go back. And we go forward in time, not because time exists, but because we and the universe around us are constantly changing. We may not be aware of it, but the I who existed five minutes ago is not the I that exists as I type these words. I have changed. What we think of as time is only a measurement of the rate of change. Thus it is possible to use time as a hypothetical mathematical construct without it actually existing. Time is a function of the human brain. It measures change, which occurs in a wave across the universe. When we see the light of distant stars in the now, we are seeing it when those light waves reach us, but the star itself may be long gone in the real present. Or if it hasn't died, it has moved on to some other location from which its light may not yet have reached us. We are, then, I think, on the leading edge of a big bubble of change and that is why we cannot go back in time. Nothing exists in the center of the bubble.

on the use of the word "war"

I am getting tired of the use of the word "war" as it has been used by the current and previous Republican administrations. We have a "war on drugs" that has been used to hassle other countries and to curtail the freedoms of people who prefer to misuse something besides alcohol. We also have a "war on terror" which is no more a war than the war we didn't conduct against the Mafia and the Cosa Nostra. The "war on drugs" never was a war. It was an action against criminals and it has backfired on us in that we still seem to have as many drugs as ever (looking at the most recent busts) and those who deal in them make higher profits than the tobacco and alcohol industries (except when alcohol was prohibited).

And then we have the "war on terror." It, too, is not a war. We had a war in Afghanistan and may be having another since we didn't finish the job the first time and we had a war in Iraq that ended after our invasion squashed the army of Saddam and toppled his government. That was war. What we have now is the aftermath of our failure to perceive how we would be greeted by the Iraqis and the insurgency that would follow. What we now have is a training ground for terrorists and an effort to create a country as we would like it, including privatizing its oil so Exxon Mobile and its cohots will get 80% of the profits from Iraq's oil rather than the government and the people of Iraq. That's part of our "conditions" that the Iraqis haven't fallen for and most people in this country don't realize. Iraq had no ties to those who created 9-11 and no WMDs. It apparently had not violated the U.N. resolutions, either, although it hadn't admitted that. What I really can't understand is the mindset of those in the beltway who didn't know that there were no WMDs in Iraq in the first place. It was obvious from this distance. Anyway, the point is that the only thing that makes it a "war" in Iraq is that we are using soldiers instead of policemen to track down criminals.

on losing our freedoms

A couple of weeks ago, I flew to Seattle for a weekend and came to the conclusion that those who think that fear is not curtailing our freedoms are just plain out to lunch. At both ends, we had to take off our shoes and empty all our pockets. I had to take my night breathing machine out of my carry-one (I don't check it for the same reason I don't check my medications) so they could wand it, going over it with some device in such a way that it looked as if they were putting a magic spell on it. I had to empty my pockets, take my belt off and hold up my pants with one hand while taking my watch off, and walk across a dirty floor in my stocking feet. Maybe I left some athlete's foot fungus on the floor for the people following. It was much more complicated than the last time I flew. That is fear caused by the possibility that a terrorist will get on a plane and bring it down, killing me and all the others on board. Did it make me feel safer? No, it didn't. Airplanes crash and much more frequently than terrorism brings them down. I'm also used to the fear of being killed on the highway or by the food I eat. Being killed by food, on the highway or by a fault in an airplane or a pilot probably has lower odds than being killed by terrorist activity. I realize of course that it is always a massacre to the person who is killed, but what is this wiilling surrender of freedoms for a fear of something that has killed a very small number of American citizens. We've had more people killed by other means in a year than we had die on 9/11. Before you say I have no empathy, let me tell you I feel the terror that the people who died on that day and the pain of their survivors. I also remember Oklahoma City where about a tenth of the same number, many of them children, were killed by home grown terrorist. But it is not rational to let our leaders curtail our freedoms, that we have held dear for more than 200 years, because of our fears that we will die in something much rarer than the risk we take each day when someone runs a stopsign or a stoplight, or drinks and drives. We are not very good risk calculaters.