What’s bother G3: Dems 08

Just musing on what feels like media and potentially elitist thought amongst party leadership and it’s apparent dismissive nature of the voting public.

So tonight Mrs. Clinton won the primary election in West Virginia quite handily and as expected. But for me, I’ve been disturbed more by the increasing attitude of the media and Democratic leadership to simply dismiss the remaining elections and all but declare Mr. Obama the Democratic nominee. While this general dismissive attitude by the media towards anyone but Mr. Obama has been prevalent for some time throughout much of the campaign, the near arrogant nature of it now concerns me when the Democratic leadership itself seems to be of the thought that the American voters don’t matter what so ever. It feels as if the media and certain elements of the DP want to force their candidate on the members of the DP rther than let their members decide for themselves.

This is especially concerning to me (even though I’m not even a Democrat) given that neither Mr. Obama nor Mrs. Clinton have garnered the necessary delegates to be declared the Democratic Party nominee. Yes it is likely Mr. Obama will win the nomination but until the decision is made at the Convention by the delegates I think it’s detrimental to the DP to be all but dismissive towards the remaining primaries. It just feels like the Democratic Party is employing less than democratic means by which to decide their candidate. All I do know for certain is I would be seriously concerned if this were happening amongst Republicans.

I suppose it shouldn’t really concern me, as I am Republican and going to vote for McCain if Obama is the Democrat’s nominee. I might consider Mrs. Clinton were she the nominee but that does appear unlikely given polls for the remaining primaries.

Lebanon Crisis

I’ve been following the current Lebanon crisis lately and fears of a new civil war, gleaning information from the usual news sources and from people like Sandmonkey, who I admire for pointing those of in the West to news bits we don’t hear about on our sanitized news networks. Especially interesting is seeing how the news in the ME is slanted (and out right propagandized in some cases) from one region to the next. While the situation is disheartening, obviously, it reassuring to see people in the region don’t all buy into the BS. But then there is the usual blame the Americans/Israel/The West/et al for what’s happening in Lebanon when in fact it’s just more thuggery on the part of Iran and it’s allies. Hopefully things will be settled quickly, though whether that is due to the Lebanese Army stepping in to end conflict or not remains to be seen.

Makes me wonder now if all the old militias of the Civil War will rise up again should full civil war return.  In many ways the situation on the ground really has not changed that much from the last civil war. Back then there were the Christian militias (Lebanese Forces, the Phalange, etc.), the Shia militias (Amal, Hezbollah, etc.), Sunni militias (al-Murabitun, etc.), the Druze militias (don’t remember any of their militias at the moment), and a smattering of others like the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party, some Baathists and other pan-Arabic, -democratic, -secular, and or -communists groups running around.

It is interesting to read some of the assorted blogs and Arabic websites to see everything from Hez supporters declaring complete victory to other saying the whole civil war is in fact staged and is a brilliant strategic move by others (insert your choice: Israel, the U.S., March 14, etc.) to lead to the eventual defeat and crushing of Hez and their allies once and for all. I don’t particularly buy any of that that but I suppose it is possible. Whatever happens, blood shed or not it’s not going to be pretty or easy.

Good gaffe

Best political gaffe to date:

Obama said. “Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go. Alaska and Hawaii, I was not allowed to go to even though I really wanted to visit, but my staff would not justify it.”

So, um 57 or 58 states eh? LOL! (well let’s see what could be added as a future state…I suppose we could count Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands. Where else has he been lately? The Middle East? I guess we can  add that too….I kid. I kid.)

Yes I know Mr. Obama just misspoke. He obviously meant to say 48 states. It was still amusing given his proxies recently implying McCain’s Al-Qaeda/Iran error indicated a lack of knowledge of the situation in the Middle East and thereby infer he is unqualified to make reasonable policy decisions about the ME. Were I to follow that sort of logic I guess that means Obama is now unfit to make reasonable policy decisions concerning the whole of the United States (and it’s magically appearing new states). *g* Fortunately I don’t subscribe to such thinking and just mark the comment as fatigue induced. Just shows we all make mistakes sometimes. And it was a good laugh.

Libertarian Joins the Race

Bob Barr Runs for President as Libertarian I was wondering when the Libertarian Party was going to announce their candidate for the Presidency. (Author note: Mr. Barr is not the LP’s presidential nominee, he is just a potential candidate. The LP will decide the candidate in the months to come.) It has been several years since I had last viewed the LP’s stance on issues so I went and read what they consider “The Issues”. Many I agreed with but unfortunately I still find too many of their positions impractical, outdated, and quite frankly unrealistic on issues like the environment, foreign policy, and immigration. At least the LP is far more reasonable than the Constitution Party and it’s ill concealed theological driven “democracy” that’s more akin to a Christian version of the Iranian Islamic Republic than to genuine support of the Constitution. The CP are pretty scary with their xenophobic (and sometimes outright paranoid) positions on everything ranging from free trade and immigration to the United Nations.

It’s somewhat amusing to hear various pundits today going on about Bob Barr will hurt John McCain’s presidential run or that Hillary Clinton will try to run as an independent candidate because Michelle Obama doesn’t want Clinton as her husband’s running mate or over analyzing Obama now wearing a flag lapel pin. It makes for amusing, but ultimately pointless, shrift for the talking heads to earn their keep I suppose, but leaves me less than impressed with the supposed analytical abilities of these political experts. Mr. Barr will not harm Mr. McCain’s position any more than McCain can hurt Barr’s positions, Clinton’s not going to run out on her party just because she may lose a nomination, and I seriously doubt Mr. Obama is going to allow his wife to determine who he can or can not figuratively “play” with in the political arena.

ETA: Correction: Fixed statement regarding Mr Barr being the LP’s Presidential nominee. Mr. Barr is simply a potential Presidential candidate for the LP.

World News Commentary 06/05/2008

Man Takes Wife’s Last Name After Suing Good for them. Regardless of whether you believe a woman should take a man’s name or vice versa, the policy the couple was fighting was obviously discriminatory and sexist. There is no reason for requiring a man who wishes to take his wife’s last name to have to pay $300, advertise it in a newspaper for four weeks, and get a judge’s approval especially when a woman doing so for her husband’s last name pays at most $90 for a court fee and that’s it.

Mugabe’s Party Starts Run-Off Campaign Not surprising. The Z-PF and Mugabe will do anything to stay in power, even when it’s obvious fraud. Hopefully Tsvangirai will decide to run just to keep Mugabe and the Z-PF thugs out of power and not let their intimidation and violence destroy Zimbabwe’s shaky democracy.

Cinco de Mayo was surprisingly quiet in the neighborhood this year. The Mexican neighbors didn’t have a big fiesta as they have done in previous years, which was a bit odd. I guess in the current anti-immigrant climate
they’ve decided to keep things low key.

World News Commentary 01/05/2008

DNA Test Solve Russian Royal Mystery It’s good to know that the mystery has been definitively solved one way or the other. Perhaps it can be used to heal the wounds in Russia over what the Bolsheviks did to the aristocracy and vice versa.

Nelson Mandela on Terrorist Watch List I can understand how this occur given the ANC was deemed a terrorist organization for their past violent activities and support for communism while fighting aparthied in South Africa but you’d think someone would have updated the terrorism lists to be a bit more specific as too which members of the ANC should be questioned.

Georgia denounces Russian ‘harassment’ and Georgia accuses Russia of shooting down spy plane I saw this one coming given Russia continues to become frustrated over it’s perceived lack of international respect. It also seems to highlight Russia’s duplicity in claiming opposition to ethnic groups becoming indepedent states (as occurred recently with Kosovo) yet supports the same activities when Russia benefits from such an event. Just more Cold War fallout.

China to Meet Dalai Lama Envoy I take this as a small positive step on the PRC’s part. My hope is that the meeting is a genuine, if only tentative, step towards some dialog between the Tibetan exiled leaders and the PRC but I am not optimistic given the PRC’s recent vitriolic words against the Dalai Lama, supporters of Tibetan rights, and blaming others for the problems the PRC’s own policies in Tibet have created. Case in point: Dalai clique unqualified for talking about human rights.

The man who grew a finger I’m still impressed with the implications of this new substance and procedure. Looks to be quite fascinating and a major break through should it prove to as effective as it seems to be.

Electronics’ ‘missing link’ found Memristors. Sounds quite intriguing, especially if it can lead to greater micronization and improvement of electronic devices.

Web 2.0 debates internet’s future What I found amusing in the article was those dismissing Web 3.0 as nothing more than “some piece of marketing flim-flam dreamed up by companies pushing their products”. That’s what many say about Web 2.0 and yet it still stands. It’s curious that those who embraced Web 2.0 so readily dismiss Web 3.0.