Mid-Summer Update

Whoa - been busy. . . and lazy when it comes to blogging. My sister's must t'sking at me somewhere. But this won't push the envelope either.

Congratulations to:

• The US Women's soccer team for winning the gold medal. They got lucky in the final against Japan, but soccer is often a game of controversy. All of the final 4 were playing at a very high level.  Yes, Canada lost a heartbreaker, but the head stomp, the coach's pre-game comments, and post-game whining dissipated most of my sympathies. Unlike Japan who was clearly robbed of a PK, Canada got penalized for their behavior (and not for some highly-illegal head stomping behavior). You lost a tough game to a tough competitor.
• To the many other athletes from all countries who have made it an entertaining Olympics (but not the Argentinian who popped Carmelo Anthony in the nuts with a low blow).
• My daughter for getting an offer to play lacrosse at Elon University and verbally committing.
• NASA for successfully landing Curiosity within a small region within a crater on another planet using heat shields, parachutes, and rockets. I hope I live long enough to see a real person walk on Mars.
• Global warming denialists for ushering in another record breaking summer of heat and drought, the rest of us look forward to more high minded discussions and brilliant scientific discoveries from you.  Meanwhile we'll do what humans do so well, adapt to a changing environment.
   

I am still stunned by the gaffe-apaloosa that is The Romney's campaign. I am pretty sure that most of those that will be voting for Romney will do it because the hate Obama.

My recent favorites are:

• The Romney praising the Israelis because their medical system only uses 8% of their GDP, ignoring the fact that Isreal has a centralized healthcare system.
• The Romney expressing doubt about the Olympics being a success, thus forcing British politicians to attack him.
• The Romney pretending he doesn't even know when his wife's horse is showing in the Olympics, thus demonstrating that he will choose his image over even his family.
• The Romney choosing as his farmer the multi-millionaire real estate guy, rather than like a simple farmer who is struggling to save his farm from taxes, etc.
• The Romney's commercial showing a small businessman who was incensed by Obama's misstep on who builds small businesses, but turns out his business has gotten multiple government loans.

 Message to Romney: having a butt load of money only matters if you actually use the money (smartly).

I am guessing Romney is a reasonable nice guy so long as you don't have something he wants.

If things continue to go bad (and they are), we can expect real weirdness to start coming out of the Romney campaign.

The Obama campaign is an ugly campaign for an ugly time and you might be prone to criticize him until you remember Romney can't even come out and say Obama is a Christian American - born in the US.  That's right, even though Obama has shown his official birth certificate, a sizeable number of Republicans still think the birther stuff is legit and that Obama is a Muslim.  Really?  Romney wants the Democrats to ignore his business career and his hallmark legislative achievement as Governor, yet Romney can't stand up to the birthers?   Did someone forget that Senator McConnell made it priority one to obstruct anything Obama champions?   Compromise doesn't mean that you just do what the Tea Party wants. 

 

 

After years of the nasty hardball from Republicans and the right-wing media machine, it turns out they can't take it from the Democrats. 

 

 

If the MSM were trying to make a reasonable commentary about the roughness and vapidity of the campaign, they would have to start with what constitutes much of the base of the GOP. Civility ended there a long time ago. It has just surprised me that the Dems took off the gloves and decided to fight dirty too.  Funny how fewer and fewer people are buying the hogwash that tax cuts to the rich is the solution to our problems.

In case you are wondering, nothing has changed from my Right Down a Hole post.