November 08, 2008

• This is an outstanding idea - even better if it is used well and listened to. Now that the seeming impossible has happened - I hope we don't get too skitish about the Obama administration doing what they say they will. I was listening to NPR today and found the media starting in with the attacks on Obama because he wasn't pandering to them right off the bat. They seemed very miffed that he didn't come out the day after the election and talk to them. They were going on and on about how "cold", "aloof", and "distant" his administration will be. I wanted to scream at them what seems to obvious to me; let the man review the work ahead, get a handle on it before he has to come out and start answering those questions. Allow him time to gather the information and formulate those answers. I would hope the press recognizes that THEY are NOT the priority. Not by a long shot. I get the need for communication, but not at the expense rational forethought.
• I've only looked at the foreign policy segment of the agenda and it looks...reasonable, written in simple and straightforward terms, yay. I would like to know who his transitional advisors are, because presumably they'll be his heads of office? I know he's appointed his chief of staff already - when do we find out about Secretary of State?
• I can totally see the Obama Administration using the internet in ways that previous administrations were afraid to. I know it's a regulatory nightmare but I think they can do it right, and ethically, unlike previous administrations. I just submitted something to the suggesetion box, I asked that the solar panels that Carter installed (and Reagan removed) be re-installed on the White House roof. I know it's symbolic, but still an example of leading by example.
• I'll consider him internet aware and connected to me when he "friends" me on Facebook...
• Funny, my house rep friended me on myspace the day after election day.
• #2 and I were talking briefly about that the other night when I saw that Obama's site has the transition guidelines for incoming administration. It's unlikely Bush would put such documentation in the public arena, while in Clinton's era the internet was not being accessed and used by the public the way it is now. He is definitely the most internet-aware President thus far.
• If I thought my comments weren't going to a trained ferret pushing buttons with its nose, I might make the following observations:

  1. Missile defense? Are you ****ing kidding me? End it, whether it works or not.
  2. Larry Summers as Treasury Secretary? Are you ****ing kidding me? Absolutely not!
  3. Installing Rahm? (Get it?) The guy who championed NAFTA, that unmitigated disaster? Argh!

  This is not the change I was hoping for. It hasn't even been a week and already my Hope High has worn off. =P
• Sounds like you backed the wrong guy, scartol. From the sounds of things, you wanted Nader.
• If I thought my comments weren't going to a trained ferret pushing buttons with its nose Yeah, but tracicle is so cute when she pushes that button with her wee little nosy-wosy.
• WE VOTED FOR CHANGE, TRACICLE. PLEASE PASS ME THE KEYS TO THE OVAL ORIFICE AND A BUCKET OF WARM SPIT FOR HANK.
• NAFTA hasn't been that bad for Canada. Generally the suckitude has been when the US is ignoring NAFTA - as in the softwood lumber stupidity. But I fully support putting environmental and labour clauses into trade agreements - and to make sure trade agreements don't subvert a nation's sovereignty over their own domestic policy. There was a NAFTA case where an American firm forced Canada to accept the use and import of a chemical which had been banned in the US, and which the Canadians wished to have banned, but were told that it would unduly limit "free trade".
• There's a current case where the Province of Quebec banned the use of 2-4D weed killer, and the makers (Dow?) are suing the Canadian Federal Government for violations of NAFTA. The expert I heard on the Ceeb said these cases almost never win (for the scumbag plaintiffs).
• Generally I'm in favour of free trade, when it's fair. The current unfairnesses just need to be tweaked, but the deals themselves don't need to be scrapped.
• Well I just don't like trading with foreigners. There's not a single good thing that ever came out of trading with fucking foreign people.
• For one thing, foreigners smell bad. And their industries would be far less efficient than our industries except they use kids to make running shoes. And their books are all in some fucked up nonsense language that I can't even READ.
• Yeah! There's a reason the Bible is written in American!
• The biggest problem with foreigners is that they are not citizens of The Greatest Country in the World^® and yet won't admit it. You know, if Obama, the creepy Republicans, and all other Americans could just somehow forget that phrase I'd feel a whole bunch better and maybe people wouldn't hate us so much.
• This talk by Cambridge University professor Ha-Joon Chang really puts to rest the whole mythology of when "Free Trade" has(n't) been used and why it's a good idea to have an uneven playing field sometimes. (He gives the excellent example of his 12-year-old daughter and her friends playing against the Brazilian professional football team. Makes sense that the Brazilians would have to run uphill, yeah?) I'm reading his book now; it's superb.
• He gives the excellent example of his 12-year-old daughter and her friends playing against the Brazilian professional football team. Makes sense that the Brazilians would have to run uphill, yeah? No, it doesn't make sense at all. How did his 12 year old daughter get into the World Cup squad?
• They're genetically modified Mutants, not unlike those featured in Fallout 3.
• But their one weakness was ... RUNNING UPHILL!
• Two takes on "Which Star Trek characters would be good Obama cabinet picks?" 1 2 I wonder how long it will be until Firefox's spellcheck recognizes the word "Obama?"