Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Breaking News: A journalist shills for Obama and my thoughts at the moment

Well its not that surprising is it. But anyway I couldn't helped to be somewhat irked while reading the latest breathless vapid Washington Diary post of Matt Frei's. While its not in the category of Chris Mathews declaration of love for our new presidential Messiah, its a piece that ignores anything outside of what the Frei wants to believe in.

Its uncritical of Obama's promise to generate 2.5 million jobs as if the President has a magical device that will do so, if there was, surely nobody ever told Bush about it. Then it goes on the usual tradition of comparing the Bush Administration as being incompetent and stupid and the two go hand and hand. Now incompetent I will give you, but stupid? Condi Rice is probably far more intelligent a person the anybody in the Obama probably including our erstwhile President-Elect himself.

Now his point was that McCain and Palin were trying to run a I guess an anti-intellectual campaign of which there are parts of people that think its a valid argument to make, but I would caution that just because one has a world class education and some governmental experience doesn't mean he can run a country well or not. Woodrow Wilson was a Professor for crying out loud and if Bush had tried half the stuff he did, Bush would've of been impeached. Lincoln was seen as a backwoods person who was self taught and had a somewhat folksy way of speaking, but he was a keen enough politician to keep the country together.

Then for competency on Obama's part, I would like to point out there isn't exactly an great deal of him getting thing accomplished outside of the fact that he can seeming win elections with the winds in his sail. But in terms of actual governance, I don't see anything from his time in Springfield or even in the Senate actually getting anything of importance done. By default I look towards how his fellow Illinois Democrats run things and see a poorly run state, so I'm not that enthused about the prospects.

Frei then starts to wax poetic about the missed opportunities of the Clinton administration blaming them on the "multiple distractions" which judging from context of the sentence (and I might be wrong but I doubt it) is code for mainly the events of 98-99. Which is a somewhat provocative thing to say as it seems to ignore the other 6 years of Clinton's administration which seemed to very active in domestic policy fights and I suppose one could argue that it might be due to the incompetence of his first years that cost him the House and the Senate and having to you know actually deal with the opposition as something other then devils to blame your ills on might be a distraction.

And then of course there is the usual blathering about how Obama has to fix the last eight years of Bush, which completely ignores the fact that Obama nor the Democrats actually attempted to do so during the last two years of holding Congress. Say what you want about Newt, he seemed to be a far better Speaker of the House in terms of setting the agenda then Nancy Pelosi has been.

Now for fairness sake after I vented my spleen, I will admit I have been pleasantly surprised by some of his actions and continual promise for nuclear energy. If wasting a bunch of money in putting a legion of bird killing machines in West Texas and such is part of the cost for some real improvements in our energy production infrastructure, so be it, its a small price to pay and besides it won't bother me.

So perhaps with the latest rounds of moderate/centrists actions and promises he will be a good president as Chris Buckley believes because of his great and towering intellect, or perhaps not. Obama is a great politician in the sense that he can slip out whatever he promises with little notice or attacks in the fact when he blatantly breaks a promise be it promising to use public finances, to bringing new faces to DC as opposed to the current retreat of veteran DC hands.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

I have returned.

Its been a while hasn't it blog. Anyway I have returned battered and bruised from being super busy.

Anyway, during my downtime, I'ved watched several anime series.

The last one Kishin Taisen Gigantic Formula I just finnished yesterday. Its a simple story really, giant god heads in the shape of the twelve Greek ones appear and basically conjule humanity to build them giant robot bodies and pilots so that they can fight each other. When humans first ignore this, the planet's envrioment gets screwd up by giant EM clouds. So the humans get together and basically say, ok the 12 major countries in the world get a head and there will be a battle royale and whoever wins gets to rule the planet.

Anyway the plot has two directions, the first of course is the one that deals with Japan's team of the pilot and the person who commincates the will of the god. Which is intresting sort of love story set in backdrop of this odd world war and conspiracy.

The secondary plot thread deals with the pilots of the other nations machines, and they get pretty decent backstory and characther development to make the viewer actually care about the fates of them. Which is pretty remarkable because you learn about their story while they are fighting in back and forth flashback.

Now of course the final boss of these fights is America robot which is powered by Zeus. Jupiter II. If the Jupiter II wasn't enough of an homage, it has the head of Optimus Prime. The ending is so so, its not completly out of left feild, but it does sort of contrast jarring with the rest of the show.

But by far the most enjoyable show I watched inbetween blog postings was Starship Girl Yammato Yokho. Its just plainly a good solid science fiction yarn with solid likelable characters and a plot that slowly unviels leading to a somewhat open but sastifying ending. Probably one of the more unique things about the show is the atmosphere it has, its a very dark show in terms of just pure lighting which I am not sure if it helps ors hinders.