August 25. 2008 by Dick.

The rain that started last night continued this morning. I awoke at 1:15 to shut down the westerly windows.

Westerly is one of those odd words that means not only “facing the west” as I just used it but also “from the west” when writing of the wind and even “westbound” in the sense of moving toward the west as Daniel Defoe wrote. It is also is a train station in Rhode Island but not, to my knowledge, in Delaware.

The theme of this series is that we have been rained on enough; now we need a loose cannon in Western politics. The Democrats almost have one (actually two, if you count Vermont’s former governor, Howard Dean) in Joe Biden, the newly anointed Vice Presidential candidate.

Senator Biden is not a westerly candidate although he is considered a westerner everywhere else in the world. Except he is from the East so he is considered an Easterner here. Isn’t English wonderful? I like Senator Biden. He is a bright, thoughtful, articulate man who is absolutely unafraid of speaking his mind.

Unfortunately, Senator Biden’s assigned role is not that of loose cannon nor even “general smart guy.” Senator Biden’s assigned role is assistant principal. He gets to wield the paddle and chew on Senator McCain (his first major speech will portray Senator McCain’s chief financial advisor as Scrooge McDuck). Paris Hilton did it better. Worse yet, if Joe Biden spends all his time tearing down the other guy, he won’t have time to build better policy. Business as usual in the V.P. department.

The Obama/Biden theme is supposed to be “change.”

Candidates who want to “change the system” don’t want to change the system; candidates who want to change the system actually want their own policies implemented in the system.

A true loose cannon doesn’t care about the system. A true loose cannon doesn’t care about what the other guy does. A true loose cannon will subvert the system and find a way to get the real work done.

And we still need one running for President, darn it. After all, the President sets policy, not the Vice President. The President appoints the judges and signs the Executive Orders, not the Vice President. The President gets the public glory and the public pratfalls, not the Vice President.

The Republicans need one and there is still a (slim) chance they’ll pull it off. I’m not holding my breath.

In the upcoming (and we all hope final) episode of this series about the relative merits of balls for ordnance, I will explain why I really am joining the Librarian party.

Posted in Throw Da Bums Out, Politics & News, Random Access | 1 Comment »

August 20. 2008 by Dick.

Joe Lieberman, ID-Connecticut, became a Senator in 1988 and managed to get re-elected in 1994, again in 2000 (remember that date–it’s important), and to a fourth term in 2006. Barely.

In the 2000 U.S. presidential election, Mr. Lieberman ran simultaneous campaigns for his third term in the Senate as well as for Vice President as the running mate of DEMOCRATIC presidential nominee Al Gore.

ID? “Independent Democrat.” He lost the ‘06 Democratic primary election, so he flipped off the party and won re-election in the general election as a so-called Independent Democrat.

So, he’s a sort of a Democrat and perhaps the very best bet hedger in Washington, the capitol of hedging bets. Still, that has to make him perhaps the least trustworthy man in a city where losing trust is a political art form.

Now, eight years after his stunning electoral prestidigitation, he’s on the short list to be the running mate of REPUBLICAN presidential nominee John McCain.

I know the pundits think Mr. Lieberman brings something to the ticket. I know Mr. McCain really likes Mr. Lieberman. But I gotta ask, Is he nuts?

Oh well. At least Mr. Lieberman still has four more years on his Senate seat to go back to when this is all over.

Senators Obama’s and McCain’s terms end in ‘10. Neither has given up his seat to run this race but at least neither is running campaigns for both simultaneously.

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August 18. 2008 by Dick.

I’m not a jock. Not really. I have done some gymnastics. I had a WSI, taught swimming, and did a bit of diving. I raced cars until I retired in 1980. Despite that, I don’t watch many televised sports.

I watched the Olympics.

Michael Phelps blew me away.

One one-hundredth of a second. Eight gold medals in eight attempts.

Mr. Phelps burns more calories in an hour than I burn in a day. He swam the 4 x 200-meter relay less than an hour after winning the 200-meter fly. He won his definitive event at about 11:30 p.m., Eastern Daylight Time, on Saturday.

It is the biggest sports story of the decade bar none.

I’m glad the Red Sox won the Series. I’m glad the Pats won the Super Bowl. This is bigger. This is batting 1.000 against a spitballer. This is hitting a home run in every at bat.

Oddly, The Burlington Free Press opted to cover a different event. The front page lead story on Sunday and the sports page lead story on Sunday was that Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt “shattered the men’s 100-meter record Saturday.” Sorry, Mr. Phelps. I guess the Secretary really will “disavow any knowledge of your actions.”

The Freep did have a little box of weasel words down low on the sports page. We’re sorry, they said. We know Michael Phelps was swimming yesterday but we had to go to bed early and we missed it.

I understand that the reporters’ union requires the paper to allow us to sleep once a week and that Saturday night is it. But really. The only good news here is that the Freep avoided the “Dewey Defeats Truman!” kind of headline. The bad news is that this was the biggest sports story of the decade. Somebody should have stayed up for it.

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