/chronicle

This is one of the best summaries of the current political devistation occurring based on hard right ideologies I’ve ever read.  From the comment section of the NY Times article Obama Rejects Further Budget Stopgaps:

You have to grudgingly admire the Republicans’ sheer chutzpah, even as you despise it. They create a financial catastrophe by doubling the national debt in 8 years under Bush and by deregulating the financial services industry over the past 30 years so that it ran amok and brought the whole economy to its needs.

Having caused the mess — aided, to be sure, by a spineless opposition afraid of its own shadow — the Republicans then use it to enact a strictly ideological agenda that serves only the interests of their core constituents: the wealthy and corporations. The middle class, the needy, and the poor are thrown to the wolves.

Why the middle class, the needy and the poor continue to vote for these people, whose heartless agenda is so obvious and blatant, and so adverse to the interests of those constituents, is the single greatest mystery of modern American politics.

The “trickle down” ideas proclaimed in this budget proposal have been tried for the past 30 years, and the jury is in. We’ve seen the results. It is very, very clear that when you give rich people and corporations tax breaks, it only serves to make them richer. They do not invest in America or create American jobs. They invest in China and great Mexican jobs. They hoard their increased earnings in foreign tax havens, buy more yachts and houses and cars. And they also back the careers of Republican politicians, who continue to feed them tax breaks and privileges at the expense of the rest of us.

I honestly feel that unless the average American does not wake up and smell the coffee soon, if the Democrats and the President do not find their spines and offer real alternatives to this corporatization of the nation, then America as we know it is done. The country is bought and paid for by what George Carlin called “The Ownership” of America. Real change is becoming almost impossible, as conservative ideologues are stuffed into positions of influence and on the benches of the judiciary, so that desctructive conservative policies can be unchallenged in any venue.

The process is almost complete. Either we act, or we sink into the Darwinian social jungle the Republicans want to see replace any semblance of fair society. This proposal is one more step toward the undergrowth.

Gfagan – 4-5-2011

So many posts on facebook and a few on twitter.  No entries in the ‘ol blog for over a month.

I think I’m being socialed out.  My new word…”socialed”.  Facebook is where all the photos live and an occasional rant.  The blog was once a place for me to vent frustrations.  Now it’s just a lonely space that few visit except for updates on tired, old issues that aren’t going anywhere.

Work is outrageously busy.  Amy inherited a little money from her Grandmother who passed away on Nov. 21, 2010.   We’re trying to sit on.  Possibly some home improvements.  I bought a Lieca D-LUX 5 camera (I might return) and Amy got a new phone.  We all got a new TV for the living room.  Other than that we’re trying to stay humble.  Going to invest and save most of it.  A few home renovations are definitely in order.

Connor learned to ride his bike and tie his shoes during Christmas break and Logan has started preschool.  Zach is a full blown toddler now.  He’s a walker and cute as can be.

I’ve got this domain, rtpinbox.com and I really want to do something with it but I haven’t figured out what.  I was thinking of a technology project blog but don’t know if I have time to post about a lot of things I’m working on.  Web based mail is already available from gmail…. I really don’t have any ideas but open to suggestions.

It will cost about $50 in advanced ride coupons, $16 in advanced admission tickets and $60 for games and food.  So I’m projecting $126 this year for the NC State Fair.  It will be amazing if that works out.

I think we’re going to catch the CAT bus at the intersection of Six Forks and Wake Forest Rd. and get dropped off at the main gate.  It would probably save on parking.  If not I’m going to try to get into Chuck Booth and Mike Franklin’s lot where Stay-Right Tank company used to be.  I don’t want to pay and walk forever.  If I pay to park I want to be close.

Pensioner = Entitlement Receiver

Yet astoundingly these older, mostly white men and women who worked in various levels of government tend to back Republicans and even Teabaggers who scream against entitlements with every breath.  Let’s remove the hypocritical pensioners, Medicaid recipients and those receiving unemployment benefits from the ranks of those who support the conservative call to end entitlement programs and see how much support remains.

Pensions are draining this country on every level of municipal, state and federal government.  Even when former elected representatives are convicted of committing fraud against their constituency we continue to shell over their pension money without legal recourse.  The funny thing is that to change this the legislators, elected representatives themselves, must vote to forgo their promise land pension if they commit fraud or a felony.  Another clear case of the fox watching the hen house.  I believe any representative who would vote against such a bill is one who questions his or her ability to remain clean.  It could also be claimed they’re already corrupt and don’t want to lose their pension if caught.

America is grid locked until we give up the pipe dream that legislative officials will police themselves with morality and diligence.  Much the same way we are doomed if we do not remove the misconception that corporations will police themselves in the best interest of consumers over shareholder returns.

On Sept. 13, 2010 my e-machine web server died after 7 years of service and it was a solid death.  The motherboard fried.  I was real busy and didn’t have time to make an emergency out of getting this site back on-line.  I did my homework for web hosts supporting WordPress, MySQL with phpmyadmin and found webfusion.com.  They provided all the components to host this site for $2.99 per month.  Deal.

Now I don’t have to support a system at home running Apache, MySQL etc.   I created a new WordPress blog at Webfusion, exported my database using phpmyadmin and imported it to the new database at Webfusion.   Then all I had to do was replace the WordPress files via FTP and change a few config files for database locations and passwords.   Hopefully the 99.9% uptime claimed by Webfusion is accurate.   This site has been down a lot because I have servers I’m paid to attend.  I really don’t want to work to keep this site up on a DSL line and 7 year old PC anymore.