Danny Taggart's Blogarama

A more-or-less daily dose of news, politics, techmology, and any random thoughts that pass through my head.

Friday, September 23, 2005

Let's make some bacon

The Porkbusters are trying to get congresspigs to give up some of their yummy pork projects in order to fund Katrina-related reconstruction. It's not going to work, but it's fun to see conservatives in action again, trying in vain to cut government spending (or rather, prevent it from growing by $200 billion in one year). Hilariously, the only person to have committed to cuts is - Nancy Pelosi! I'm really beginning to wish Republicans get slaughtered at the polls next year.

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

The War on Terror is dead

Excellent, depressing article from RealClearPolitics. I'd like to see what theory conservatives settle on for why such a result came about. The leading candidates right now are "our military is stretched thin" and "the Democrats are hurting the effort." I'm not impressed by either of these arguments. After all, the military is not substantially different from right after the 9/11 attacks. If anything, we're spending a lot more money, especially in Iraq. So what changed?

Also, I can't see how the Democrats' opposition prevented Bush from carrying out his promise. First of all, most Democrats were on board even for the Iraq invasion. Bush had a window of opportunity to expand the war to the rest of the terrorist sponsoring states. Second, he did win the last election. It may indeed be too late now, but that doesn't mean he didn't have the political opportunity to begin with.

What are some other theories? Hmm. Maybe Bush realized that a regional war in the Mideast would skyrocket oil prices enough to crush the American economy. But we have enough in SPR to last us more than a year. Is that not enough time to destroy the regimes of Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, and secure the oilfields?

I have no idea. I'm speculating out of my ass. I just don't see the conservatives credibly addressing this issue. And I don't think they will, at least until the Supreme Court vacancies can be filled. After that, Bush is expendable, and the "cleansing" can begin. I suspect we'll see plenty of Bush-bashing from conservatives as he's about to leave office, just as there was an unbelievable amount of Clinton-bashing from liberals as he left office. Politics these days just depresses me. What happened to the slash-and-burn Republicans of '94?

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Big government is back?

Remember those idiots claiming after 9/11 that "big government is back" - I guess because people are enamored of collosal government failure? Nobody's saying that now, post-Katrina. Why? Because, after four years, billions of dollars, and a new department of "Homeland Security," the response to what is bascially a simulated terrorist attack has been piss poor. Not because some people died, who shouldn't have. But because the government didn't even know there was a problem until late in the game.

The "leaders" were slow, indecisive, and whiny. Doesn't exactly inspire confidence about the government's reaction to a real terrorist attack. Maybe there will be some lessons learned out of this, but I doubt it will happen in government. I think it's more likely to take the form of people stocking up on guns and ammo, to protect themselves from the hooligans and barbarians that inevitable arise in a post-apocalyptic world.