Health Care Reform Would Be Good Politics

President Obama was half joking at the State of the Union when he said he didn't take on health care reform "because it's good politics."

Because we've had lots of problems with it in the last year, I guess.

The truth is, It would've been good politics to actually get something positive done for us and to sell it right. But they chose to muck it up and get it tangled up in one corrupt special interest after another. No, that's not good politics.

If we had some sense that they were on our side, that would've been good politics indeed.

Get it done.

Someone Was Yelling Something

I thought I heard some yelling at the State of the Union address.

But still ... no sign yet of the gatecrashers from a couple months ago. I was halfway expecting them to have chairs up by Vice President Biden.

And wouldn't it be great to have Balloon Boy sitting by Mrs. Obama, as an example of ... something. An example of a kid whose dreams were as big as his dad's ego.

The Joe Wilson Cam

I hope they have the Joe Wilson Cam ready tonight for the State of the Union speech. So we'll be able to see and hear any outbursts without missing a single thing.

He says he won't shout out this time, because "I'm a gentleman." Yeah? What were you last time? Did you become a gentleman since then?

UPDATE: You know he's sitting there saying to himself, "I can't make a peep. Everyone's waiting for me to mess up." By the way, the Republicans are a bunch of schoolyard bullies, idiots who don't know they're only hurting themselves (and their country.) They're so disgusting.

Time

I try to be efficient. Which means keeping good track of time.

But of course everything you do takes time. You have somewhere to be, like I do in a half an hour, you need to space it out -- your duties, hobbies, tasks -- to make sure that you get them wrapped up and are able to leave in time not to be late.

I'm always thinking about time, it seems. Even when I'm not conscious of it. There's plenty of times when I wake up about a minute before my alarm is set to go off. Some of that might be from habit. But since it's so close, some of it might also be your mind just mentally going over the time it is. Like there's some kind of internal counter, or little sands going through an inner timer.

I get up in the morning and go to feed the cat. And I'm thinking how much time it takes to do that, how much time (40 seconds) it takes to warm my bagel, how leisurely I can go to the bathroom while a cup of tea is brewing (3:20) and so forth. If I get back up to my computer at 7:10 a.m., that's good time, and so I have time to get a few things done...before the time comes when I have other things that I need to leave for.

I was looking at the baby book my Mom made when I was first born. Just the cards that people sent in honor of my birth. She has in there the exact time I was born. So maybe that's where I got it, out of her milk. But it's been my constant thing. Seconds here, minutes there, getting things done. Hoping time will go slowly, hoping it will go fast, depending on what I'm doing.

Time's up. I have something else I need to do .... now.

Obama Needs Two Terms

I don't know about President Obama. I want him to buckle down and do a fantastic job. Then I want him to run for office and get reelected.

The biggest reason I want him reelected is that the alternative is too terrible to contemplate. Because it would mean that one of the Republican scoundrels would be our president, assuming no one is going to subject President Obama to a Democratic primary.

He's all right. Come on. Yes, we're complaining a little, because we want some things accomplished. We don't want to waste a whole year on health care reform just to come up empty handed. You can't blame us, can you? Some of the crumbs on TV are saying we shouldn't have health care reform because the folks of Massachusetts voted for a Republican and thereby sent that message.

But as I recall, we voted for it in 2008 and also sent a message. Which should still be a message louder and clearer than what one state and a sliver of voters at that said. The Democrat didn't lose 100 to nothing. And it was only one state. We voted for President Obama in 2008 and we're still looking for our message to be heeded. Why don't the Republican scoundrels care about our message, if they care so much about what messages the voters supposedly are sending?

The actual truth, of course, is that the Republicans don't care about us whatsoever. They showed that through eight years of corruption in the Bush years. And they've showed it this last year in their cynical obstructionism. I wouldn't vote for a Republican at this point if they were the only choice. I think they are criminals, crooks, and scoundrels. And I don't see a flicker of difference between the various ones. Who would we get? The biggest idiot in the world, Sarah Palin? That's a revolting thought.

President Obama said he'd rather be a really good president with one term than a mediocre president with two. Whatever, good or mediocre, he needs two terms. If for no other reason than the Republicans would be 50 times worse.

Obama, Jobs, A New Direction Forward, Etc.

I like the signs I'm starting to see, that President Obama is going to get a grip on the Democrats' 2010 electoral fortunes and try to steer us away from the whirlpool of defeat. That's good.

Also he's going to be emphasizing jobs, which is what we need. We also needed health care, so hopefully that's not exactly toast. I sincerely hope he has a better ability to fight for jobs than he did for health care. Because if health care is an example of his ability to get something done, you may as well sign up for unemployment now.

The last year, in my opinion, has been crap. Of course we had the stimulus and it saved or created, they say, millions of jobs. That's good. And had the Republicans had their way, recall, they would've done nothing. So that would've been very bad.

But it was the whole health care thing that made the year crap. He needed to get in there and knock some heads and bust some kneecaps but he didn't do it. And so what happened? The special interests in charge of Congress steered the whole issue straight into the ditch. And our Congress-idiots want us to think they were looking out for our interests. Right, we're completely stupid.

Who was most culpable? The Democrats did a very poor job. But it is the Republicans who did the worst job, since they chose the path of civic vandalism. At least there were Democrats among the rest who had something of the public interest at heart. Among the Republicans there wasn't even one. And that's unforgivable.

Get to work, President Obama. Quit talking about what a "tizzy" we're all in and get something done. I hate hearing that folksy crap he says in speeches. I like him a lot, but it's time to dump the folksy "tizzy" stuff and get something done!

Non Stop Striptease With The Beatles

This is a picture from a video on YouTube.

I think I've seen most Beatles pictures, but I don't remember seeing this one.

It's interesting that there's a sign for "Non Stop Striptease" in the background.

As to the Beatles, they look great in the photo.

The video is for the song "Lovely Rita," and has a series of various Beatles pictures.

Crackling, Weird Night

It's a crackling, weird night in the land that I live. Following a crackling, weird day.

What's all the crackling from? The trees were coated with ice in the last few days, then with slightly warmer temperatures today and some wind, the ice is crashing down. But when it's just swaying up there it's making a crackling noise, as it all breaks and snaps.

So there's twigs and some limbs everywhere. It's terrifying for a dog when I take the dog out, because she doesn't know about the source of the problem. It's kind of scary for me too, because a few of the ice nuggets, some of them good size, were landing close to me. One on the head would hurt!

I went somewhere in the car a while ago, and I went under some trees on one particular street, and I got a crash of a nice size ice piece hitting the windshield. Maybe it wasn't so huge, but when it hits you going 25 to 30 mph, it makes a noise.

I wish it would warm up and do some melting. Otherwise the ice (on the sidewalks and streets) is just going to stay. What a mess.

The Most Common Passwords

I read an article sometime recently, maybe this morning or yesterday, and I think it was at the NY Times, on the most common passwords.

Without looking at the article, it seems that "123456" is one of the most common passwords, accounting for about 5% of all passwords (or some staggering figure). I don't think they mentioned "abcdefg" as one, but I'd think that'd have to be a natural series for the lazy password maker.

Maybe if you mixed them up, like "a1b2c3d4," etc., you could come up with something tough to guess. You could be even tricker and go down, with the number for the "a" being the original number for the "d" or "e," and so forth, like "a5b4c3d2e1." That'd be a tough one to guess if it wasn't a recognizable series.

It also said that "password" is a common password. That's very lazy. I won't say what mine are or the sequences, etc., except some of them are trickier than that. I have a few that are "easy," but still not as easy as that.

The big problem with passwords is remembering what they are. Sometimes I need to hire a hacker just to figure out what my password is!

January 20

Wow, it's been a whole year since Inauguration Day!

I remember how long it seemed from Election Day 2008 to January 20, 2009. We had that infernal, terrible George W. Bush in there. And one day was like an eternity with him.

I see President Obama put Bush in charge of something to do with Haiti. So of course there's no hope now.

But now we've got a whole year since those dark days of the Bush administration. And as it turns out, it hasn't been easy or all that positive.

I still think President Obama is doing a reasonably good job. I just don't think he fights very well. He seems to be a creampuff who doesn't mind getting his butt kicked on a daily basis. But hey, maybe he'll wise up now that we've lost the Senate seat in Massachusetts (of all places).

But even if he doesn't wise up, he's still not George W. Bush. And for that, he deserves our highest praise.

Postmortem From Massachusetts

The final final final results aren't in from Massachusetts yet. But the trends are such that it seems like Brown probably will win.

If I wake up and see a picture of Coakley smiling, holding a newspaper, "Brown Defeats Coakley," and it's like Truman, that'll be OK with me. But ... alas, it doesn't look like it is to be.

Which takes away our insurmountable 60 vote majority in the Senate. (Yeah, right.) The whole 60 vote thing was a joke anyway, when we had turncoats, traitors, and ne'er-do-wells in the caucus.

The Republicans will take a lot of joy in this, which of course they should. As for exactly what happened, I'll leave that to everyone else. But it seems to me, if the Democrats had stepped up earlier on health care and got the SOB done, they would've had something to campaign on, instead of just responding to tea party anger, etc. But no, they couldn't do that. Everyone had to be president! Everyone needed his or her cut.

So the postmortem is such that -- if we don't want to see it repeated in November -- we (they, our idiots in Congress) need to get their heads out of their collective rectum and get something done for the people.

By the way, we still need jobs out here. Are you listening, Democrats? Is Massachusetts a loud enough wake-up call for you? It's Massachusetts, for crying out loud, not Utah!

UPDATE: The T-shirt in the ad says: I'M TRYING TO SEE THINGS FROM YOUR POINT OF VIEW BUT IT IS HARD FOR ME TO STICK MY HEAD THAT FAR UP MY ASS. A fitting message for our Democrats in Congress. And the White House needs to take notice too.

Massachusetts Tomorrow

It's crappy to have a nailbiter in Massachusetts, of all places. What in the world?

And don't tell me people don't want health care reform. We voted on that in 2008 -- it was a centerpiece of the campaign. We knew what was being promised.

Anyway, who screwed things up in Massachusetts. The Kennedys had a lifetime lease on that Senate seat, so you'd think the Democrat would be a shoo-in.

Remember, Massachusetts, six years is a long time. Six long years. With an obstructionist Republican. Wow, to me it's a no-brainer. The Republican is a guaranteed evil guy.

Spooky Tears

Strange but true.

I have some records on my desk (45 rpm), recording some of them to MP3 files.

Then I went and made a cup of tea and brought it to my desk. Then I pulled the teabag out and set it aside. In the process there must have been a drop splashed. Five minutes later I looked over and there was a drop of tea on one of the records' labels.

What's the strange part? The record is called "Tears of Sorrow" by Nino Tempo & April Stevens.

Very spooky tears!

Health Care and Massachusetts

So now health care is supposedly hanging by a thread, depending on how the special election for senator turns out in Massachusetts, of all places.

Teddy Kennedy's old Senate seat is threatened by a Republican, who apparently is ahead in polls. And just like that, health care could down the tubes, because of one Republican. That's shameful.

Our congressional idiots should've had this SOB done last year, but no, they dilly-dallied around. Everyone had to be president for the day. Everyone had to be in the pocket of one interest or another. They couldn't just put the public good at the front of the line for once.

So now we come to this.

Hopefully the Democrats will maintain power. But if they do, how about doing good with it and getting something useful done, instead of throwing it down the drain?

Idiots.