I am not smiling with Sarah.

I am out of my element, so posting has been hard for me. I traveled over the holiday weekend, and, as I expected, the experience was quite pleasant. The TSA folks couldn't have been nicer.

Anyway, I haven't been watching too much news, but it looks like this Korean conflict is heating up. Still, as this crisis continues to escalate, I am sure that many of you are thankful that Sarah Palin is not next in line to hold the most powerful position in the world. I hate to beat a dead...OK, that's a lie, I actually enjoy beating up on Sarah, but can you imagine her calling Kim Jong il and telling him not to worry because A-merry-ca has his back? Don't laugh. I really believe that she does think he is a friend. But that's what I believe. Even if you agree with Mitchell Bard who wrote a great article for the Huffington Post, (excerpt below) you have to acknowledge how dangerous Sarah Palin truly is.

I know that folks on the right and all of her fans are going to call it a simple slip of the tongue, but this latest verbal faux pas goes to much deeper issues with Sarah.

"The real story, though, isn't that Palin said "North" instead of "South." Let's be honest: Vice President Joe Biden could have just as easily blown a line like that.

No, the real story is that Palin was discussing a complex, precarious, highly dangerous issue as if she were an expert, even though she clearly isn't.

Does anyone outside of Palin's relatively small group of smitten followers honestly believe that she is competent to act as an expert on Korean policy? That she knows the intricacies and risks of engaging with the North Koreans? That she understands the possible leadership struggle going on there? Do you think she has the first clue about the history of Korea over the last century? Do you think she's ever heard of Syngman Rhee, the Bodo League massacre, the Battle of Inchon, or National Security Council Report 68, or that she knows about the decades of Japanese rule in Korea? Do you think she's ever read about the role the propaganda efforts of the post-Stalin Soviet government played in the eventual armistice that ended the fighting?" [Article]


Of course we don't, and there in lies the problem: She is a intellectual lightweight who has been elevated to a status by her followers that she cannot live up to. And,of course, she knows this, she has to be aware of her limitations. But it's too late for her to come clean now. She is like a grifter who is too deep into the con to reveal her true self.


Let' s hope that the con doesn't last until November, 2012.

Tuesday in A-merry-ca!

Poor Velma Hart. I know she was tired of defending Obama, so now, at least, maybe the poor lady can finally get some well deserved rest. It Seems that she has been laid off from her veteran services gig. Bummer.

Watch out Obama, if you run against my girl Sarah in 2012 you better check those voting machines. It seems that the Palins are making a dry run. Seriously, Dancing With The Stars? Watch, A-merry-cans will be all glued to the finals when the North Koreans decide to strike us.

This stuff in the Korean Peninsula is getting serious. I sure hope that the funny looking little man with the f*&^%d up haircut and ugly suits doesn't have any nukes. But I digress. Back to the 2012 election: "O" I think Sarah is rounding up her grass roots supporters. You might want to consider doing the same.

Hey, I thought that you folks in the Naaath were supposed to be the enlightened ones? (h/t to Ebony for this article)

"A party for black Harvard and Yale alums at a Boston club this weekend was shut down just after 11pm. Why? The club owner was concerned that a long line of black people outside would make the club look bad.

A group of recent graduates had sold tickets in advance for a party at a new Boston club, Cure, to follow Saturday's Harvard-Yale game. By 10:30pm, though, club management freaked out and claimed it had seen "local gang bangers" around, despite the strict guest-list policy implemented by organizers. At first they demanded that guests show student ID — not exactly practical given the fact that it was a party aimed at alums — and then eventually shut down the entire club.

"We were perceived as a threat because of our skin color," wrote one organizer, Michael Beal, in the email below. "I am further dismayed that after having spent the last few hours with the club owner, I do not believe him to be a racist; which only adds to my consternation around what this event says about race relations in our country."

It echoed a firestorm three years ago, on the other side of the Charles River. In May 2007, called by other students, Harvard University Police asked students at a gathering of black Harvard student organizations on a campus green to show ID. That sparked an independent review and a police restructuring. [Source]

Haaavaaad!? Noooo! You mean my man R won't even leave the edu-macated Negroes alone?
Damn! Maybe Skippy Gates was on to something.

Finally, I think the republic will survive the evil TSA men and women:

"ATLANTA – Despite tough talk on the Internet, there was little if any indication of a passenger revolt at many major U.S. airports, with very few people declining the X-ray scan that can peer through their clothes. Those who refuse the machines are subject to a pat-down search that includes the crotch and chest.

Many travelers said that the scans and the pat-down were not much of an inconvenience, and that the stepped-up measures made them feel safer and were, in any case, unavoidable.

"Whatever keeps the country safe, I just don't have a problem with," Leah Martin, 50, of Houston, said as she waited Monday to go through security at the Atlanta airport.

At New York's LaGuardia Airport early Tuesday, Jeannine St. Amand got a pat-down in front of her husband and two children. The 45-year-old from Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, figured she got one because the underwire of her bra tripped the metal detector.

"It's hard to remember all the restrictions. Next time, I'll wear a different bra," she said.

She opted to have the pat-down in public rather than private and said it was professional and done by a female agent." [Article]

Yes, but Ms. St. Amand, you are Canadian, you don't understand privacy.

"These are the times that try men's souls"

I haven't taken a close look at his O ness lately, but I suspect that he has a lot more gray hairs on his head, and those lines in his face are getting deeper. Being a president of these divided states will do that to you. I wonder if he knew what he was getting himself into?

The glitz and glory of his historic achievement has worn off, and now all the problems that comes with being the most powerful man on earth are front and center on his doorstep.

Pick one: Ecological disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Two wars raging against....hell I don't even know who we are fighting. I guess it's al Qaeda. The North and South Koreans are about to throw down. The Iranians are about to go radioactive. The Middle East, once again, is a powder keg of volatility. Here at home the Dow is tanking, (I think it dropped below 9,000.00 on Friday)the unemployment numbers aren't moving, and the right wingnuts are having fifties flash backs. And now, to add insult to injury, it looks like some of his loyal constituents on the left are abandoning him.

" Bemoaning Obama's passivity after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the director Spike Lee thundered: "He's very calm, cool, collected. But, one time, go off! If there's any one time to go off, this is it, because this is a disaster."

This is the same Spike Lee who once described Obama's election as a "seismic" change that represented "a better day not only for the United States but for the world".
The ladies of The View, the liberal-dominated morning talk show moderated by Whoopi Goldberg, spent a lot of time last week sympathising with Mrs Obama about how difficult it must be to argue with a husband who never shows any fire or emotion.

Even the liberal chattering classes are deserting Obama. Maureen Dowd of the New York Times jeered that his "Yes we can" slogan had been downgraded to "Will we ever?", while fellow columnist Frank Rich blasted his "recurrent tardiness in defining exactly what he wants done".

Now, to be fair, those quotes were from the conservative British Newspaper, The Telegraph . But there is something to what that author is saying in his article. The natives are getting restless. O is no longer getting the benefit of the doubt-- but this is what happens when you follow the frat boy into the batters box.

Having said all of that; is there a sane person in A-merry-ca who doesn't remember how cozy the frat boy and his side kick were with the oil industry? Remember all those meetings? As we watch images of those dead birds, let's not forget how we got here. Yes, his O ness is a little slow on the take with this mess, but there wouldn't have been any mess with a little more regulation. But you know how the big business folks are, always trying to save a buck. And if they can get the government to be complicit with them, all the better. But I seriously digress, back to O.

So as he looks forward to 2012, I wonder if his O ness will want to put himself through this? He has already secured his legacy in A-merry-can history, and he can ride off into the sunset and make millions speaking and writing books while he watches his two beautiful daughters grow up.

I am asking the question, but I already know the answer: he will run.

I know one thing, if it wasn't for black folks and other minorities he would be toast. Folks in the majority population are running away from him faster that Usain Bolt. Some will come back by election time, and some won't. It will be interesting to see if it will be enough to get him over the top again, and if he can catch lightening in a bottle one more time. Sadly, if he keeps getting the kind of advice that he has been from his inner circle, it won't be.

"The young Texans who seemed genetically incapable of viewing any criticism of George W Bush as less than treason may have gone but a similar cult has replaced them. The Obamatrons who now populate Washington have iPads under their arms and greet each other with fist bumps. Earnest, geeky types, they look upon anyone who does not worship Obama with pity – such a being must be too stupid or bigoted to know better.

Obama has never been wracked by self-doubt and he is unusually self-contained for a politician. He seems not to need people or reassurance. In office, this is dangerous – he sometimes seems to be living in a cocoon."

I think I have heard that before. But the last guy in the "cocoon" actually enjoyed being in there, and, sadly, this is the result.