Palin has no clue. About basketball or politics. If you aren't willing to mix it up in the paint with the big guys and step up your game, its over.

I think she very much wanted to play on her terms. When that didn't work out she said screw this. Alaska is a very small stage in relative terms. Stepping onto the national stage and getting pretty well battered around could easily sour anybody's love of the game. Only very special people have what it takes to play at that level.

I caught this piece today and the headline portrays the idea that persons who are unemployed somehow bear responsibility for slowing the recovery. Maybe I have taken it wrong but the way it is expressed coveyed this to me. I waited a while to post this, looking at it a number of times and still came up with the same sense.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31709420/ns/business-eye_on_the_economy/

This speaks for itself. It bums me out to write about it so I'll just post this and hope people read it.

http://www.alternet.org/world/141047/%27there_is_no_way_i_will_deploy_to_afghanistan%27_--_seeds_of_dissent_in_the_u.s._military_are_growing/

I am not sure if I am in favor of this or not. At best I'd have to say I am ambivalent. I did several tours in SEA during the Vietnam period so I have some idea of what this is about.

http://www.alternet.org/world/141047/%27there_is_no_way_i_will_deploy_to_afghanistan%27_--_seeds_of_dissent_in_the_u.s._military_are_growing/

Our men and women in arms are among the bravest of Americans and I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise that where our own country isn't acting in our best interests they would be the first to step up. After all they have sworn to protect us from without and from within. This tells us that people are rethinking the direction where the prior administration took us and are recognizing the flaw and perhaps uselesness of our foreign adventures. The use of force is only useful where you explicitly define the mission and can be sure of the outcome. This is especially true for tactical warfare such as we are engaged in. Afghanistan may have been viewed as strategic in the beginning but has undoubetdly become a tactical mission.

Read here to get still another presentation of how abusively corporate Amercia wields its power over our government and citizens.

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/141031/chamber_of_commerce_launches_%24100_million_campaign_to_protect_wall_street%27s_power_at_our_expense/

If ever congress was in a position to reduce the power and thus the ability of corporations to harm America right now is it. This is a desperately needed action. Relative to the harm that has been wrought upon this nation by corporate America there can be little doubt they are enemies of democracy. As enemies go they are completely vulnerable right now and congress needs to take advantage of that vulnerability. To pass up this chance is lunacy.

 

This is right out of the twilight zone.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3683270/ns/business-stocks_and_economy/

It refers to an UNEXPECTED decline in consumer confidence.

Wall Street prognosticators are dumbasses in the same realm with all the dumbasses who have so mismanaged the nations economy.

Jobs in the toilet, wages declining, costs for everything going up and a congress that can't grab its ass with both hands and these people somehow think we should be confident.

I don't want these stupid bastards having anything to do with our elected officials. Our elected officials are already challenged enough without risking the stupidity of Wall Street rubbing off on them.

 

Democratic excuseniks in congress saying we don't have the votes are a bunch of cowards who just roll over and raise the white flag. Having and keeping a nation free is hard work and takes dedication and commitment.

Democrats are relying on a few members of the caucus and upon Obama who is hedging on this, to trash what the American people have clearly stated they want.

What the democratic caucus really wants is money. Lots of it.

Wiithout hesitation democrats and congress are willing to promote an increasingly and very obviously corrupt system of governance.

No matter what issue is under consideration, what citizens have indicated they want or what is obviously required or practical, congress very reliably chooses the money.

The bottom line is any and all of our elected offiicials have proven themselves liars and criminals over and over. The openly and obviously corrupt system of governance which repeatedly harms citizens has got to stop.

It could not be more clear that democracy is at serious risk. The choices this congress makes on health care, finance, energy and a host of other important issues will define global democracy for a long time to come. The current political makeup of our government will never be more conducive to saving democracy than it is right now. If our elected officials take a pass on this opportunity, global democracy is done. No matter what they say from here on out the chances of reversing their error are nil. The threads of corruption will have been woven so tightly into the fabric of our society that the only alternative for undoing it will be to burn it to the ground.

I know this for sure. Until somebody can show me a birth certificate indicating a time and place of birth that is in this country then all the assholes who say corporations are citizens are full of shit.

After months of digging through all the Madoff mess, $5.1B turns up that can't readily be accounted for. I am getting the distinct feeling that a lot goes on in the world of finance that is more than a little screwed up in multiple ways. I'd be willing to bet and give astronomical odds that there exists fraud beyond anyone's imagination throughout the world of finance.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31510209/ns/business-small_business/