Saturday, November 22, 2008
Congratulations to Senator Barack Obama for being elected the next President of the United States by the American people. As the first post-racial presidential candidate, he received more than 90 percent of the votes cast by the voting black population -- or were those votes cast for the first black presidential candidate?
He's decided to not participate in the post-election Congress, and resigned his Senate seat (with less than two weeks notice) with an effective date of immediately before the session was to convene. It seems he has more important things to do than to demonstrate leadership and bipartisanship in the drafting of legislation that was deemed by his colleagues to be so important that this session had to be convened.
There were, of course, immediate calls that his former Senate seat should now go by default to a black, or a Hispanic, or a woman (or I suppose a maximum combination of all three), since it was held by a black -- or post-racial -- occupant. That apparently now makes it a "legacy" seat. Question: does that now make the presidency a permanent "legacy" position?
Whoever is selected, wouldn't it be great if all of the people of Illinois were once again actually represented in the Senate by somebody other than an occupant who spent his entire short career planning and running for president?
Monday, November 10, 2008
From the Department of Ironic Inconsistencies: The communist nation of the People's Democratic Republic of China is experiencing a slowing of growth in its economy from 9% annually to 7%. Their solution? Lower taxes to spur growth! In other words, let the people keep more of their earnings to spend and invest the way they perceive best for themselves, and the economy will expand and grow. The quasi-capitalist nation of the United States of America is experiencing the beginnings of negative growth of its economy. Their proposed solution? Raise taxes to spur growth! In other words, take more money from the people who work and produce, which expands the economy, and distribute it to where it will produce the most votes to retain the spenders in office -- or put another way: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need!
