Posted on 07/02/2010 9:25:45 PM PDT by smokingfrog
I can't wait for Barack Obama's second term.
Oh I know, 2013 is a long time from now and it would be nice to have decisive leadership to help deal with the odd double dip recession, Iranian nuclear threat, massive fiscal imbalance, remaking of the world order, that sort of thing.
But honestly, I just don't expect it. It is clear from events of the past few weeks that while it's July in most of America, it's already November in Washington. Every decision is cast in the context of the mid-term elections. No risk is too small to sidestep. No decision is too trivial to triangulate.
Getting reports of growing unemployment rolls? Compounding them with signs of sluggish growth and appalling developments in the housing market? A time for action? You might think so. But instead this president and this Congress hem and haw and propose effectively nothing. It's not just the Republicans blocking with appalling callousness the extension of unemployment benefits (while also fighting hard to ensure that big banks don't have too much of a tax burden). It's that the Democratic leadership is content to let the Republicans beat back the bill figuring they can use it against them in the election.
Lost in all this? Oh, right, the 9.5 percent of Americans who are "officially" unemployed not to mention the almost equally large number who don't make it into government statistics.
Is the reason for this fear of the exploding budget deficit? While one can debate the merits of government intervention vs. battling that deficit, we know the president and his team are not letting the economically disenfranchised suffer purely for reasons of economic orthodoxy.
(Excerpt) Read more at rothkopf.foreignpolicy.com ...
good to see you up and posting like your ole ornery self, Jeff.
If there's any justice left in this world, his second term will be in Leavenworth.
“Liberalism is an infirmity that gives psychotics identity”
“Liberalism is an infirmity that gives psychotics identity”
LOL to that too. All too true.
Articles that explain how modern liberals suffer from a mental disorder.
It's not just a joke, it's science!
If you ever get a chance to see the drafts of published novels, you will realize that writers are some of the worst spellers around. It sounds like a goofy thing to assert, but I can't get over the rotten grammar I've seen in the drafts of popular and great writers.
Amen.
Wow!
We’re living in a parallel universe.
I was hired as a proofreader for a local branch of a huge publishing house right after high school [but I can’t recall the name] and a week before I was to start, they moved the branch to another state.
I was *really* good at spotting errors and now I always have to restrain myself from posting a “spelling/grammar lame” during a FR flame war.
[I’m usually able to control it...but not always]...;]
As I get older, I'm actually getting better. i did a spellcheck on a piece today, and there was only one error in 15 pages. So maybe I'm just a slow learner. p>As a favor for someone I know I did a check on his senior final project and almost slit my wrists. Pygmies have better command of the English language.
Think of your brain as a raging bee hive.....
We are just typing our thoughts.
Not taking a grammar test.
But i see what you are getting at.
Today’s “Children” neither know how to spell or write.
It is really pretty much over.
OVER.
I read the comments section of my local paper and just drop my head in sorrow.
You forgot to close your paragraph bracket.
“p>”
/giggling and running like hell
Seriously, I do understand what you mean.
I think it’s because when *we* read what we’ve written, we see it as we “thought it” and are blind to the actual printed words.
It’s easy to be dispassionate yet critically vigilant about something someone else has written.
[and really, most people just skip over typos unless they’re unintentionally hysterically funny ones]....:)
That's a great point. Yesterday I had to rewrite something, and as soon as I started rereading it I thought, "Oh, this is fine, what the hell." I was about to leave it as it was, but then I really looked what I'd written and saw flaws. Up to that point, just reading the opening words put me in the mindset I was in when I'd first written it, and of course I KNEW what I meant...
It seems silly to have to remind myself, but sometimes you get lazy.
When I come here, I just type what I think at the moment. I spend enough time during the day being careful, I come here to relax.
That's not the case with people who don't write for money, which may explain why some (not all) folks like me are careless when you'd think we would be perfectionists. I agonize over a few words for an hour offline, so when I'm relaxing, I just let 'er rip, and I don't think it's that big a deal.
I know.
That’s why I keep my mouth shut, so to speak.
[and Lord knows I’m the queen of omitted words!]...:))
What annoys *me* is when I pay good money for an instructional book [art, computers, Photoshop and the like] and find error after error on every page.
I pay $40 [often much more] for something and nobody could bother to take the time to proofread it?
I hate to sound like my mother...but...kids today?
I haven’t a clue what they’re saying.
It all sounds like “text speak” to me.
I actually heard one girl say to another in the mall “LOL”.
Now we acronym instead of giggling?
You leave DW alone, you spelling bully!
He smells?
Oh, wait...
(Maybe it's not my fingers that are the problem...) :P
I like to “let her rip” too, but tonight I just don’t seem to have consumed enough protein.
When you’re “in the zone”, a kind of madness comes over you.
It’s the same with art.
After 5 years, I *just* noticed that a painting I did, with the sun setting through a Gothic arch had the moon *also* hanging ~above~ the arch.
This is astronomically impossible but when I did it, I thought it was sublime.
Thankfully, no one else has ever noticed it but now it’s driving ~me~ crazy every time I look at it.
[and it’s under 10 layers of clear coat urethane so I can’t “erase” it...dammit]
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