Solving crises in under an hour.

I have a modest proposal to solve this debt ceiling crisis.

Here's a chart from the most modern of sources, Wikipedia, showing federal spending in 2010:


I'd like to take that big blue slice that's being hogged up by the military and cut it in half, but I know that's not very realistic. First of all, a good chunk of the money is spent on paying salaries to soldiers. A very small amount is spent on paying for veterans, and you can't cut that either -- and in fact as a percentage of military spending it's so scrooge-like it wouldn't make much of a difference to the overall problem of the deficit. So let's propose to cut a modest 20% from the military's chunk of the pie. Let's do it by forcing the military to adhere to the same austerity programs we force on education.

Beyond that, let's take a look at that big orange slice of pie called "discretionary spending." I would propose to eliminate every program currently in place in one of our free-loading states. The free-loading states are the ones that hog up more federal resources than they put in. Remember, we're talking states, so DC doesn't count in that equation. However, the major drains on our economy, such as Mississippi and New Mexico, can stop feeding at the federal trough.

Mississippi and New Mexico get two dollars back from the feds for every dollar they put in. Alabama gets 1.66 back. Alaska gets 1.84 back. Most of these states who are getting fat off the feds are the same ones who routinely elect people who are the most hostile toward Washington.

They're like house guests who invite themselves over then harangue you over how poor your cooking is and how uncomfortable your beds are, but they don't ever feel like doing the cooking or cleaning the house.

Seriously, if we could take these scroungers and make them pay their own way (ah, the irony of applying conservative rhetoric to "conservative" states), we'd save a hell of a lot of money. Do you know that outside of Texas and Florida, every state in the old Confederacy -- that bastion of anti-federal government politicians -- takes more money than they give? Do you know who foots the bill? Primarily the Northeast, upper Midwest, and California.

Let's stop paying their way.

One of the great things about issuing yourself a challenge is that you can periodically review your progress or simply think a little bit about the past, present, and future.

I've challenged myself to post seventy times between Tuesday, July 26th, and December 31, 2011.

I see the high point of my blogging activity was 2006. I had 238 posts that year. That's nearly a post every weekday. The low point was 2010, where I managed a paltry 39 posts. That's fewer than one post a week.

I can see that my decline really began in the late spring of 2008. If it hadn't been for the election in the fall of 2008, I'd have struggled to distance myself from 100 posts. Outside of October and November 2008, which accounted for 56 of my posts that year, I had trouble breaking single digits for most of the year. Except for Oct and Nov, I didn't break 20 for any other single month in 2008.

The major reason for my decline, I think, is that I -- hopefully, temporarily -- moved from DC in fall of 2008. I knew I was moving in the spring of 2008, and so I had some trouble keeping my mind in the business of blogging. Although I don't write often about DC-specific topics, I have always viewed my blog as part of the DC blogosphere and linked very closely to that aspect of my life.

I'm still connected to the District. I'm still looking to return physically as well as mentally to our little inland colony.

Maybe I'm keeping this blog alive because it keeps me looking at other DC blogs.

Of course, it might also be that I'm just fed up again with all the BS the right wing and corporatist politicians are disseminating through the all-too-acquiescent media.

The always classy Glenn Beck...

Apparently not understanding just how irrelevant he is beyond the reason-addled adherents of the Tea Party and white supremacist fringes, Glenn Beck decided that the Norway killings would be a good excuse to bring up Hitler yet again.

However, it wasn't the white supremacist killer that Beck had in mind when making his comparison. No, it was the murdered children whom Beck compared to adherents of Adolf Hitler, likening them to a sort of "Hitler Youth."

Sure, it's disgusting to anyone who can think straight, and sure, Beck's idiotic ramblings eventually got him kicked off Fox News (now there's some food for thought: the home of Sean Hannity couldn't stomach the Beck hate parade...well, more accurately they couldn't stomach the falling ratings and loss of advertising revenue), but Glenn Beck still draws a significant population of under-educated voters, who are very visible reminders that the US education system has a long way to go to develop critical thinking skills in its curriculum. Unfortunately, with the high-stakes testing regime ushered in by George W. Bush and enthusiastically nurtured by Barack Obama, we are going in the opposite direction.

I just noticed...

I posted as much during the month of July as I did for the entire first six months of the year! Sure, fifteen posts from January - June wasn't exactly a hard mark to beat, but now I can set my sights even higher.

I'm looking to eclipse my 39 post total from 2010. To sweeten the pot, I'll throw in the fifteen from January to June, and the fifteen from July so far, and this post as well, so the number to beat will be 70.

Seventy posts from now until December 31, 2011.

Five months to post seventy times.

Easy as cake, some of you might say. Circa 2008 I would agree with you, but lately I've had a habit of stopping for long periods of time.

Let's see what happens.

It's hard to break old habits...

It might be Pavlovian, but then again it might be that dull simplicity that you see in cows as they move on the paths they've been shown and come to a dead halt when confronted with something new.

Here's the front page of Rupert Murdoch's Sun on Saturday, July 23, the day after the Norway killings:


Now why the hell would The Sun, Murdoch's popular British rag, print such a ridiculous headline? Probably for the same reason that the racist Right in the US immediately jumps to blame Muslims (or Latinos or unions, etc.) for tragedies. For examples of which, simply read the comments section of Washington Post articles on the killings -- preferably the articles from Friday, when no one was sure who had done it. Or maybe I should say, when no one actually knew who had done it -- because these racist yahoos were pretty damn sure they knew who had done it, just as Murdoch's tabloid was certain.

And of course, you have the "experts" called in by the various television media, such as Cliff May, the president of the "Foundation for the Defense of Democracies," which despite its nice name often aligns itself with police-state reactions to unrest and overall has a xenophobic attitude. On Bloomberg/Washington Post, May immediately responds with a list of Norway's "enemies," all of which are connected in some way to so-called Islamic interests, and after giving that some expansion, he finishes up with "it may not be any of that, of course." Why was this idiot given air time?




We really don't need the sort of "analysis" that either May or Conley provides. Anyone can sit in a chair and speculate without providing any evidence. It's called fanning the flames of ignorance.

It isn't helpful.

Couldn't stand the weather.

Who's blogging about the heat?

Yeah, I know. It's hot out there. End of story.

Closed Borders (a follow up)

Yesterday, I wrote about the demise of the Borders Books and Music chain, but I mainly concentrated on my first encounter with what became, for a brief time, a behemoth of books.

As amazed as I was by that first encounter and the idea that it was possible to go into a huge bookstore, sit down in the philosophy section, and browse around for hours without anyone bothering you, I actually tried my best to support local booksellers.

So many of those booksellers are gone. Chapters, which had been on K Street before moving to 11th Street, had tried appealing to its customers for donations of a sort and clung to life for a few years before it had to close up. They had a tremendous selection of poetry, and every April you could I believe buy two poetry collections and get one free. Plus, I saw Brock Clarke read from his first novel, The Ordinary White Boy, one winter night in Chapters.

I mentioned Vertigo Books yesterday. They were in Dupont Circle, just south of the Circle on Connecticut Avenue before relocating to College Park, MD, in 2001. In 2009, they closed for good. Great cultural studies section and interesting authors coming to speak.

How many others? Sisterspace and Books as well as Prometheus Books on U Street. Sidney Kramer Books on I Street (Sidney's son opened up Kramerbooks and Afterwards in Dupont -- still a vibrant place...mainly because of the food and hooking up opportunities).

It's true that DC hasn't been all loss; Busboys and Poets is an addition, but I don't think anyone would argue that the bookstore component could stand on its own...the wait time for a table alone provides an impetus to purchase a book or magazine so you have something to do for the next hour.