CDATA

The United States Senate is stalled. A minority of Senators threatens to filibuster. Legislation is killed.

I am old enough to remember when filibusters actually required filibustering. That is, when a filibuster took place, Senators had to actually show up to do it. Trudging bleary eyed, sometimes in their pajamas, they would trundle forward for a roll call so that the process could go on. But now that is a thing of the past. Today all the minority has to do is say, "filibuster," and it is as if the process had taken place,

I am reminded of the Star Trek episode, "Taste of Armageddon," where the Enterprise encounters a civilization that is at war, but instead of using real weapons, they fight using computer simulations. However, there are casualties, as each side puts those who would have been killed, had it been a real attack, into disintegration chambers.

Finally, when the Enterprise and its crew are declared "dead" in the computer simulation, Captain Kirk can stand it no longer, and with phasers, they destroy the computer, and the whole game starts to unravel.

ANAN: You realize what you have done?

KIRK: Yes, I do. I've given you back the horrors of war. The Vendikans now assume that you've broken your agreement and that you're preparing to wage real war with real weapons. They'll want do the same. Only the next attack they launch will do a lot more than count up numbers in a computer. They'll destroy cities, devastate your planet. You of course will want to retaliate. If I were you, I'd start making bombs. Yes, Councilman, you have a real war on your hands. You can either wage it with real weapons, or you might consider an alternative. Put an end to it. Make peace.

ANAN: There can be no peace. Don't you see? We've admitted it to ourselves. We're a killer species. It's instinctive. It's the same with you. Your General Order Twenty Four.

KIRK: All right. It's instinctive. But the instinct can be fought. We're human beings with the blood of a million savage years on our hands, but we can stop it. We can admit that we're killers, but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes. Knowing that we won't kill today. Contact Vendikar. I think you'll find that they're just as terrified, appalled, horrified as you are, that they'll do anything to avoid the alternative I've given you. Peace or utter destruction. It's up to you.

Today the Senate does not put people, but legislation into disintegration chambers, all in the name of a filibuster that never takes place.

At it too long, the Senators who meekly acquiesce to killing legislation in a legislative simulation have lost their nerve.

Where's Captain Kirk when you need him?

The position of the Republicans in the budget negotiations is an outrage to every responsible citizen in our republic. Let's get some facts straight:

The debt is money already spent

We owe it. For the Republicans to even threaten that America will flake on its obligations borders on treason in my book. At the very least they are taking an un-Constitutional position by trying to force our nation to skip out on its debts. See the 14th Amendment. This act alone strikes me as more than enough grounds for impeachment hearings on the lot of them.

Oh, and regarding taxing the wealthy....

Job creation is tax deductible

That's right. Every dollar that job creators invest in job creation is tax deductible now, and tax deductible even if the Bush tax cuts are repealed. It's the dollars that job creators keep for themselves that would be taxed. If they create jobs, they don't have to worry about it.

Comic: XKCD http://xkcd.com/512

Yes, Sarah Palin is still playing big in mainstream media headlines. But watch out, girl! There's a new hottie basking in the sunguns.

Christine O'Donnell.

Thank goodness for Jon Stewart!

My question is this: If Christine O'Donnell were not young and throwing out the cutes, would we be hearing so much about her?

Here we are in 2010, facing the same old crap coverage from the mainstream media. They obsess about certain candidates and then justify it by all the coverage being given. Hype-filled stenography. Blah.

Shades of Cold War Commies, the latest verbal assault and acting out remind me of the staged tantrum thrown by Nikita Khrushchev when he did not like what the United States and the rest of the West were doing.

I was young, but it is still vivid as Khrushchev disrupted the UN assembly as it tried to conduct debates. He yelled at the podium, pounded the table, and at one point took his shoe off and started to pound the table with it. There is a photo of him waving his shoe from the podium.

Indeed W. had shoes thrown at him in the Middle East.

Now to the health care debate where our elected representatives are having town meetings and .... what? Shades of Nikita.

Why have discourse when you can scream, shout, and carry on? If your side doesn't have an argument, shriek down the person who is trying to talk.

Much of the yelling is from the right wing, the very same group who today are following Khrushchev's approach to dealing with those he disagrees with. Ironic that those who abhorred the Reds then are following in their footsteps now.

Or as they say, the shoe is on the other foot.

The bankers paid themselves $18 buh-buh-buh-billion dollars.

Last night on the News Hour we heard that a talking Harvard head say that if the taxpayers did not do that, that the people who got us in this mess would leave. Promises. Promise!

Galbraith was great and said, let them leave.

Obama chided the bankers for taking the $18 billion as bonuses for their ineptitude ... I mean, performance.

We don't have to look to the pirates off the African coast any longer to see the mentality in action.

I say taking $18 billion of tax payer money is tantamount to embezzlement.