Winger Wonders

Better than ugly and elitist

2008-10-01T05:26:00.003-05:00

The man who will be announcing the winner of this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature within the next two weeks has seemingly indicated that the choice is unlikely to fall to an American writer.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Horace Engdahl, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, says the United States is too insular and ignorant to compete with Europe when it comes to great writing.

Yes, a nation of immigrants, ranging from the icy frontier of Alaska to tropical paradise to the wide open west to New England to Hollywood--from rural expanse to clustered urban centers to green suburbs--a nation that moreso than any other sustains communities transplanted from every corner of the world, from church to mosque to synagogue--a nation that makes best-sellers out of authors from around the globe, from Salmon Rushdie to J.K. Rowling, from Milan Kundera to Terry Pratchett--is "too insular and ignorant".

Perhaps our ignorance is manifested by our lack of interest in anything written by Engdahl.

Don't know much about geography

2008-09-30T03:55:00.004-05:00

I've noticed a particular criticism popping up here and there among the rantings of those poor souls in the grip of advanced Palin Derangement Syndrome: that's she's the governor of a "small state".

Small state? Alaska?

For those of you who didn't make it through the third grade, Alaska has the distinction of being the largest state in the union.

I know, I know. They're talking about Alaska's sparse population, of course:

Alaska is still the 47th most populous state, and is larger than North Dakota, Vermont, the District of Columbia and Wyoming.

So when Democrats and the press say that Palin is unqualified for VP because she is governor of a "small state", wouldn't it be fair to ask how then they justified supporting Howard Dean for president when he was the governor of an even smaller state?

Bipartisanship!

2008-09-29T17:53:00.003-05:00

The bailout bill has been defeated. And it failed in a bipartisan manner: Democrats, realizing that Republicans weren't going to give them the political cover they needed, fled.

Nancy Pelosi said she needed a bipartisan bill. She knew her Democrats wanted cover. It was in her interest and her frightened sheep to woo Republicans. In a bipartisan manner. But look how she promotes bipartisanship on the house floor:

PELOSI: When was the last time anyone ever asked you for $700 billion?

It’s a staggering figure and many questions have arisen from that request. And we have been hearing a very informed debate on all sides of this issue here today. I’m proud of the debate.

$700 billion. A staggering number, but only a part of the cost of the failed Bush economic policies to our country. Policies that were built on budget recklessness when Pres. Bush took office, he inherited Pres. Clinton’s surpluses - four years in a row budget surpluses on a trajectory of $5.6 trillion in surplus. And with his reckless economic policies, within two years, he had turned it around. And now 8 years later, the foundation of that fiscal irresponsibility, combined with an “anything goes” economic policy, has taken us to where we are today.

They claim to be free-market advocates, when it’s really an anything goes mentality. No regulation, no supervision, no discipline. And if you fail, you will have a golden parachute and the taxpayer will bail you out.

Those days are over. The party is over in that respect.

Democrats believe in a free market. We know that it can create jobs, it can create wealth, many good things in our economy. But in this case, in this unbridled form, as encouraged and supported by the Republicans — some Republicans, not all — it has created not jobs, not capital, it has created chaos. And it is that chaos that the Secretary of the Treasury and the Chairman of the Fed came to see us, just about a week and a half ago. It seems like an eternity, doesn’t it? So much has happened. The news was so bad. They described a very dismal situation.

Put aside, for the moment, the veracity of her claims, the opportunistic finger-pointing, and evasion of her own party's culpability.

Was she drunk? High? Apparently her partisanship is so deeply ingrained that she thinks she can plead for a group of people to vote with her in the spirit of "bipartisanship", then tear into them with a hateful, one-sided diatribe before they actually cast their votes.

Some are speculating that this speech contributed to defeating today's bailout. I don't know, and I don't care; in any case, it proves that Pelosi is an idiot. She doesn't seem to even understand what the role of house speaker is. Since her ascension, she has behaved as if she is too drunk with power to know what she's supposed to be doing with it.

Worse, it makes me wonder if Democrats even understand or care to understand what bipartisanship means, especially since Barry once used it as a campaign pledge. I notice that he doesn't, anymore. Did anybody ever really believe him?

Housing Whodunit

2008-09-29T11:30:00.001-05:00

The new Winger Wonders blog

2008-09-29T03:42:00.002-05:00

I hereby claim this blog for the United States of America. [plants a little flag smack dab in the middle of the URL]

I've been wanting to restart the comics here for some time, but the condition of my eyes, among other things, has slowed me down. So for now, I hope you will indulge me as a writer. I'm really quite good! At least, that's what I keep trying to tell myself.