It's Been Such a Long Time . . . It's Been Such a Very Long Time

Quite a while since the last post. Well over a month. Much has happened.

Barack Obama is of course the presumptive Democratic nominee for President. I believe he will win. McCain has a good record of service but he feels old and tired. His moment was 2000, not 2008. Obama is putting out a message of "change" which, even tho it's not actually defined very well, is bringing people into his camp. And since he is relatively young and not fully assimilated by the Washington political culture, he may be able to deliver. We'll see in November.

Oil prices have skyrocketed. The economy, already battered by the housing industry implosion, is looking like it's headed towards a recession. President Bush announced the opening of formerly-restricted areas to oil drilling and that's having a somewhat calming effect on prices, at least for the moment. Realistically, the only long-term fix to this problem is to move off of the oil standard entirely. There are measures that can be taken, and we're seeing some stuff already happening as the market adjusts itself. The big American car manufacturers are scaling back or ceasing production of oversized, inefficient vehicles like SUVs and there are plans for more hybrids. Small cars are coming into demand again as short-sighted American consumers finally have reason to think about fuel efficiency. At least one manufacturer has announced a hydrogen-powered car for near-future production.

Of course, the more government interferes with the market, the worse things will get. One has only to look at the ethanol subisdy business to see how easily good intentions can fall victim to the Law of Unintended Consequences.

The situation in Iraq continues to improve. Only the most foaming-at-the-mouth of the reality-impaired can now deny the success of the "surge" strategy. Afghanistan, meanwhile, is not going so well. Too many resources being directed to the Iraqi theater means not enough is being done in Afghanistan. Still, the situation remains controllable. One hopes that the next President doesn't suffer an attack of extreme foolishness leading to a precipitous action like a sudden withdrawal from Iraq before things are sufficiently stable.

The recent Heller decision by the Supreme Court, altho flawed, nevertheless established the Second Amendment as an individual right. Of course, this was patently obvious to anyone with more than a sixth-grade command of the english language all along, but it's nice to have it made official. The DC government, as is the habit of entrenched liberals, is trying its best to ignore or circumvent the court's decision. I forsee several more legal challenges to DC's grossly unconstitutional gun laws in the near future. Meanwhile, it seems likely that several other cities with such rubbish on their books will also see their attempts to trample the rights of their citizens challenged on the basis of Heller.

The FISA legislation was passed by Congress. This of course is damaging to our freedoms, being yet another short-sighted attempt to provide security at the cost of essential liberties, and we all know the famous quote regarding such things. I believe it's time to show Congress that We The People aren't going to tolerate their nonsense any longer and vote the lot of them out of office. However, I have no realistic expectation that this will happen. There are too many knee-jerk voters out there who would vote for Satan so long as old Scratch had the right letter in front of his name. And everyone always seems to think that, altho Congress is doing a poor job, their own guy is just fine and they keep sending him back.

No profound insights this time, I'm afraid. Just some random thoughts and observations.

Time Passages

Yes, now it's December and I still haven't posted anything.

When I started this blog, it was because I was dismayed at the hate and anger seen in blogs on the fringes of the political spectrum and wanted to provide some kind of counterbalance. A cool voice of moderation from the middle. And yet, since I began my modest little effort, it's become clear that what I considered the fringes are actually the dominant voices in the political blogosphere. Access to a pulpit has enabled the lunatics to take over the asylum, as it were. You can watch both sides spin up over each story that comes along, one blog feeding back into another, into another, into another in a self-reinforcing cycle of apoplexy. Lost in the madness is any semblance of reality. Everything is pushed to its absurd extreme.

What's a lone voice of restraint in the midst of all that cacaphony?

The silly season is hard upon us, gentle reader. Both major political parties are trying to sort out their presidential candidates. It's almost like watching American Idol . . . you've got the ones who have a decent shot at the office, the ones who aren't quite ready, and then the hopeless dreamers. We're missing only a political Simon, Paula and Randy to sort the wheat from the chaff. I guess that's the role of the voters, but we'll see. We're watching a crop of mediocrity bloom in a field where we desperately need a harvest of greatness. I mean, really, are Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney the best we can do?

Iraq continues to make slow progress. Things are improving with the change in strategy and the surge. You have to watch this one extremely carefully to see what's actually going on, what with the spin on every event being completely off the dial, but if you pay attention you can see it happening. As I've said before, patience is the key to success.

Afghanistan, meanwhile, remains a battlefield no-one not directly involved with seems to be looking at. Progress there is slower than it should be, with Iraq distracting us from making a better effort.

Our President convinces me more every day that he's hopeless. Run out of steam. Lacking in "the vision thing." Fortunately, he's about done. It seems like he was trying to blow Iran up into some kind of crisis, but no-one is having it. Despite what you'll read in the left-leaning blogs, there's no attack on Iran coming any time soon, and that was true even before that inexplicable National Intelligence Estimate magically found Iran to be lacking in credible nuclear menace. I worry about that one . . . it's almost as if the intelligence community is overbalancing too far in the opposite direction after the Iraqi WMD debacle. I fear the price for seeing Iran in such a nonthreatening light is going to be a mushroom cloud over Tel Aviv.

I've wanted to write about all this stuff, to post my thoughts. But the motivation to actually sit here and do it, that's been hard to come by. So much stuff going on in my real life, what with renovating a house and a trip to Europe and work and everything. Blogging comes low on the priority list. This is because I, unlike some, do not view everything thru the lens of politics and I don't interpret each setback to my particular set of beliefs as The End Of The World As We Know It. I know that it's all on a pendulum. A swing one way is eventually balanced by a swing back the other, as the great levers of society pivot on their fulcrum.