This little piece from yesterday's Altercation blog, which I read this morning, continues the coverage of Senator McCain's contention that Social Security, funded by taxing the current generation to pay for the payments to the previous generations as it always has been, is a disgrace.  I wouldn't have bothered mentioning this except that guest 'altercator' Siva Vaidhyanthan asks a very good question: where is the prominent coverage in the mainstream media?  It seems to be mysteriously absent.  What is more pathetically amusing is that this morning I wondered why our news cast featured about three minutes on minor league coach behaving badly.  Worse the minor league teams weren't even local teams.  My questions in order were:  'Aren't we lucky the idiot wasn't really insulting and drop his pants?' and 'WHY?'  As in 'why the HELL is this piece of crap on the local early morning news show?'  It isn't amusing.  There is no human interest.  And there is no local relevance.  Blast, there isn't even any national relevance.  But there is almost no coverage of Senator McCain's lack of historical awareness, lack of economic knowledge, and arrogant display of the conservative 'I've got mine and my constituents have got theirs, now F**k you" mind set.

As I went through my usual blog visits I wondered if any of them would pick up on the recent remarks of former Senator and Republican economic guru Phil Gramm.  Finally, the shakers at Shakesville got their nice sharp teeth into the matter.  I guess I have needed an attitude adjustment for all of the last 8 years.  I can't count all of the morning round-the-coffee discussions that noted the news stories of job losses/lay offs juxtaposed with never changing unemployment numbers (unless they were going down) and asked where the hell the newly unemployed were going.  Or asked what new jobs were being created at what compensation with what (if any benefits).  I guess that was really just in my head because all of the pundits, experts and other oh-so-smart people all said the economy was just peachy keen.  I wonder what was in the heads of the airplane pilots who lost their jobs or barely kept them by accepting 30+% pay cuts thought.  Was their pain simply in their heads.  Or the Enron employees who were lied to by their company executives until their pensions disappeared.  That, of course, was simply all in their heads.  But then take note of the links Shakesville notes between Gramm, his wife, and Enron.  They have made theirs, everything is fine.  It's is the rest of us that get f**ked.  After you visit Shakesville pay a call on the guys at AMERICAblog.  they have a few appropriate words for this idiocy.

 Other discussions around here often center on frugality and simplicity.  Leslie Valeska at Journey to Simplicity makes some points that parallel some of our thinking.  Saving money and simplicity can often conflict.  A couple of days ago our local news featured a woman who uses coupons to reduce her grocery bill.  And like Leslie we have found that coupon clipping doesn't really do us any good.  Often we would have to buy much larger quantities than we can easily store or use before the product goes bad.  We live in a small two-bedroom town house and don't have a lot of storage space. Even buying large quantities of non-perishables is out of the question because of the limited storage available to us. The reporter showed the woman's pantry with dozens of boxes of cereal.  However, I noticed that many of the brands were those that included high amounts of sugar, artificial flavorings and colors marketed mostly to children.  I stopped buying these kinds of cereal 20 years ago.  We used to stop buying cold cereal late in the fall when the weather turned cold and we turned to hot cereals instead.  This year we consciously decided not to buy cold cereal again.  The price was simply too high, the cereals we liked were seldom on sale and almost never featured in coupons, and we found we could do without.  We are often caught between the dilemma of trying to get the cheaper price but being unable to figure out where we can put the amount of product we would have to buy. 

I hope I didn't give anyone whiplash with that change of topic.  Sorry about the expletives today.  Unfortunately, softening the expressions would have been tantamount to a lie.  There are times when manners simply get in the way of expressing just how pissed off I am.

Yesterday I wrote that I thought Senator John Warner's attempt to re-establish a national speed limit would not be popular.  Today I found evidence of that on this site.  Generally, people want what they want NOW, they want it CHEAP, and they want NO RESTRICTIONS.  That is especially true with gasoline and vehicles.  

Entitled To Know has more on Senator McCain's notion that Social Security is a disgrace and hits hard on a problem I let go but perhaps shouldn't have.  The good Senator not only doesn't know much about economics (according to his own assessment, though he has lately tried to disown saying that) he doesn't know much about history either.  Interestingly, the second quote used in this article was featured on a news program earlier this week.  The reader noted that Senator McCain was trying to have things both ways; i.e., he claimed he didn't want to 'privatize' Social Security while describing President Bush's plan to privatize to a tee but not mentioning the word.  When I was a kid we called that 'talking out of both sides of your mouth' but I guess it would be rude for me to use that phrase for the 'straight talking' war hero candidate.  He wouldn't do such a silly thing, would he??

Some time ago I wrote that I was dubious, extremely dubious, that any of the candidates would be willing or able to bring about real change in the political system.  The question of whether any candidate, once elected, would be able to make changes should be obvious.  S/he can only propose.  Congress disposes.  The question of willingness is something else.  Shakesville contributors (see Petulant's column) have some comments on the passage of the FISA bill and noted the fact that Senator Obama voted for it.  Once again supposed security issues have trumped civil liberties and Senator Obama promises that he will carefully oversee the provisions of the FISA.  In the mean time, companies who had no legal right or obligation to provide information about their subscribers and customers get a retroactive pass.  All they need is a friendly letter from the government to the judge.  Sorry if I come across as deeply cynical and misanthropic but I think my assessment is spot on.