Norman Hsu: Sycophants Gone Wild

Norman Hsu may be the ultimate sycophant, chasing after politicians for admiration and respect as he forced his investors to provide contributions to politicians like Hillary Clinton, who took in approximately $850,000.

Now, I'm sure that a few thousand dollars here and there can slip under the radar, but when someone sends you close to a million dollars, and you are in a race to raise money, you will notice.

I find it highly suspect (and par for the course with the Clintons) that Hillary and her team did not notice that almost a million dollars of her budget was coming from a crazy man.  Someone contributes $5 to your $100 million campaign and you might not notice if they are wanted.  They give you $1 million before you have hit $30 million in total, and I think you should be able to pick up on it a little better. 

We are talking about a million dollars and not a free t-shirt or a North Face jacket or a bumper sticker or even a plate of food at a fund raiser.  Hillary's excuses on this one just don't smell right.

Feds: Fund-raiser Norman Hsu suckered investors for pol $

Hillary and Obama won the battle and lost the war

Last night Joseph Biden ran away with the debates in Iowa. He was the only one that even seem to show up for the debates even though there were four other people on the stage. Barack Obama didn't even make a physical appearance.

Over and over again Senator Biden stole the show. It might just be possible that his tactics of saying it like it is saying ‘it’ intelligently might pay off in the long run. The other candidates have been working and moving very early to capture attention. They seem to have won the popularity contest early, but it was a very shallow win. As the pain starts to flake off the candidates like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, candidates with more substance like Joseph Biden are actually starting to look and sound better even though they haven't changed their message since the beginning. It might just be possible that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama won the early battles only to lose the war. The leading candidates seem to have purchased a second rate pulse on the nation radar detector, while Biden may have picked up the best radar detector years ago.  If there's something that the American public definitely doesn't want, it's a presidential candidate that wins battles and loses wars.

Bush Acts the Coward and Hides Behind Yet Another General

President Bush, our Commander in Chief, has shown cowardice yet again this week.  Instead of standing up as the leader of our troops and of our country, he has chosen as is his pattern to hide behind a sacrificial General. 

He sent General and Secretary of State Colin Powell to sacrifice himself at the UN.  He did the same thing with a series of generals following the Abu Grahib scandal.  He has since gone through General after General most recently settling on General Patraeus to venture to Congress to profess the utter garbage that the Surge is working.

Bush didn't even wait for the General to get out of town, before he stepped in to dismiss the General's politicized assessments and tell everyone that a small draw down would take place.  That move, shortly after Patraeus said that things were progressing basically undermined yet another General's credibility.

These days its hard to tell who is the bigger coward, and I do not use that term lightly as I have a high degree of respect for officers in the military, President Bush for hiding behind Generals or the Generals that allow themselves to be used as pawns.  The military is supposed to serve and protect the constitution and not undermine it when a coward is unable to stand up and take responsibility for his actions.

If President Bush were not a coward, he would not send a sacrificial lamb from the military to spout bull, he would go make the case himself.  The President can not do that because he doesn't have the credibility nor the courage and opts instead to stand in the wings protected by Generals and adult diapers.  Regardless, the Generals are only loosing their credibility, their self respect, their pride, and the opportunity to protect the Constitution.  While the President and his men follow this destructive path, Privates and Sergeants and Lieutenants and others are paying with their lives and limbs.

The Slow Boat out of Iraq

The US is pulling out of Iraq, slowly.  There is one thing that is absolutely certain.  The troops will not pull out of Iraq entirely before Bush leaves office.  Not because its right for Iraq, not because it will be good for stability or peace in the middle east, not because its the right thing for the US troops, the US will not pull out of Iraq until Bush is gone so that the Democrats can be set up with a failed war.

The thing is that it is almost a certainty that the Democrats will screw up the real pull out of Iraq as badly as President Bush screwed up the war in Iraq in the first place.

The reason for this certainty can be found in the Democrats inability to to forego political games and hold the Bush Administration and Republicans accountable on the way in. 

America is on a slow boat out of Iraq.  The rail head order is drafted but its post dated for sometime in the middle of 2009.  Whichever Democratic President is elected in 2008, they will only have a successful second election if they can devise a successful plan out of Iraq now.  The Democrats need to get some boating experience now and practice for the future exodus.

Nagin Not For Governor of Louisiana

I was watching the news yesterday morning and learned that New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, is not going to run for governor of the state of Louisiana.

Big surprise there, great Nagin and the current governor of Louisiana are two of the most unpopular people in New Orleans. When hurricane Katrina Kaman decimated the city, there were three levels of government that failed the people of New Orleans, the federal government, the state government, and the city government of New Orleans. I find it absolutely ridiculous that Mayor Ray Nagin even considered running for governor of Louisiana.

He does have some supporters in New Orleans, but as I see it that must indicate that there are some pretty poor opposition candidates to run against Nagin. It defeats the mind how the city of New Orleans, the state government and the federal government were unable to successfully collaborate and come up with a plan to save the people of New Orleans and save the city.

Now I know it's not as easy as going out and purchasing the latest collaboration software even with a 30 day free trial, but the almost inexhaustible amount of gridlock that prevented these groups from working together especially in a time of crisis is just absurd and definitely in the make of the nature of what is wrong with government in the United States today.

Santa will be Sad without Safe Goods for Christmas?

With all the product recalls of kids toys and things that kids really like or use, it's going to be very hard for parents to come up with safe Christmas gift ideas this year. You might avoid the Barbie doll because they are poisoned with lead and choose crayons (Koreans according to the voice recognition program I’m using) or colored markers or even water colors hoping to inspire the artist in your child only to discover that that's poisoned with lead also. It's downright crazy that we can't trust the products that we’re buying, however the reality of the situation is that we are consumeraholics (consumer a hall ask per DNS9), this is sometimes referred to as affluenza (affluent plus influenza equals affluenza).

It's enough to make Santa Claus Sad.

We are shopaholics too. We buy things just to buy things and we teach our kids to want things just to want things. Maybe the best christmas gift idea this year will be to buy nothing at all. Think about it, a Christmas with no gifts, not because Christmas did not come, but because Christmas didn't need to come in the form of gift giving.

Instead of spending that money on potentially poisoned stuff for your young ones, we can take a trip go on a vacation, see something interesting, or share some time together. There are a number of alternatives to celebrating Christmas or any holiday that don't have to require buying a lot of junk especially buying junk that's poisonous.

I'm sure that my suggestions here will go completely ignored and that Christmas will come in the form of gift ideas, but this year when people go to return stuff, They may find that they are returning stuff not just because the kids fell out of love with the item a day or two after Christmas, but because those things are on the brand-new recall list of items poisoned with lead paint.