So the question of the day:

If you could throw any shoe at President George W Bush, what shoe would it be?

Will Nike put out a model of shoes aerodynamically designed to throw at Bush, or will Adidas beat them to the punch, and who will be the celebrity or athletic endorsee?

No sharp cleats, please.  We don’t want to hurt the guy.

Yep!  It’s all over for Barack Obama.  So unfortunate, as I had relatively high hopes for him.  I learned about the demise of the Barack Obama administration when I went over to technorati for some blog searching, and saw that technorati had this blog entry for “water-cooler” high-volume front page link, and with coffee spewing out of my mouth due to laughter I read .:

The Obama Administration Is Now Damaged Goods, Obama Lied To America

http://strata-sphere.com/ blog/ index.php/ archives/ 7…

Update: A consensus is brewing about Obama’s pending troubles – see here, here, here and here. Major Update Below! The big dominos seem to be falling already, less than a week from the news breaking. I simply cannot fathom the damage Barack Obama and

The “consensus”, if you go to the website, is the consensus that comes from an assortment of conservative blogs.  This is the type of thing which will animate the thoughts of conservative and Republican activists for the rest of Obama’s tenure as president, and be ignored by the rest of Americans.  That the rest of Americans won’t be able to recite the Great Obama Deception in relation to Mr. Blag will be a testament of the complicity of the Liberal Media and the Dumbing Down of America.  The good news is that eventually Obama will be more firmly implicated in a scandal, and that will have to be what taints America’s view on the man.

Mostly this is just an example — and I see it everywhere — of attempting to force a reality, particularly of popular opinion, that suits one’s political predilictions into being.

Any other Consensuses brewing out there? 

And another thing about Mr. Blagojevich:

Back in 2006 I saw a number of Democratic chest thumping on what an election the party had, and something to the effect that not one Democratic Congress member, Senator, or state-wide office including most importantly Governor had lost election.  This struck me as a bad way of looking at things, because clearly various Democratic politicians deserved to be dumped — whatever the cumulutive value of the two parties were.

The obvious figure that deserved to be dumped was William Jefferson, who two years later finally lost.  But Rod Blagojevich, never popular with Illinois voters, always swarming with less than 50 percent approval, and always with a spectre of corruption hanging over him, would have been best be shoved aside.  The combination of a weak state Republican party and a tidle wave for the Democrats brought him through loud and clear, though — with less than a 50 percent vote, and with the Green Party grabbing a big enough percentage to garner “established party” status.

Around 2006 a hackneyed partisan argument came into vogue that “Republicans” couldn’t govern because their ideology of “limited government” put them into the position that once they had power they couldn’t see how the levers of governing did anyone any good, so they’d use it for personal gain.  I never liked this, and could see the argument of “one for me, one for you” in the ideology of liberal graft.  At any rate, back in 2006 Republican hacks were too busily focused on the phony specter of corruption with Harry Reid and Boxing tickets (as today we see strained attempts to attach Blagojevich’s scandal to Obama)– and Blagojevich?  Who was he?

Read today’s “Mother Goose and Grimm”?  I didn’t think so.  Well, here it is, for your… enjoyment? 

The joke loses something in being a pop cultural reference from September 2007 — an individual’s 15 minutes of fame referenced one year later, I have to pull the joke out of a cob-webbed memory bank in my head and blow away a bunch of dust.

I have compiled one or one and a half full postings which are essentially copycats of the comic strip surveyor Comics Curmudgeon.  They become outdated rather quickly, because they’d require me to save the comic strips.  As a lark, one of these days I may well just post them — out of context.  Today’s edition of Comics Curmudgeon has a Beetle Bailey I wish to make note of, because it takes note of a vital issue of the day — the departure from having grade school kids as crossing guards.

When I was a kid, at the start of the fifth grade the teacher would ask for volunteers to be Crossing Guards during various shifts — before, during, after school.  It wasn’t compulsory, and it was compulsory at the same time — it was compulsory because of the simple fact that everybody signed up for it and it seemed silly to be the only one not to do so.  The result, for me, who had no particular interest in this task, is I forged myself to a low priority pick to don the uniform and stop the cars to get everyone across the street — I did it a few times during the year, while a few students won accolades at the end of the year for “being on the front lines just about every week” in various shifts.  Eager Beavers were they; I assume that their “get at it” quality that had them eager to do this business in their formative experience has aided them in becoming today’s CEOs and high priced attorneys?  At the end of the year, everyone received the prize of a night at the roller rink — where I skated around in circles for a few hours to the tune of a scattering of bad pop songs.  No harm; no foul.

A few months ago in Portland, there was an accident here in Portland.  A crossing guard was run over, or maybe a kid they were crossing the street toward.  I noticed in the Letters to the Editor a certain attitude — Something must be done.  We need to get the kids off of the street.  Adults should be in charge of this task — it’s too terrible for the kids.  My thought to these letters was that if this school policy was changed — and it looked like it was, I was forced to wish harm on through an unfortunate accident striking one of the new adult crossing guards for at least a lesson in “there is no permaneable safety zone bubble”.

It is a similar feeling I had in 1995 or thereabouts when a kid, seeking the World Record book for Youngest flight, crashed.  The situation with this kid, aside from his parents living their lives through his accomplishments and pushing him and them being annoying a-holes not deserving, was that nobody should have been flying in the thick fog he pushed himself through, and an adult should have stopped him from flying — but not stopped him from flying when the weather came together– and this was a controversial view which ran in the face of the commentary of the time.

The matter of the crossing guards is a little broader — it is a more routine task and not a spectacular feat.  They are standing in the middle of the streets in 20 mile per hour zones.  I used to walk past a school zone on occasion when school was being let out around 3.  Kids were doing the crossing guard duty.  I’ve walked past the school zone again as of late.  Adults are doing the crossing duty, wearing the same orange vests.  This is an abomination — an avenue of responsibility has been taken away from these children.  How are they going to grow up to be the CEOs and High powered Attorneys of tomorrow if they’re not given this simple task due to a regretable accident or two?  Why is Beetle Bailey’s Seargant doing crossing duty for a couple of adults when a couple of the kids he’s leading should be doing it?

The following is a list of Notable people who have left comments for this blog.  If you’ve left a comment on this blog and are upset by your lack of inclusion, you may argue your case for “notable”.  Though, for the life of me, I wouldn’t know why anyone would care.

1.  Alexander [???]; almost certainly has an important role in the Cascadian Independence Movement, but can’t figure out what.

2.  Chip Berlet, Political Research Associates, co-author of Right-Wing Populism in America

3.  Dianne Bettag;  campaign manager for various candidates who want to take on the threat of Synarchism.

4.  Kari Chisholm, web developer and political consultant for “Mandate Media”; proprietor “blueoregon.com”; weekly guest on KPOJ Morning Show

5.   Mullah Cimoc; dime a dozen Internet troll whose sheer volume of posting makes him noteworthy.

6.  Ron Gunzburger, proprietor “politics1.com”

7.  Elliott Jacobson;  Director of Communications for the Gravel for President campaign

8.  Dennis King, author Get the Facts on Anyone.  Anything else escapes me.

9.  Scott McLemee; Hm?  “Cultural Critic”?  Expert on various items of American fringe;  quoted in a New York Times article about a largely fictional holiday popularized by Seinfeld — which I take to be a cast of that Allen Salkin for the NY Times pulling together a fluff piece by quoting various acquaintances. 

10.  Tom Metzger, founder White Aaryan Resistance, 1982 Oregon Senate candidate, seller of bootleg Simpsons merchandise 1991; found liable in the murder of Mulugeta Seraw in 1988.

11.  Daniel Pinkwater, author The Neddiad, Ducks!, occasional commentator on NPR’s “All Things Considered”, failed Reading and Pudding Advocate.

12.  Gordon Allen Pross, Democratic candidate for WA-4 House seat 1998; Republican primary candidate for WA-4 House seat 2000, 2002, 2008; Republican primary candidate for Washington Senate 2004, 2006; What will 2010 hold?  Only Time will tell.

13.  Eric Shanower, cartoonist/illustrator:  Age of Bronze; Prez; An Accidental Death.

14.  Jeff Sharman.  free-lance photo-journalist whose work has appeared in such publications as The New York Times.  owner “Using Books”.

15.  Victoria Taft.  Portland local conservative talk radio host.

16.  Shannon Wheeler, cartoonist “Too Much Coffee Man”, “How to Be Happy”; animator for a Converse commercial.

17.  Bill White, leader of American National Socialist Workers’ Party and administrator of  Overthrow.com; ad-hoc spokesperson for “Libertarian National Socialist Green Party”.

Two days ago, I thought something was just about to hit when  Rod Blagojevich came out for the strikers in front of Bank of America’s Chicago branch in ordering Illinois to quit doing business with them.  It struck me as this sort of constituency builder of a man with no constituency — an approval rating in the single or lowest double digits.  Unfortunately, a search through google news search shows up the first “connection”, such as it is, the opinion from out of the Heritage Foundation.

What strikes me about the scandal, and the auctioning off of Barack Obama’s old Senate seat , is seems less slimy than the process had been.  There was this somewhat bizarre process going on where the various Senate aspirants suddenly had to curry the favor of a politically discredited politician who they would otherwise not be touching with a ten foot pole and treating as a leper, mainstream news speculators running through scenarios of how various candidates might make agreements on how they could suck up energy from potential primary candidates if he should be stubborn enough to run again and other “scratch each other back” manuevers.  The specter of cold cash and blatant quid pro quos at least erases a political fiction and is in some manner a little less cynical.