Because it is that time of year when we have to endure lists, and because all of the other lists are going to be some version of a Barbara Walters soft white light view of the world, I give you some holiday party talking points for what should be the top 10 news stories of 2010.
#10. Obama’s Health Care Reform
Depending on your point of view, Obama either accomplished something that many presidents have failed to do or he created what amounts to a huge gift to anyone with health insurance stock in their portfolios.
Either way, most of the meaningful provisions of this historic legislation don’t even go into effect until 2014 and in the intervening time the Democrats will be so busy trying to prevent Sarah Palin from becoming our next President that the they will acquiesce to amendments and compromises to the bill that will strip away all of the good and make even the cost of Advil out of reach for most Americans.
Isn’t that always the way with Democrats though, one baby step forward, 10 Andre-the Giant steps back?
#9 World Cup in South Africa
Most Americans would rather watch badminton, curling, or avant-garde French cinema than what the rest of the world calls football and we belligerently refer to as soccer.
Why?
Because football is for men and steeped in war metaphor with bombs and blitzes and aerial attacks. Football is American. Soccer, the ultimate team game, is for commies. If soccer were to catch on in the USA, what would be next, National Health Care? That is why the success of the World Cup offers a glimmer of hope to Godless commies marooned here in the USA.
Allison Kilkenny, in her excellent article on True/ Slant yesterday, digs a little deeper into the question many a liberal are asking. Namely: What is Obama supposed to do about BP’s Disaster?
At the time of this writing, BP’s latest experimental bid to plug its seabed oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico (affectionately code named “top kill”) – still hung in the balance. Top executives are still trying to determine how a process that works well on land will or will not work under the extreme pressure of 5,000 feet under the sea.
Officials are scrambling (when do we get to stop calling them “officials and start calling them criminals?), some 37 days into the slow motion destruction of an entire region, because there are no government regulations that required them to have a plan to deal with this eventuality.
Which brings us back to the question: What the hell is Obama supposed to do about it? The truth is, we need oil. Even if we took every Randian Regressive SUV loving American and secretly slipped them fair trade organic coffee and sprinkled some Ed Begley Jr. pixie dust that magically turned everyone in the United States into members of the green party and we elected people like Rev. Billy to office, there is still going to be a significant transition period as we wean ourselves from our suicidal and homicidal addiction to oil.
As a nation, we use nearly 1 out every 4 barrels of oil brought to the world market, yet we only produce 3% of the worlds oil. So, it is hard to criticize Obama for approving additional offshore permits on the one hand while waging his impressive rhetorical finger at BP with the other.
Or is it?
For liberals who have not gotten the memo that it is time to remove the Obama goggle, perhaps. Imagine, my fellow friends on the left, if the same facts were unfolding, with a similar White House response, and John McCain and V.P “Drill Baby Drill” were in the White House.
Again, one has to read below the fold as it were, to dig a little deeper, and we can thank Kilkenny, whose article points the way with an easy to understand little chart illustrating US oil consumption and how little new offshore drilling actually contributes.
Is it possible that the administration thinks that the rewards we get from the addition of, quite literally, a drop in the bucket, will help outweigh the risks?
And what, exactly are the risks of wind farming? An Air Spill? Or Solar Energy? Sure, at best, solar energy is only a temporary band-aid. Recent calculations indicate that the Sun Will Go Out in a Billion Years.
Or is it more likely that the government, as Kilkenny suggests have “placed the sovereignty of a corporation ahead of the health of the American people?”
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A freelance writer, Davis Fleetwood has worked as a writer/ media consultant for Dennis Kucinich’s 2008 presidential campaign and served as a contributing editorial commentator for The Uptake. His videos have been seen by over 14 million viewers. He has been called (among many other things) “one of the most prominent voices in YouTube politics.” (-You Tube News & Politics chief, Steve Grove) He was a “Best of YouTube, 2007” nomination. His book I Stay In So You Can Go Out, is due out in May from No Cure For That Press, and his first full length feature documentary, MANIFEST DESTINY’S CHILD, is due out on DVD this June.
THE HERMIT WITH DAVIS FLEETWOOD is a sometimes serious, sometimes satiric look at the top headlines, current events, and political trends. The show is Independently produced by a staff of one & runs on the fuel of your individual donations.
As oil threatens the northern shores of the Gulf of Mexico, the rationalizations, dubious information and spin about the Gulf blowout flow.
In insisting that the blowout at BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig should not deter off-shore oil drilling, U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana said on the Senate floor Friday: “I don’t believe we should retreat.”
Ten days before the blowout occurred and, as she spoke, it was threatening massive environmental and economic damage including to her home state.
She gave the huge oil slick in the Gulf a rainbow hue. “What’s important about this sheen is that 97% of it is a rainbow sheen,” she said in the Senate. “Only 3% contains emulsified crude…So it is important to understand that, while this is an unprecedented disaster—the oil slick is wide and covers a large section of ocean—97% of it is an extremely thin sheen of relatively light oil on the surface.”
She repeated her call that there be no “retreat” on offshore oil drilling in media appearances including, on Sunday, on CBS’s Face the Nation. Continue reading →
Depending on your point of view, Obama either accomplished something that many presidents have failed to do or he created what amounts to a huge gift to anyone with health insurance stock in their portfolios.
Most Americans would rather watch badminton, curling, or avant-garde French cinema than what the rest of the world calls football and we belligerently refer to as soccer.
