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Nightly Ramble: A Quick Ramble Before Dissecting the SOTU

Welcome, one and all to the most intense nightly read on the sphere: Bitsblog’s Nightly Ramble

ramble-truckingOK, Yeah, I know. the state of the Union address. As you read this, I’m straining my fingers to get that promised point by point SOTU breakout to you. Sometime tonight, I promise. As of this morning, my editor told me I was at around 8000 words, and I’m only half done, so bear with me, please. This Ramble will be a shorter one than usual, as a result.

 

  • Billy: [1]

    Anyone with a decent grasp of history must understand that what you’re seeing right now is a final fulfillment of constitutional design together with the advent of Pragmatism in action over the past century or so.

    Comon’, Billy…. Now, you’ve got me a little annoyed. Your arguments are usually so seamless that the huge hole in this one is something of a shock to me.  So, which is it then? Pragmatism, or Constitutional design?  It simply cannot be both; they are mutually exclusive.  You may disagree with the principles expressed, of course and we’ve had THAT discussion before… but there it is;   The Constitution expresses principles.  Pragmatism, meanwhile, seeks a way around those principles, even to the point of ignoring them outright.  (Which is why, for example, leftists tend to consider the Constitution a ‘living document’, and why I’ve always told you that if we as a nation reverted to the Constitution, shedding all the extra-constitutional nonsense we’ve taken on in the last 100 years or so,  you and I would have far less to argue about. )  What we’re seeing in our government now is pragmatism, pure and simple.  The Constitution, and for that matter, the principles it expresses, don’t have a damn thing to do with any of what we’re seeing.  That divorce of principles from the power of government, has always been my biggest fear with liberals being handed that power. Bruce gives us a recent example of such. [2]

  • The Money speaks:  The market reacted to the State of the Union speech last night by shedding another 200 points. [3] They know a power grab when they see one and they know it will be destructive..  It came back some, as there was some backtracking today on some governmental positions. But it’s amazing how the market is reacting not to market conditions, but rather hanging on every word of the government… and falling on every word of the government.
  • Sheets, speaks, too… Even Bobby KKK  Byrd… a Democrat’s Democrat… sees it a power grab, and has publicly identified it as such [4].
  • Bank Customers…. Seems Citibank Customers aren’t too happy about Obama’s plans [5], either.
  • … and most of us…In fact, Rasmussen is saying that 54% of people don’t want anything to do with this ‘stimulus’. [6]  They also report investor confidence is at a record low. Well, you start preaching anti-wealth, did you really think the market was going to do anything less?
  • Now Democrats start dissing ‘stimulus’: From Tennessee comes word that the Democrat Governor there may reject the stimulus money [7], as Bobby Jindal did for his state. It should come as no shock to you that Granholm of Michigan has her hand out for the money being rejected by other states. Once again, we come to the difference between pragmatism and principle. And, given the relative condition of each state, the results of that difference.
  • Meet the new boss, worse than the old boss: Word from Cuba that abuse at Guantanamo has worsened since Obama took office [8]. Maybe we oughta just rendition all those morons to the airbase at Bagram, where Obama’s justice dept has decided they don’t have any rights, huh? I’m waiting for someone to point out that this is all Bush’s fault.
  • The Olberman Circus: Another example of the slimepit that is MSNBC [9], anymore. I hope Michelle grabbed that down to MP3 from her TiVo, as I suggested to her, when she mentioned it, last night.
  • The voices from the Pit: The Disnosaurs, of course, about ran out of spit with the pre-written toungebath they gave Obama [10].
  • And the echo…. I saw Jindal’s reply. I’d say so-so. My take is he was over-coached, and nervous as a direct result of that. But as I told Joyner [10]; If the Dinosaurs were offering pre-written and very slanted reviews of Obama’s speech, why are we not assuming that Jinda;s speech reviews were similarly pre-written and similarly slanted?
  • And the clueless:  Ya know, maybe the reason nobody messes with Joe is nobody’s quite sure what planet he’s on. [11] What number???!?!!!??  Yikes. I’m now convinced; Biden needs watching.
  • And the corrupt:  Yeah, I know.. Gary Locke to commerce.  But as Michelle tells us,what we have here is yet another ethically challanged Obama appointee [12].  Change we can…. ummmm what, again?

I’ve gotta get back to the State of the Union thing I’m working on.