Laughing with the Moon

By Jonathan Bert

The Extreme Moderate

February 25, 2010

Moon, you can laugh, you're a quarter million miles away. I have to laugh to keep from crying.

Obama, what a disappointment. We needed someone with tremendous skill and intelligence to get us out of the mess the Bush bunch got us into, and we get this character that can screw up a wet dream. This dumb-ass was elected to reform the financial system, but instead of financial reform, he's spending all of his time on health care reform and pollution control while Wall Street is still getting seven figure bonuses and the middle class is broke. You stupid shit head, get the country running on all cylinders and back to prosperity, your popularity would be incredible, then nobody, from Maxine Watters to John Boner (did I spell that wrong?) would dare to step out of line when you push your pet programs. Obummer.

Now we have the "Tea Party." I guarantee you that these clowns are not drinking tea. Anybody that thinks dingbats like Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann make sense must be smoking crack with their bourbon. And they believe the "Birthers." Hawaii might seem nice, but it is still part of the United States. Remember how pissed off the U.S. got when the Japs bombed it? Duh!

The Republican Party IS the party of "No!" No compassion, no integrity, no ideas.

The Democratic Party is the party of "Moe," as in Larry, Curly and Moe. And Moe government!

I am impressed with the dignity W is displaying in his time out of office. Dick Cheney, on the other hand, is still the bastard from hell. A leopard can't change his spots.

Car Insurance must be one hell of a racket. They're damn near the only businesses that can still afford to advertise!

The rest of the ads are from lawyers suing drug companies. That is why I only do drugs that are not FDA approved!

The cops in Murderapolis were braggin' that there were only 19 murders there last year. The thugs must have felt 'dissed, the murder rate is back to normal, with seven just in January.

Sarah Palin writes notes on her hand. Hey, ding-a-ling, you're not in junior high anymore.

Raul Emanuel shouldn't call people "Retards," Democrats are supposed to be politically correct. Rush Limbaugh shouldn't call people "Retards," without retards he wouldn't have an audience!

Bailout? Hell, the best thing to happen to General motors is Toyota. Honda is having trouble, too. I guess cheap Japanese crap is still cheap Japanese crap. Buy a Buick.

A killer whale killed one of it's trainers. Maybe now some of these morons will figure how these critters got their name.

Those boneheads from Idaho, (where else?), were supposed to save orphans in Haiti, but none of the 33 kids they grabbed were actually orphans! These people were up to something shady. I don't know what they had planned for the girls, but I think they were going to sell the little boys to priests.

Moon, I can't laugh anymore, I'm going to start crying. Your laughter just makes it hurt more. I'm going to send my pennies, (all three of them!), to NASA to help buy another rocket to shove up your dark side.

Obama’s Worst Report Card

By Jonathan Bert
The Extreme Moderate

March 20, 2009

Every idiot blogger and turdball pundit has been grading our new President’s performance way before enough time has passed to make a truly fair assessment. Being an idiot blogger, and turdball pundit, myself, here is my unfair assessment:

The economy is job number one. Obama somehow drove our economy on a downhill slide years before he took office. Nothing the Bush administration did could slow Obama’s encouragement of the massive collection of “Toxic Assets” that our major financial institutions managed to own, and insure. Now, in the guise of a stimulus, he is giving these institutions more money, taxpayer dollars in fact, to mismanage. He must be given credit for saving the bonuses for the people running these firms. There are those that feel that the executives of the corporations that are being bailed out should be denied their millions of dollars in bonus cash just because they made a couple of little mistakes. Someone in Congress even tried to put a provision in the “bailout” bill to cancel these bonuses! But we can thank the Obama Administration, with the help of their friend, Senator Christopher Dodd, for eliminating this amendment, guaranteeing that these poor fellows will get their hard-earned wages. Obama also deserves an A+ for not giggling when talking about how “outraged” he is about these bonuses. On the down side, Obama is giving the unemployed more money, and extending the time they can collect Unemployment Insurance benefits. Any sensible person knows the best way to deal with unemployment is to let the unemployed starve to death, at which time they will no longer be unemployed. Overall, in dealing with the economy, Obama deserves a D-.

Foreign affairs are a big part of a President’s job. Of course, Obama is screwing this up. Instead of continuing a war against an enemy that posed little threat, he wants to wind that war down. And we haven’t finished the job there! Intelligence gathered during the Bush administration clearly showed that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, but Obama is going to take our troops out of there before said weapons are found! Instead, he’s going to expand the war in Afghanistan, where our actual enemies are found, where 9/11 terrorists trained and had safe harbor! Any idea what a can of worms that would be? Fighting actual enemies? Bush had way more sense than that. He went after an easy target, which was pretty much contained by international forces, and was toppled quite easily. The fact that he stirred up some actual enemies is neither here nor there; his intentions were good. As far as terrorism goes, Obama is looking at the vulnerability of our infrastructure. Bush put all of his energy into protecting airports from further hijackings. Obama seems to think that his Muslim brethren might think of a new way to attack us, and that we might be open to assaults not involving airports! How ridiculous! On top of that, he wants to “talk” to Iran! Have meetings and discussions with the leaders of the pivot point of the “Axis of Evil.” It’s almost like he wants to “Dine with his enemies.” This sounds like something Jesus Christ would say! And, as is obvious to anybody familiar with modern American Christianity, you don’t pay any attention to what Christ said! This is why the biggest objection to this move comes from the heavily Christian extreme Right. On foreign affairs, Obama gets a D-.

When it comes to Cabinet appointments, Obama screwed up again! For Secretary of State, the person responsible for dealing with foreign leaders, he chose someone intelligent, knowledgeable, charming, and experienced in dealing with foreign leaders! He should have found someone incapable of independent thought, someone that does what she is told to do, and says what she is told to say, in a voice with the same pleasant sound as a dental drill. Like Condoleeza Rice! Other Cabinet positions he tried filling with people that got caught scamming on their taxes! He has got to fill these posts with people that are smart enough to scam their taxes with out getting caught! On his Cabinet, Obama gets a D-.

On domestic issues, Obama is screwing up again! One of his first acts as President, he signed a bill continuing the misguided effort to make women equal to men! Nature didn’t even make women equal, who does he think he is to argue with Nature? And then he makes an “Executive Order” to fund stem cell research. Instead of using the hundreds of thousands of unused embryos in an attempt to find cures for horrible diseases, we should stuff those unused embryos into welfare mothers eight or nine at a time! Obama deserves some credit, though, for proposing that injured veterans should let their private insurance pay to treat their injuries. These deadbeat vets think they can travel to a foreign country, get their legs blown off by an IED, then expect the Army to pay for it? How ridiculous! All the same, on the subject of domestic issues, Obama gets a D-.

I could go on and on, then go on and on some more, about how badly Obama has performed these first two months on the job, but I can’t, and I’m sure you can’t, stomach any more. So far, Obama has gotten five or six grades of D-, which averages a big, fat F.

So I conclude this most premature and unfair of all premature and unfair assessments of President Obama’s job performance. I expect a job offer from Fox News any minute.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Bert

The Grand Old Party is Over

By Jonathan Bert
The Extreme Moderate

March 5, 2009

The Republican Party is in shambles, only the most delusional right wingers disagree. The worst part is that the party leadership thinks the solution is to go backwards, when they are already backwards enough. They all must be stealing Rush Limbaugh’s Oxycontins!

By my very subjective observation, there are more moderate Republicans than there are moderate Democrats, but the GOP in general persecutes their moderates mercilessly. John McCain got the nomination last fall, but only after standing there testifying how Republican he was, which instantly got him labeled as Bush III. The GOP has got to realize that their ideas have totally lost respect, but they want to continue with the same old ideas, only more so.

Take me to your leader. Who the hell is it? A fellow named Michael Steele was formally chosen as the leader, but a right wing radio “Shock Jock” is the real guy! Steele and Limbaugh butted heads, and it was Steele that blinked. What hope does the party have when the leader is a fat, pill-popping loudmouth? You can walk into any honky-tonk and find dozens of drunks that talk the same way, would you pray to them for guidance?

The first thing the party has to come to grips with is that, with all respects for the dead, Reagan sucked! He was a big disaster for this country. He came up with the “Trickle Down” economic theory, which is haunting us to this day. He ended fiscal responsibility in the Republican Party. He brought the “Moral Majority” into politics, even though, when you consider their disregard for the poor, they aren’t very moral, and by the numbers, aren’t anywhere near a majority. They are, however, very loud and annoying. And sexually obsessed, loaded with self-loathing gays and other perverts. Republican “values” have been found to be bankrupt. On top of that, he spent billions on a land based missile system that was obsolete before it left the drawing board. Then, when you think about the Iran-Contra deal, Reagan and his cronies probably should have been put behind bars.

Reagan’s big talent was using splendid oratory to lead the gullible down a primrose path while doing ungodly things to our country. Sound like Obama? Yes it does! The differences are a different primrose path, (there must be several of them), and I think Obama writes some of his own material. We have give the guy some time before we can assess Obama fairly, but Reagan, we know what he did. His damage was primarily ruining our economy and fouling up our foreign affairs. He is given credit for tearing down the Berlin Wall, but the Soviet Union self-destructed. Gotta give Ronny kudos for good timing, though.

If the GOP wants to go back, go back to the nineteen-fifties, to the last great Republican President. I like Ike. Eisenhower doesn’t get nearly the respect he deserves. The Democrats at the time tried painting Ike as unintelligent, mainly because they were putting an “Egghead” up against him. We’ve had eggheads before, and since, but none of them was very impressive.

Eisenhower was excellent. He was fiscally responsible, but smart! He spent billions on a system of “Interstate and Defense Highways” (we now call them Interstates), which were designed to evacuate cities quickly and to mobilize the National Guard, but had the plus of reducing air pollution and improving intestate commerce. Sound, sensible infrastructure spending. If Ike wasn’t brilliant, I don’t know who is. He wasn’t big on social issues, but back then nobody was. Even the Democrats didn’t care much about social issues until the sixties, (remember the “Dixiecrats?”). His foreign policy? “Don’t Mess With Us!” plain and simple, and he was strong and smart about it, not trying to find ways of funneling money to his buddies. And he did this with an opposing Congress! He warned us about the “Military-Industrial Complex,” but now the GOP is in the pocket of said complex!

The Republicans have to go back to being Republicans. Maybe they need another general. Can you imagine Tommy Franks apologizing to Rush Limbaugh? David Petraeus would send a mortar shell up Rush’s ass if Limbaugh messed with him. The GOP needs a real leader, not comic relief. Let us hope for the best.

I believe in the two party system, but right now we don’t have one. Either a new party emerges, or the GOP has to resurrect itself. Get back to actually practicing fiscal responsibility. Dump your phony “Family Values” crap and clean the perverts out of your system. Care about children after they are born. Fix yourself or we may be at the mercy of the extreme left for a long time.

Wah! (The Cry of the Dingbat)

By Jonathan Bert
The Extreme Moderate

March 2, 2009

The Governor of Alaska, and former vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin is crying because the “Liberal Media” picked on her during last fall’s campaign. I am not liberal, but I picked on her then, and now I’m going to pick on her some more!

First thing to address is her claim that there is a lot of liberal media out there. Looking at the media, most are pretty fair and balanced, except those that claim to be fair and balanced, which are fronts for the right. Some print media leans to the Left, like the New Yorker, but as the New Yorker portrayed the Obamas as terrorists on one of their covers, even they can’t be said to be in the pockets of the left. Very little print media is right wing, unless they are willing to print a lot of pictures. The bumpkins of the extreme right aren’t heavy into reading. Talk radio is very right wing, fronted by Rush Limbaugh followed by hundreds of Limbaugh wannabes. Again, bumpkins don’t read. Television coverage does seem relatively balanced; but of course, we can’t forget Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News, which is the bullhorn of the Right.

I agree, the media did kind of fall in love with Obama. In a land hungry for change, Obama clearly represented change. And being relatively unknown, heavy media coverage helped us to understand this complicated man, this man that wanted to run this country.

The problem is Sarah Palin is a Dingbat. She is not complicated at all. She always has been a dingbat, and she always will be a dingbat. She is proud of being a “Hockey Mom,” but if you ever met a hockey mom, you would not be impressed with their rational train of thought. She is a pit bull with lipstick, she hunts wolves from helicopters and calls it “Sport.” She thinks she can understand Russia because she can see it from her front porch. Her views on social issues are from the 19th century. Dingbat!

When Obama and McCain had their nominations sewed up, I still hadn’t made up my mind. I wanted to see who they picked for V-P. I’d liked McCain for a long time, he’d been the voice of moderation for decades, but I wasn’t impressed with the butt kissing he had done to get the nomination. I was hoping he would go back to being a voice of reason once he was free to do so. Obama was a scary choice. Inexperienced, and nobody knew a lot about him. He had held a statewide office for two years, and here he was, claiming to be ready to take the reins of the planet’s most powerful country. I needed to know more.

Obama picked Joe Biden, a solid choice. Biden is not any sort of moderate, but he is of sound mind, with vast knowledge of all of the issues facing this country, especially foreign affairs. This was important to me. One of my favorite quotations came from a “Dirty Harry” movie, “A good man knows his limitations.” Obama’s big limitation is foreign affairs, and he addressed this with his choice of Biden. His first decision as a candidate was excellent. (The choice of Biden, coupled with the choice of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, makes the Obama administration rock solid in an area that Obama, personally, is weak. A good man, indeed, knows his limitations.) I am impressed.

McCain, on the other hand, disappointed me beyond any possible expectation. He chose Palin. A Governor for two years, this really tied Republican hands to paint Obama as inexperienced. A person with total disdain for rational thought, she proposed that dinosaurs roamed the Earth as recently as 5,000 years ago. If she was referring to her fellow Republicans, she would have had a point, but she wasn’t. She was referring to actual dinosaurs! McCain chose this backward bumpkin solely for her appeal to the backward bumpkins that got us in the mess we’re in in the first place! Her only accomplishment that she could point to proudly was killing the “Bridge to Nowhere,” showing that she does have more fiscal restraint than any Republican has had for 30 years. But generally, McCain’s choice was a disaster. He obviously was driven by his ambition, not his concern for the country. Why didn’t he just pick Paris Hilton?

Sorry John, but you lost because you abandoned those that loved you, moderates and independents. You tried to paint yourself as a maverick during the campaign, but your choice of Palin painted you as a butt-kisser. You probably could have been a good President, but you’re in a demographic that is capable of dropping dead, and the thought of President Palin made my sphincter pucker. More so, even, than the thought of a Democratic monopoly in Washington. (Where’s the antacid?)

So Sarah, get real. Any media source that says you are not a dingbat is biased toward bumpkins. Only the most stupid, backward and ignorant people on this the face of this Earth could look anybody straight in the eye and claim that you are capable of running the local PTA, much less a superpower. I wanted John McCain, the real John McCain, to win. But the real John McCain doesn’t exist anymore; he’s sold out to the extreme right. Sarah Palin is living proof.

Race in America

By Jonathan Bert
The Extreme Moderate

February 23, 2009

Race in America. This is not about the Indianapolis 500. This is about a massive pain in the ass. Attorney General Eric Holder says we are cowards for not talking about race. Right wing pundit Britt Hume said that no one in their right mind would talk about race, the issue is too explosive. So what we need is someone that isn’t a coward, but not in their right mind, to talk frankly on the matter. Thus, I am qualified.

Why do we have to define people by their heritage? We are Americans! Not this kind of American, or that kind of American, or those kinds of Americans.

Labels are lies. I would be defined as White. Of Northern European heritage, living in a region where the Sun makes only rare visits, I’m about as pale as a human can get. However, I am not white, I’m kind of a light pinkish tan color. Goths have to use gallons of makeup to look genuinely white. White is a lie. I used to work with a guy that is as dark as a man can get. From a distance he does indeed looks black, but from less distance it is obvious he is not black, but a really dark, dark brown. Most “blacks” are obviously not black. Black is a lie. These labels are tools to keep us divided. These aren’t the only labels, there are labels for all kinds of heritages, and many of them are downright nasty. Why? To me, there are two kinds of people, the righteous and the assholes. We don’t need any more labels than that. If you insist on using the other labels, guess which label I’d put on you. Defining each other with labels keeps us at odds with each other, and feed our cultural differences.

A stupid cartoon is putting this issue in the headlines. It suggests a chimpanzee wrote the Stimulus Bill, and it is viewed as an insult to our new President. Al Sharpton is one of the people making the most noise about this. Normally I like Reverend Al, he is usually rational, and he has a terrific sense of humor. However, he is wrong this time. The reality is, Obama didn’t write this bill, Nancy Pelosi and her circle wrote it. The cartoonist even pointed this out. And I have to agree, Pelosi is about as smart as a chimp. Put the “Race Card” back in the deck, and try to keep it there. If one wanted to point out that the cartoon wasn’t very funny, he’d have a point.

There are bigots out there, a lot of them. And they come in all colors. Those that feel justified being bigots because of what somebody’s great-grandfather did to their great-grandfather are of the breed of asshole known as a bigot. If someone wants to label me an asshole, well, there are those of every color of the rainbow that will agree with them. If someone wants to label me a “Cracker” I will label them a bigot.

I once knew a “Self-Loathing Black.” He was half-African, but looked totally African. However, he had the same attitude about Africans as Jesse Helms. He was vicious! This man totally amazed me, and I tormented him unmercifully about his hatred. I hope he is doing well, and has softened his attitude. Poor guy really doesn’t have much of a place. Self-Loathing Gays have a home in the Republican Party, but where would this guy be welcome?

A lot of fuss is being made because our President looks African. “Did you think you’d live to see the day?” Yada, yada, yada. All I hope is that he does a good job; the cracker that came before him really screwed the place up.

A lot of my friends and acquaintances have Native American background. This issue is really complicated; yes, Europeans ripped off your ancestors, but most countries were formed by somebody’s ancestors ripping off somebody else’s ancestors. Reservations seem to have the same function as zoos, the only difference is that the subjects on display are humans. If I ever come up with, or encounter, a good plan on how to deal with “American Indians” you will see it here. Ideas are welcome.

Gender differences are another issue entirely. Women have caused me untold misery, but I still love them. I don’t think a good plan on how to deal with them will ever be encountered. Ideas are futile.

We have to let go of the past. We can’t forget it, or we won’t learn from it. However, we have to get rid of injustices that are occurring now! Affirmative action is not the answer. Reverse racism is racism. Get rid of it.

Education is a big part of the solution. The lack of education in the inner cities is a national problem; the idea of local financing of local schools is killing us. White bread suburban school districts have good teacher to student ratios, and the best technology available. Many still fail because of bad management, but in general it keeps the privileged, privileged. Even state by state differences vary the quality of education. Education is a national issue, it should be dealt with in national manner. “No Child Left Behind” is a joke. It makes schools that don’t have much money blow a bunch of money teaching kids how to take tests. If these tests tested kids the way they’ll be tested in real life, it might have a chance. But as there isn’t a big market for test takers, this program is a dud.

The best thing to solve the race issue is interracial breeding. Already people with backward minds have to watch what they say. You never know who had a beloved grandmother that was half minority. Klans will get smaller and smaller, because there will be fewer and fewer Americans of pure race. In the past, life was tougher on mixed race children, but as time moves on race will become a non-issue. I’m not saying to go knock someone up just because they’re a different color, but if you love someone that doesn’t look like the people in your family, don’t let race become an obstacle.

By the way, Eric Holder and Britt Hume can kiss my ass. I wouldn’t label either one as righteous.

I Feel So Stimulated!

By Jonathan Bert
The Extreme Moderate

February 17, 2009

Today we get our new economic stimulus plan. Oh Boy! This is going to be good!

This bipartisan plan (it did get three Republican votes) is designed to give our economy a good kick-start toward prosperity. This stroke of genius will devalue our dollar, sell our banks to foreign interests, and drive our debt so high that our great-grandchildren won’t even get it paid off! Ain’t that swell? Excuse me, I have to look up “prosperity” in my dictionary, it seems I’ve had it wrong all these years.

Obama wanted support from Republicans, he wined them and dined them but then he let the Democratic leadership in the House write the damn thing. After years of getting pushed around by Bush and his extreme right cronies, the Democrats in the House are not in the mood for anything resembling bipartisanship. The Republicans are intransigent, being really sore losers, and after three decades they all of the sudden rediscovered fiscal responsibility! The parties are making this a showdown, gambling big. If the economy shows measurable improvement in two years, it’s a win for Democrats, and Republicans will be driven even closer to extinction. If the economy is still faltering two years from now, Obama might be dealing with a Republican Congress.

Our hope is that history repeats itself. It seems like Republicans get us into big economic messes, like the Depression (Hoover), the 1975 Recession (Nixon, Ford), the malaise of 1991-92 (Bush the Elder) and then get bailed out by Democrats. Another point is Buchanan, considered the worst President, was followed by the best, Lincoln. Bush the Junior is to be ranked right down there with Buchanan, Fillmore, et al, so maybe, if history is nice, Obama will turn out to be up there in skill with Lincoln, Roosevelt, and other leaders that got the country out of big messes. What is very scary about this particular disaster is that many Democrats in Congress, many still in Congress, were of great assistance to the GOP in creating the mortgage crisis, which has been the grease in this downhill slide.

So even if Obama is great, he still has to deal with a Congress full of idiots. Nancy Pelosi doesn’t even belong there, much less be there in a leadership position. On the other side of the aisle, we have John Boner (did I spell that wrong?), who is pretty much the same story. The Senate is in a very sad situation. There actually are some moderates in the Senate, but they tend to get kicked into the corner and forced to wear dunce hats.

The big problem is that American politics has been taken over by the stupid. The GOP has had big wins appealing to the backward and ignorant of the Deep South, rural areas, and places like Alaska. The Dems have their base among the undereducated of the inner cities. Anyone with an I.Q. North of the Mason-Dixon Line is left scratching his or her head trying to figure out who is the lesser of two evils. The problem is that there isn’t a lesser evil.

It has been demonstrated that the country runs best when power is divided. When Congress and the Presidency are in gridlock, they tend to do the least damage. Look at the last six years of Slick Willie’s terms. America ran like a well-oiled watch, at least until the GOP tormented Bill for liking women. How dare he! He should like men and little boys, like they do! Then you look at W’s first six, you get the definition of disaster. Not only did Republicans have control of the House, Senate and the White House, the Democrats showed their intestinal fortitude by caving at every reasonable opportunity. The past two years weren’t long enough to show much progress, mainly because the Republicans, being losers, did the best possible job of being pains in the ass.

Hopefully, very hopefully, this plan might work. The tax breaks will have a modest, but immediate effect. People building roads and bridges will not only be employed, but will eat at the local lunch counters. And the ripple effect will continue. The Art Community will employ artists, who will no longer have to work at the lunch counters, creating openings for unemployed youths. Other facets of the program also might create jobs. Ignore the whinings of the sore losers, there actually isn’t a whole lot of “Pork” in this bill. And the most attractive facet of this plan is that it is based on a “Trickle Up” theory, which is much more realistic than “Trickle Down.” Republicans seem to think that the money mongers are the power behind an economy, that thy will somehow direct the money in ways beneficial to the economy. Sorry Bozos, you really overrate your importance. The working class is the engine that drives our country. Republicans are short sighted; they like handing the money directly to the rich, which shows the general stupidity of the GOP. Get the money to middle class, and the money will get to the rich, even more money than if it’s handed directly to them, it just requires a little patience. That is because the middle class is equally stupid, because they will spend their money at Wal Mart, Best Buy and other “Big Box” stores rather than the local markets, destroying any hope of anybody of their class achieving the American Dream.

If it seems like foreign economies are being treated as if they don’t matter, well they don’t, at least not much. They need us more than we need them, for the time being.

So hang on. We are in a tailspin. Will we pull out of it? Will we make a graceful splash in the Hudson? Or will we land flat? Pray for the best. There are no atheists in foxholes.

Yapping at the Moon

By Jonathan Bert
The Extreme Moderate

February 9, 2009

Moon, these are wonderful days for me. I am gonna yap at you like a wound up miniature dachshund!

After years of well deserved hacking at Republicans, it is time for change! Now that Republicans are almost as extinct as the other dinosaurs, we have a new group to bash, Democrats!
Reaching for that pie in the sky, the left wingers can’t concentrate on real world solutions. We need a job creation program, but those boneheads can’t let a good program come into being without cluttering it up with everybody’s pet projects. 0.8 means you are drunk, and having 0.8 trillion at their disposal makes these loonies stupid drunk! How is a program that prevents sexually transmitted diseases going to create jobs? If nobody catches the Clap, we won’t need nurses giving out Penicillin shots. Jobs lost. Thank the Republicans for gettin’ rid of this one.

I do believe in putting money into alternative energy. Remember last summer? We paid $4 for a gallon of gasoline, and now we have no money. Get the connection?

Donald Trump says we’re not using our brains in protecting our country. Duh! If Obama wants to change anything, change that. Find somebody that can figure out his or her taxes, for a start.

After two years of talking change, Obama is filling his Cabinet with privileged insiders. Sounds more like same old, same old. Where’s the change?

The right still believes in tax cuts. We’ve had tax cuts! They don’t work for shit! Their effect is immediate, but very weak. Very little bang for the buck. Republicans are slow learners, they can’t learn from history. We need history books with more pictures.

The new Chairman of the Republican Party says bipartisanship is over-rated. Did I mention that Republicans are slow learners?

A big deal is being made that the stimulus package received no Republican votes in the House. About 30 GOP House members considered voting for the plan, but were extorted to vote against it. Like the other dinosaurs, Republicans have brains the size of walnuts.

Republican leaders in the Senate claim that Obama’s stimulus plan will lead to disaster. Better listen, these guys are very skilled at engineering disasters.

It seems like every time they refer to recessions of the past, not to mention the Depression, Republicans were in power at the time. We have to find somebody that can draw pictures of economic disasters for a lesson book for the GOP.

Dick Cheney claims that reading people their rights is putting America in danger. America is all about rights! People’s rights are the foundation of our country! Forget about human rights and you forget about America! How many ways can this be said? Cheney, you Dick, just crawl into a hole and shut up. Despite the damage you’ve done, you still have the right to speak. Please don’t. I would leave Republicans alone if they would just sit in the corner and face reality! They lost any semblance of power in this country because they are massive screw-ups!

Anybody that wants to promote compromise should watch how their representatives in Congress act in the next two years, when the House members, and a third of Senators, come up for re-election. Unload John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi ASAP!

Pelosi is letting power get to her head. She should quit being so stupid or she might be selling pencils two years from now.

I drove over the 35W bridge in Minneapolis just days before it collapsed. Didn’t know I was cheating death. Bridges all across the country are going bad, and not enough of the billions are allotted to fix this; instead, this major league problem is getting a drop in the bucket. Bridge building creates a lot of quality jobs, and in hard hit sectors of the market. And insist on American steel. Not only is this good for the American economy, America knows how to make steel. Chinese and Japanese steel is crap. I’m a machinist, I know steel.

If you’re going to make tax cuts, don’t make them without direction. Give companies tax credits for hiring. Give consumers tax credits for buying cars, and houses (a good Republican idea. They do exist.)

The Democrats are funding the health program for children with a cigarette tax, but the “Stimulus” contains a smoking cessation program. They’re counting on one or the other to fail. What else in their plans is set up to fail?

The first bill Obama signed into law was to make women’s pay equal to men’s pay. As ideologically laudable the principle, is that what we need now? Making it more expensive to keep people employed? Pie-in-the-Sky. As noted by others, he didn’t allow five days for public comment, as promised.

Somebody should tell Rush Limbaugh every good American, Democrat, Republican, or whatever, wants Obama to succeed. Anyone that wants the country to go further down the tubes just to prove himself right might as well join Al-Qaeda.

Limbaugh has 20 million listeners; some of them actually take him seriously! Further evidence that the American educational system is failing. Brains the size of walnuts.

A Catholic bishop denies that 6 million Jews were gassed by Nazis during the 1930’s and 40’s. He has a point. 6 million Jews died, but a lot of them were shot, drowned, or failed to survive ghastly medical experiments. Most of those that expired during the construction of V-1 and V-2 missiles succumbed to fumes from welding galvanized metal; can that be considered gassed?

The Nazis also killed disabled people, including gays. Gypsy’s, blacks, etc., those guys just couldn’t run out of reasons to make people dead. Loads of evidence, bodies and bones included, support the existence of the Holocaust. Even Nazis proudly admitted it as the nooses tightened. This bishop wants you to accept Catholicism solely on faith, but he won’t accept the Holocaust in the face of tons (literally, tons) of evidence. I’d keep an eye on this guy when he’s around altar boys. There is a lot of evidence that buggering children is a bad thing.

The Catholic Church failed it’s Christian duty during the Nazi era. I guess it is hard to break tradition; it is still failing it’s Christian duty.

The Governor of Illinois got the boot. He proclaims his innocence in the face of overwhelming evidence against him. He has the full support of Catholic bishops.

Some people are making a stink because Jessica Simpson put on a couple of pounds. With eating disorders among young women nearly a pandemic, this behavior is incomprehensible. Jessica still looks hot. Besides, she’s a singer, not a supermodel. And she doesn’t wear silly hats.

After Michael Phelps won 8 medals in Beijing, he went for some Acapulco gold.

PETA is using scantily clad young women to make broccoli look sexy. Or are they using broccoli to make scantily clad young women look inedible?

These same characters are trying to make us feel all warm and fuzzy about fish by calling them “Sea Kittens.” Put one of these folks in the water with a 15-foot great white sea kitten and see who’s who on the food chain. Actually, sharks usually take a taste of a human and spit it out, kind of like broccoli.

An Airbus made an emergency landing in New York’s Hudson River due to engine failure. Bird remains have been found in both of the plane’s engines. Of course they are no longer birds, they’re now known as “Air Puppies.”

Now we have to watch out for infected peanut butter, from Georgia. What did Jimmy Carter have to do with this?

One lady had survived two forms of Cancer, and was ready to come home from the hospital, but she was finished off by bad peanut butter. I’m going to stick with sea kittens.

People in the disaster areas of Kentucky and Missouri, etc., are advised not to eat the peanut butter in their emergency rations. Nice choices, starve to death or die gagging.

The government says it is going to take steps to prevent bad food from entering our country’s markets. I thought they were always doing that, but it turns out that the FDA was protecting food producers from dying consumers. It makes sense. This is the same outfit that protects the producers of anti-depressants from the families of users that commit suicide.

China is suffering it’s worst drought in half a century. America grows a lot of food. This is a tremendous opportunity to relieve some of our trade deficit. But our food supply must be trustworthy. We have a better chance of making broccoli look sexy.

A 93-year-old World War II vet froze to death in his Michigan home after the local electric company limited his power. Don’t you just love deregulation?

Unregulated free markets don’t work, Socialism doesn’t work, the only thing that will work is a free market with strong government oversight. Then we need a government with strong voter oversight. Then we need voters educated by someone more rational than Rush Limbaugh. We have a better chance of making scantily clad young women look inedible.

How many Republicans does it take to change a light bulb? Don’t know, they’re still using whale oil lamps.

How many Democrats does it take to change a light bulb? Ain’t gonna happen. They talk change, but they seem happy with the old, burnt out bulb.

Sorry, Moon. Unlike a miniature dachshund, I can’t yap forever. Good night, try to get some sleep now.

i luv txt

By Jonathan Bert
The Extreme Moderate

January 26,2009

Do not read or send text messages while driving. Other than that, text away! What a fantastic method of communication; the impact of text is far reaching.

Once a person gets acquainted with text, the obvious advantages are convenience; you read and respond to text when you want to, no digging for ringing phones, and efficiency; text often works in places phone calls don’t. Also, if someone sends you a phone number, you end up with the number right on your phone, no need to search for pen and paper.

Less obvious is text’s potential to improve the English language. English is a mixture of several other languages, and has all kinds of weird rules and exceptions to rules, making things much more difficult than they need to be. English has slowly evolved over the years, but improvement has met resistance from anal-retentive types. I remember a newspaper column titled “Our Lively Language”, but the writer’s apparent mission was to make English as dead as Latin. And there are thousands like her. People that freak out if you put “I” before “E” after “C.” Why not just “I” before “E?” A much easier rule to reinforce. Just a few years ago, my child brought home a textbook that said plow was spelled plough! Maybe in jolly old England, but not in 20th century America! At that time, I had to explain that, on occasion, real life is different than what school tries to tell you. A tough but important lesson. If you ever used the word plough, people would wonder what pluff is. Or is it a ploff? Plew? Ploe? It’s the 21st century now, we need 21st century language.

I think text will speed up the process of making English more user friendly. Some of the habits developed during texting will spread to everyday use. Unnecessary letters will be discarded. Dumb will lose the dumb “B” and just be dum. Abbreviations will be bountiful, without a period in sight! Apostrophe? Wuts an apostrophe? The anal-retentive will lose control of their sphincters! (Sphincter will always be spelled sphincter.) Don’t like it? Tuff!

It does appear English is already compact; when looking at instructions in multiple languages, the English paragraph is frequently shortest. It can still be made more efficient. American English is already vastly different from pluperfect Queen’s English, and that is a good thing. The most powerful country in the history of the World should have it’s own language. The English don’t like change, Americans thrive on change; and figuring out how things should be spelled is a good change. Texting might help other languages, too. Do you think texters in France use the silent X? Do Germans capitalize every noun when they text? I have no idea how the Chinese text.

I butcher English with pleasure. If I butcher facts, I feel bad, I like to be factual. But English needs some serious surgery. So text, text, txt, and have a good nite.

It Ain’t Nigger Day!

By Jonathan Bert
The Extreme Moderate

January 14, 2009

Thursday, January 15th, will be the 80th anniversary of the birth of Martin Luther King, Jr. The following Monday, the 19th, will be celebrated as a national holiday through most of the United States. Too many people fail to understand the importance of this day.

A doctor of theology, King is thought of as a black leader. To most, a black leader is thought of as someone taking every advantage of a photo opportunity, playing the race card even when it doesn’t belong in the deck. America is sick of these people; they even lose respect for the movement. Dr. King wasn’t a black leader. Yes, he was black, and he certainly was a leader; but he was a leader for all of humankind. There are other leaders like him; however, none of them manage to get the airtime the self promoters receive.

King had a message for every man, woman and child on this planet: love one another, echoing the sentiments of other great leaders. He didn’t just advance the black race, he advanced the human race. His principles of love and non-violent resistance have been expoused by the greatest of history’s leaders. They need to be repeated, often, and he repeated them at a time they really needed to be heard.

There may be those that disagree, but I don’t feel a desire for brotherhood is immoderate.

Should you hear someone refer to the upcoming holiday as “Nigger Day”, you are listening to the voice of someone that doesn’t understand how much American society improves every day that we take a step toward achieving Dr. Kings dream. It should be pointed out that niggers are imaginary beings, created not by God, nor Satan; they exist only in the minds of weak and frightened men.

So take this day to remember that once in while there are those born to us that make this great country greater. And maybe observe a moment of silence to think about what we lost that day in Memphis.

“I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become reality. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word. “

Let’s Rethink Our Position on Israel

By Jonathan Bert
The Extreme Moderate

January 6, 2009

The Palestinian fundamentalist group Hamas sends rockets into Israel, killing four. Israel responds by bombing the hell out of Gaza Strip, killing hundreds, wounding thousands, many of them Hamas soldiers, but too many women and children. More rockets follow, more heavy handed responses, etc., etc., et fucking cetera.

Neither side is doing what is needed to end this strife. Duh! The question is, why is the U. S. picking sides? While it’s hard not to sympathize with the desire of Jews to have a place where they are safe from extermination, the current American policy of Israel right or wrong has to end. Israel is apparently operating with a “Little Man Complex” that blinds them to any hope of any solution. Yes, the residents of the Gaza are, for the most part, impoverished and ignorant, but all the same, many are rational enough to not want themselves or their loved ones incinerated.

There is a faction of Palestinians that are secular, and wish for peace. Israel’s nasty response is very discouraging to this effort, and is actually making this group look like idiots. Fatah is irrelevant, and any effort on attaining peace hinges on encouraging support for them, not blowing them up!

American policy has to become more realistic and rational. The Bush administration has been good at fooling the religious fundamentalists in this country into believing that they have a heart and a soul, using hot button social issues such as abortion and gay rights. Obama and his bunch need to rethink our policies, promote the principles of love and peace. We can’t support the current Israeli government any more than we can support Hamas. Our efforts must be centered on bolstering President Abbas and his Fatah party. So far, it isn’t looking good. Obama talks about change, but doesn’t sound like he has the intestinal fortitude to make change. This is the same attitude that brought Kennedy to escalate the “police action” in Viet Nam that was in it’s infancy when he took office. We all know how that went. Disaster. Now, thirty years after that ignoble defeat, Viet Nam is a tourist trap! The “Domino Theory” didn’t pan out, we should have just left the bad guys beat up each other instead of trying to sell us on the idea that some of the bad guys are good.

In the Gaza Strip conflict, there are good guys! While Abbas and Fatah aren’t gold plated good guys, by Muslim standards they are surprisingly rational and peace loving. Our blind support of Israel is damaging to peace. It has been for decades. It will be a slow process, but if Israel doesn’t help Palestinians with a desire for peace gain a foothold on power, eventually whacko powers of the Muslim world will get more seriously involved, and the rockets hitting Israel will be nuclear tipped. It will be Obama’s responsibility to help point this out, instead of supporting massive retaliation. France, remember them? The guys we should have listened to in 2003? They want Israel to chill out for 48 hours. 48 hours! Two stinkin’ days! And Israel refuses, claiming that Hamas will re-arm if they back off for a minute. Have they no brain? Do they not understand that their attacks are exactly what the insurgents need to garner sympathy and gain recruits? They have done exactly the same thing before, with poor results. I’m beginning to think Israelis are slooow learners.

Israel is wrong, and the United States has to make this clear to Israel’s current government in no uncertain terms. Palestinians must be rewarded for supporting Fatah, bring Fatah to the table and show the people the pathway to peace. Get food, medicine and other basic needs to the residents of Gaza and give the credit to Abbas and company. Hamas was elected because of Israel’s persecution. Israel exists largely through American support, let the World know we can no longer support the mindless murder of innocents. Israel’s militaristic government was elected by the people, with confidence that U. S. support would continue no matter what lunacy the paranoiacs they elected did. Our next President talks a good talk; does he have the guts to walk it?

Put America Back to Work!

By Jonathan Bert
The Extreme Moderate

December 15, 2008

I am sick of bailouts and loans for big businesses. This is still following the “Trickle Down” ideas from the Reagan years, and the middle class has suffered for decades because of this backward economic principle. We have got to reverse gears, get the money to flow up!

America needs jobs! While the little guys would love have money handed to them, like it is being handed to big financial firms, and soon to big car companies, most are very willing to work for it. Give Americans a regular paycheck and they will pay their bills, and buy new stuff. In a consumer driven economy, keep the consumer behind the wheel. Giving big business free money will just give them a license to keep their foot on the middle class’ throat.

Not that a lot of the middle class didn’t bring this treatment upon themselves. Reagan was the guy that figured out that if you get the ignorant among us frothing at the mouth over issues like gay marriage and abortion you could shove the screws up our butts and still get praised as great leaders.

Hey, the Democrats can fix this, they’ve always fought for the little guy! Say what? They want to shove billions to the big screw-ups instead of using the money for job creation? Do we have any friends? Don’t answer, I don’t want to hear it. We might also remember how much responsibility Democrats have for some of the trade agreements that shipped millions of jobs out of the country, with the crazy idea that we could compete with countries that don’t have OSHA and where trade unionists are shot. What would these guys do with a brain if they had one?

Franklin Roosevelt pulled us out of the Great Depression by putting America to work. Now, with all of our money going to bail out the big screws, can a job program be funded? Can we create a job program without big corporate interests demanding their cut?

Our new President will have to be strong, real strong, to do what’s needed to put America back to work, while making the bigwigs realize it will be good for them, too. Otherwise, we will witness the fall of the Great American Empire.