★ Some thoughts, from following Frank Schaeffer, on President Obama’s first year in the White House

We faithful Obama supporters still trust our initial impression of him as a great, good and uniquely qualified man to lead us.

Obama’s steady supporters will be proven right. Obama’s critics will be remembered as easily panicked and prematurely discouraged at best and shriveled hate mongers at worst…

The Context of the Obama Presidency

Not since the days of the rise of fascism in Europe, the Second World War and the Depression has any president faced more adversity. Not since the Civil War has any President led a more bitterly divided country. Not since the introduction of racial integration has any President faced a more consistently short-sighted and willfully ignorant opposition – from both the Right and Left.

As the President’s poll numbers have fallen so has his support from some on the Left that were hailing him as a Messiah not long ago; all those lefty websites and commentators that were falling all over themselves on behalf of our first black president during the 2008 election.

The Left’s lack of faith has become a self-fulfilling “prophecy” — snipe at the President and then watch the poll numbers fall and then pretend you didn’t have anything to do with it!

Here is what Obama faced when he took office– none of which was his fault:

• An ideologically divided country to the point that America was really two countries
• Two wars; one that was mishandled from the start, the other that was unnecessary and immoral
• The worst economic crisis since the depression
• America’s standing in the world at the lowest point in history
• A country that had been misled into accepting the use of torture of prisoners of war
• A health care system in free fall
• An educational system in free fall
• A global environmental crisis of history-altering proportions (about which the Bush administration and the Republicans had done nothing)
• An impasse between culture warriors from the Right and Left
• A huge financial deficit inherited from the terminally irresponsible Bush administration…
  And those were only some of the problems sitting on the President’s desk!

‘Help’ from the Right?

The reactionary white, rube, uneducated, crazy American far Right, combined with the educated but obtuse neoconservative war mongers, religious Right shills for big business, libertarian Fed Reserve-hating gold bug, gun-loving crazies, child-molesting acquiescent “bishops”, frontier loons and evangelical gay-hating flakes found one thing to briefly unite them: their desire to stop an uppity black man from succeeding at all costs!

What did the Republicans and the religious Right, libertarians and half-baked conspiracy theorists — that is what the Republicans were reduced to by the time Obama took office — do to “help” our new president (and our country) succeed? They claimed that he wasn’t a real American, didn’t have an American birth certificate, wasn’t born here, was secretly a Muslim, was a white-hating “racist”, was secretly a communist, was actually the Anti-Christ, (!) and was a reincarnation of Hitler and wanted “death panels” to kill the elderly!

They not-so-subtly called for his assassination through the not-so-subtle use of vile signs held at their rallies and even a bumper sticker quoting Psalm 109:8. They organized “tea parties” to sound off against imagined insults and all government in general and gathered to howl at the moon. They were led by insurance industry lobbyists and deranged (but well-financed) “commentators” from Glenn Beck to Rush Limbaugh.

The utterly discredited Roman Catholic bishops teamed up with the utterly discredited evangelical leaders to denounce a President who was trying to actually do something about the poor, the environment, to diminish the number of abortions through compassionate programs to help women and to care for the sick! And in Congress the Republican leadership only knew one word: “No!”

In other words the reactionary white, rube, uneducated, crazy American far Right,combined with the educated but obtuse neoconservative war mongers, religious Right shills for big business, libertarian Fed Reserve-hating gold bug, gun-loving crazies, child-molesting acquiescent “bishops”, frontier loons and evangelical gay-hating flakes found one thing to briefly unite them: their desire to stop an uppity black man from succeeding at all costs!

‘Help’ from the Left?

Those that had stood in transfixed legions weeping with beatific emotion on Election Night turned into an angry mob saying how ‘disappointed’ they were that they’d not all immediately been translated to heaven the moment Obama stepped into the White House! Where was the ‘change’?

What did the Left do to help their newly elected President? Some of them excoriated Obama because they disagreed with the bad choices he was being forced to make regarding a war in Afghanistan that he’d inherited from the worst president in modern history!

Others stood up and bravely proclaimed that the President’s economic policies had “failed” before the President even instituted them! Others said that since all gay rights battles had not been fully won within virtually minutes of the President taking office, they’d been “betrayed”! (Never mind that Obama’s vocal support to the gay community is stronger than any other President’s has been. Never that mind he signed a new hate crimes law which included language punishing hate crimes against homosexuals for the first time!)

Those that had stood in transfixed legions weeping with beatific emotion on Election Night turned into an angry mob saying how “disappointed” they were that they’d not all immediately been translated to heaven the moment Obama stepped into the White House! Where was the “change”? Contrary to their expectations they were still mere mortals!

And the legion of young new supporters was too busy texting to pay attention for longer than a nanosecond… “Governing”?! What the hell does that world, uh, like mean?”

The President’s critics Left and Right all had one thing in common: impatience laced with little-to-no sense of history (let alone reality) thrown in for good measure. Then, of course, there were the white, snide know-it-all commentators/talking heads who just couldn’t imagine that maybe, just maybe they weren’t as smart as they thought they were and certainly not as smart as their President. He hadn’t consulted them, had he? So he must be wrong!

The Obama critics’ ideological ideas defined their idea of reality rather than reality defining their ideas — say, about what is possible in one year in office after the hand that the President had been dealt by fate, or, to be exact, by the American Idiot Nation that voted Bush into office… twice!

Meanwhile back in the reality-based community — in just 12 short months — President Obama:

• Continued the draw down the misbegotten war in Iraq (But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
• Thoughtfully and decisively picked the best of several bad choices regarding the war in Afghanistan (But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
• Gave a major precedent-setting speech supporting gay rights (But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
• Restored America’s image around the globe (But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
• Banned torture of American prisoners (But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
• Stopped the free fall of the American economy (But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
• Put the USA squarely back in the bilateral international community (But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
• Put the USA squarely into the middle of the international effort to halt global warming (But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
• Stood up for educational reform (But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
• Won a Nobel peace prize (But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
• Moved the trial of terrorists back into the American judicial system of checks and balances (But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
• Did what had to be done to start the slow, torturous and almost impossible process of health care reform that 7 presidents had failed to even begin (But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
• Responded to hatred from the Right and Left with measured good humor and patience (But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
• Stopped the free fall of job losses (But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
• Showed immense personal courage in the face of an armed and dangerous far Right opposition that included the sort of disgusting people that show up at public meetings carrying loaded weapons and carrying Timothy McVeigh-inspired signs about the “blood of tyrants” needing to “water the tree of liberty”… (But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)
• Showed that he could not only make the tough military choices but explain and defend them brilliantly (But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)

Other than those “disappointing” accomplishments — IN ONE YEAR — President Obama “failed”! Other than that he didn’t “live up to expectations”!

Who actually has failed…

…are the Americans that can’t see the beginning of a miracle of national rebirth right under their jaded noses. Who failed are the smart ass ideologues of the Left and Right who began rooting for this President to fail so that they could be proven right in their dire and morbid predictions. Who failed are the movers and shakers behind our obscenely dumb news cycles that have turned “news” into just more stupid entertainment for an entertainment-besotted infantile country.

Here’s the good news: President Obama is succeeding without the help of his lefty “supporters” or hate-filled Republican detractors!

The Future Looks Good

After Obama has served two full terms, (and he will), after his wisdom in moving deliberately and cautiously with great subtlety on all fronts — with a canny and calculating eye to the Possible succeeds, (it will), after the economy is booming and new industries are burgeoning, (they will be), after the doomsayers are all proven not just wrong but silly: let the record show that not all Americans were panicked into thinking the sky was falling.

Just because we didn’t get everything we wanted in the first short and fraught year Obama was in office not all of us gave up. Some of us stayed the course. And we will be proven right.

★ This mural showed up on the side of a building by where I work not too long after the King of Pop died. Every time I pass by it I gotta stop and stare for a little bit. Amazing artwork.

The artwork was done by 808 Urban

★ I thought that Pres. Obama killed it in his Health Care speech to congress last night. A lot of his address simply called out the right-wing on their misleading rhetoric and all around childish behavior. I only caught pieces of the speech, because I was watching it while coding away at an application I’m building, but here are some of the highlights that stuck out to me.

Fiscal Conservatives -
Obama delivered a blow to the argument of some of the self-professed fiscal conservatives. He decried how the Bush tax cuts, the Bush war in Iraq and the Bush prescription drug plan helped explode the deficit, squandering the Clinton surplus and plunging us deep in debt. No one who voted for that unholy trinity can credibly oppose Obama’s health reforms on fiscal grounds.

Public Options -
He explained why the competition that a public option would create is a good thing because it would keep pressure on private insurers to keep their prices affordable and treat their customers better. I like the example he chose to use:

“Public colleges and universities provide additional choice and competition to students without in anyway inhibiting a vibrant system of private colleges and universities.”

★ You can’t make this stuff up. I saw this first when @gruber posted it on df: Anti-health-care-reform activist Kenneth Gladney, reportedly injured in a scuffle at a town hall meeting late last week, is collecting donations to pay his medical bills because he was recently laid off and lost his health insurance.

If the current system can consistently produce irony of this calibre then I’m all for it.

★ This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US department of energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility. After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the national weather service of the national oceanographic and atmospheric administration determined the weather was going to be like using satellites designed, built, and launched by the national aeronautics and space administration.

At the appropriate time as regulated by the US congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads built by the local, state, and federal departments of transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank. On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the US Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school.

After work, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to a house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and fire marshal’s inspection, and which has not been plundered of all it’s valuables thanks to the local police department.

I then log on to the internet which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration and post on my blog about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can’t do anything right.

★ The “Birthers” are so crazy, stupid, and increasingly desperate to hurt the Democrats who are dominating them, that they can’t be bothered with “fact-checking”. I only wish that I had thought of this first. While the wacky, tin-foil hat wearing, conspiracy theory movements are making headlines based solely on entertainment value in this post Sarah Palin era. It still doesn’t change the fact that the GOP is NOT relevant. Not even remotely relevant.

Not even @aplusk (Ashton Kutcher) could’ve setup a better Punk. From the TPM:

It now looks like the forged “Kenyan” Obama birth certificate that was briefly promoted by the Birthers — actually an altered copy of a decades-old South Australian birth certificate — was deliberately designed as a prank on the Birther movement itself, Dave Weigel reports.

From the movie “The Hangover”:

Alan Garner: Hello. How ’bout that ride in? I guess that’s why they call it Sin City.

[awkward laughter]

Alan Garner: You guys might not know this, but I consider myself a bit of a loner. I tend to think of myself as a one-man wolf pack. But when my sister brought Doug home, I knew he was one of my own. And my wolf pack… it grew by one. So there… there were two of us in the wolf pack… I was alone first in the pack, and then Doug joined in later. And six months ago, when Doug introduced me to you guys, I thought, “Wait a second, could it be?” And now I know for sure, I just added two more guys to my wolf pack. Four of us wolves, running around the desert together, in Las Vegas, looking for strippers and cocaine. So tonight, I make a toast!

★ Having trouble keeping up with all of the Republican sex scandals? Well TPM took the time to map it out for us.

TPM

★ This is pretty genius. Where was this service when I was in school.

http://www.corrupted-files.com/Word.html

★ This goes out to you, KHS Class of ‘97

★ Now you got a crap-load of squares!

★ It sucks to be this guy. This is proof that karma really is a bitch.

A boss and his secretary who were having an affair saw their romantic tryst interrupted in a wince-inducing manner – after a car crash led her to accidentally bite his penis off.

According to reports in China Press and Sin Chew Daily, the 30-year-old woman was performing oral sex on her boss in a car in a Singapore park, when the car was struck by a reversing van.

The impact caused her to bite the man’s penis off.

Full story

★ This is a nicely done female response to “Jizz In My Pants”.

★ Not to make light of a serious issue, but XKCD must have been watching the Twitter stream get hit hard by trending #swineflu just like me. Because this is exactly what I saw.

So if Twitter is the “Pulse of the Internets”, then XKCD must be the pulse of Twitter…? I don’t know. But it’s funny because it’s true.

If you want to follow the outbreak globally in realtime, this google maps mashup is the best place.

We’ve been trying to have a baby for six months…

★ This was just too funny to not post. Enjoy.

★ Ashlee Vance, reporting for the NYT:

The Oracle Corporation, the technology information company, announced Monday that it would acquire a rival, Sun Microsystems, for $9.50 a share, or about $7.4 billion. […]

The deal immediately disrupts the traditional relationships formed between some of the technology industry’s largest players and thrusts Oracle into the hardware business. Oracle, for example, has long-standing partnerships with Sun’s rivals, including Hewlett-Packard and Dell.

Since just about every project I work on uses MySQL in someway, this is slightly disturbing news. Nobody nows exactly what Oracles plans for MySQL are, but I’m hoping that they don’t neglect it in favor of Oracle’s own DB. We can only wait and see.

★ Tinyarro.ws is a URL shortening service like bit.ly or tinyurl.com with a twist. It uses Unicode characters (➡ ★ ☆) in the URL. This makes a very tiny url.

These all point to the brokenparadigmlabs blog

➡.ws/★bpl
➡.ws/✪bpl
www.brokenparadigmlabs.com/blog

★ Read this on TPM this morning. The New York Times hit the nail on the head.

Louisiana has gotten $130 billion in post-Katrina aid. How is it that the stars of the Republican austerity movement come from the states that suck up the most federal money? Taxpayers in New York send way more to Washington than they get back so more can go to places like Alaska and Louisiana. Which is fine, as long as we don’t have to hear their governors bragging about how the folks who elected them want to keep their tax money to themselves. Of course they do! That’s because they’re living off ours.

Read the full article here.