Bush's pseudo-progressive jibber jabber

From the AP via Yahoo! News:

President Bush took aim Wednesday at lavish salaries and bonuses for corporate executives, standing on Wall Street to issue a sharp warning for corporate boards to "step up to their responsibilities" and tie compensation packages to performance.

[...]

The president acknowledged people's continuing nervousness about their financial picture, despite a string of similar reports that provide some reason for optimism. He said he realized that stories about the enormous salaries and other perks for CEOs, for instance, create anger and uncertainty that affect the country's investors.

[...]

"Government should not decide the compensation for America's corporate executives," he said. "But the salaries and bonuses of CEOs should be based on their success at improving their companies and bringing value to their shareholders."

clickhereforallofit

This new "I'll learn them CEOs" jargin sounds somewhat progressive at first, but not so much when you look at what he's really saying. He doesn't even use the word "worker" or "employee," because that's not who he's even pretending to protect. He clearly says he's looking out for shareholders and/or investors. Shareholders are not the same as employees or workers. Some workers own stock in their companies, but from my expierience working at my dad's place of business, I know that most probably don't--even if their company does very well in the market.

If ol' Georgey boy thinks he's going to win over economic progressives like myself, he's going to actually have to think about the workers, laborers, and employees (documented or not) who get screwed by these greedy bastards, not the slightly less rich stock holders who, apparently, aren't rich enough.

"Viva Bush"? what the FUCK?

Driving back from Texas yesterday, I noticed a bumper sticker on a car in front of me that clearly said "Bush" but had something else before it that I couldn't make out. I sped up to get a closer look, I figured it said something negative, but it actually said something that made me say, "You're a fucking idiot!," out loud. This was the sticker:


The driver appeared to be Hispanic but it doesn't really matter. The sticker looked too old to be an anti-Hugo Chavez one, it must have just been an extremely rare and quite troublesome message from the Hispanic community. It's rare because most Latinos know that Bush doesn't give a shit about them or their native countrymen. Our foreign policy has royally screwed over millions of poor people in Latin America. Why any knowledgable Hispanic American would vote for Bush, or any Republican for that matter, is beyond me. I can understand why an unopinionated and politically ignorant Hispanic person would vote for Bush, but for someone who felt strongly enough to put a political sticker on their car, and to be completely blind to Bush's blatently anti-Latino foreign policy, is just disturbing.

'Obama calls for national health care' -- [so what?]

From the AP via Yahoo! News:

"The time has come for universal health care in America," Obama said at a conference of Families USA, a health care advocacy group.

"I am absolutely determined that by the end of the first term of the next president, we should have universal health care in this country," the Illinois senator said.

Obama was previewing what is shaping up to be a theme of the 2008 Democratic primary. One of his rivals, 2004 vice presidential nominee John Edwards, also said as he announced his candidacy last month that he will offer a proposal for universal health care.

[...]

He said it's wrong that 46 million in this country are uninsured when the country spends more than any one else on health care. He said Americans pay $15 billion in taxes to help care for the uninsured.

[...]

Even after leading that calamitous attempt in 1993, Clinton remains a strong advocate of universal health care and has made it a central theme of her presidential bid.

clickhereforallofit

Okay, Barack Obama says we should have universal health care. That's what this article is about. But then it also says that John Edwards and Hillary Clinton want national health care too, so why does it matter that Obama was talking about it? What makes him any better of a Democrat than the other two? He's gotten a lot of praise from just about everyone; Time Magazine had him on the cover a few months back as our future president. Don't get me wrong, I want a black president just as much as the next guy, but I just don't see how much of a difference he would really make.

I'm not usually very pessimistic, but there is no chance in hell that the US is going to convert to national health care any time soon. As Obama pointed out himself, national health care always gets set back by "Washington politics." I don't think it's politics, I think it's an unspoken and highly concealed bipartisan consensus that national health care is inherently evil. No matter what the Dems say about it, they're never actually going to go through with it. They know that a staggering majority of Americans believe, and have so for many years, that national health care is the way to go, and they use it sometimes to get elected. That's it. Even Obama.

More hot air, please, I can't get enough.

The Saints go skanking in

My band, The Drafted, is playing this Friday at a north Houston venue called The Meltdown. After the New Orleans Saints' phenomenal season, I was inspired to write a punk rock version of "The Saints Go Marching In."

Before I get to the lyrics, I want to talk about this new software called Power Tab Editor. Power Tab is music software that you can download very easily, for free, that allows the user to notate and play back guitar tabliture (and traditional music notation too). Bands like mine, who are separated by long distances, can write new songs without getting together. After I wrote this rendition I downloaded Power Tab, wrote it out, saved it, and emailed it to all my band members, who also have Power Tab on their computers. They can then open the file on their computer and learn the song, without having to organize a rehearsal. This is not a substitute for band practice, but it is a short cut for song writing, which would normally require a lot of time for the band to get together. So for my band, even though we can't practice altogether all the time, we can at least email each other new material and practice it individually before our short pre-show rehearsals and continue to play new songs for our loyal and ever-growing fanbase.

Anyway, I kept the old first verse and wrote two new verses that apply to 2006-2007:

Oh when the Saints, go marching in
Oh when the Saints go marching in
Oh how I want to be in that number
When the Saints go marching in

I hate the Bears, I hate the Bears
I hate the motherfucking Bears
Oh how I want to go to Chicago
And kill the motherfucking Bears

Oh when the Saints, come back next year
Oh whenthe Saints come back next year
Oh how I want to be in New Orleans
When they win the Super Bowl

(repeat first verse)

New axe motherfucker

check it the fuck out, here's a vid.

Friday DOG BLOG

meet: The Drafted

I know I talk about my band sometimes so I thought I'd post a video that I made the other day.