Cabinets...

Cabinet maker choose fine wood for their craft, then work it until smooth and appealing to the eyes.  The design is for the eye but also for the utility of the thing.  Cabinets that don't serve a purpose well wind up on the scrap heap of things...grown useless and replaced by more functional models.

The real President,  Pres.- elect Obama seems to have learned his craft well.  A very deliberate design so far but one aimed to carry the weight of the heavy work ahead.  A nation has become accustomed to the Presidency as a place where progress stops.  Six years ago, General Motors introduced a hydrogen powered car, put a gas pump at 2nd and Mass. Ave near the Senate Office Buildings for the fleet of cars to be fueled by the Congress Members who were given these prototype cars.  They looked like a dream come true...roomy and full powered vehicles running on Hydrogen gas...the most abundant element in the universe.. maybe...but certainly cheap and pretty much everywhere...it's molecules are in every drop of water by the millions...but Republican Party theology said to put the hydrogen car off until the Gasoline boys were ready to set up a supply chain...we would look at it again in fifteen years... and yesterday, hat in hand...fresh from making millions of gas guzzling SUV and trucks, thousands of dreamy car ads for ridiculously low mile per gallon vehicles...fresh off their fleet of private corporate jets...asking the Republicans in Congress and the White House to give 50 Billion or so to keep the companies afloat... hmmm i would say...maybe you should have built that hydrogen car, at least we'd have a reason to hope that American automakers  are at least considering the welfare of their workers, suppliers, customers, and the whole air breathing world out there... AMAZING...

So as the real President plans a Cabinet for a real government, the old phonies keep making real problems....

Hiding Behind the Troops

Americans love and support its military...no, not the billionaires that have been created by the spending associated with the Iraq invasion...the real troops --your children and mine who serve. We want them to be safe and back home after doing the brave parts to protect our country. The civil war in Iraq is a threat to world peace. True and the nations of the world should be fixing it. Now service in Iraq was directed by a civilian non-combatant and now it is proposed that if anyone disagrees with the civilian decisions on Iraq THEY ARE DISLOYAL TO THE TROOPS.... Well... Imagine you are the survivor of a soldier killed in Iraq and you oppose the war...so this is a disloyal person? or you gave up a child in Vietnam..disloyal now? And who is making this loyalty call... probably a man who never served in combat or one who is simply hiding behind the troops for political convenience. There is a shamelessness to this which is appalling in the context of the sacrifices this nation has made to pursue what history may properly regard as a "folly" in Iraq- a policy that had virtually no chance of success from its start...unless you consider the re-election of Bush and GOP domination of government as success ... to most hardly.

Draft Not Needed to Limit War

The draft won't limit the initiation of force- oh it would be different if there were a universal draft- we would have more personal engagement to the power elites if their own children had to go off to earn their copororate dividends by risking their lives in combat-- Mr. Rangel we owe you a great national "thank you" for putting that thought into the mainstream.Using drafted soldiers would not really affect the decision to use force it would really only go to the end war public pressure as the casualties might begin to mount. We have seen the innate appeal to Americans to support troops once committed to combat. The modern constitutional interpretation of war powers- and post 9/11- gives unlimited discretion to commit troops to the Executive. The all volunteer army has shown it runs out of volunteers in these confused and unclear policy situations like Iraq--we have had to move national guard forces into the theater of combat and extend tours of duty to maintain person power as needed. This has been an effective drag on continuing to escalate the military role. The best approach to avoiding war is to interdict the cycle of wars tied to presidential re-election campaigns. With all due respect the hundreds of $billions, loss of thousands of lives, and further destabilization of a critical region was a too steep price to pay to unseat one petty dictator in Iraq and re-elect a mere politician in Washington, D.C..