Polity: A particular form of political system or government

Been reading about the government’s excellent oversight protections supposedly in place regarding the NSA’s PRISM metadata collection program (you know, like the excellent ones they have over there at the IRS). According to Bloomberg, the House and Senate Intelligence Committees are going to look into this. Hmmm…those committee titles sound like oxymorons to me.

Polity: A particular form of political system or government

It seems to me that the best so-called “think tanks” on the planet cannot compare with the great ideas conjured up at an after-hours office gathering while enjoying a chard or three. Or at least so it seems at the time. In point of fact, a couple of friends and I, while attending just such an event, were discussing how naive many of our fellow Americans seem to be regarding the globalization of economies and politics that has occurred over the past ten years or so, primarily due to the expansion of the worldwide web. Essentially, we posited that: a) America is no longer protected from its enemies by its two coastal oceans; and b) we as a nation under-estimate the economic inter-dependency of the global community of nations at our peril. The consensus among this trio was that if the American public doesn’t start paying attention to what is going on around us, there is a very real possibility that life as we know it here in good ol’ America may be irretrievably changed for the worse, if for no other reason than that we were simply not paying attention.

Case in point: these interesting facts, organized in the order of the title of this article. They include some “astounding misconceptions” Americans have regarding global issues, as reported by Uri Freidman, Associate Editor at Foreign Policy Magazine on October 16, 2012, bracketed by “fat” and “happy”:

Continue “Fat, dumb and happy”

Polity: A particular form of political system or government.

I am the opposite of a procrastinator. Hmmm, so, what do we call such persons? I found no antonym for “procrastinator” in the dictionary. When I posed this conundrum to my friend, Gypsy Dave, he suggested “anticrastinator.” I kind of like that.

Continue “Later gator”

Polity: A particular form of political system or government.

Uh oh. I told you not to get me started on the unions: A brief history lesson for the younger crowd residing in and about Southwestern Michigan, where I grew up: Clark Equipment Company, originally known as the George R. Rich Manufacturing Company, was formed in 1903 as a side business by certain executives of Illinois Steel Company in Chicago. The company moved its operations to Buchanan in 1904, following the hiring of Eugene Clark, a 33 year-old engineer, as CEO, and for whom the company would eventually be renamed. This move was in response to an offer from the Buchanan Chamber of Commerce for free rent and low power costs in order to attract industry (jobs).

It worked.

Continue “Unionanimous, or not”

Polity: A particular form of political system or government.

I have read that the reason certain people tend to use profanity to express themselves is often because they simply do not have the intellectual or educational capacity to better articulate their disdain for one thing or another. It seems to me that those who revert to name calling, as one might hear during an elementary school recess, are similarly challenged:

“I don’t agree with you and, therefore, you are a:

moron/idiot/liar/traitor/bimbo/ideologue/hypocrite/dummy/loser/fearmongerer/political hack, and a rich SOB!”

Well, okay, it’s unlikely that we would hear such things out on the playground (I hope). But you get the picture.

Continue “We can do better than this…”