Some insights from recent readings about the issues facing our two party political system. Most of this comes from a brilliant political strategist who was on Michael Smerconish’s program on April 1, 2011. Alas, the Smerconish website is not very helpful, so I could not find his name. 
The country is about 40 percent “Reagan-ish”, meaning that 40 percent of the US favor less government and for the most part view government as more of a problem than a solution. About 30 percent view government as being helpful and necessary, and believe government is the entity to solve national problems. Lastly, the fastest growing group, currently at about 25 percent, are the “No Dog in the Race” folk, most likely to have an “I” on their voter cards, and generally do not feel represented by either party’s demagogues.
The US faces complex problems, and it’s unlikely that either party, alone, has the answers and resources to solve them. But because voting records are used so much against candidates, the going mantra is to empower their base voting blocks, and the partisan media makes targets of anyone who does not follow their party, politicians have great pressure to conform to their party’s beliefs. Parties themselves face great pressure, at the same time, to promote and support candidates that are true to the core of the party plank. As a result, laws are passed that are invariably somewhere in the middle of that party’s philosophical sphere, which means it is by nature moving away from the political center. This means that almost all new laws are unacceptable to about 50 percent of Americans. As this happens over and over, people of both parties become more and more disenchanted and move to the center or to Independent status.
Since 1968, no party has had a unified goverment for more than 4 years (same party in white house and majorities in both houses of congress).
So the trend is that more and more people feel misrepresented by the current parties.
“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than a sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity”
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
From the Automatic Earth, some very scholarly and sobering writings on our current state of affairs.
Elle Frontz, my wife and myself are digitizing old issues of the Watsontown Record and Star newspaper and the Watsontown Record newspaper. These are from 1870 through it’s going out of business in 1926. There are some amazing writings, ads and such, and all will be published at our Watsontown history website, www.mywatsontown.com.
But this is a really cool ad from 1916. Every single paper has several of this beautiful pen and ink drawings, some for ads, some as illustrations.
FROM ABCNEWS (No, not a doomsday fringe blog) – Oil from the BP spill has not been completely cleared, but miles of it is sitting at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, according to a study currently under way. Professor Samantha Joye of the Department of Marine Sciences at the University of Georgia, who is conducting a study on a research vessel just two miles from the spill zone, said the oil has not disappeared, but is on the sea floor in a layer of scum.
“We’re finding it everywhere that we’ve looked. The oil is not gone,” Joye said. “It’s in places where nobody has looked for it.”
All 13 of the core samples Joye and her UGA team have collected from the bottom of the gulf are showing oil from the spill, she said.
In an interview with ABC News from her vessel, Joye said the oil cannot be natural seepage into the gulf, because the cores they’ve tested are showing oil only at the top. With natural seepage, the oil would spread from the top to the bottom of the core, she said.
FROM TIME.COM – One of the most contentious issues in the vast literature about alcohol consumption has been the consistent finding that those who don’t drink actually tend to die sooner than those who do. The standard Alcoholics Anonymous explanation for this finding is that many of those who show up as abstainers in such research are actually former hard-core drunks who had already incurred health problems associated with drinking.
But a new paper in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research suggests that — for reasons that aren’t entirely clear — abstaining from alcohol does actually tend to increase one’s risk of dying even when you exclude former drinkers. The most shocking part? Abstainers’ mortality rates are higher than those of heavy drinkers.
Daily Total for 8/29/2010
0 Black Vulture
0 Turkey Vulture
0 Northern Goshawk
5 Sharp-shinned Hawk
2 Cooper’s Hawk
0 Unidentified Accipiter
6 Red-tailed Hawk
0 Red-shouldered Hawk
45 Broad-winged Hawk
0 Rough-legged Hawk
0 Unidentified Buteo
0 Golden Eagle
2 Bald Eagle
0 Unidentified Eagle
1 Northern Harrier
1 Osprey
0 Peregrine Falcon
0 Merlin
4 American Kestrel
0 Unidentified Falcon
0 Unidentified Raptor
66 DAILY TOTAL
676 SEASON TOTAL
17 species of warblers, 5 species of flycatchers, and 4 species of vireo in the morning, also 68 ruby-throated hummingbirds
Click here to view season total or search hawk count database
|
2010 Autumn Hawk Count
Daily Total for 8/29/2010 |
|
|
0 |
Black Vulture |
|
|
0 |
Turkey Vulture |
|
|
0 |
Northern Goshawk |
|
|
5 |
Sharp-shinned Hawk |
|
|
2 |
Cooper’s Hawk |
|
|
0 |
Unidentified Accipiter |
|
|
6 |
Red-tailed Hawk |
|
|
0 |
Red-shouldered Hawk |
|
|
45 |
Broad-winged Hawk |
|
|
0 |
Rough-legged Hawk |
|
|
0 |
Unidentified Buteo |
|
|
0 |
Golden Eagle |
|
|
2 |
Bald Eagle |
|
|
0 |
Unidentified Eagle |
|
|
1 |
Northern Harrier |
|
|
1 |
Osprey |
|
|
0 |
Peregrine Falcon |
|
|
0 |
Merlin |
|
|
4 |
American Kestrel |
|
|
0 |
Unidentified Falcon |
|
 |
0 |
Unidentified Raptor |
|
|
66 |
DAILY TOTAL |
|
|
676 |
SEASON TOTAL |
|
Counter’s Comments:
17 species of warblers, 5 species of flycatchers, and 4 species of vireo in the morning, also 68 ruby-throated hummingbirds
Click here to view season total or search our hawkcount database
