Lipstick on a Pig
You don't have to be coming back from the mountains of Mexico to realize that there is a heck of a lot of really weird news out there.
Obama is trying to say that the McCain/Palin campaign is a fraud, so he uses one of Ann Richards' favorite phrases as the metaphor.
And it really is a pretty good metaphor. The McCain folks decided to counter-attack by calling it sexist. The main stream press, in another supreme example of steering an issue down the Republican talking point lane, focused on the sexist charge all day, not the fraud. Most are calling it a gaffe.
They haven't really given the truth of Obama's remarks the attention they deserve. But the event is getting attention. Instead of letting this go though, I think the Obama crowd should embrace the image, because in the biz, as they say, I would say this one has legs. (hooves.)
Here's Talking Points Memo:
Embrace it.
"Let's face it. Lipstick on a pig is a classic American phrase. And there's just no better way to describe the McCain-Palin ticket. The 'Reformer' whose whole campaign and senate office is run by a crew of high-rolling DC lobbyists?
The earmark slayer whose state this year got ten times more earmarks than any other state in the country?
Whose city when she was mayor got twenty times as many?
The whole operation is just one big bamboozling lie. And lipstick on a pig is just using good American English to explain it. If McCain and Palin don't like it they should have thought of that before they decided to run as frauds."
"R"s are not very good at metaphor. Their specialty is using code words that awaken hate, division, and fear. So you can see why they might think that Obama was calling someone a pig. Fact is, the pig is the McCain policy of embracing the policies of the Bush Administration and the disasters that we have experienced in the last eight years.
Palin then, with her swirl of rhetoric and lies , would actually be the lipstick.
Meanwhile, another huge investment bank is going up in smoke, and the government is taking over the housing corporations that just three weeks ago probably "would not need" the money that Congress approved to shore them up. All this seems like a last ditch effort to shore up the economy during the last few months of the campaign. Whether it is bottoming out, or just on another ledge of deep, deep descent into the economic abyss should certainly be enough to put a slight dent in our collective eco-narco tranquility.
And just to add a little spice to this kettle of uncertainty, another powerful hurricane is in the gulf and headed right towards my neck of the woods. I don't think we will like this Ike.
But it does make me remember how far our system has fallen.
The "R's of yesteryear were pretty decent folks. They had a philosophy, and they had morals and integrity. Remember, it was Ike who warned of the military industrial complex that has taken over our democracy. This bunch just tells lie after lie on a daily basis, and the press just repeats them, all the while pimping and obfuscating for that same military/ industrial/oil/corporate/media complex that Ike warned us about. (watch).
Obama is trying to say that the McCain/Palin campaign is a fraud, so he uses one of Ann Richards' favorite phrases as the metaphor.
And it really is a pretty good metaphor. The McCain folks decided to counter-attack by calling it sexist. The main stream press, in another supreme example of steering an issue down the Republican talking point lane, focused on the sexist charge all day, not the fraud. Most are calling it a gaffe.
They haven't really given the truth of Obama's remarks the attention they deserve. But the event is getting attention. Instead of letting this go though, I think the Obama crowd should embrace the image, because in the biz, as they say, I would say this one has legs. (hooves.)
Here's Talking Points Memo:
Embrace it.
"Let's face it. Lipstick on a pig is a classic American phrase. And there's just no better way to describe the McCain-Palin ticket. The 'Reformer' whose whole campaign and senate office is run by a crew of high-rolling DC lobbyists?
The earmark slayer whose state this year got ten times more earmarks than any other state in the country?
Whose city when she was mayor got twenty times as many?
The whole operation is just one big bamboozling lie. And lipstick on a pig is just using good American English to explain it. If McCain and Palin don't like it they should have thought of that before they decided to run as frauds."
"R"s are not very good at metaphor. Their specialty is using code words that awaken hate, division, and fear. So you can see why they might think that Obama was calling someone a pig. Fact is, the pig is the McCain policy of embracing the policies of the Bush Administration and the disasters that we have experienced in the last eight years.
Palin then, with her swirl of rhetoric and lies , would actually be the lipstick.
Meanwhile, another huge investment bank is going up in smoke, and the government is taking over the housing corporations that just three weeks ago probably "would not need" the money that Congress approved to shore them up. All this seems like a last ditch effort to shore up the economy during the last few months of the campaign. Whether it is bottoming out, or just on another ledge of deep, deep descent into the economic abyss should certainly be enough to put a slight dent in our collective eco-narco tranquility.
And just to add a little spice to this kettle of uncertainty, another powerful hurricane is in the gulf and headed right towards my neck of the woods. I don't think we will like this Ike.
But it does make me remember how far our system has fallen.
The "R's of yesteryear were pretty decent folks. They had a philosophy, and they had morals and integrity. Remember, it was Ike who warned of the military industrial complex that has taken over our democracy. This bunch just tells lie after lie on a daily basis, and the press just repeats them, all the while pimping and obfuscating for that same military/ industrial/oil/corporate/media complex that Ike warned us about. (watch).
.
Problem is. They've got more lipstick than Revlon.
.
And they put it on better than the Joker.
.
And a lot of honest folks who liked Ike,
.
find it hard to believe that the party of Lincoln
.
has seemingly tranformed itself into the party of Goebbels.
.
And that didn't turn out so well.
.
.
For anybody.
.
.
.
.
.
Labels: political philosophy
posted by oZ @ 3:27 PM
1 Comments:
It might come as a surprise to the Palin/McCain ticket that we currently export more of our oil than Alaska can supply.
"A record 1.6 million barrels a day in U.S. refined petroleum products were exported during the first four months of this year, up 33 percent from 1.2 million barrels a day over the same period in 2007. Shipments this February topped 1.8 million barrels a day for the first time during any month, according to final numbers from the Energy Department."
Based on the Energy Information Agencies' (EIA) numbers, the US uses approximately 20 million barrels of crude a day. The EIA also reports that 1 barrel of crude (42 gallons) makes approximately 20 gallons of gasoline and 7 gallons of diesel.
Assuming that most of the exported products are gasoline and diesel, and knowing from calculating that roughly 64% of a barrel of crude oil (which is the percentage of gasoline and diesel that comes out of a barrel of crude oil) can be refined into gasoline and diesel, then the 1.6 million barrels a day being exported represents roughly 2.2 million barrels of crude a day or about 10% of the crude oil used daily by the US.
It may be accurate to say that no crude oil is being exported from the US, but up to 10% of our crude oil is being exported in the form of refined products. This makes the argument that the US has a shortage of refining capacity to handle the US market questionable at best.
By Reuters | 03 Jul 2008 | 03:23 PM ET
While the administration argues that more supplies would help to bring down prices, U.S exports of diesel fuel in April averaged 387,000 barrels per day, up almost seven-fold from 59,000 barrels a day in the same month a year earlier.
U.S. gasoline shipments in April averaged 202,000 barrels a day, the most for the month since 1945, when America was sending fuel overseas to ease supply shortages in other countries during World War II. Gasoline exports in April 2007 were almost half at 116,000 barrels per day.
Residual fuel exports in April were 377,000 barrels per day, the fourth highest level for any month, and up 10 percent from 344,000 barrels per day a year earlier.
The biggest share of U.S. oil products exported went to Mexico, Canada, Chile, Singapore and Brazil.
The EIA said more U.S. diesel is going to Latin American to fuel power plants because of a shortage of natural gas in the region, and China has switched to diesel from coal to run some of its generating facilities in order to reduce smog ahead of the summer Olympics next month in Beijing.
However, both the EIA and API admitted they did not know why daily U.S. gasoline exports to Canada skyrocketed to 41,000 barrels in January-April this year from 9,000 barrels in 2007.
It will take a lot of lipstick to polish that pig.
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