You are too kind

Gilligan, the mastermind behind the too cool for school blog Retrospace, recently gave me the above award. Getting it from him was an unexpected honor that leaves me grateful and humbled because it's always nice to get such great peer based recognition. Thanks for giving me the swell award sir.

Now it's my turn to award this to some other worthy bloggers who write damn fine blogs.

• It's long been my contention, ever since I began reading her blog, that Vikkitikkitavi is perhaps the best writer of all the folks who blogs I read regularly. She goes for quality not quantity, which is my way of saying that she doesn't blog as much as someone like me. I think she's a feckin' genius and that her blog is the best ever. I therefore award her one of these 'Great Read' awards.
• CDP, the blogger formerly known as Aunt Dahilia, gets one of these awards as well. She writes about her life, her past, her family, politics, and much more and she does it with grace, style, and wit. Go read this post about her youngest son facing up to his swimming pool related fear and if you don't have a lump in your throat by the time you finish it, then you're not human.
  
• The man I think of as my younger brother, Samurai Frog, gets one of these awards too. Just like blood brothers we don't agree on everything and sometimes we get in a snit with each other but that's cool, because if we all agreed on everything all the time then the world would be pretty boring. He writes a hell of a blog and his Tumblr blogs are great too.
  
• My girl of the north country, Whiskeymarie is hereby awarded this thingy too. Why does she get one you ask? Because does posts where she dresses up in costumes, is funny as hell, cooks good stuff, and because she's only days away from not only being a crazy cat lady, she's almost a crazy dog lady too. I thank my lucky stars that my friend Sean in New Orleans emailed me the link to her blog one day a few years ago.
• Yournamehere, the twisted genius who writes Death Wore a Feathered Mullet, gets the final nod for this award. No one makes me laugh harder and no one makes me think, "Holy shit, why can't I come up with posts like that?" like he does. He's the eviler twin brother that I never knew I had.
  

I've been remiss in thanking the old college buddy Joe who sent me the above award for my blogging. Joe doesn't blog but he does read my blog and he often comments under an assumed name. I appreciate the award Joe and I'm looking forward to hanging out when you get down this way during race week.

My year end political wrap up

The big political news this year was obviously Barack Obama's historic victory. I didn't support Obama in the beginning but I was behind him one hundred percent in the end because the choice was to move forward with the smart black guy or stay anchored in this conservative Republican hell we're in right now. I rejoiced along with millions of others when Obama crushed doddering old John "I tried to sell my soul to the right wing of my party but they weren't buying it" McCain on election day. And like a lot of you I am not comfortable with some of his cabinet choices, Vilsack as Sec. of Agriculture for one and Hillary as Sec. of State for another, I think she'd make a much better Attorney General and I think she'll be way too hawkish as Sec. of State. I'm also disappointed that he is letting that anti science homophobic preacher Prick Warren deliver his invocation. But when I step back and think about it all I have to recall the wise words of one of my favorite bloggers, Vikkitikkitavi, who says that politicians will always break your heart, that's what they do because they aren't interested in pleasing you, they are only interested in getting re-elected.

In the end it's Obama's cabinet and not mine, it's his inauguration not mine and he can pick and choose who the hell he wants and I can always bitch about it on my blog.

The other big Obama news item for me this year was the shocking discovery that he was responsible for all the misogyny and sexism in the world. How did I find that out? Why the lovely ladies and gents who founded this short lived political/bowel movement told me so:Granted, I do not live in a "battleground" state so I did not see a lot of the back and forth ads that Hillary and Obama ran during the primaries so I really can't comment on the tone or content of those ads, but evidently all the ads that Obama ran pretty much said that Hillary should not be elected because she was a woman. And then all his pals in the media, you remember them don't you, they're the same ones who manufactured all this economic meltdown business so that their boy would win the Presidency, just jumped on that bandwagon and they beat up Hillary for being a woman as well.

The only problem with all of that is this: some of the PUMA people said that Obama was sexist because he did not demand the media stop their sexist teatment of Hillary. So according to that logic all the media sexism was Obama's fault. Which makes about as much sense as saying that the deaths in Rwanda while Bill Clinton was President was Hillary's fault because she didn't stop them even though it was her husband who was President.

So then the PUMA's went on to decry everything Obama said or did during his life after he won, or according to them, stole, the nomination. They pounced on Rev. Wright, who Obama denounced and distanced himself from, they brought up Bill Ayers, they howled when he talked about bankrupting utilities who wanted to build more coal powered plants, and most of them did the most treasonous thing of all, they supported McCain/Palin.

Now for them to throw their support behind the Republican ticket was perhaps the biggest slap in Hillary's face they could have ever given their one time glamour girl and heroine. There they were, McCain/Palin, out there on the hustings railing against everything Hillary had ever supported or worked for, equal pay for equal work, national health care for all, ending the war in Iraq, and all the other issues. It made perfect sense to them, oppose all the things their candidate wanted because they did not like the party standard bearer. They were perfectly willing to throw generations of women and their hard work in making this country a more equal place for the sexes under the bus just because they did not get their way in the nomination process.

They also held up Sarah Palin as a standard bearer for all women to look up to, even though she was diametrically opposed to all the positions Hillary ever stood and or fought for. They said that she was more than qualified to be Vice President and then Commander in Chief if something happened to McCain, after all she ran a town in Alaska and then the entire state of Alaska. And the PUMA's shrilly cried out that anyone who disagreed with their assessment of Caribou Barbie was sexist, just like anyone who didn't support Hillary was sexist. They snickered and guffawed when asked if Obama had any chance against a "war hero" and a woman with "executive experience." Then on election day they got their whiny asses handed to them.

Yo, PUMA's, we had a name for you people when we were kids. And that name is 'sore loser.' In 1992 I supported Tom Harkin of Iowa in the first primaries because he was a fire breathing liberal but when it became apparent that Clinton was going to be the nominee I sucked it up and I supported him 100% percent. When this last race started I backed Dennis Kucinich hard because his positions on the issues mirror my own but when it clear that he had no chance of winning and that most of the party was coalescing around Obama, I was all in, as they say on the horrendous poker television shows. But the PUMA's showed their political immaturity by refusing to support the nominee of the party. And they say they won't be back, well good. Don't ever come back, we don't need or want whiny sore losers like you in our party.And finally as the year and yet another Bush crime family Presidency come to a merciful end, people like Laura "It's 5 o'clock somewhere in the world" Bush and Karl Rove are trying like hell to convince people that the Bush/Cheney years weren't an epic failure. But we all know that they were. Bush squandered the budget surplus, took us into two disastrous wars, stole our civil liberties, defanged all the US government regulatory agencies he could, and he presided over the worst economic melt down in over 80 years. If you're worse off today than you were 8 years ago, then I'd say Bush has been a failure. If you lost your son or daughter, mom or dad, sister or brother, or cousin to the war of terror on Iraq then I'd say that Bush has failed us all. All the people who died on 9/11 because they didn't believe the memo from the Clinton people that said that Bin Laden was determined to attack us here in the USA scream with one voice and they say that Bush failed in his job.

Rove and the rest of them like to chortle that in 50 years no one will remember that Bush had shoes thrown at him (Has that happened to any other President? NOPE) and they like to say that history will vindicate his current low poll numbers. What they are counting on is that people only listen to FOX news or to the latest right wing political pundit who will shout over everyone and proclaim that Bush has been the second coming of George Washington. But what they know in their devious little hearts though is that history is written not by paid political pundits or by party hacks, it is instead written by sober scholars who look at facts and place things in proper context. And it it precisely those people who will rightly judge Bush/Cheney to be the epic failures they really are.