CapitalistImperialistPig

There is increasing suspicion that the Republicans aren't bluffing , and really are willing to destroy the economy for what they hope will be political profit.  Obama's weakness and unwillingness to fight back has encouraged them to go for broke, and their crazy idealogues are living in an imaginary universe anyway. Of course a whole gamut of historical catastrophes has been launched in just this fashion. Obama showed a hint of pugnacity in his last press conference - enough to provoke the usual right wing nut jobs to peurile insults - but I don't think a hint will do it.  I think he needs to drop the kid gloves and stop playing golf with the enemy.  He needs to start naming names and telling the voters that these people are enemies of our nation.

Drudge and National Journal say Obama has declared class warfare . He had the audacity to try to put kids before private jets. Shades of Robespierre and 1793. I say about f****** time. My class has been losing this war for thirty plus years now, and it's about time we start fighting back.

Despite very difficult circumstances, Obama did get some things done, notably health care.  In other regards, he seems to have proven amazingly weak.  Perhaps it's just lack of experience - the tactics that served him well as community organizer and law review editor are not suitable for a President.  Brad DeLong notes a David Frum critique with approval (!).  (It turns out that Frum is riffing on a theme by David Brooks ) Frum: Obama is His Own Worst Enemy FrumForum: [Obama is] not an alien, he’s not a radical. He’s just not the person the country needs. He’s not tough enough, he’s not imaginative enough, and he’s not determined enough. In the throes of the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, the president ran out of ideas sometime back in 2009. In the face of opposition, Obama goes passive. The mean Republicans refused votes on his Federal Reserve nominees and Obama … did nothing. Would Ronald Reagan have done nothing? FDR? Lyndon Johnson? With une...

Via Wolfgang I learned about a purported new type of aircraft supposedly introduced at the Paris air show.  It supposed performance is remarkable: At the heart of D-DALUS is a revolutionary propulsion system containing a number of patented inventions, including a friction free bearing at the points of high G force, and a system that keeps propulsion in dynamic equilibrium, thereby allowing the guidance system to quickly restore stability in flight. The propulsion consists of 4 sets of contra-rotating disks, each set driven at the same rpm by a conventional aero-engine. The disks are surrounded by blades whose angle of attack can be altered by off-setting the axis of the rotating disks. As each blade can be given a different angle of attack, the resulting main thrust can be in any required direction in 360° around any axis. This allows the craft to launch vertically, remain in a fixed position in the air, travel in any direction, rotate in any direction, and thrust upwards ther...

107 F today (42 C). 102 F at 8:15 PM and the Sun down.

Republicans seem to have painted themselves into a total corner on the debt "ceiling" talks.  I don't see how they are going to get out of this unless they are counting on a total fold by Obama. Oh wait.

I've looked at clouds from both sides now... Joni Mitchell We have a President who can see all sides of every issue, and Maureen Dowd is not happy about it . It's not the seeing that's annoying, it trying to be on every side that is. In Afghanistan, he wants to go but he wants to stay. He’s surging and withdrawing simultaneously. He’s leaving fewer troops than are needed for a counterinsurgency strategy and more troops than are needed for a counterterrorism strategy — and he seems to want both strategies at the same time. Our work is done but we have to still be there. Our work isn’t done but we can go. On Libya, President Obama wants to lead from behind. He’s engaging in hostilities against Qaddafi while telling Congress he’s not engaging in hostilities against Qaddafi. On the budget, he wants to cut spending and increase spending. On the environment, he wants to increase energy production but is reluctant to drill. On health care, he wants to get everybody covered b...