SOTU Address: Running commentary

111 Thoughts to “SOTU Address: Running commentary”

1. marinm

   January 26, 2011 at 4:45 pm

   I missed a lot of the good convo. 🙂
2. Moon-howler

   January 26, 2011 at 4:56 pm

   I never heard the thunder. I love thunder snow. I thought I heard a rumble about 2-3 pm, then decided it was my imagination.
3. marinm

   January 26, 2011 at 5:01 pm

   I was driving from Manassas back to Montclair rougly 3ish and saw two cars that had spun themselves into the grass medians of 234. One was ‘stuck’ in that his wheels were off the ground in a ditch and the body of the car was resting on the ground.

   My big issue is drivers in the left lane going 30 mph. I understand if you want to take it slow and you feel going over 30 is “unsafe” but please do so in the RIGHT lane. Oh, and everyone should have their headlights on. 🙂

   Stay safe!
4. Wolverine

   January 26, 2011 at 5:15 pm

   I sometimes think we get into some false arguments here when it comes down to the events of the past two years or so. The questions are always thrown out as to whether one supported this or that relatively recent bailout and what economic ultra-disaster might have happened without such bailouts. My personal beef goes much deeper than that. It pertains to the very crises which caused the bailouts. At some point during the past few decades, we lost the lesson learned from the Great Depression. That lesson was to not let ourselves get caught unawares again. It seems to me that too many of the appointed “watchers” stopped watching and that those “prophets” who did warn of impending problems got tossed into the wilderness by a people reveling in what seemed to be the happy land of good personal fortune and a desire to solve every social and international problem just by throwing tons of money at them.

   Look. Not too many years ago, my townhome (almost a quarter-century old) tripled in paper value. Nothing I did to the home could have affected the value in that way. It just went on climbing and climbing with some kind of invisible economic hand pulling it up. Some of the people I knew were ecstatic. They sold their smaller homes at those inflated prices and then sank the cash into downpayments on “McMansions” which in the real world were far beyond their income level. When I looked at the situation, I kept telling myself that there was something fundamentally wrong with the picture and that, at some point, this whole thing was going to crash. I am not an economist and was not able to put my finger on things precisely. But I did have that old gut feeling of something not being quite cricket. And that gut feeling made me stay out of the looney bin of “moving up.” And I do ask now where all those “informed” people were who are supposed to watch things like this across a large spectrum of economic activity and to warn us and take action BEFORE the crap hits the fan and we have to run for the bailout money.
5. hello

   January 26, 2011 at 5:34 pm

   @Moon-howler

   Really? Then that whole “We The People” thing was a big joke? Progressive say what…
6. Slowpoke Rodriguez

   January 26, 2011 at 5:43 pm

   Elena :
   Starry,
   That was different, that was under Bush, THOSE deficits don’t count silly goose!

   This is, of course, a desperately silly thing to postulate. To any actual conservative, the deficits run up during the Bush administration do count very much. Now granted, the accelerator didn’t REALLY get pinned to the floor until Obama came into office, but I know of no conservative who doesn’t blame the Bush administration (including the Pelosi congress and the Republican congress before 06) for getting the ball rolling. I don’t mind you busting on Bush, but at least be realistic about it.
7. Cato the Elder

   January 26, 2011 at 7:17 pm

   Moon-howler :
   The founding fathers also had great distain for the non intellectuals of society. They didn’t trust them with full governance. I grew up in the shadow of one of the greats. I think they were all on to something.

   I knew you were old, but I didn’t know you were THAT old!
8. Cargosquid

   January 26, 2011 at 8:42 pm

   I’ll put it on this thread too. I was the one to use Teahadi or Teahadist. When certain commenters were using Tea Bagger, I replied that I prefer the term Teahadist. Just has a certain….ring…. to it.
9. Moon-howler

   January 26, 2011 at 8:47 pm

   One doesn’t grow up in Charlottesville and not live in the shadow. Age is irrelevant.
10. Moon-howler

    January 26, 2011 at 11:22 pm

    @Wolverine,

    It sounds like you faced the same kinds of questions I faced. I was tempted to upgrade and then I thought about how I might want to retire some day and how I was going to have less money. Sigh. Reality bites, doesn’t it. I stayed in my 30 year old house. I treated myself to a new furnace rather than a new house.

    Would you have been willing to let the country sink in to depression?

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