Frivology

I’m completely thrilled that Obama is acting with emotion.  There are times for not showing emotion and there are times when it’s absolutely necessary.  It’s absolutely necessary to be damn pissed off when you receive a report that Wall Street bankers gave themselves $18.4 billion in bonuses while lobbying the government for more money.  That anger should boil over to complete indignation when you then have to talk one company down from buying a $50 million jet.

This week, Citigroup, which received an infusion of taxpayer money last year, canceled its plans, at the administration’s urging, to buy a $50 million business jet.

Mr. Obama did not spare the company in his remarks on Thursday, although he did not mention Citi by name. “Secretary Geithner already had to pull back on one institution that had gone forward with a multimillion-dollar plane it purchased at the same time as they are receiving TARP money,” he said, using the acronym for the government’s $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program, intended to rescue shaky financial firms. “We shouldn’t have to do that, because they should know better."

via: Obama Calls Wall Street Bonuses ‘Shameful’

I am so incredibly tired of politicians who don’t seem to have an ounce of passion or emotion about them.  This kind of thing is something that really, REALLY needs to have anger attached to it, and the President should absolutely be the voice of the people in this regard.

My hope meter is rising every day.

To bring this all back to religion… a great many religious leaders say that lack of good, Christian morals has led to this sort of rampant greed.  I’d really like to see a study of how many of these people consider themselves good Christians already.

Predictably – Rush is already starting to pick on the Obamas, and doing so in only the idiotic way that he can. 

He then told them to break free of the confrontational mindset epitomised by Mr Limbaugh, the highest paid talk show host in America. "You can’t just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done," Mr Obama said.

His comments followed a blunt attack on him by Mr Limbaugh, who declared on air that he hoped Mr Obama would fail as president because otherwise it will usher in socialism.

Via: Telegraph, Via: Bligbi

I for one hope that Rush keeps it up.  Obama’s starting to show that he’s not going to be mowed over by the Right, and America’s already proven that the majority of us are sick and tired of the Right.  The more idiotic things Rush says, the more listeners he’s going to lose.  Especially when Obama’s work gets people back to work.  It’ll just make Rush look like he’s calling for everyone to be miserable and unemployed.

Rush, you should try picking on someone your own size.  The Obamas are completely out of your league.

As I was watching the Inauguration on Tuesday, I kept thinking to myself, "Wow, Obama is really bitchslapping Bush.  Good.  He deserves it.", but I wasn’t sure whether or not I was making a big deal out of it.  Apparently not.  Seems that the plane trip from Washington DC to Texas was full of crying GOPs.

Personally, I think they deserve it - and then some.  You don’t do what you did to this country and then just get to walk away from it pretending like you actually accomplished something.  While Bush, himself, seemed oblivious to the whole thing, his supporters are throwing fits.

Mr. McKinnon said there were good wishes for the new president and “an absence of malice one normally sees among the constituencies of the vanquished.” But he also said there were “some critical reviews of the speech, complaints about taking unnecessary shots and grousing about borrowed ideas.”

Right, so after attacking Obama at every step in the road during the candidacy, they now want a medal for not acting like the jerks they are during the transition.  Umm… no?

Can these guys whine any harder?  Oh wait, they can!

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I don’t get much of a chance to blog at work, but I do get opportunities to catch up on my RSS feeds.  Which means, I got to watch the world react to Obama’s Inauguration even though I wasn’t able to really participate init.  Planet Atheism was a pretty big aid to doing that, as I got to read all of the reactions to the part that made me ‘woohoo’ out loud - Obama recognizing non-believers.  I also just kind of got to see how people would react. 

Unfortunately, one of my favorite bloggers - PZ Myers - disappointed me the most with, really, the least to say: 

I’m not wildly enthusiastic about our new president, but he is so much better than the amoral sleazebuckets he is replacing in office that I have to see it all as a largely positive change. I also just read the speech … not bad. I’ll give him a few years to prove himself.

I also caught the brief acknowledgment of the existence of non-believers. It’s a small thing, but appreciated. Everyone seems to be a bit unsatisfied with his specific choice of word, and I agree a bit. The better choice, the word that would have been more inclusive and positive, is “freethinkers”. Someone let his speechwriters know.

via: Catching up with the event of the day

Well, first, as I understand it Obama wrote his own speech for this one, but that’s me being nit-picky.  Secondly, I really don’t like the term ‘freethinkers’, it doesn’t really hit with the right punch what it really means.  Non-believers works very well, thank-you-very-much.  I feel like PZ, and then later when I read him, Hemant, are really … I don’t want to say cynical as that sends the wrong impression, so does bitter, but maybe … jaded?  

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