Ubiquitous is a word that means "everywhere." We all know that there are lots of pigs in the world. Some good pigs like Wilbur in Charlotte's Web...and some bad pigs too, like the pigs in Orwell's Animal Farm. I have a picture of a beautiful Yorkshire hog diving off a board into a pretty county pond. The pig is smiling. He is a good pig. Good pigs are everywhere. Happy, friendly, useful pigs. And then there are the bad pigs. Remember when you mother admonished you? "Don't be a pig!" she'd command. She was telling you not to be selfish, and to think of other people. Your mom (and my mom) hoped that we would consider the feelings and rights of other people. This blog is about good things and bad things: good and bad things happening in Carroll County, good and bad books, good and bad food. Thanks for taking a look.

News from Obamaramaland

Posted Tuesday, April 26, 2011, at 4:26 PM

A Valued Reader--in Arkansas Democrat Gazette speak--refudiates my belief that the current run of GOP presidential candidates are bizarre jokes. He does this by calling the kettle black: "Barack Obama is a community organizer, a foreign appeaser, and has no economic policy except hiring more government workers."

Is that the best he can do? Let's help him out:

If we divide the cost of the 10 year wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by the number of US counties, Carroll County's share is $3 billion dollars. Although George Bush started these wars they are Barack Obama's to end--and he has failed. Meanwhile, Carroll County's $3 billion dollar Chinese debt goes up and up.

In 2009, Obama Administration farm subsidies totaled $16,349,000,000. Only 1% of that jaw dropping number goes to support fruit and vegetable farmers, while 99% subsidizes foods that require spending another $147 billion dollars a year to treat obesity related disease. What was the response in Obamaramaland? He appointed Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack, a leading corn subsidy hack, as Secretary of Agriculture.

Other stellar appointments are Tim Geithner, Treasury Secretary, and Larry Summers, former director of Obama's National Economic Council. Both of these Wall Street hoods participated actively in financial derivatives and credit default swap markets before coming to the White House. To date, not a single financial services executive has gone to prison for gutting our economy. Geithner and Summers clearly took care of their pals first.

Worst of all, the Obama Administration folded like a cheap suit in the face of opposition to a single payer health care system and switched focus to the insurance industry when the real problem is our 1950s' health care business model. Now, the middle class is scrambling to manage the wreckage and deal with out of control health costs.

There are hundreds of examples of how the Obama Administration has critically failed the American people: it is essential that we have rational conversations about them. But until Republicans get out of the cultural loony bin, and stop telling bald-faced economic lies, that rational conversation can't happen.