Posers and pretenders

Recent studies just revealed that liberalism is genetic. In other words, there is a bodily gene that aids in determining one's liberal or conservative tendencies. At least, this is what scientists from a joint Harvard and University of California, San Diego team learned. One commentator observed that we can now trace liberalism to a birth defect.

It was ironic to read that Russia is assisting NATO with its war efforts in Afghanistan by training Afghani Army forces and providing helicopters for the troops. One need not suspect that Russia knows more than we do on the subject of fighting in Afghanistan as its former leader, Gorbachev, is eager to confirm just than. Gorbi acknowledges the war is unwinnable and advises NATO to cease and desist which I suspect is Russian for go fourth and multiply or words to that effect. He always had a knack for speaking his mind. More important, we might well profit from studying and following his advice. After all, he continues, there was an agreement signed with Russia after they resigned from Afghanistan stating that all parties, including the USA, would recognize Afghanistan's neutrality. He could also not resist mentioning, with extreme schadenfreude, that the Afghani forces the US trained and armed are the very same ones fighting against us today. Pity we did not train the ones that are currently on our side as war stories from the front indicate the Afghani Army is just short of useless, can't read and cannot shoot straight.

Within the next week, we Americans will have elected another batch of posers and pretenders intent upon imposing their collective egos on the public at large. Judging from the rhetoric, there is not one iota of difference between this set of characters and the incumbents. One candidate is accused of being a banker to the Mafia while his opponent is accused of attributing to himself war medals that were never awarded. Yet another railed on about his service record in Vietnam although he never served there.

The papers are also full of stories about vote tampering. These are the same old stories that could be written anywhere and no doubt were. One difference might be that the new electronic machines could well prove easier to tamper with than the old fashioned ballot box. Commentators in Nevada reveal that people who voted for one party found the automated machine had ticked the other party. Officials reacted to this charge by citing the sensitivity of the buttons on the machines. Who is pushing whose buttons now?

The Democrats have their back to the wall. The hope and glory promises from O have not materialized. Nor are there any concrete signs of them materializing. His signature legislation was the Health Care bill which now seems to have all sorts of cracks, imperfections, contradictions and complexities hitherto unexamined. One result of all this is that insurance companies are beginning to increase their premiums to cover eventualities made possible by the bill. For example, individuals with pre-existing conditions may not be denied insurance. Their argument, and it looks like a valid one, is that the bill will in fact increase health care costs by a measurable amount. The interplay between the government, the drug companies, the health care administrators, the insurance companies and medical professionals would confound Euclid. One thing for sure is that costs will not go down.

It is these spiralling costs, along with a myriad of others, that are eroding middle class American bank accounts and savings. The overall cost of living in the US is out of control. Yet, for the past two years, our government has denied the existence of any cost of living inflation. To be sure, the rich are becoming richer and the poor are becoming poorer. I would also hazard to guess that larger and larger numbers of middle class families are falling into the 'poor' income category.