Trial run cut short, Justin.tv 10 seconds, budget bullshit
So when I got home last night the first thing I did when I let the dogs out was head over to my high bar. In my work clothes I grabbed onto the vertical section and climbed up to bar to give it a test. Even though I was only 11 feet in the air it felt much higher since from that vantage point I am able to see much further over the mostly flat terrain. I did a few pull ups, trying to jerk at the bottom of the movement to put some strain on the structure. As I glanced over at the screwed in flange I didn’t see any movement or give which was reassuring.
My plan was to change into my gym clothes and come back out with the rings to do some more thorough testing. Unfortunately just as I was throwing the first strap over the bar a storm blew in that aborted the session. I am hoping tonight I will be able to do the official groundbreaking of the equipment.
So I was forced to do my mini-workout indoors as the rain came down. At the end of it I did some more handstand work. I thought I would capture it with my Justin.tv app on the Iphone. I have had a problem with the app for several months. Anytime I tried to shoot video with the dumb thing the session would die right around the 9 second mark.
Well once again last night the problem happened. I shot another quick video that also got cut off, bitching about how shitty the app is. The app problems in addition to the sites new policy of injecting 30 second ads before you are allowed to view any content had soured me somewhat on it’s value.
Well I did a quick look up and found that since the 4.3 Iphone update there had been an issue with the app. For some reason it took justin.tv 3 or 4 months to resolve it. I downloaded the latest version and I was again able to record normally.
I decided to again video my current handstand progression. The last time I shot video of my handstands on New Years Eve, it was just a series silly looking back flops that hurt. Although my new video is far from stellar, it at least shows I am now at the training wheel stage. I can hold the position briefly and if I start to tip over I can exit without a back flop. I at least feel like I know how to do it, now it’s just practice, practice, practice.
Remember months ago when the last round of federal budget panic set in? Everyone was freaking out and in the end Obama wound up giving in more or less to the Republican wishes as part of the ineffective “olive branch” strategy he was utilizing as a reaction to the election results.
When that stop gap measure was approved it was with Obama indicating a desire to not repeat this circus in a few months when the stop gap expired and instead have everything in place for a long term plan. Well of course, this hasn’t happened.
Instead for the past few weeks the headlines have been filled with more utter bullshit. The Republicans have all sorts of cost cutting proposals, proposals that mostly attack programs utilized by American poor and middle class while leaving the coffers of their ultra-rich backers unscathed. The most noticeable targets are Medicare and Social Security.
When I heard that Obama was actually open to more appeasement of the republicans with these programs I was pretty outraged. This has got to stop. From my distant vantage point it seems like these negotiations go like this.
Boner/Cantor – ok we want to balance the budget by cutting all of these social “entitlement” programs. My rich constituents don’t need any help from the federal government so why should anyone else?
Obama – I want to address the tremendous wealth disparity that exists in this country. It is crippling the economy. Companies are posting record profits while middle America flounders in squalor. Unemployment is still sky high, wages are flat. It’s time to let the Bush tax breaks for the super rich expire. For cripes sake, in 1980 the highest tax rate was 70%, now the majority of wealth for the uber rich is taxed at the 15% capital gains rate. This is fuzzy math that makes no sense. I am sick and tired of you assholes masquerading as budget balancers when in reality all you are doing is preotecting the giant teet you suckle off of.
Boner/Cantor – no new taxes
Obama – ok, fine.
The latest dog and pony show is for the tea party cult in the House to put forth a budget that they know has no chance of passing the Senate or avoiding a presidential veto. It is all just posturing so they can say to the millions of lightly informed sheep in the country, “Look, we tried to pass a budget but they won’t let us”
I find it amazing that when Boner/Cantor say “we won’t support any budget that raises taxes on the American people!” people can’t see how they are being manipulated. If they would fully qualify the statement and say something like “We won’t support any budget that takes one penny from the bulging bank accounts of the huge corporations that pay the lobbyists to buy my vote. Or to keep it simple, I will not vote for a budget that increases taxes on the wealthy”
Don’t get me wrong, I know there is rampant abuse of government entitlement programs. Nothing sickens me more than someone that looks at these programs as their “job”. There is a huge need to do a better job of filtering out these fraudulent freeloaders that are quite capable of working but choose not to because it is more convenient to sit home, get fat and collect checks.
But I am also infuriated that citizens still actually believe the “trickle down” theory still applies in today’s world. You know the way that works is if the rich are doing well, the rest of us do well as they drop breadcrumbs to the floor. Well guess what, the rich are doing GREAT and the floor is crumbless and has been for along time. It doesn’t work. The key to long term economic prosperity is a strong middle class. The policies of the last decade have done everything possible to cut that group of individuals off at the knees.
Yesterday’s post was just one example of that policy with our new dumb governor. Tax state workers to provide corporate tax breaks…
The madness has to end, the cycle has to be broken. In this showdown, neither side can afford to blink and unfortunately I think the end result of it will just be more “fail”.