SotU live blog

In the spirit of a favored sports writer, I figured I'd go blow by blow here. I already have some good idea what is about to said anyway. I'm sure if anyone follows this, they know I'm not going to be happy with the 'education' portions. I'm going with C-SPAN to get minimal interference via commentary. Plus in the unlikely event someone decides to try to decapitate our government tonight, I'll make sure to note it.

9:05pm I'm always confused as to why so many handshakes have to be made when it's pretty obvious these people can't work together to resolve problems other than spending our money rapidly. It is funny to watch a collection of stiffs trying to make small talk and after a few moments simply standing awkwardly around and adjusting suits.

9:07p, Bush announced, but it seems to take a few minutes to walk the political gauntlet. Why these people cheer... oh wait, right, it's the last one of these ghastly things done by Bushv2. I suppose we can hope someone who can make a speech will be on next year, but that's small consolation to the likely political bent.

9:11 Vigorous debate? I haven't seen much of debating. There's a juxtaposition for calling on cooperation and debate on the same sentence that makes my head spin.

9:13.. I don't recall the Constitution empowering 'ordinary citizens'. Economy did have to be first on the topic. Really the only thing the government does, including this goofy stimulus idea, is to inspire confidence. I like the shot of Rangel sitting passively for the tax relief plan since he's undoubtedly wanting to shoot some pork into the bill.

9:15 IRS takes checks and money orders. I suppose we could go to a send whatever you want method. There's a thought.

9:20 That whole cooperation thing went away as soon as we could say 'raise taxes' and 'veto'. American families don't balance their budgets. There's a reason these DC morons spend money like water. Why haven't they put something in there already for HSAs and private insurance already.. that's been mentioned for oh.. 4 years in a row.
Bush needs to a) stop twitching. and b) stop using the word empower for Americans. Americans are already empowered. The government is the portion getting empowered.

9:25p NCLB sucks. No amount of rhetoric which says it is working is not going to declare it a success. It reminds me of the Trump element for Iraq, bring everyone home and just say we won. This federal education stuff is silly. Bring it forward as a tax credit on the federal or state level and leave it alone. Tax credits can be spent individually or used to fund college funds/scholarships. Grants and vouchers, not so much because they get tied to religious education.

9:30p.. Columbia fighting drug traffickers and terrorists. Poorly. Very poorly. And all because we haven't figured out that the drug war needs to be fought on a demand level, not a supply side. Again with the 'empowering Americans'.

9:32p.. Nu-cle-ar. heh. Never could get that one could you Mr President? No cheering for clean air in India and China.. but plenty for the 'greenhouse gases'.. weird.

9:35p I'm sure those stem cell embryos aren't human life.. .yet, but as far as I've seen it isn't yet very promising research anyway. So what's the point. They don't have regs on the cloning of human beings.. do we need them?

9:37p.. What the hell is Pelosi reading? Boy she faded into the backdrop of history fast once she got her position. For all the worrying over her newfound authority, she hasn't managed to do much with it. Social Security.. I like it being listed as 'entitlement' program. There's a derogatory statement for it. It is funny how Bush put forward a plan and all that happened is people complained about it rather than a) trying to understand it before denigrating it and b) offering a counter-proposal that actually does something to attack the problem, hopefully better.

9:40.. What are these highest ideals and how do they conflict with immigration? Illegal immigrants, I guess.. nope don't conflict with highest ideals. Simple solution, penalize the bosses. Arizona already made the blueprint and illegals are fleeing in droves.

9:42p.. "Advance of freedom".. "justice to our enemies".. whatever this means, it doesn't seem reasonably consistent with what we've been doing. America is the 'world's policeman', thus a force of order and security, not freedom. Freedom unfortunately doesn't work like Johnny Appleseed. It actually seems to need some semblance of stability through an advanced economy and semi-educated population in order to work. There have been exceptions.

9:45. "If your quarry goes to ground, leave no ground to go to." It would have been nice if they'd figured that out several years ago. Like before the invasion. It seems to me that Wolfwitz and Rumsfeld need to be brought up and shot or detained in military prisons for being complete dumbasses and not listening to the generals on how to run a war (I'm not worried that they went to war without my tacit approval, but they didn't seem all that interested in doing it properly or rather they seemed to assume that their enemies would cooperate in their defeat). I would say Bushv2, but we already knew he was an idiot. Why people were in a hurry to go to war with this man at the helm..

9:50p. It is strange that a SotU for the USA has about 20 minutes devoted to the state of Iraq. Safer America doesn't just mean physical security. I wish people would understand that safety is a general illusion brought on by a general agreement to be civilized. Once that's set aside, boom. Security also entails general positive futures because security is also the basic expectation that life will go on (and eventually maybe even get better). ... Iran.. .perhaps we should try another coup d'eat. That's only slightly illegal though.

9:55p Is this thing over yet? Basically he's prattling on about things that do not in any way improve our ability to make war on terrorists. Would we be in greater danger simply because the terrorists would be able to use global communications more freely? What basis do we have that a) they need to coordinate and b) they can't use more primitive and patient methods to do so? Human intelligence, fine. Reliance on communications intercepts from Americans.. sounds a bit like a mission creep to me.

10:00p. What part of funding democracy in foreign nations, when it is convenient to us, is necessary. Trade will usually suffice to create stablity. It doesn't always work (Germany top trade partner prior to WW1 and 2: France). The fact that we have a huge military should take care of most countries though. In any case, our top allies in this 'global war on terror' have been places like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, which are hardly democracies. Burma or Cuba, not very important globally.. they'd better be democratic. Pakistan.. hmm.. nuclear and long-time ally.. they'd better be stable. Sounds to me like stability is more important than democracy to the general order.

10:02. Finally. I'm glad not much was really said on education aside from the bald-faced self-congratulatory lies that the federal programs are working.

Some of the commentary after on other channels: Ideological check list that is mandatory for a 'republican president'.. isn't it necessary for either party?
It is an interesting point that these Presidents keep trying to set up a Mid East peace accord in the final years of their terms, when they no longer have any real political weight. Maybe someone should start on that in their first year. Just a thought.