Balloonman's Comments (155)

“H1N1 shots for GOLDMAN first in line, betcha! If any one of them dudes got sick and couldn't think and act clearly, could not upright do daily MBA educated million dollar bonus sweat shifts at the neighborhood corner sting table shifting shell game, reinventing exotic paper derivatives/hedge funds and packages of taxpayer guaranteed ribbon bundles of sweet toxics--more tangible, imagine, than a lovely chinese wind chime--or buying up mortgages and foreclosing home owners all by themselves, why, heaven help us! We done for! Left holding an empty bag. Or am I thinking of Merrill Lynch? Or BofA. Or JP Morgan. Or Chase? CitiBank? Group? Morgan Stanley? After all, according to bailout and first things first, they R us. Don't let them get sick for gosh sakes. Keep them mighty and well!”

“Good point Paralogos. KUCINICH progressive. Clinton Blue Dog. Obama the moderate. Though BILL CLINTON CENTRIST perhaps is more like it, accounting his CORPORATISM favoring stance. Yes, Obama DID campaign as the post partisan. So we Obamatons-­-originall­y a Kucinich man myself not hypnotized mindless by charms--should not be shocked at his apparent disinterest to command the head of the table, no ifs ands or buts about it. Or surprised at arguable merit in conciliatory leadership, everybody at the table. Many would destroy him soley for politcs. This was not the time to deliberate away 100 days of swift recovery of exciting innovations. Instead water down stuff, so watered down HEALTH CARE reform may leave us with the donut hole joke that GWBush Prescription Drug (a gift to PHarma) gave us. Yes, I did vote for the "fantasy Obama". What the heck, a politic cynic wants to believe. HOPE and CHANGE. Yes We Can! Betcha! Most of us with sore hearts deserve it surviving 8 years of nightmare! It's not that I don't recognize reality. That moving CONGRESS is sluggish, drudgery and sometimes near impossible. It's that our unbeatable Hillary Clinton challenger President OBAMA fades back to the inevitable winner, our busted System, remaining ill adjusted if at all. Plus too often reverses his own declared course/promise. Promoting compromises that lean heavy to continued support for primacy of the CORPORATIST STATE, reducing citizens to serve MONEY over our benefits first. (About Afghanistan another time).”

“My sentiments precisely leorising. " . . . the overconsumption of violence by kids really disturbs me . . . " Except for one point, maybe the GAME is first priority, then the slaughter. Other words, Is the game for the sophisticate player a sophisticated game, challenging, original, invigorating, incorporating new invented, heady maneuverings, sudden surprises? But now that I've said it I am not sure. Maybe that nuanced claim that the game is the thing can be examined more obvious, as close to some gamers inured and immune condition to bad taste. And that you can't separate the game from the kick of killing human beings even though they are nothing but pixels. Similar psychology to the characters in ancient story plots, adapted to film, who pay to hunt and kill trapped, hapless human prey. Regardless the extant real behaviour merit behind the excuse that violence is a natural thing, and that fiction only reflects that which is natural, and thus profiled isn't done by bad taste people who produce it, but rather by just folks making a buck, off what comes natural, still I am convinced that murder and gore for murder and gore sake, in pervasive film and video, spreads an onerous, ugly, bad taste climate that cannot help but infest, invade us, almost a kind of virus, that becomes, for some, a brain pattern that acts out the ordinarily unthinkable when unusual circumstance triggers, for that person, abandonment of checks on natural or unnatural impulses.”

“What scared the dickens out of me? SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS. "Mirror on the wall who is the fairest of all?" That witch, the wicked Queen, the poison apple. HOLD THAT GHOST. Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. Hands emerging forth and back from the bedstead. Lou raising up, laying back, raising up, laying back. The Union soldier shot dead on the stairs by Olivia de Havilland in GONE WITH THE WIND. Splatter everywhere. The adaptation of Sayroyan's The HUMAN COMEDY. Mickey Rooney frightened at the robot human in the department store window. The JOKER in Batman comics. That frozen grimace. "Mom, leave the light on please". Real events did not terrify me. 1937-38, NANKING, hundreds of thousands of Chinese slaughtered, reported babies on bayonets. LIFE Magazine photos, on my folk's coffee table. What did I think of the pictures? It registered. The Japanese attacking Pearl Harbor. Fear? My Father put me at ease. I was eight. In the kitchen Sunday, December 7, 1941. Dad washing the dishes, radio on. "Will they come over here?" I asked. "No, Son". He was too old to fight. Halloween for him? Once with his buddies he pulled over an outhouse. Now that's bad. Current horror, gore films? I wouldn't want my 'kids' to watch them. Some such bad taste too nasty to watch . . . twice. My Brother and I talk scenes. Laugh, inside stuff, so absurd, outrageous, that they are funny. Other hand, Afghanistan roadside bombs aren't.”

“Wake up and smell the roses mcrcc55? But if President OBAMA is not asleep and his nose is just fine then perhaps he isn't a rose smelling kind of a guy in the first place. Give dozens of wake up call choice long stems from lovers elected him, pfft. Just another prize for promise. Appears to me that he is wide awake and all dressed up to dance with power brokers bearing hat tricks. Doesn't even have to hold his nose.”

“Andy Kaufman is alive I tell you, alive!”

“13 MILLION KIDS in poverty in a balloon. To somewhere else. Say it's a happy goofy land. With perfect parents at the other end. All for the squeezed out of society gang, like runts from an apparently scientific enuf, natural wolfpack hierarchy, just ignore them, they will die away. The strong survive to perpetuate the poverty to be sniffed at and largely ignored. The strong mutates insist the perfect SYSTEM is theirs to invent, and lead. Back to the worst off kids though figuritively imagined by Arianna, escaping us. My words now, the voting power to immediate HELP our own kind squeezed out of the loop because they simply didn't have it in them to . . . fit. But now to live on at all, beholding to our SYSTEM according to what we charitably give. Kids (parents) squeezed out. Needing HOPE and say it, CHARITY, consequent our version of the competition cock fight SYSTEM we made for ourselves. There ought to be a law. Mainline citizens awake. Herded righteous knowing we are the CHOSEN ONES, righteous in the end of . . . the world's global MONEY enterprize. Let our elected representatives deal kids homeless by gaming the System's hand for MONEY. The less paid for community service the more for Banks gambles in MARGIN, nothing really substantial there, make their interest.”

“FLEECED! FLEECED! WE BEEN FLEECED! Ongoing! By our shepards. Earned off our backs, shear us good! Can't trust your banker who can you trust? Stings, shell games around the corner? If we all ran and took out our money whoa! CRASH! All the back up, MONEY, we give MONEY, so WALL STREET didn't go belly up. Not just a GREAT RECESSION but a BLACK GREAT DEPRESSION. CRASH! Taking us with them, most of us in ways, sure, so why DID we bail them out? But MONEY give us appreciation? The auto industry relocating plants to . . . China/Mexico? Am I wrong? Favor returned? None to speak of. Everything we get from FINANCE HOUSES--which we now partly own but unable to make regulation with teeth--is forced on them. We don't get loans. Refinanced homes according to devaluation. Oh, get a credit card loan at 12.7% up and up until the principle is never touched up to death. Or has that kind of usury been corrected? Free card annual fees? Overdraft fees, a prime income for banks. BANKS take our money over the teller's window, use it for whatever, a gamble maybe, plus we bail them out for losing that money in their gambles. We pay a monthly fee, starting at an arbitrary low balance index, to write a check on our money that they use for restarting exotic potential toxics, hedge funds and derivatives (a math formula change complexity) and they prospers better than ever. It's madness.”

“As Balloon Man I can appreciate concern for Balloon Boy. There's not that many of us Balloon People as you might think. So it's a relief a young'un just starting out is out of danger, back safe and sound. Keep the balloons blowing. Now Balloon Boy, in tribute, The Seven Balloon Balloonman Launch!”

“Size reduced, coverage reduced. Reporters cut. Columnists fired. Sections lost or joined to another department more historically traditional, popular. Reduced size comes smaller font. Harder to read with my old eyes. More typos. Line irregularity. Spaces, blanks in lines to allow for computer layouts was early adjusting to new age. Less accurate proof reads. Reporting sloppy, facts, info either not there or badly laid out, posing questions unanswered. Errors pop out. Research poor if responsible investigation was done at all. Is reporter relying on memory that doesn't exist for a generation Y cub reporter. COMICS sections? Sunday comics laminated into ads, hard to find. I threw them in the trash until I understood the scam is read the ads Buddy! An insult, trick. Less funnies. Oh, new ones are introduced for a good one dropped. I suspect they be bought cheaper. Often no nuance, the last panel witess, flat, a capper so cliche why bother. Today's Valley Daily News, front section inside, a story overlapped over the following page so that folding the newspaper to read it was impossible. Had to wing the whole paper open. Insult. How to survive? While newspapers get worse? Highlite newspaper stories in blue, points to cross reference for more info back to the computer. But then which comes first, online or STOP THE PRESSES? We got a big story here!”

“Reply to TN60 got sent before it was finished: Big deal eh. It was getting too unwieldly anyway. Ending incomplete, contrasting our current decent President against the last indecent one. I'll just say, GWBush in association with CONGRESS, both aisles, and his administration's thugs and their unilateral network of like minded who, in my view, barely acknowledged the ordinary person's right to exist. Except to carry their weight. Trapped to enforced fealty to their MONEY and POWER interests. What ruined us globally is obvious. Lies and wars and death and destruction. Any good news really to show for it? But back here at home, far as GWBush ruining us in our own home: For just one ruinous point amongst 10,000, he supported WALL STREET . . . but . . . saying that, as if that was an indecent thing to do considering current ruin results, but then I realized I could be talking BARACK OBAMA since a majority of his counsel and advisors are up to their eyeballs WALL STREET. In a Wall Street likely would have gone belly up and with results like the run on banks in 1929, when investors and brokers were jumping out windows. Point TN60? DECENCY or ACTION? Which comes first? I'd pick Action, Baby. So long as it's decent. Anyway. That's probably not your point in the first place.”

“I guess I am missing something TN60. Which 'what' comes first with me? I admit, I am slow. Seriously. You might be contrasting, to rate, DECENCY and ACTION. Which comes first. In a leader. That's a good one. Say a President is NOT a decent person but he leads decently. According to my way of thinking, my politic. Would I not then be confused? Not caring which comes first. Because I am satisfied with what the President orders gets done. Since what gets done is positive, my way. But the generous progressive President is an indecent man, bottom line. Say like GW Bush is indecent, really indecent, if you want to compare. Considering his orders ruined so many, many people, here and all over the world. Wars we know are killers. Here he ruined us by TAKING AWAY from our pocketbooks by supporting WALL STREET”

“Michael Moore you did say people ought to really push President OBAMA'S agenda didn't you? Act like the REPUBLICAN phalynx wing. Bulldoze. Fight, fight, and never give up! By hook or crook maybe. With a smile on our face. Betcha. Listen, sure we could do lots, lots more, but people do what they do, do what is their pattern. Some are activists, some not. But one thing, we put you in office and surely you know we want real change, you must have no doubt about that. And yes we DO show our fight one way or another. More than just our anxious for real change 'tone' is out there in the air. We be, some of us, active in groups or individually. Write, blog, post, phone, candlelite vigils, whatever. March here and there . Town halls, let's don't joke about them now. We DO show our fight. Our opinions are pretty much out front one way or another. And the POLL takers pick them up. And the media reports the polls. And the polls which are supposedly us say what we want. So the PRESIDENT knows what we want, the majority of us. So? Not so much dilly dallying! If that is, hopefully, what you are doing, Mister President, rather than a lack of real commitment to us. Come on! Back US up! We got YOUR back!”

“For awhile I thought, like MOORE says, take us along with you to OSLO, that I was along with him where he went. A part of his . . . promise. Family. Remember the first days in the WH with the cameras, his staff shown given pay cuts as an example for America? OBAMA in THE EISENHOWER ROOM, THE ROOSEVELT ROOM. The OVAL OFFICE. At ease, sitting down in the history chairs. I sat down with him and felt comfortable with him and myself too. Oh, the early days of transparency and promise. His election in itself, yes, that is . . . ALMOST enuf. Made me weep. Over and over. Many times. Tear up, seeing him and his family in victory. Making the WH their home. Our home. My home. Looking good! That's what I felt, for the first time in my life, that the WH was my home too. That is what BARACK OBAMA'S election did for me. But now, 9 months in, recognizing all the difference in the world his very presence with decency has made, I want ACTION, Baby!”

“BARACK OBAMA says, GET RID, no, no, sorry, REDUCE THE NUKES. Excuses? None of this, you got one I need one too for . . . defense. Nobody else gets one either or else! We may have to . . . starve you out. Why can't we just get along? Respect each other's beliefs and manners, our diverse culture ways. People! Let's talk! Words you want to hear from a PEACE PRIZE winner, whoa. In the meantime numbers of surge troops DOA as the rest occupy, and our drones fly and our missiles search out and destroy evil doers 8,000 miles away. Along with, sorry, nearby innocents. What gets me about my President--forget about his cool, uplifting speeches, and stand tall promise on the world stage--is that here at home he isn't manifesting. GITMO shut down NOW! Government job programs on a massive scale, NOW! PUBLIC OPTION, NOW! BANKS, holders of mortgage paper, refinance home owners based on real value of their deflated homes, NOW! Let them rent their own home if necessary. So much not done. Credit card usury. Monopolies to bust up. Instead, instigators of our ruin are refinanced. Fewer but bigger monstrosities than ever better able to fleece us behind likely meek new regulatory oversight. Anyway, sunk bad gambles, bail them out! What, me worry? Sure, OBAMA is decent. Against wars, oh boy. But if he doesn't do us right here at home like he pledges, how much PEACE PRIZE credibility during his tenure can we expect?”

“It's not that elmoor. That we very disappointed BARACK OBAMA supporters expected "he could just blink his eyes" and things would change. It does take time to grind out CHANGE thru CONGRESS. Yet FDR sure did. Lots of it in 100 days. Big policy! Lots of it. LBJ, of all people, did too. But look at the people FDR worked closely with. Not folks from the HOUSES OF FINANCE, the propagators triggering the '29 Great Depression, promoting buying market on margin. No money to back up bottom out. No reserves. Sound familiar? What it is that kills us about our current President is the people he chose to surround himself with. For advice! Daily. From the time he gets up to going to bed. Aside the Pentagon stars and military munitions people, war hawks, the majority he hires to work out our in house domestic turmoils, are from MONEY and WALL STREET, that network etcetera. Problems not solutions. Burning the midnite oil to aright our ruined, sinking ship of State. Should be a joke. But these folks are deciding our economic/democracy future pretty much. The same. That ruined us in the first place, back operating handsomely. But far as the regular folks benefiting right now, like MONEY did, kidding me? It's that OBAMA is behaving like he is one of them! That's kind of cousin ain't exactly acting behalf the family raised him on high.”

“Stay in or get out? Choice is in between maybe. Be the hammer presence. Got our bombing vehicles overhead. We are covered. Drop down and bomb the crap out them. Bless the innocents just too close, doggonit. Yes. Like in SOMALIA. PAKISTAN. Kosovo. IRAN? We perceive a threat in our AFGHANISTAN dominion, we go in. Bin Laden's already the reason for two wars. Keep that guy alive! Who needs drugs, WMD or even the domino theory for reason to invade a Sovereignty. Seriously. Eight thousand mile away desert edens to be had and serve our nation's empire pipeline interests. We can do pretty much anything we want in the name of terror. Wow. Are we in trouble. Perpetual war, right. We ain't seen nothing yet. Maybe. Just starting. But wait, have we pretty much always been doing it? Building to Empire. Doing whatever it takes. Lots of money from somewhere.”

“It's not hard to 'feel' the retrogressive. It's in the air. The REPUBLICANS are running the nation right now. Pulling strings, insidious righteousness behind the power, still owning the dialogue. Manipulating, reduce the people power their narrow interest favor. Since the end of Carter beginning Reagan, dismantling forces. Example, undermining if not destroying FDR people institutions established to give the people fair shakes. Constant chipping away, erosion. Give the nation to MONEY, the one percenters, so to speak. Too much Republican energy is negative to earnest resolutions, instead are avalanches of fears and threat. Oh my. Out of power they aren't. Broadcast intimidation and outright lies wear down facts of the matter. Reasons for failure coddled almost. As if methods can't be wrong when they worked so beautifully when they worked. Method to madness? Exponentializing MONEY. Power too of course. Against MONEY what chance does common sense have to answer and correct what ruined us right before our eyes? Not while Republican influence prevails and problems are the solutions. Elephant propaganda chokes us. Why fix what is broke when STATUS QUO arights in plenty of bank interest earned time? More crumbs, more crumbs for the people, please.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-kuttner/its-the-unemployment-stup_b_309205.html”

“First thing right off came to mind was I didn't want CHICAGO to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. Why? Why in the world would a good American, an Olympics enthusiast, a democrat, who immediately went for Chicago BARACK OBAMA right off after KUCINICH gave his delegates up to OBAMA after IOWA, why would I think this way? You know what it is I think? A number of things: Who wants to be visiting, spending 2 weeks in CHICAGO, great Hog Butcher CITY that it is, for the OLYMPICS? When 'exotic' venues are available. Then there is OBAMA taking time off to promote his home base, DALEY's Chicago, please! Health Care floor vote or not during flight to and back from Copenhagen for Barack to make his pitch, stay here and twist arms! Chicago. I still can't get over DALEY'S father running Chicago during the 1968 Democrat convention city, beating heads, throwing protestors into wagons, not that there weren't agitating disruptions outside Hubert Humphrey's convention hall, but helping make Chicago look corrupt and angry as it likely was, thus reflecting bad on the Democrats. Stinks to this day in my mind. Chicago. In that regard. I'm sorry. Keep away from Chicago, least have the OLYMPICS elsewhere. Didn't look good to me, OBAMA promoting the OLYMPICS here, anywhere, in my book. He's a global advocate ain't he? He should keep out of it. On the road to Rio! Here we come!”

“Balzac. Mobile. Angstivists. You don't mean OBAMA moving on his skateboard amongst the simpering throngs demanding stuff? Public Option. Quit our Wars of false claims of national security. Offering all encompassing habeas corpus for detainees here at home in our plentiful prisons. Hiring folks to counsel and advise who aren't the solutions but the problems who encouraged, likely instigated our Great Recession. Instead, spreading the message that we should buckle up, bear it, his conciliatory approach with his own Democrats to go easy, compromise. That watered down, if not cosmetic surgery to our Health Care and collapse is better than nothing. And on and on. As if he and LETTERMAN laughing faces absolve concerns, our 'angst'.”

“Funny. I been thinking too it would be nice. OBAMA staying home for a change. In the OVAL OFFICE. THE ROOSEVELT ROOM. WASHINGTON'S attic. Osmosing the greats. In the CAPITOL. Burning candles all day into a midnite sweat, getting advice from other connecting dots to people justice and benefits, Standing tall tomorrow next to already activated charts and graphs showing what avalanche of common sense decisions CONGRESS and he did for us today. Next? Yes, President Barack Obama, busy at home. Studying to essence each ponderous issue. Like a law exam before degree test. Like to see Obama using his Blackberry constantly ordering stuff done! And thinking, thinking, envisioning, reaching the heart of what's the matter. No time to party for his CHICAGO CITY OLYMPICS. Instead all day signing off on PEOPLE POLICY, wearing out the history making pens. Honoring his pledges. Getting our work done up right. Driving our favorite policies home. Staying in WASHINGTON D.C. and wrangling every day with CONGRESS, no ifs ands or buts. Commander-in-Chief. Betcha.”

“Looks like it's going to be tough enuf surviving 4 years of my President, BARACK OBAMA. Aside his escalation of War. (Who's next)? Just take his current behaviour giving PhARMA and CORPORATE INSURANCE guaranteed new high profit income and giving WALL STREET shenanigans back to WALL STREET shenanigans. Watch out Nellie! The unfixed present portends the future, repeats more collapse. We taxpayers pay for the BANK inventions to exploit empty pockets in bundles up mixed value securities. Ruinous gambles. Guarantee the folks get back in business better than ever. Solutions who caused the problems. The ruinous busts! Collusion of government, OBAMA'S, His Administration. His--I can barely believe I am saying this--his wishy-washy too obvious. Doing maybe flip flops, watering himself down for the 'enemy' for the sake of compromise, their profit. MONEY cares less for us than beasts of burden. Gives back a fair share of the pie? Balanced care and fair shakes to whom? Free enterprize owes it's profit and existance to the worker. Obama seems drawn and hog tied to cold heart INSURANCE and cold heart BANKS. (Not to mention sucked up to the Military/Industrial and Congress conservatives complex). Happening now, exponential profits profited by profiteers exceeding ENRON Ken Lay, King Midas proportions but unredeemed like Scrooge. MONEY HOUSES gambling with our taxpayer money. OBAMA seems such a genuinely nice person. Really. Goes home to the White House and gives pieces of us away. I just HOPE it is with reluctance. Sigh.”

“President BARACK OBAMA "should have kept a safe distance from this issue"? Afghanistan. Unlikely he had a choice. Why? To get elected in the first place. Aside he had to convince majorities of disparate thinking voters, an 'impossible task that this HILLARY CLINTON machine buster phenomenon achieved, but first off, or at least in conjunction with, prove potentially that he had the cajones and popularity, in order to get enuf foreign policy credential, revealing he had no intention of disrupting the flow of, by hook or crook and, allow me, surge troops and drones, or stop, even reduce, the ongoing conquest of trade routes. Apparently, according to alleged DC archives, ME and or world incursion plans are long engraved in forerunner grab the territory imperialism stone, if you will. What's new,The Philippines? OBAMA likely had to have in his corner USA military/industrial and old line establishment politics/money that ensure/insure continued dominance of trade routes EVERYWHERE, doing whatever it takes. These essential alliances likely allowed BARACK OBAMA big MONEY campaign support, if not shaving off WALL STREET and Military/I­ndustrial/­Pentagon anti OBAMA propaganda force, that would probably have destroyed him. There was plenty enuf of that as it was. President Obama is likely beholden to the 'enemy'. Perhaps owes his life to them.”

“More troops! That's what we need. Success is our history in the Middle East and our troop allotment ground behaviour proof. RUMSFELD close to the vest, reduced Military, and replacement of former traditional Military assigned duties by mercenaries and contractors, our 'surges', are most effective. General McChrystal wipes out a town, Fallujah, to save the Baghdad. How about the millions dead, ruined, millions of refugees displaced in their own country and elsewhere plus of course our own dead and maimed-- reasonable costs. All very effective to stabilize Iraq, our goal. More proof from authority? Let's exaggerate paraphrase former Sec of State Madeleine Albright: Worth every bloody nightmare made real. Why? For the sake of our security here at home. Smart moves? Our MILITARY drone operators, the brains working the keyboard behind our INDUSTRIAL/PENTAGON first force foreign policy, our resolver of issues, our weapon of negotiation choice, deployed to stabIlize the ME region, secure oil and trade routes, deter insurgents 8-10,000 miles from reaching our shores with their IED's. No question, AFGHANISTAN is the right war. Betcha. Next PAKISTAN. IRAN?”

“Isn't it wonderful how you can simply read a review of plot and characters/actors in a list of especially fine comedy films like this in which PETER SELLERS was featured or starred--in the case of BEING THERE, poignant--and chuckle, laugh out loud for that matter, remembering scenes that stick with you forever. A little nudge and the movie reanimates, comes alive in your head. Lifts you up. A boost. It's wonderful. The power of unforgettable moving pictures when the entire teamwork, everything and everybody is right, when it all comes together.”