More etc., etc.

Love of Country
I was trying to figure out whether or not I love the USofA.  Well, probably not, unless you count as love the relationship of a long-married couple who shuffle along side by side primarily because splitting up would be more trouble than it's worth.  In other words, I'm not about to "lay down my life" to "protect" some alleged "ideals" that may or may not have ever been put into practice.  Anyway, the plutocracy is strong enough and rich enough to look after its own ass.

Four Months for Greece
Greeks will continue to suffer as long as Greece is stuck with austerity, and if Syriza is pushed aside by the Germans and their fellow travelers, "Europe" is likely to find itself dealing with Golden Dawn.  Europe will be pulled, one way or the other, by Greece, and Europe has to decide whether it will be pulled to the left or the right.

Three British Girls
The three girls who recently lit out for the Islamic State were middle class, good students, and not especially religious until very recently.  So why did they take off for the alleged caliphate?  My guess is that they were made to feel more and more isolated and alienated from British society, and the IS was the only outlet they could find.  The hatemongers, both in Europe and the USofA, are doing more to strengthen the enemy than to weaken it.

Net Neutrality
So far, so good.  Back in the eighties and nineties, monopolistic telephone companies were forced to lease bandwidth to competitors, which led to steep declines in the prices of long-distance phone calls.  If Comcast and the other internet giants are forced to lease bandwidth to smaller competitors, what might the impact be?  Let's hope we get to find out.

Homeland Security
Maybe we should try getting along with a lot less of it for a while, and see if it makes a difference.  To bad for the employees who will have to work without getting paid, but since those who work for the Department are not allowed to unionize, I guess they'll just have to eat it.

Team of rivals?

Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano has been mentioned as a possibility for the Homeland Security post in the new Obama administration. I'd like to see the post go to another Arizonan -- John McCain.

Doris Kearns Goodwin has been all over the media lately, discussing the Team of Rivals that made up the Lincoln administration, and how the concept might be put into play by Barack Obama. (In the interests of full disclosure, I will admit to a major crush on Doris Kearns Goodwin.) Indeed, Obama has suggested that he will include a Republican or two in his administration. If he could persuade McCain to accept Homeland Security, the results would be entirely positive.

More than 46% of voters chose McCain, many because they believed he was better qualified to protect the country from terrorist attacks. It seems likely that a lot of Obama voters also thought McCain's anti-terrorist credentials were better than Obama's, but decided that the economy or some other factor was more important to them. Anybody unsure about Obama in this area would be reassured by McCain (and anybody unsure of McCain would be reassured by the fact that Sarah Palin would not be his second in command.)

Republican Party officials, of course, would be totally irate because Napolitano would appoint a Democrat to fill McCain's seat in the Senate. Fox News would be filled with aging white men huffing and puffing and shaking their jowls, which would provide needed comic relief amidst the ongoing news of economic collapse. (It certainly would tickle my funnybone.)

Would McCain accept? Maybe. Nobody in his party is looking to him for leadership, and plenty of Republicans are attacking him -- blaming him for the party's extensive losses. There's not much he can accomplish in a Democratic controlled Senate, and it's not in his nature to hunker down and dedicate himself to obstructionism. After a lifetime of service to his country, he probably would like to continue a while longer -- and his pal Joe Lieberman will be running the Senate committee.

Could Obama count on him? Certainly. McCain is honest, and loyal to a fault. His service on the Armed Services Committee and on Commerce subcommittees for aviation and surface and marine transportation gives him useful background knowledge.

McCain might not be especially popular with Rahm Emmanuel or David Axelrod, and his presidential campaign was more than a little unsavory from time to time, but he still is admired by most Americans -- even those who opposed him. If he became a member of the new administration, it would demonstrate conclusively that Obama is serious about postpartisan governance. Better than any other appointmet, it could bring the country together.