re: #123 BigPapa

Thanks.

My avatar has outlived its usefulness - it now will seem as derivative (variations on the theme have popped up everywhere the past couple of years.) I changed to it way back when Obama popped up on the scene, as it became pretty clear to me then that the junior senator from IL was pushing lots of people’s buttons.

I’ve thought of some other avatars… but none seem quite right. I’m sensing a vacuum in the force - a lack of any more buttons to push, so to speak. I think there is quite a bit of blog-fatigue around the net, and twitter and facebook have succeeded in sucking up all the energy in the virtual room without returning very much content.

One almost-emerging flashpoint is global governance. Contrary to the current GOP clown-car circus double-speak, we really are in a globally tightly related system and American intransigence to act on this is starting to hurt. This whole Iran thing is one example - many other nations just don’t care about Iran like we (and a few other closely allied nations) do.

It won’t be but a few short years before the US will be the only major economic power not from the traditional circle of US-influence nations. India, Russia, and Brazil are going to join China as members of top 6 nations, leaving the US only with Japan as a close ally. And even then Japan pursues its own policies in Asia, as seen with their using Yen in dealings with Iranian outfits.

So my next avatar might be something totally off the wall…