Things I Don't Get or Teh Stoopid, It Burns!!1!!

He probably borrowed this car from a friend.

Another post of head scratching things that just don't make a whole lot of sense to me. I guess this post should be filed under Old Codger not get offa my lawn!

I do not understand.

- Non-millionaires who vote Republican. The GOP has made it clear that they couldn't care less about anyone who's not a millionaire. In fact, some of them actively hope all non-millionaires just drop dead.

- Real, live people voted for Michelle Bachmann? Not brain dead coma patients, people with pulses and everything elected this nincompoop to national office? And they still support her? Yeah, she's from the same state that elected Jesse "The Body" Ventura as governor but still, she's about five beers short of a six pack. How can you tell when she's lying? Easy, her mouth is moving.

The Bush Tax Cuts for the Rich

I nearly lost what is left of my morning to a Twitter argument with an ardent supporter of the GOP's policy of fiscal douchebaggery (more money for the rich, no money for the poor, no school lunches for the poor, no extension of unemployment benefits for those lazy bastards, blah, blah, blah).

Rather than spend my day attempting to convince someone who's clearly not even open to a differing opinion, I thought I'd blog it up here instead.

Is The Foreign Press Correct in Branding Sarah Palin a Traitor?

I read Foreign Press Says What America's Won't: Sarah Palin is a Traitor and am in complete agreement with everything Sarah Jones, the author, writes. Even with such a well-reasoned and well-supported argument I knew there would be an attack by Sarah Palin's defenders. But these people are, by and large (and buying large but that's another post), ignorant, angry and intellectually dishonest. Whenever a point they have tried to make is shot down by the guns of reality, facts and common sense, they change tactics and try another avenue to discredit the article.

The comments, from Sarah and Jason, who runs the site, are strong and reasoned as are the many comments from other readers in the face of often moronic comments by the We Heart Sarah goon squad.

I try not to wade into political discussions because, in reality, they are akin to shouting at a brick wall. I have no illusions that all of the reasoned responses to the Palin trolls had any impact on their worship of her false idol. But I did comment and wanted to repost it here.

Distractions

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing people that he didn't exist. But I'm starting to wonder how great a trick it really was. I mean, come on, the collective nation's attention can be diverted in any direction for an almost unlimited amount of time. The current distraction is the feel good story about the Chilean miners finally getting rescued which is great and all but we're focused on a handful of people we'll never meet and while we're looking there, there's more shit going down behind our backs.

We've got some more elections just around the corner and we're looking at the Tea Party idiots and their masters, the Republicans, scoring seats in the House and Senate. Let's be clear, if you are a Tea Party candidate then you are either a willful fraud or a complete and utter fucking moron. Sorry but there's no middle ground. Tea Party members are entitlists while decrying government bailouts, they are against big government while they scoot around in their Rascals purchased at no cost to them through Medicare, they are hypocrites whipped up into a lather by shadowy billionaires using them like the moronic pawns they are.

And then there are the chickenhawks like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and the like who exist for no other reason than to repeat lies often enough so that simpletons just accept it as truth but really they accept it because they want to believe the bullshit these jackholes spew, they want to believe that they are the promised people, that they are the blessed ones, that they alone are the inheritors of the earth when, in reality, they are just being used by rich douchebags.

Here's a simple basic fact:
If you earn less than $100,000 a year and you vote Republican then you are voting against your own best interests. The Republican party does not care about you in any way. They care about the richest Americans, the ones that make more money in a day then you or I will make in our entire lifetimes. They care about big business because big business has deep pockets and they are all too happy to give some of their money to the bought and paid for "elected" reps to make them a thousand times more by hook or crook (usually by crook).

If you earn less than $100k and you vote Republican then you are voting to support a party that hates gay people, hates minorities (which will be interesting when white folks become a minority in America), hates non-Christians, hates government handouts that go to other people, a party that has, rather effectively, dug in its heels and simply stopped the running the government. This is a party that's blocked the standard nomination of people to offices for no other reason than they can.

The Republican game plan is to mangle the works up so badly as to make the current Democratically "controlled" government fail. They want it to fail so they can swoop in and say "Look, they coudn't do anything even when they had all the power, elect us and we'll make the world a better place".

Obfuscate, smear, fear, inject doubt, appeal to patriotism, talk about people who aren't like you, talk about people taking handouts (despite the fact that most Tea Partiers are taking handouts) and always, always, always have a bad guy you can point to and call the enemy. These are the tools of the fools who are party of the Tea Party "movement" which is less of a movement and much, much more of a calculated power grab by a bunch of insanely rich people who want to get even richer while Americans starve, lose their houses and suffer. These rich assholes want MORE money that they don't need.

And Republican leaders are fighting tooth and nail for those Bush tax cuts that do nothing (literally NOTHING) but put money in the pockets of people who absolutely do not need it.

Voting Republican these days means, to me, that you're an asshole giving more power to assholes who want to give more money to people who don't need it while the rest of the country flounders the aftermath of a recession created by a whole bunch of incredibly greedy assholes on Wall Street and in mortgage lending banks.

They get richer while the majority of the nation gets poorer, dumber, fatter and deader alot faster.

But hey, if you do vote Republican and you've got a rational reason for it, let me know. I'm interested in hearing how and why people with reasonable intelligence can be tricked into voting against their own interests time and again.

Who Needs/Deserves a Kick in the Nuts

Contained herein is my list of people I think are in need of a swift hard kick to the nuts and why. Not surprisingly, a bunch of these people are politicians or mouthpieces of a Republican nature. But there might be a surprise or two in the mix.

Jim Bunning - you quite obviously don't care about people in tough financial straits by your now trademark line of "Tough shit" when blocking a vote to extend unemployment insurance benefits. And then whined about missing a stupid college basketball game. Methinks your balls could use five or ten kicks really. Maybe one for every one of the unemployed people your pathetic grandstanding caused to lose their benefits. Might want to get a really big ice pack ready, Senator.

Newt Gingrich - you lie and smear without even a passing glance at the truth and have the smarmiest BS attitude about it, as if your making up facts out of thin air should be above reproach. I think you might need a finger poke in the eyes too.

Sarah Palin - some might say you don't have balls but you do, metaphorical ones sure but balls none the less. How else could you rationalize (sorry, is that too big a word for you, Sarah?) your sound bite rhetoric while pocketing massive speaking fees and spreading misinformation and lies.

Manny Ramirez - your skills are in decline while your ego is blooming to ten times normal size. You are a clubhouse cancer and the only good thing about you now is that you are going to drag the Dodgers down with you. You had a bad year last year, marred by your suspension for using steroids. And the season hasn't even started and you're already saying stupid crap and making yourself look like a bigger idiot than those stupid nasty, nappy dreads do. You might get a few extra kicks in the balls because your nuts are so shriveled up from abusing steroids.

Every climate change denier everywhere - pointing to snowstorms as a sign that global warming is a hoax demonstrates what an utter simpleton you are. You are not a scientist and yet you feel qualified to discard dozens and hundreds and thousands of scientists who all agree that climate change is real and it is going to get worse unless we do something.

Lauren Ashley - Miss Beverly Hills seems to think that the Bible and God says gay people should be executed. Also, she's apparently presumed the title of Miss Beverly Hills since Beverly Hills does not have a beauty pageant. So she's a liar and a hater. Amy thinks her over-the-top statements are a publicity stunt like her predecessor Carrie Prejean. Either way, she needs a hard kick where her danglers would be.

Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly - doing their best to drag any discussion about anything of importance down into the muck where the wallow like the fat, disgusting pigs they are. I'm not sure I could stop kicking any of the four of these fools once I'd started.

California State Senator Roy AssburnAshburn - You are a closeted gay man in politics who frequented gay bars for years and yet voted time and again against gay rights. Your excuse is that you were voting your constituent's interests which is fair enough on the surface but a total and utter cop out underneath. You represented yourself as something you are not in order to get elected, you are a fraud, a liar and a drunk driving ass. I don't give a fig that you are gay, I care an awful lot that you are a hypocritical douchebag.

Arnold Schwarzenegger - You have simply no business being the governor of a state you can barely pronounce. You're style of leadership is to quote your goddamned action movie lines, insult the other side and admonish your scofflaw skeletal freakshow wife. We'd have to use a magnifying glass to find your steroid shrunken nuts but I'd keep kicking until we did find them.

Meg Whitman - just because you are bored and hold yourself in extremely high regard doesn't mean you know the first thing about politics or how to run California. You couldn't be bothered to even vote as a regular private citizen! You've got balls, that's for sure, balls that need a kicking!

The Entire Democratic Senate and House of Representatives - You need a kick in the nuts but it would be pointless since there isn't a damned set of balls amongst the entire lot of you pussies. As my friend, Jack, is fond of saying, you've taken a 59-41 majority and turned it into a dysfunctional, hand wringing minority. Find a pair, grow a pair, have a damned pair surgically implanted in your dangling sacks just so I can plant my Doc Marten's steel toed boot in 'em.

That's about all that I can come up with right now. I'm sure there are many, many more people that would benefit from a good hard kick to the jewels, heck I'm probably one of them.

Who do you think could use a kick square in the nuts?

PS Yes, I feel a little bad for the Assburn strike above but not bad enough to remove it (and perhaps this is why I deserve a boot to the nuts too).

An American Cry for Help

I make no attempt to hide my admiration for the eloquent and passionate diatribes of Keith Olbermann as he rails against the Party of No and their obstructionist and (when you get right down to it) un-American ideologies. I forget the Congressional rep who called out the Republicans last week as being wholly owned by the insurance industry but he is right. Lobbyists for the insurance companies are spending billions of dollars to buy Republican obstructionism to try and save their profits at the expense of our people and our economy. We have a desperate need to reduce the black hole of health insurance in America. The insurance companies are the de facto death panels that Sarah Palin has talked about, they make decisions about care based on their profit margins, not on customer service, not on taking care of their customers, not on anything but trying fatten out their profits. Its despicable and wrong. The quoted bit below is the very end of Keith Olbermann's Special Comment from Wednesday before the Blair House health care reform summit. Please take the time to read the whole thing through and then tell me that we don't need universal health care. I dare you. Emphasis is mine.

And to the politicians who go into Blair House tomorrow for the summit: I have some requests as well. Leave your egos at the door. I want, I demand, that you give everybody in this country a chance at the care my father has gotten. And I demand, that you enact this most generous and most kind aspect of the reform proposed: the right to bill the damned insurance company for the conversation about what to do when the time comes, the Life Panel.

And I want all of you to think of somebody lying in a hospital bed tonight who needed that care and needed that conversation, and imagine that that is your father, or mother, or son, or daughter, or wife, or husband, or partner. If you cannot do that, if you cannot put aside the meaninglessness of your political careers for this, my request to you then, is that you not come back out of that meeting for you would not be worthy of being with the real people of this country who suffer, and suffer again because you have acted on behalf of the corporations and not the people.

If you cannot do this, go into that room and stay there and we'll get new ones to replace your worthless roles in the life of our country. My father cannot speak for himself. He appointed me to do so for him and I haven't the slightest doubt he wants me to say this tonight, right now. He mouthed the words to me and I will now give them such voice as I have to you going into that summit tomorrow. Help. Help. Help. Help.

If you have read the entire comment and you are unmoved then I honestly do not have anything further to say to you, perhaps ever. Our nation is in crisis and we have one side trying to do something and the other side doing nothing and worse, trying to prevent anything from changing. All in the name of goddamned profit margins and shareholder dividends while families go bankrupt, families members are allowed to die while awaiting permission from their insurance companies to get medical treatments and those same insurance companies try to cook up new ways to screw over their customers to add even more money to their profits.

It would make me sick but I can't get sick because I can't afford to.

Top Ten Thoughts About Sarah Palin's Abrupt Resignation

1. She's tired of being a national punchline. Yes, she's pretty but she's as vapid and as stupid as your typical runway model.
2. She's gearing up for a run at the White House in 2012. Which would be fine. She may resonate with the people but she's a bad leader, inexperienced and as dumb as an Alaskan winter day is long.
3. Somewhere Tina Fey is breathing a sigh of relief.
4. There is, physically and realistically speaking, no possible way she could see Russia from her office nor would being able to see Russia in any possible way qualify her to have even the tiniest modicum of foreign policy experience.
5. We can, officially, lay to rest the phrase "lipstick on a pig".
6. Women everywhere can start rebuilding every bit of the equal rights mountain her idiocy and reliance on T&A blew apart.
7. Vegas bookies are putting together the odds on her winding up on Fox News within six months. Or The View.
8. If she wasn't so incredibly egotistical and stupid, she'd have realized months ago that silence can be alot more deafening than yet another lame press announcement.
9. Its hard to take someone who preaches about family values and abstinence for teens seriously when she can't even keep her own children from getting knocked up.
10. Now Hilary Clinton can go back to being the hot politician.

I have plenty more to say about Sarah Palin. From the whiners who think she got a raw deal by the big bad media wolf (hint, she gave fewer interviews than any vice presidential candidate in history and the one's she did give were absolute softball hand-picked BS affairs) to the people who voted for her solely because they'd like to fuck her (which is an incredibly poor way to choose who to vote for). Sarah Palin is an aggressive ignorant and arrogant fool with ambition that her brains just aren't quite enough of to fulfill.

She was in no way ready to the vice president and the McCain campaign made a colossal error in not vetting her more thoroughly. She was embroiled in an ethics investigation about her abuse of power to get her sister's ex-husband fired because she's a vindictive and grudge holding bitch. She had little to no grasp of national let alone international politics. She'd barely even stepped foot outside the USA in her life. She tried to charge rape victims for the kits used to generate evidence to convict rapists in courts.

The list goes on and on and on. She is, was and will remain the low water mark for vice presidential candidates. The only more annoying thing introduced by the 2008 campaign has been Joe the Fucking Plumber whose name isn't Joe and he's not a licensed plumber and the whole point of McCain invoking him (that his taxes would be raised under Obama) was later proven to be utter bullshit.

I'm almost sad to see Sarah go. She was a trainwreck from start to finish and the only thing that makes me sad about her is how many people across the country glommed on to her for all they were worth. Regardless of the patent fact that she had zero qualifications for the job she was running for.

And, last thought, if Sarah Palin had a stroke, she'd probably look alot like that photo above, just all the time. Yeah, I wrote that.

Happy Birthday America, so far our gift has been this freakshow's departure.

Politics and Cocktails

Originally written and published in November 2003 somewhere in the backwaters of the internets. Just found it again and liked it enough to republish it. Not a short story per se, more like a slightly extended scene.

Late one night, after exhausting himself painting yet another large canvass of emotional reds and swirled blacks, a turning out of his emotional state, Ian was just about to flop down and pass out when he heard a gentle knock on his door. For some reason he knew it would be Astrid and when he opened the door he smiled to her and for knowing it would be her. He liked moments when he felt like he could see what was going to happen next.
"Are you still up, Ian?" she asked as she pushed by him and entered his cluttered living room that was more studio than living space.
"Almost, you got me just as I was about to sack out, what time is it anyway?"
"Three thirty or so," she said over her shoulder while she looked at his fresh canvas leaning against the wall after losing the battle to his paintbrush. "Are you in a bad mood?"
"No, not at all, why do you ask?"
"This painting," she pointed a delicate finger at the large and newly completed oil, "It's very dark, brooding and makes me feel sort of a raging something from you or am I misinterpreting it?"
"No, I guess I hadn't thought of it like that. Its less of a rage thing and more of a venting, lots of internal demons and they always seem to want to come out as reds and blacks. I've gotta at least try to live up to the suffering artist persona I've been slavishly cultivating since college," he tried to make light her question even while he shifted uneasily on the balls of his feet, feeling the heat of her scrutiny on both him and the painting. He knew that the painting was really a reflection of how she made him feel, an impotent rage that he railed against but couldn't battle through. But he was also nowhere near tired enough, drunk enough (he normally drank a bottle or two of wine when he painted as it freed up his constricted movements) or comfortable enough to tell her any of that.
"You must have some pretty powerful demons inside you if this is how they manifest themselves in your work but enough about your art, I know you get uncomfortable when people talk about it too much with you around. How about a drink instead?"
"Sure, its too late for a bar but I've got some Bushmills and ginger ale, if that's alright with you?" and he headed for the kitchen, grateful for he excuse to do something.
"That sounds lovely, I had an old friend who used to drink Bushmill's like it was water, its too much straight up like he drank it but with some ginger ale sounds good," she followed him into the kitchen and leaned her slender frame against the doorframe to watch him mix.
"What were you up to this evening that you're just getting home now?" he asked her in an offhand way, trying to mask his curiosity.
"I had a date that went into a little bit of overtime," she began and then, noticing his surprised look, "Oh no, not like that! What kind of girl do you think I am? We got to talking about politics, the current foreign policy situation and potential ways to repair the country's sagging image around the world."
"And what did you come up with?"
"The first step is to start fresh, a new president, all new Senators, all new Congressmen, all new pages, all new everything. A clean slate is the only way I can think of to clear out all the favoritism and cronyism and all those other dirty 'ism words that just mean people cheating the system they were elected to protect."
"Sounds like you're on the right track, but why stop there? Why not remove all the corrupt cops, mayors, governors and all the other crooks in expensive suits?"
"I think that wouldn't be a bad idea, eventually, but to start the process, it has to be a decapitation, remove the head and the body will fall. God, I sound like a kung-fu movie," she laughed.
He handed her a tall cocktail and walked with her back into the living room. He took a moment to clean off a space on the couch next to his thinking chair, an old, faded green leather chair that he'd had since he moved to the city years and years ago.
"There's nothing wrong with kung-fu movies that a little better voice over wouldn't fix," Ian said in a matter of fact voice.
"I don't know about that, I can think of lots of things that would need to be fixed in kung-fu movies to make them more viewable but let's try to stay on the politics thing, I won't be able to get to sleep until I've worked it out of my system," she steered him back to the original topic.
"Okay, what else is on your mind? The failings of the electoral college, the utter removal of checks and balances for the most powerful man in the world? The appointment of soul-less old men to guide the country?" he asked her, partially in jest but also because he was a little confused by her signals, she would lean towards him, put a hand on his arm and then back away again, settling all the way back against the couch.
"Don't be an ass, the electoral college isn't failing, our use of it is failing, WE are failing the founding fathers, we're not staying true to their desires," she snapped at him. And then, realizing that she was excessively sharp with him, reached out to take his hand in hers. "I'm sorry, dear, its not you, I've got some other things on my mind as well as this whole politics thing.
"Okay, then I'll be a sport and not get petulant, it'll be hard but I'll try," Ian said while smiling at her, pleased that she made the effort to placate him after snapping. Not enough people actually take the time to apologize for their misdirected anger, he thought to himself.
"Thanks, dear," she said simply, tracing the rim of her glass with her finger, obviously thinking about what had been bothering her.
"So what is it that's been pushing your irritation button?" he asked her.
"I was having a drink at a bar earlier tonight while waiting for my friend to show up and I was trying to talk to this guy at the bar. He wouldn't say anything except cliches and lame platitudes, it was driving me nuts. I thought he was just messing with me but I don't think he was really capable of thinking for himself," she opened up, "When someone resorts to simple cliches and slogans then they are no longer capable of conversation and are instead acting as a media outlet for someone else's interests."
"I suppose that's true but I don't think I've ever met someone like the man you're describing so it's very abstract, can you give me an example?"
"Okay, how about this? I would say something like, 'Did you read about the new bill in Congress that they're trying to pass regarding same sex marriage?' and he would respond with 'If Pro is the opposite of Con then isn't Progress the opposite of Congress?', it became pretty clear that he basically picked a word and then found a cliche that it was in and that was his answer," she explained.
"I can see how that would be annoying, why did you keep talking to him then?"
"I wanted to see how long he could keep it up, if I could say something that would leave him speechless but it didn't happen and I got irritated and stopped speaking to him."
"What bothered you about him the most? The fact that he wasn't speaking for himself or thinking for himself?"
"Well sure, its dishonest to use other people's words in place of your own, honest thought isn't the regurgitation of other people's words or mottos. Honest thought is taking those concepts, figuring out which has any value and making them your own," she continued.
"Yep, I'll agree to that," Ian nodded his head obediently.
"So many people fall back on other people's thoughts without really ever thinking about what they're saying. What it means now, what it means for the future and that, honestly, sort of scares me," she admitted. "The people that listen to that awful guy on the radio, what's his name?"
"Howard Stern?"
"No, the other one, the guy Al Franken wrote a book about?"
"Oh Rush Limbaugh, yeah, Rush and his army of devoted, empty skulled dittoheads that hang on his every word as being divinity itself. The problem with treating other people's words as sacred is that the other people aren't sacred, they're people. People with their own objectives, desires and agendas and trusting your thoughts to someone else gives them more power to spread whatever they want," Ian gave her some of his own thoughts.
"And he's a hate monger too, he hates gay people, he hates liberals, he hates anyone who doesn't think exactly as he does and those that do think like he does, he doesn't care about, he just wants to expand his powerbase so that he can throw his weight around, its ugly and people like him are a true danger to the country and the world."
"People need to think for themselves, until they do then they're just wasting space and resources waiting for the grim reaper to come and take them up to heaven for a job well done."
"But they didn't do a job, they just nodded their heads at the right time and said stupid things like 'Ditto' and 'Right on, Rush'!" she exclaimed angrily, like it was Ian's fault that people were so shallow and easily duped into being talking sheep. "Even if there were a heaven, none of these people deserve to get in for ceding their minds to someone else, that's the height of insanity."
"You're right, you are totally right. All except the part about there possibly being a heaven, I can't bring myself to believe in such an abstract carrot, especially not when I can see the ropes around my neck with that carrot out front trying to coerce me into greater struggles to get to the reward of an eternity in paradise."
"Yeah, yeah! I like that metaphor of the carrot, it makes sense and puts together a whole lot of thinking that's not been able to coalesce properly but I think I get it now. The opiate of the masses, the struggle now for an eternal reward, all of it. Its just another way to control people, to get them to do what you want. And the worst part about heaven is that its totally unprovable, either it exists or that it doesn't. The only people who can get into it are dead and they tend to not talk."
"I think we're going to need another round of cocktails to figure this one all the way out," and Ian grabbed her now empty glass and his own before heading into the kitchen to spin up a couple of new drinks.
Astrid followed him into the other room, her bright eyes very alive with some bursting revelations.

Mmmm, Smell the Hypocrisy

It has become very trendy among the GOP and their mouthpieces to publicly state that they are hoping President Obama fails in his quest to fix the country (1, 2, 3, 4). Putting aside the traitorous sentiment for just a moment, by what twisted rationalization do they arrive at this conclusion that wishing for our president to fail is, in any way, helpful to our country?

Under Bush, this country lost millions of jobs, helped mobilize and recruit terrorists around the world because of Gitmo (and other prison) tortures, and spent like there was no tomorrow. The GOP put us in this mess and now they are coming together to call for the failure of the man we elected to try and right our ship?

Think about how loudly and shrilly a wanker like Rush Limbaugh would be bleating if any Democrat had stood up and said that they want Bush to fail during the eight years of darkness? And yet he's trying to pretend he's being patriotic in calling for him to fail?

These are hypocrits and asshats of the highest order. And yet they are lauded loudly by the crowd at their CPAC Kool-Aid fest. They call for the nuking of a major US city and the comment is met with raucous applause. They seem to want America to get worse, they seem to want to see more people thrown from their homes, they seem to want more people ejected from their jobs, they seem to want our education, healthcare and infrastructure to get weaker, they want to make America worse, not better. And they have the audacity to call themselves patriots?

I don't get it, I don't get how someone can be seemingly intelligent enough to tie their shoes and then go about furthering the destruction begun on their watch?

America is in a very, very bad place right now, the nation is reeling from eight years of idiocy, knee-jerkism and outright douchebaggery. Isn't it time to recognize that, to get better, we need to get behind our president and help?

But then, the face of the GOP is Rush "Blow Harder" Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Joe the Unlicensed Plumber and Michael "Token" Steele. This is the party that tried to win the White House with Sarah Palin, an uneducated shit for brains governor of the rape capital of America who preached family values while her unwed teenaged daughter got more and more pregnant, while she was investigated and found guilty of illegally using her powers, while charging Alaskans travel per diems when she slept in her own bed and whose foreign policy can be summed up with the utterly ridiculous "I can see Russia from my office" lie.

The Republican Party is not the party of Americans or America, it is the party of self-service, of looting the coffers while the looting is good, of partisanship for partisanship sake regardless of the current economic realities facing the country. They want Obama to fail because that is the shortest path to them regaining some political power again in America, they want America to get worse so they can take the reins again (and, presumably, give more tax cuts to the rich).

If you are supportive of the Republicans and their warped values and their openly hateful policies and yet you call yourself an American then maybe its time you actually opened up the can of worms you call a brain and examine how your party is really behaving, how your party is working to continue to damage this country amidst the worst economic crisis (of your own goddamned party's doing). The hypocrisy would be comical if it weren't so incredibly self-serving, craven and dangerous.

What Today Means

Today is the dawn of a New America. Today is the inauguration and swearing in Barack Obama, the first African-American president in the history of this nation. It is also the end of the Bush Administration.

It is the dawn of new leadership, it is the end of state sanctioned torture, it is the beginning of the end of Gitmo, it is the beginning of climb back out of the deep, deep hole that the Bush/Cheney tag team of anger and ignorance put us in.

Today is the transfer of power from an unpopular yokel to a man with great vision who is smart enough to surround himself with smarter people than himself.

Today is one of great hope for better tomorrows for us all. But today also signals the need for all of us to throw our energy into making tomorrow better. Today is a call to duty.

Today is a day of celebration for the entire planet.

Today is a day that many people thought would never happen, ever. Today is Obama Day!

Roland Burriss Bitchslaps Due Process

Roland Burriss is not, despite his and his team of lawyers bleated and repeated insistence, the junior senator from Illinois. He was appointed to replace Barack Obama by Rod Blago.....whatever the hell his name is, I think I'll just call him Governor Helmethead, after Helmethead has been accused of trying to sell the Senate seat to the highest bidder. Which, oddly enough, is a felony.

Burriss has not been certified for a very good and valid reason. That being that his appointer, Governor Helmethead, is under investigation for committing a felony with that very seat he's laid his claim to.

It would be prudent and much more above board and honest to let due process run its course. He wouldn't be stirring up a shitstorm of controversy by demanding that it is his without any reservations or recognizing that the appointment was made under extremely suspect circumstances.

Roland Burriss gives politicians an even worse name than they already have and is representative of what is wrong with politics in America. He and his team of mouthpieces spew rhetoric and hyperbole but their argument is, basically, Roland Burriss is the junior Senator from Illinois because Roland Burriss is the junior Senator from Illinois.

All of this combined with the rather creepy and hyper-inflated ego fact that the dude's already bought a mausoleum and listed out his life's accomplishments on it but left plenty of space for his accomplishments in the Senate. That's just creepy and smacks of a completely self-serving mentality.

The Awkwardness Must Have Been Overwhelming

I can't be the only that's a little squigged out by Dick Cheney playing tour guide to Joe Biden. Can I?

I don't know enough about Joe Biden to condemn or condone him (though, like most people I don't know, I'd give him the benefit of the doubt) but I know plenty about Dick Cheney to call him one of the most evil, vile, disgusting bags of feces in human skin to ever hold public office. He has done more than his part to defile the American political machine with his wanton power grabs, his openly mean spirit and generally hateful attitude towards anything not him.

What a bizarre and uncomfortable tour that must have been. I wonder if Cheney proudly showed off his private torture chamber?

Checking My Scorecard

So how'd I do on yesterday's election? I hit the big one in Obama/Biden winning the presidential election but several of the props have passed, including the hate-based Prop 8, the special-interest crippled Prop 1a, that I had hoped would not.

Total score: 7/13. I missed on Props: 1a, 5, 6, 8, 9, and 11. Not especially good AND made worse with Prop 8 passing. But I'll take the Obama win first and foremost and we can sort out the other stuff later. For now, it is time to breathe again, remember that there are other things worth blogging about aside from politics.

But I would like to note that John McCain's concession speech was his best of the entire campaign and I hope he continues to urge his supporters to work with President-elect Obama (doesn't that sound good?).

........
Hey, um, the Sharks are off to an amazingly kickass start!

Comparing Apples and Lemons

I just posted Comparing Apples and Lemons over on IP Politik, its a short comparison of the educational backgrounds of the four candidates. It came from an email posted over on The Nutsy Fagan Diaries and it rocks.

Clearly Named Political Groups

Submitted for your review, a list of political groups with honest names along with suggested spokespeople.

The Christian Coalition of Conservative Dumbfuckery
Spokesidiot: Elizabeth "I'll say any GOP talking point you want even if I have no idea what it means" Hasselbeck

Western Hemisphere Homophobic Knobgobblers
Spokesbottom: Larry "Toe-tapper in the crapper" Craig

Bible Thumping Ass Blaster Meth Master Pastors
Spokespastor: Ted "Gay is bad but feels so good, especially when you're high on meth" Haggard

Single Issue White Haters
Spokesdouche: Rudy "Grinning Goblin of 9/11 Repeatance" Guiliani

Rich White Fat Greedy Assholes
Spokesrectum: Dick "Go Fuck Yourself" Cheney

The Alliance to Gang Rape Mother Earth
Spokestwit: Sarah "Drill, baby, Drill" Palin

Patriots for Censorship, Intolerance and Bigotry
Spokescensor: Newt Gingrich

Little Old White Ladies Who Fear Everything Including Black People and Change
Spokestrembler: Cindy "Where's my pills?" McCain

Chinless Warhawk Senator Flip Floppers
Spokestraitor: "Chinless" Joe Lieberman

And there we go. Have you come up with any honestly named groups? Yes, you may have noticed that these are all Republican groups. The reason for that is because the Republican party has, far, far more regularly, than the Democrats, engaged in negative, untruthful smear style campaigning that lowers the debate for all.

I hope this list of groups is marginally humorous. I chuckled a couple of times while writing it, mostly at the first one which I wrote while watching that Parrotard (yes, new word) Hasselbeck become Sarah Palin's only adviser she'll listen to. Plus, I just like saying the word dumbfuckery.

Rough Start

The week has gotten off to a slightly rough, slightly late start thus far. Between the boys getting their sleep patterns all mashed up last night with late naps and later bedtimes and the generalized stress of the start of the workweek and then toss my wife's birthday in on top of everything and you've got a recipe for meltdown mania.

I hope things start to smooth out sooner rather than later since I'm now at work and unable to provide assistance.

Some thoughts on the weekend:
Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live was lame and SNL should be ashamed for helping to promote her. I've heard she's already been offered a position with Fox News once the election is over and her ticket gets crushed.

The Red Sox just didn't quite have enough in the tank to get by the Devil Rays. They put up a good show, came from far, far behind to tie it up but just couldn't quite get over the top. A Phillies and Devil Rays World Series isn't the worst thing that could have happened though and it'll be interesting at the very least. Besides, the distinct lack of Yankees in the post season has already made winners of us all.

The latest UFC Fight Night had some good fights, I haven't gotten through the whole show yet but the Paul Kelly/Marcus Davis fight was good action and the Lytle/Taylor match was very good. I think Brandon Vera's just about done in the UFC, he can't keep putting up pretty mediocre fights and expect to stay in the big leagues.

The slowly dying freezer at home just adds to the general chaos of our life and not really in a good way. It complicates things tremendously and is forcing us to spend time on it when we don't really have time to spare.

We did have a good time at a lumberjack party up above Scotts Valley yesterday. It always amazes me at just how totally different someone else's home environment is like. Their house couldn't be any more different than mine if it were on the moon. While Sully and I were hanging out on the deck, two deer came up from the mostly dried up stream below, they circled the house and then made their way up the street to the next house. There haven't been deer near my house in probably twenty years. The house was Santa Cruz old-school hippy funky which meant that it had lots of interesting spaces, a sunken living room, a big deck, lots of sun, privacy and it was really quiet.

Plus they had a 26 ton log splitter available to help grind through the rather large pile of wood that had accumulated. And nothing says fun like a gas-powered log splitter!

The weekend, as most weekends seem to, went by too quickly and not enough stuff got done although I was able to knock off some minor list items on Saturday with the boys. But it isn't quite enough and we start the week just a little bit further behind than we left last week.

I wish I'd been able to give my wife exactly what she really wants for her birthday, a day off to catch up. But that'll have to wait until I've got a day to give her. Things aren't exactly easy these days but we're getting through it all together as best we can.

I did not get a chance to go riding this weekend but that's only partially because I'm a lazy guy, I torqued up my shoulder towards the end of last week and I'm not quite sure if its going to play nicely right now. Its been pretty sore all weekend but feels a little better this morning, maybe that's just wishful thinking though. We'll see.

Today is going to be a grind from start to finish, whenever that might end up being.

Debate Reflections: Round the Third

The last debate is in the books and now we just have a three week sprint to the finish. I fully expect the McCain campaign to keep mortgaging whatever dignity it might still have to try and eat into Obama's rather huge lead.

McCain needed to crush Obama last night to make a dent in the double digit lead. He baited Obama repeatedly, he insulted him, he called him a liar, a person who consorts with terrorists and he called him naive and inexperienced.

The thing is, McCain is the liar, McCain is the guy who consorts with terrorists (or did you not know Saddam "Freakin" Hussein's chief lobbyist is on McCain's payroll?), McCain is the one with the overly-simplistic economic plan (cutting all earmarks to nothing will save .5% of the national budget) and McCain's health care plan is a joke, just like his education plan, his energy plan and his campaign cries of Change when his party has been in charge for the last eight years.

McCain offers nothing new and his running mate offers nothing of substance or value at all unless you strongly value a move towards fundamental and extreme religion in this country. Oh what's that? You don't believe in the same God as Sarah Palin? Then you should and you will BURN IN HELL, SINNER!

Oh wait, I don't believe in her God either. What kind of a God gives a mandate to go to war in Iraq when they had nothing at all to do with 9/11? What kind of a God gives a mandate to build a gas pipeline? No God I have any interest in worshiping, that's for damned sure!

Obama spoke to my concerns, he didn't stoop to get into things with McCain when McCain would start bringing up ridiculous "issues" like Obama's relationship with William Ayres and ACORN. Even though he could have gotten into the mud and flung insults at McCain he didn't. He kept talking about the real issues that are a real concern to me and other Americans.

Where McCain keeps wanting to make the election into one of character when we the people want a president who will make the country better and stronger and help restore our national honor and pride (which McCain helped kick into the mud to begin with by supporting every ridiculous thing Bush has done).

McCain didn't come close to winning last night and he won't close the gap in the polls anytime soon and I'm sure his campaign will continue to represent the Dark Side.

I have no respect for John McCain anymore. He sold it all off for soundbites and window dressing while forgetting that the nation needs change, change for the better, not more of the same failed Bush policies.

Joe Biden stepping in as president? No problem at all.
Sarah Palin stepping in as president? I'm running for the damned hills. In Canada or Mexico.

Oh yeah, McCain's "ace" Joe the Plumber? McCain's spotlight on him has created a whole host of headaches for him. Nice work, Johnboy. Plus, his "complaint" about higher taxes under Obama's plan didn't hold water as he wouldn't be making $250,000+. Oops.

White Privilege and You

I just posted This is Your Nation on White Privilege written by Tim Wise over on IP Politik.

Obama Locks Up the 2 Year Old Vote

We were having a heated political discussion around the dinner table and Sullivan wanted to weigh in with his thoughts about who we should support since he's unable to vote for another 16 years or so.

Either way, Obama has a lock on cute kids stumping for him.

Shame on Cindy McCain

So, if you watch the news, you've likely seen the clip of Cindy McCain talking about her blood running cold when she found out that Barack Obama voted not to fund her son in Iraq.

Guess what? Her own freakin' husband voted against the troop funding as well. But I'm sure she's alright with that.

Having seen Cindy McCain speak and then seeing two interviews with Michelle Obama, they aren't even close. Cindy McCain is a reflection of her angry husband while Michelle Obama is a reflection of her thoughtful, considerate and articulate husband.

Michelle Obama carries herself with grace and dignity where Cindy McCain is either completely mute or sniper selecting arguments to whip up Republicans into a racist frenzy. She has two expressions, blank and outrage. Neither is especially First Lady-ish.

Also, I have the distinct hunch that, not so deep down, Cindy McCain is terrified of black people (and probably poor people and yellow people and red people and pretty much anyone not white and rich).
I have zero respect for John McCain or his selective outrage autobot wife.