and on that bombshell

Oklahoma Tea Militia

2010-04-13T22:04:00.020-06:00

A state-sponsored anti-Federal militia actually created by the Oklahoma state legislature?

Do these guys understand the definition of treason? I'm pretty sure taking up arms against the Federal government qualifies. Maybe they're not planning on using real guns.

This militia's purpose is to protect the state's rights from Federal government infringement, but why not use the Constitution to protect the Federal government from militias? Check out Article I Section 8 under the powers of Congress:

[Congress may] provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

and also

[Congress may] provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

and Article II Section 2:

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States;

Sounds like we have new volunteers for Iraq and Afghanistan.

Response to Whole Foods Darwinism

2009-08-21T14:04:00.005-06:00

LINK: Mr. Mackey's Editorial

Since all rational people believe natural selection is the mechanism by which life evolves on this planet, I suppose it's just obligatory to apply this model to our government. On the surface, it appears compassion does not promote survival of the fit. If you believe Ayn Rand, it is the self-destructive path and most of the "haves" would like to impose this ideology on the "have nots". But actually our compassion is the only thing which keeps us civilized. Unfortunately, in large groups it becomes easy to distance ourselves from compassion and treat everything with logic.

Mr Mackey of Whole Foods fame will tell you compassion equals socialism. We can't afford to be compassionate. We will run out of money and everyone will die, but I didn't see this argument from Mackey about starting an illegal war with Iraq that was arguably more expensive and killed several hundred thousand people. He says health care isn't a right any more than food or shelter. I would agree with this statement to the effect that if you want to pay for food and shelter for those who don't have it, I would gladly pay more taxes for that too. We can't afford to make sure people don't starve or freeze to death either?

It's funny that any assistance from the government is labeled as an entitlement or socialism; the boogeyman of all greedy people in the world. It's a slippery slope from letting bums sleep in a vacant gym with a PB&J sandwich to redistributing all the wealth evenly across the population. People are not entitled to health care? The left wing group the AARP did a study that shows 1.85 million people went bankrupt due to medical bills last year and over half of them had health insurance. I guess they are taking financial responsibility for their well-being so this should promote social consciousness. Maybe they'll think twice about getting fat or smoking next time. Funny.

The most difficult part to believe is there are some Christians who claim to follow the teachings of a man who walked the earth giving everything he had to help as many people as possible and this is their role model, but yet they still say we can't afford to help everyone. I understand how the CEO of a big corporation might not be able to help anyone (their ideology is based on working hard for every dollar they can consume and it doesn't make sense to give anything away), but people who devote their spirit to spreading goodwill and peace should not be capable of this callousness.

To advocate the devil I will address Mr. Mackey's alternative to real health care reform because it is just misdirection to avoid paying for anything. His "reform" ideas only help himself and the people in his inner circle. I've heard the argument that 80 percent of people are happy with their health care coverage (really? Happy with the cost? Happy that they have none? Blissfully ignorant?), but a recent study shows that 90 percent of the people covered by the NHS in England (which is all of the people) are happy with it. I can't find any data to support the statement that 830,000 are waiting to be admitted to hospital in Canada and 1.8 million in England. I guess anyone with an appointment is "waiting" in line.

Is Mr. Mackey suggesting we should punish people who are overweight, smokers, make poor nutrition choices, or prone to some other health issue? You didn't eat your green beans. That doctor's visit will be two hundred dollars.

Suggestions by Mr. Mackey:
1) Deregulate obstacles to high-deductable health savings accounts - How does this help unemployed, underemployed or children who are in most need of health care reform? High-deductable? Isn't that gambling? Savings? If you save, you can pay for it. This makes you feel responsible and increases your self-image? I could write a whole article about this suggestion.

2) Equalize tax laws so self-insured can deduct taxes for health care like employee-insured - doesn't this sound like a money shuffle? This is supposed to give self-insured customers more money to pump back into the economy, but how does it reduce health care costs or improve the care and coverage? It just gives the government less money, but luckily we're running a surplus, so they can afford to get less money. This doesn't address any problems with the system, it's just a band-aid.

3) Deregulate insurance companies on what they must cover - Wow! Making insurance companies actually cover things makes it cost more? You mean if they didn't really have to cover anything, they could just collect premiums and never pay out anything? That would probably make insurance cheaper. I think my head is going to explode. I hope that's covered.

4) Allow people to go across state lines to get insurance - If some states are cheaper than other states now, the way some group plans are cheaper than other group plans, then why would they continue to be the same cheaper rates if people could move around to different groups? It just means everyone will be paying the same high rate. The high rates won't drop from the competition. I'm all for letting people change plans with no pre-existing conditions and force the insurance companies to take all patients at the same low price (no group plans or group rates). Maybe this is what Mr. Mackey is suggesting, but somehow I doubt it.

5) Tort reform - The paper tiger. I suppose we all love pinatas, but frivolous law suits are estimated at 0.5 to 2 percent of health care costs. The argument is that doctors are required to pay higher rates for their insurance and they pass this savings on to you, or in some cases decide to become a lawyer instead of a doctor. Every real estimate of the "cost" of health care puts this item down at the bottom of the list. Last year, health insurance companies spent 400 million dollars on lobbyists and the estimate of profit for companies on average is 25 cents of every premium dollar. It sounds like we could save at least 25 percent by making this a non-profit industry even if we don't make it more efficient. I didn't see this suggestion.

6) Make costs transparent - I suggest that we make Whole Foods costs transparent so we know exactly how much they pay for every item and how much the distributors paid for that and what each employee of each product company is making so we know where those dollars are going. Maybe this would make our Whole Foods cost go down. I suppose the theory is they would be shamed into not screwing their customer. Shame and Heath Care Provider are not usually used in the same sentence. LexisNexis it if you don't believe me.

7) Medicare reform - Fix the most successful government program in the history of all world governments? That's going to save health care costs? I think he means fix it by not funding it. It's just old people and kids. They should be able to fend for themselves and we can empower them instead of enable or entitle them. Ugh!

8) A tax-deductible voluntary donation to help people without insurance - because the only thing keeping people from donating now is the tax they are paying on that money. You know, except for the voluntary part, I'm ok with this suggestion. Change it to - "A mandatory donation to the government to pay for health care for anyone that needs it." Sounds great. Why don't we just make all taxes voluntary. People are basically good anyway.

Everyone says Mr. Mackey has a right to his opinion and freedom of speech, and I'm fine with that, but he's using a position of power to mislead people especially if he's suggesting any compassion about his position. He doesn't want any health care reform unless it just makes it cheaper for him. He doesn't want any one to get more health care unless it's free and he doesn't want to fix anything with the system unless it also takes power away from the government to enforce it. Free market works great! Deregulation is awesome for rich people. He is all for individual responsibility unless it involves corporation. That's the corporation's fault and government meddling when they fail and we are all here to bail you out, unless you get sick.

You probably have COBRA though, right?

Guns are Great!

2009-08-20T00:51:00.004-06:00

It's sad when a guy pulls a gun on a woman in a Wal-Mart parking lot and the first thing you think is, "Did he just come from a health care rally?" (not: maybe this guy is a policeman.) Also making me question my sanity, I then asked the guy I was with if he thought I should call 911. He shrugged. At least six people were watching including the policeman's wife and two young children, and I was the only one that called.

After a scuffle in the parking lot when an angry (reportedly drunk) boyfriend decided to get involved, the policeman was "forced" to shoot the man in the groin. I guess the guy might have overwhelmed the officer, taken his gun and shot him. He probably didn't have time to unload the gun and toss the bullets and the gun in different directions, but he did seem like he was in better shape, so I bet he could have outrun him.

But I am digressing from my point here. After seeing the officer shoot this man, I'm thinking they're going to close the store, but no, they just need to close the south entrance so we can go ahead and do our shopping. Yay! I don't shop at Wal-Mart, but I don't judge my friends (or anyone else) if they do. If you ask me, I'll tell you why I won't go back, but I'm not going to proselytize. So, I've just seen a man shot and as far as I know he could be dead and I'm shopping in Wal-Mart. "Shouldn't we go talk to the cops?" Turns out we shouldn't because it took them almost 3 hours to wake up the detective and get him down there to take our statements.

But, I can't be critical of a policeman that was purportedly trying to stop a crime when he wasn't even on duty while facing two aggressive people who don't back down when a gun is pointed at them. I don't know what all happened, but I do know that if he left his gun in the car or called for backup before confronting these people, there might not have been a weapon discharge. There is no way I could do his job and when they asked me if I thought he had another choice, I told them he probably didn't. I'm not sure he should even be reprimanded, but it's sad that we've become so numb to these events. What would it be like with less guns? We'll probably never know.

Oh yeah, the guy went to the hospital and he's fine (well, he's not going to die from the shooting) and he and his friend were released from jail today. I hope everyone involved is ok. It was gratifying to know this is the first firearm discharge by an officer (on or off duty) in this town of almost 250,000 people in 17 years.

Politics in Decline

2009-08-11T00:28:00.003-06:00

The whole world is topsy turvy now, so it's difficult to figure out what to write about here. While the last eight years have been Republican executive, Republican congress and Republican appointees to the Supreme Court, now on the surface it appears that common sense has caught up with the lunacy and corrected some of the problems that were mostly just being ignored. I suppose we're lucky they decided to raid the larder instead of loot and pillage and burn all the bridges. But now it seems like the current administration lets intimidation by the perceived center of political mass drive them to compromises which effect nothing but an appearance of acknowledgment of issues with a long term goal to address them in the unspecified future. It makes me want to avoid politics altogether. Even the first Latino Supreme Court nominee seems like a compromise in that some of her decisions lean away from the party platform but even though she is probably the most conservative of the left half, she can't get the vote of Senator McCain with a very large hispanic constituency who said five days earlier that he needs to make some changes to the party line to court the latino votes. Changes like opposing the first latino nominee for fear of losing the Republican party nomination for president in 2012 even though it probably makes him unelectable in the general election? I hope that works for him.

I really thought President Obama would be the people's advocate and promote transparency and a policy based completely on ethical positions, but political posturing always seems to creep back in. I like it when he addresses mistakes head-on like the Gates issue. Bringing them both to the White House for a "beer" was a perfect solution, but why don't we see a stronger stance on the "Don't ask, Don't Tell" issue. He said he was against it during the campaign and now it's like there's some force out there holding him back. He doesn't lose any political capital by saying, "What we're doing here is wrong. If there's any method of modifying or belaying this approach, I'm for it." Then he can let other people present the solutions or tell him that he doesn't have the constitutional power to tell Congress what laws to write, but the pressure is on them to do something then. He's actually said this isn't on the agenda right now because it's not politically expedient. Disturbing.

Health care is another issue where baby steps are more likely to destroy the effort than going full force and running into a few brick walls. How hard is it to push a single payer system for children under 18? How many kids under 18 have serious medical issues and even if it's five to ten percent and this might cost 30 billion dollars, isn't it at least 10 times as important as the cash for clunkers program? No? Children's health care isn't as important as private school vouchers that help rich kids or the failed charter school infrastructure that's destroying public schools, or bank and auto industry bailouts or some of the other questionably managed programs. How hard is it to start with children? They're going to vote eventually and a large percentage of people have children so surely this is an attractive proposition. Prove it works for children and then base the rest of the system on the children's health care system. Just go at it with big guns. Don't give it time to fail in the first 2 to 5 years.

Climate change is at least one issue where the longer we let it go, the more obvious it becomes. Hopefully people will figure it out before the world is unlivable, but if we break the planet and there's only a few thousand or hundred or tens of people left on the planet, maybe we'll see what Noah's flood was like more than a metaphor. Not a pleasant prospect, but it is a self-healing issue in the long term if we don't become extinct (something else will evolve even if we do). It will probably make the nuclear warhead debate a non-issue as well.

Where is the compassion on a large scale? Is it only palatable in individuals? Is government compassion seen as some kind of weakness? I wish we were strong enough to appear weak to all the unimportant ego-driven people who still believe in gunboat diplomacy.

Disturbing.

Obama Elect - Week 1

2008-11-11T00:10:00.007-07:00

Day 1 - Take half a day off from the 2 year campaign and we'll meet at noon to discuss the next 8+ years of work. Go Go GObama!

Day 2 - Launch www.change.gov as a forum to tell you what the President (elect) is doing for you. I guess you won't need me any more.

Day 3 - It's a Prairie State quorum. Rahm Emanuel accepts the job as chief of staff. Can he get things done without burning everything to the ground? Here's hope!

David Axelrod (who?) is now the White House Advisor (elect of course). And they said Obama didn't like Jewish people.

Bring me the intelligence briefings! My calendar is already booked for the next eight years. Everyone has a pet project.

Day 4 - Start work on the 100 day plan to fix the economy (Can you say FDR?). Isn't that cheating when you get an extra 73 days before the starter pistol goes off?

Priorities: 1) Health Care, 2) Tax hike for rich guys, 3) Energy, 4) Education, 5) Auto Industry.

You think that's enough for the first 100 days? Nope, he's also going to collect all the guns, get rid of all the money (we'll now use lentils for currency), everyone gets an anger suppression chip installed in your frontal lobe (next upgrade will add sensitivity and a good fashion sense), then he will suspend all military spending until we find a good use for it, and finally create a real entitlement system where only people making over $300,000 a year actually have to go to work. Everybody else gets a mansion and a mule along with servants (robots since we can't pay servants $300K) and free food (seaweed, but you have to collect it yourself). He'll save the gay marriage bill until he needs to get re-elected.

Day 5 - Let's fix the auto industry in the US giving them 25 billion to retool for more fuel efficient cars. Now initiating an economic team to study options to help.

Statement: "This economic crisis will not stop me from expanding health care, overhauling education and energy policy, and passing a middle-class tax cut soon."

First weekly (did he say weekly?) radio address. He's going to talk to us? Regularly?

Day 6 - Start the day taking the girls to school. He's still a dad (or maybe he's still looking for photo ops - hard to break these habits).

Meet with Lame Duckie and scope out new drapes and the best spot for the jacuzzi. First question to 43: "How can people dislike you more than Nixon after Watergate?" Oh yeah, as evil as he was, he still created the EPA, tamed Communist China, pushed the SALT treaty, declared war on cancer, said no to chemical weapons and seemed to have some interest in helping America become the most powerful bully nation in the world.

Bush legacy? Some kind of vestigial limb to an Alzheimer government stuck in a padded room.

Plans to close down Gitmo are already being formalized. More details soon from Code Name: Renegade!

Day 7 - Save the cheerleader!

Wow! Most people probably wrote America off as the Cubs of the world, but it's like we dusted off the old light saber and created a Luke Skywalker to take out the evil empire. You're going down Microsoft!

Polls!

2008-10-19T03:41:00.006-06:00

Debate Analysis - McCain Take III

2008-09-29T02:35:00.010-06:00

Part III - The next part of the debate (McCain transcript in blue - Comments in white)

I won't repeat the mistake I regret enormously; after we were able to help the Afghan freedom fighters drive the Russians out of Afghanistan, we basically washed our hands of the region. - This time we're going to take a shower and wash our whole bodies free of the region. That stuff gets everywhere.

The result was the Taliban, al Qaeda, and difficulties we are facing today. So we can't ignore those lessons of history. - These are resources like poppies and oil that we could have exploited if we'd just been involved in their development.

The Pakistanis have to understand that the bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad was a signal from terrorists that they don't want their government to cooperate with us (US) in combating the Taliban and jihadist elements. - Reading hotel bombings is a lost art like tea leaves and phrenology. There are very few of us left that are able to divine the true meaning.

I don't think that Senator Obama understands that there was a failed state in Pakistan when Musharraf came to power. - I'm just reading his mind right now, but that's one of my super-powers which is another reason you should elect me King, er, I mean President.

Everybody who was around then, and had been there, and knew about it knew that it was a failed state. - Which is why we have to coddle the head of the army that took over the government from a democratically elected prime minister and who then twice suspended the constitution. Perv is my buddy. I've been there. I've talked to him... in person. We shook hands. He knows how to run a coup. Arrest political dissidents and human rights activists. Shut down and take over the media. With only five (reported) concerted attempts to assassinate him, he's one of the most likable leaders in Pakistani history.

But let me tell you, this business about bombing Iran, let me tell you my record; - I have this speech impediment when I sing that changes R's to M's which is why some Beach Boys songs (my favorite group by the way) sound a little funny at Karaoke. Just the first "R" because bombing Oman would be worse than bombing Iran since they're supposedly our friends.

The person I admired the most and still admire the most, Ronald Reagan, wanted to send Marines into Lebanon. - Luckily I voted against that so that I could pander to you right now and tell you I voted against it right before 300 marines were killed in a suicide bombing. Also, I was able to name drop Ronald Reagan. Did I mention I admire him the most?

And then we had Somalia, then the first Gulf War. I supported that. I supported going into Bosnia. - Darfur? Where's that? Africa? Why would we want to go to Africa? What? Somalia was in Africa too? Are you sure? Even back in 1992? Maybe I wouldn't have supported it then.

I supported what we did in Kosovo. I supported it because ethnic cleansing and genocide was taking place there. - I did wait until it was over to support it because it's always good to see which way the wind is blowing, but better late than never. It was still fun to criticize Clinton for being such a sissy boy. He's in touch with his feminine nurturing side. A war of compassion. But yeah, I supported it. Genocide usually isn't good.

And Somalia, I opposed that we should turn from a peacekeeping force into a peacemaking force. - Because peace, like money, is easier to keep than make. I tried it once. I got this really cool color printer, but I put a picture of me on the hundred dollar bill and that didn't go over very well. Lucky I had some friends in the right places or I could have done some time for that one. It was Keating's idea. There are some perqs to being a Senator. I can't wait to see what a President gets. Do you think the mints on your pillow get any bigger? Imagine a mint the size of Ted Kennedy's head! Whoa!

I have a record of being involved in national security issues, which involve the highest responsibility and the toughest decisions that any president can make; to send our young men and women into harm's way. - I tried to send our old men and women into harm's way once, but they know better. Did you ever wonder why harm has a way and why would you send someone purposely into it? Hopefully you would warn them about it and show them how to skirt it or bridge it. Maybe we could build a tunnel under it.

A woman said, "Senator McCain, I want you to do me the honor of wearing a bracelet with my son's name on it." - I wish I'd talked to my advisors before I answered her because now I've got over 4,000 of these bracelets. I asked if I could just get one bracelet with all their names really really small on it, but I guess it's not the same. It's lucky I couldn't really use this arm anyway, but I sure am building up this bicep.

She said, "But, Senator McCain, promise me one thing; do everything in your power to make sure my son's death was not in vain." - I said, "No problem. I'll use it as an anecdote to get elected." And my opponent says I have trouble following through on promises.

They all say to me that we don't want defeat. - This is really surprising because based on most of the poll results I've been reading, at least one in three Americans does want defeat so when every mother I talked to said they didn't want the defeat I began to wonder. Was it statistically possible that all these women didn't want defeat? I don't know. I don't do math or computers.

I was in a war where we had an Army. It wasn't through any fault of their (not our) own, but they (not we) were defeated. I know how hard it is for a military to recover from that. And it did and we will win this one and we won't come home in defeat and dishonor and probably have to go back if they fail. - Because that would be really tough on these guys psychologically if we don't let them win. I know it's not a war. It's just an occupation and how do you win an occupation? If we brought these men home now, they would be so upset that their police action devolved into a civil war they would kick their dogs and yell at their wives. They would neglect their children or expect them to not give up if they were mired in a quagmire of homework. There's no telling how much this would cost in therapy. Maybe a billion dollars. Can you imagine? Then as soon as they get better we'd probably have to send them back. Awkward!

But the important thing is -- the important thing is I traveled to Waziristan and I know what our security requirements are. We will prevail in Afghanistan, but we need the new strategy and we need it to succeed. But the important thing is, if we suffer defeat in Iraq it will have a calamitous effect in Afghanistan. Senator Obama doesn't seem to understand there is a connection between the two. - Did I mention the important thing? About going to Wario-land? Obama thinks we can use the troops from Iraq to win in Afghanistan. The young are so naive. Hasn't he heard of a little thing called the Domino Theory? When will they learn?

If Iran acquires nuclear weapons, it is an existential threat to the State of Israel because the other countries in the region will feel a compelling requirement to acquire nuclear weapons as well. - With this existential threat comes an existential crisis and an existential angst which is actually an existential fallacy, but who's really paying attention? We're all curled up in a fetal position and John McCain is probably more like all our fathers than Barrack Obama, so he'll make everything better (just like he did in our childhood).

Now we cannot have a second Holocaust. - A shout out (HOLLA) to my Jew brothers. We got your back.

But have no doubt; the Iranians continue on the path to acquire a nuclear weapon as we speak tonight. And it is a threat not only in this region but around the world. - This is actually classified information that I'm not supposed to tell you, but since there's an election around the corner and a little fear never hurt anyone, I'll tell just you. Don't spread it around though. I could get in a butt-load of trouble.

Senator Kyl had an amendment in order to declare the Republican Guard in Iran as a sponsor of terror. Senator Obama said that would be provocative. - Serious? How could declaring the army of a democratic country terrorists be considered provacative. He is so naive. Provacative? Really?

But have no doubt about the ultimate result of them acquiring nuclear weapons. - They would never bother sending a missile into Israel with a conventional warhead. We all know they are just waiting until they can do it with style. I know they have missiles that can reach Jerusalem, but sending 100 small bombs isn't as cool as one big one, so they're waiting. You say, "That doesn't make any sense", but my logic doesn't have to make sense to you. I'm John McCain and I'm older than dirt so I know better.

I'm not going to set the White House visitors schedule before I'm president of the United States. I don't even have a seal yet. - Oh no you dit-unt! Snap! Does it burn Senator Obama? Let's see that seal now. Boo yeah!

Too much stuff to work with. Looks like we'll have a Part IV now...

Debate Analysis - McCain Continued

2008-09-27T13:00:00.010-06:00

I have opposed the president on spending, on climate change, on torture of prisoners, on Guantanamo Bay [and] on the way that the Iraq War was conducted. - OK, I know I ended up voting with him on most of these things, but I did protest. Well, I muttered some expletives under my breath, but in my heart I was opposed. OK, We all know I had my heart replaced with a radioactive lump of Kryptonite several years ago, but I'm protesting now.

We are winning in Iraq. And we will come home with victory and with honor. And that [future] withdrawal is the result of every counterinsurgency that succeeds. - If this is success, you don't want to see my failures.

We will succeed and our troops will come home, and not in defeat, then we will see a stable ally in the region and a fledgling democracy. - And unicorns and fairies will greet you with flowers and cheers (and free oil).

The next president of the United States is not going to have to address the issue of whether we went into Iraq or not. - We can ignore history because it's in the past. If we keep hashing out blame about who knew what and when this or that happened, it's going to be really boring when we repeat it, like watching an old rerun of the Andy Griffith show. If we forget it now, it's new every time we do it, right Ang?

Senator Obama said the surge could not work, and it would increase sectarian violence, and it was doomed to failure. Recently on a television program, he said it exceeded our wildest expectations. - He actually said that "even people who support the escalation acknowledge that 20,000, 30,000 or 40,000 extra troops are not going to make a long term difference." and he thought the sectarian violence would increase (which still stands to be seen). "Exceeding our wildest expectations" may not be a good bar for success, but Senator Obama actually added a "but there's an underlying problem here in that the Iraqi's still haven't taken responsibility."

Senator Obama doesn't understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy. - A tactic is something that freshens your breath (cinnamon is my favorite), and a stratego(y) is that game we played back in the 60's that made us want to join the military.

They [US troops in Iraq] said, let us win. They said, let us win. We don't want our kids coming back here. - Because usually congress tries to do things to keep the military from winning, but this time we said, "OK, you can win just this once, but your kids are still coming back here."

Senator Obama refuses to acknowledge that we are winning in Iraq. - Because maybe he doesn't believe a fragile puppet theocratic pseudo-democracy with strong ties to Iran is worth 4000+ dead Americans and 200,000+ dead Iraqis with millions more maimed or displaced.

Our strategy is going into an area, clearing and holding so that people become allied with you. They inform on bad guys. And peace comes to the country, and prosperity. - If we can just occupy the entire world long enough to where people trust us, we can get everyone squealing on their neighbors and peace and prosperity will last forever. We'll call it Snitch-topia! Don't tell anyone.

Admiral Mullen suggests that Senator Obama's plan is dangerous for America. - Which plan? Dangerous like occupying Iraq or more like putting aluminum in the microwave? Who is Admiral Mullen and why do we care what he thinks about Senator Obama? When Obama is CIC, Ensign Mullen can go clean the head.

Osama bin Laden and General Petraeus have one thing in common; they both said that Iraq is the central battleground. - Wow! It's like they both have some kind of reverse psychic power to predict things after they've already happened. Are they twins separated at birth?

But if we snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and adopt Senator Obama's plan, then we will have a wider war and make things more complicated throughout the region. - Zinger! An oldie but a goody. Jaws of victory! Obama plans for failure! Why do you hate America and want us all to die, mister Obama?

If you're going to aim a gun at somebody, George Shultz told me, you'd better be prepared to pull the trigger. - That's why I don't aim guns. My trigger fingers don't work, but with a special handi-capable access big red button I can aim nuclear missiles at somebody. I'm prepared to pull that trigger.

I'm not prepared to cut off aid to Pakistan, so I'm not prepared to threaten it. - If we threaten Pakistan, they might stop accepting our aid? Is this aid some kind of Iran/Contra "aid" deal? I guess Oliver North needed something to do. This is like your Uncle John came to visit and was stealing your stuff and pawning it so you decide not to threaten him because he might go back home.

[Obama] said he would announce military strikes into Pakistan. - Just for the heck of it like lobbing darts at a picture of Robert Downey Jr. Surely we can all understand the desire to do this. OK, he didn't really say this, but it makes him sound kind of crazy doesn't it?

You don't say that out loud [about military strikes]. If you have to do things, you have to do things, and you work with the Pakistani government. - Even if you're invading Libya. Hasn't Senator Obama studied any recent history of the United States? If you're going to invade or strike another country, it has to be a secret like the Bay of Pigs. You don't say it out loud. You don't even admit you did it after the fact unless you were caught. Actually, don't even admit it then. Grenada? Never heard of it? Panama? Nice place to visit, but I'd never send troops there. Falklands? That was the Brits.

Now, the new president of Pakistan, Kardari (sic), has got his hands full, and this area on the border has not been governed since the days of Alexander the Great. - I've been there. I played an intramural football game there. I remember it well even though I can't remember Zardari's name. How can an area be considered "not governed" if it's under the control of the government? I think theres a small three foot square in my backyard that hasn't been governed since the time of Moses.

I've been to Waziristan. I can see how tough that terrain is. It's ruled by a handful of tribes. - OK, I made up that place (from Super Mario IV), but I've been there. I have this wardrobe that opens up to a different world where I'm a King... The tribes are very small. Small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, but the tough terrain is magnificent. Great for your quads. I have three houses there.

We have to help Pakistanis obtain the allegiance of these people. They've inter-married with al Qaeda and the Taliban. - And you thought gay marriage was bad...

And it's going to be tough. They've intermarried with al Qaeda and the Taliban. And it's going to be tough. We have to get cooperation from people in those areas. So we've got a lot of work to do in Afghanistan. - Did I mention it was going to be tough? Lot's of work.

So it's not just the addition of troops that matters. It's a strategy that will succeed. - Unlike most other problems where we can just throw people at it.

And Pakistan is a very important element in this, and I know how to work with him. - Pakistan is what I call the little green man in my head that tells me what to do.

And I guarantee you I would not publicly state that I'm going to attack them. - I would tell them their shoes are untied and when they looked down... POW! Right in the kisser! Why would you be honest and up front about military strikes into Pakistan? Wouldn't you want to undermine our higher moral ground with a clandestine illicit operation. If you tell your allies and the target, "We're not getting any support so we're forced to act on our own," you might get more sympathy, but that sounds like something Clinton would do.

Tomorrow night: Part III - STAY TUNED

Debate Analysis - McCain Statements

2008-09-27T02:34:00.009-06:00

Prayers go out to the lion of the senate - that's the nicest thing you've ever called Senator Kennedy.

Everybody will lose their jobs, credits and houses if we don't fix the greatest fiscal crisis I've seen in our time - and I've been around a little while. - Everyone's a (fear-mongering) comedian.

This isn't the beginning of the end, it's the end of the beginning of the crisis - doesn't that just set it back about 30 seconds?

We've got a lot of work to do. We've got to create jobs and eliminate our dependence on foreign oil - in response to a question about fixing the banking problem. Maybe dependence on local oil is the answer.

I hope so. - Answer to question "Are you going to vote for the recovery (700 billion dollar) plan?" - Does he hope he might be present for this vote, hope he'll remember what he's voting about, or hope he can get his junior senator to sneak in a bunch of earmarks so that he can vote yes on it?

Sure - Confused Jim Lehrer clarifies the question, "you'll vote for it as a United States Senator?" - or maybe he's looking to rile Johnny up into saying something like, "No, as a goddammed American Idol judge. Jesus, who writes these questions?"

I warned about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac... A lot of us saw this train wreck coming. - As US Senators we like to set up lawn chairs with popcorn. Train wrecks are cool.

President Eisenhower, on the night before the Normandy invasion, went into his room, and he wrote out two letters. - One real, and one that I made up for this anecdote.

Somehow we've lost that accountability. - That accountability that I made up in the fable about Eisenhower. It's been lost somewhere. Maybe it's here in my pocket...

People are going to be held accountable in my administration. - Like Eisenhower would have if he'd failed on D-Day and held himself accountable in my fictitious little yarn earlier.

Are you afraid I couldn't hear [what Senator Obama said] - In response to Jim Lehrer telling Barrack to address John directly. "SENATOR MCCAIN! DO YOU HAVE YOUR HEARING AID ON?"

I have a fundamental belief in the goodness and strength of the American worker. And the American worker is the most productive, the most innovative. America is still the greatest producer, exporter and importer. - Because nothing panders to the jingoistic crowd like nationalistic platitudes. All together now; U!, S!, A!, U!, S!, A!

And I still believe, under the right leadership, our best days are ahead of us. - Under the wrong leadership, we'll stray from the path of righteousness and abort all the babies, marry a similar gendered mate, burn all the flags, hire illegals to do our yard work, legalize marry-je-wanna and invite terrorists into our homes as "therapy".

We have now presided over the largest increase in the size of government since the Great Society. - yeah! Remember when those democrats tried to eliminate poverty and racial injustice - with your taxpayer money? What were they thinking. Education, transportation, medical care and urban problems! Those damn socialists. Why can't they spend money on real stuff like wars and bailouts?

The worst symptom on this disease is what my friend, Tom Coburn, calls earmarking as a gateway drug, because it's a gateway. It's a gateway to out-of-control spending and corruption. - What's worse? Calling Coburn a friend, or the slippery slope to non sequiturs. Isn't pork the symptom of spending (out-of-control or otherwise)? - "The first earmark's free. You'll be back for more."

We have former members of Congress now residing in federal prison because of the evils of this earmarking and pork-barrel spending. - Not because they were bad people who lie, cheat and steal. They were sucked into the powerful temptation of the easy earmark. How many lives have you crushed with your wily ways?!

You know, we spent $3 million to study the DNA of bears in Montana. I don't know if that was a criminal issue or a paternal issue, but the fact is that it was $3 million of our taxpayers' money. And it has got to be brought under control. - Ha ha - Criminal or paternal. That's high-larious... The really funny thing is the money was to see if we could take the bears off the endangered species list so we could start killing them again and exploit the land they lived on. Cheapest $3 million dollars we ever spent.

I want to assure you, I've got a pen. This one's kind of old. I've got a pen, and I'm going to veto every single spending bill that comes across my desk. - I'm not even going to read it. If it doesn't turn a profit or privatize something (like the mortgage industry), it's dead. Bob Dole gave me this pen. Where's my pen?

I will make them famous. You will know their names. - (Those earmark spending bill drafters). I hope he means infamous. "Senator Stevens! Come on down! It's your chance to win a million dollars if the price is right!"

A million dollars for every day that he's been in the United States Senate. - This is supposedly excess (earmark) money that has been spent in the last 6 years (in Illinois or the entire US?). Does this statistic insinuate that Senator Obama is responsible for this $2.2 billion in extra spending. This might have sounded like a lot of money a couple of weeks ago, but 700 billion plus another 300 for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, etc. makes this sound kind of petty especially compared to the $300 billion in tax credits you're proposing for wealthy corporations.

Do you know that it's (earmarks) tripled in the last five years? Do you know that it's gone completely out of control to the point where it corrupts people? It corrupts people. - Sometimes I wake up at three in the morning and run down to the fridge looking for earmarks. YUM!

I have fought against it. I was called the sheriff, by senior members of the Appropriations Committee. I didn't win Miss Congeniality in the United States Senate. - But I was runner-up three years in a row. Damn you Senator Thurmond! Of course by the time you dropped out of the running, Senator Byrd became the juicy tart of the whip so I just gave up. Being sheriff is nice though. I got to wear a badge and a big hat.

Senator Obama didn't mention that, along with his tax cuts, he is also proposing some $800 billion in new spending on new programs. - He didn't mention it because you pulled that number out of your butt. Maybe I could be president if I said, "Senators McCain and Obama are proposing $800 quadrajillion in spending on new programs and they want to devour your first born child with a nice chianti."

The worst thing we could do in this economic climate is to raise people's taxes. - Really? The worst thing? I'll bet I could think of ten worse things than that. Take away their jobs, give their children and pets poison Chinese products, conveniently forget to help them after a hurricane, send their children to die in an illegal foreign occupation, make gasoline cost $4 a gallon, focus on stupid non-issues like gay marriage and immigration instead of health care and energy costs.

American business pays the second-highest business taxes in the world, 35 percent. Ireland pays 11 percent. - Why should businesses pay to operate in the best country with the best workers in the world? Shouldn't we just burden those workers so they will move to a different country? If we can shift the burden to the worker then we can get new businesses to move in here and hire H1B visa people from their countries and outsource from within while still disenfranchising the American worker.

I know that the worst thing we could possibly do is to raise taxes on anybody, and a lot of people might be interested in Senator Obama's definition of "rich." - His definition of rich is anyone with a prosperous, meaningful life with a loving and nurturing family. He wants to tax the spiritually rich people so if you think you're happy, you better watch your back. Barrack is coming to tax you away!

We had an energy bill before the United States Senate. It was festooned with Christmas tree ornaments. - It was very pretty and we all knelt and prayed to it for several weeks before we realized it wasn't going to pass itself. Funny thing, it was the middle of July.

Who fought against wasteful and earmark spending? Who was the person who tried to keep spending under control? Who's the person who believed the best thing for America is to have a tax system that is fundamentally fair? - ??? Shaft?

We've got to cut spending. We've let government get completely out of control. - Who do those guys in congress think they are with their spending and voting? It makes me sick!

Senator Obama has the most liberal voting record in the Senate. It's hard to reach across the aisle from that far to the left. - RIMSHOT - I'm here all week folks. Don't forget to tip your waitress.

How about a spending freeze on everything but defense, veteran affairs and entitlement programs? - Really? Delay education, no more loans, no elections, no federal prisons, no IRS, no funding for courts? What about right to a speedy trial? FDA, FCC, FAA, OSHA? Just take a 6 month leave (unpaid of course). Maybe this was just a joke. Oh crap, he's ad-libbing again. Someone get his medication!

Look, we are sending $700 billion a year overseas to countries that don't like us very much. - We can't buy their love? There's a million movie examples of why this doesn't work. We have to woo them with beautiful poems and sincere love. Remember when Steve Martin fell in love with Daryl Hannah? If he hadn't worried so much about his big nose, she would have totally just fallen for him. This message is so fundamental that the French even copied this movie (not as funny, but an interesting interpretation) with that Green Card guy. We gotta stop the bleeding.

A healthy economy with low taxes (not raising anyone's taxes) is the best recipe for eventually having our economy recover. - OK, so as long as we start with a healthy economy we'll eventually have our enconomy recover (to be not healthy)? Does no one listen to these words you say with that mouth on your face in the middle of your head sitting squarely on those shoulders wobbling around and around and around? Argh!

We owe China $500 billion. - Again, this used to sound like a lot of money until you just decided you could pull $700 billion out of your butt (overnight) to help some rich banker people. $500 billion to China? We'll just start packing our lunch instead of eating that expensive fast food.

It's well-known that I have not been elected Miss Congeniality in the United States Senate nor with the administration. - Actually with the administration I was elected Miss Delightful twice and I did win Congeniality once, but they revoked my crown when they found out about the collagen injections. I petitioned the pageant academy that it was no different than the botox Senator Clinton used to win the year before, but the rules were explicitly clear.

I have a long record and you know very well that I'm a maverick of the Senate and I'm happy to say that I've got a partner that's a good maverick along with me now. - Pow, pow! I'm a cowboy and this is my cowgirl pardner! Here's my six shooter. I'm the sheriff and she's Miss Congeniality. We're going to fix everything. We've got traditional values, so Miss Palin will be cooking and cleaning and doing all the White House work. We're really going to clean things up and by "we" I mean "she".

Part II - Tomorrow...

Monkey and a Bowling Ball

2008-09-27T00:55:00.002-06:00

It must be the latest fraternity joke from the GOP. Eight years ago we were all so happy that George W. Bush won the party candidacy against John McCain because everyone thought, "this unstable dullard child in an old guy's body won't stand a chance against a reserved, intelligent and experienced leader like Al Gore." Well, we were partially right because they hadn't completely finished their evil empire rigging of the voting machines, so they needed a little help from a "stacked deck" supreme court, but...

You would think that people would be a little irate at the guy that pissed off the rest of the world by choosing not to participate in any treaties, dropped the ball on 9/11, started an illegal occupation that killed who knows how many people based on a bold-faced lie, gave us the Patriot Act, Gitmo complete with extraordinary rendition, Enron/WorldCom, Katrina, The War on Terror, faith-based something, a new bankruptcy law, a complete housing market crash, tax-cuts to create a gazillion dollar debt, dropped military enlistment to the lowest level since Vietnam, a new coined term and - poof - millions of "islamo-fascists", more destroyed jobs and lowered wage standards while increasing inflation rates, no expectation of privacy (for our own protection), automated and streamlined war and hurricane profiteering, more time vacationing than any other president (with still over a year left in office), totally blew any chance we had of fixing or reducing global warming by ignoring it, wrote more signing statements (equivalent to a line-item veto) than any other president times ten (look it up), the man who brought us Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales, Michael Chertoff, John Negroponte (again), John Bolton, Michael Brown(ie), Hariet Miers, Scooter Libby, Jack Abramoff, John Roberts, Samuel Alito, ... That's just the things I can think of off the top of my head.

So now there are polls saying the doddering old fool and the slow-witted gun-toting milf are running neck and neck against the most charismatic, intelligent and experienced democratic ticket we've ever seen; two guys that ooze integrity from every pore. If you could get Ward Cleaver and Jim Anderson to run together (or even Hugh Beaumont and Robert Young), you couldn't have a more powerful, all-American, family-man duo than Obama-Biden. So what's the deal? Half the country must be brain dead or at least hypnotized by some evil entity that tells them Democrats are like syphilus. Vote for anything but...

It's working so well, they've given up trying to find a good presidential-ish candidate. It's all a game. In the next election they're going to nominate a monkey and a bowling ball and they're still going to win.

Obama Speech

2008-09-14T02:12:00.013-06:00

This is a speech I believe Barrack Obama should give. I wrote it, but I know he really believes it.

Help us Obama-wan, you're our only hope.

People ask me about my opponent(s) or ask me to comment on something they said and it's frustrating because a campaign is not about which candidate is better. The opinion of one candidate about another is even less important. The bottom line is whether you as a voter 1) know what your candidate is trying to accomplish in office, 2) believe your candidate will do everything they can to pursue that goal, and 3) trust your candidate is competent and efficient in solving the problems to achieve those goals.

Transparency should be the campaign core and lead directly to a candidate's philosophy in office. If you don't know what I want to accomplish for you, then you can't tell me when I'm wrong. I've heard people complain when a leader listens to polls or public opinion, but I'm supposed to be the voice of the people not the mind, so how can I be your voice if I don't listen to you. Some decisions will be ethical dilemmas and some will be difficult, but I trust the majority of American people are principled and even when it's hard to make the right decision, they know the proper path. I also know some of you think the country has lost its way and we need a new moral compass, but this is being overly pessimistic and it's an easy way to blame the people for a problem of poor government or lack of leadership.

When people are pessimistic about the future, it's difficult to make the right choice. When you think there's no one at the helm, what incentive is there to focus on your responsibilities? When you know that I trust you, I believe you will trust me. When I show you everything I want to do for you (nothing behind closed doors unless it's a national security issue), you will know I'm trying to help us all forge a path to success. When everyone in the world can see we're back on course and we're a good neighbor again, the only losers will be the forces that fight against our strength of unity as a world community.

I'm not going to talk about my opponents because I don't have to. I'm going to tell you how my policies are different than theirs, but most of you already know this. You're smart enough to tell when someone is lying to you, so I'm not even worried about their lies (if there are any). If someone asks me about my plans, I'll tell you the truth, but I'm not going to talk about whether I believe my opponents will follow through on their promises, because it's not my place and you've got plenty of media coverage and history to come to your own conclusions.

If you want a soap opera of attacks, it's not coming from this campaign. You should look for a different party. If you want to know what I believe, ask me and I will be blunt and concise. If you don't trust that I want to do what I say, tell me and we'll talk about that. If you don't believe I'm capable of making these changes, then try me because I'm going to make history.

Compassion

2008-09-04T09:10:00.001-06:00

I'm probably the most hypocritical person in the world to talk about compassion. When a story about a kid drowning or a puppy getting crushed comes on the news I close my eyes, stick my fingers in my ears and say "la la laaaa", because I don't want to feel sad and there are a lot of things to feel sad about right now. Back in the 60's and early 70's, there was graphic gore on the TV every night of our children being slaughtered in a strange land and while this would have cured me of the television addiction I have today, I don't understand how someone could live through this without learning a little bit about compassion. Supposedly it hardens or desensitizes the observer. It makes you stronger.

Well I don't want to be stronger. Just like knowing the right foods to eat, the right amount of sleep and exercise and generally the right way to be a good neighbor or family participant, I know compassion is right in a civilized world. I hear people say we can't afford universal health care or free schools or day care for the poor or dental exams. I hear people say we should expect citizens to do more and government to do less because a welfare state is a state with no incentive to live (work). I hear people say by nature we are all greedy, selfish and lazy and we will take advantage of any help to do the minimum possible given the opportunity, but in the same breath they say we are the greatest, hardest working country in the world. I guess that's because we're the strongest and richest so they're not including those lazy welfare people.

We can afford five hundred billion dollars to remove a crazy leader from a marginal country which posed absolutely no threat to our commonwealth, but we can't afford (to try) to give everyone reasonable health care? Do sick people really lose incentive to work because they can go to the doctor for free? Now that chemotherapy is "on the house", everyone is going to go out and get cancer. I can't comprehend how someone without a job (or even just without a good job) can get stuck with enough medical bills where they could work (if capable) for the rest of their life and not make a dent in them. That is ludicrous. There's your disincentive to work.

It comes down to this; "I gave at the office." Nobody thinks they should have to pay taxes because they have no control over how the money is spent and they already give at church or some other charity of choice. Why should they pay for public education when they send their kids to private or charter schools? Why should they pay for prisons when they are good citizens and private organizations are willing to exploit that resource? Why should they pay for universities when they already have degrees or their kids won't benefit from state funded universities?

Why? Because we need a little fucking compassion, that's why! No wonder you think people are born with original sin. It's obviously the core of your Republican being. I don't really believe you all want the whole country to suffer while you trample and stack the oppressed higher and higher just for a better view. More likely, just like me, you are afraid to see the damage, so behind your D&G shades and underneath your noise canceling iPod buds you too are just singing, "la la laaaa."

Solutions to Iraq

2007-08-10T01:26:00.000-06:00

The Iraq War like the war on poverty or drugs is a war because people are dying. Old people die, so there must be a war on old people, but like the war on old people, the War in Iraq seems to be one-sided. I guess there's a war on cancer and traffic accidents too. Who's winning those wars?

Iraq must be a problem since there are so many people hurting or dying from it. All problems have solutions by definition. Some solutions are better than others and some are wrong, but they are still solutions. The only answer that is not a solution is ignoring the problem. There might be problems where this is the best answer, but I doubt Iraq is one of those. So here is a comprehensive list of solutions to the Iraq problem after a quick definition.

Problem: X thousand Americans have died and ten times that number have been permanently damaged and at least one hundred times that number of Iraqis have died and millions of people have been devastated by the madness that seems to get worse and worse.

That doesn't sound like a big deal because it's not people we know, right? A million people dead or sick or living in hell. It happens all over the world and we still go to work and make a few more bucks to buy more fast food or some cool new gadget. But we can't feel guilty or stop what we're doing or the terrorists win. That's what they want because they are so crazy that they want to die. It makes them happy to die if they can add a little guilt or misery to our hedonistic lives.

So what is the solution to Iraq? What is our goal?

1) No more American deaths.

Answer: Outsource: Pull all the troops out of Iraq.
- People get upset when a soldier dies because they're dying for our country and make almost no money. There are at least 150,000 mercenaries or contractors in Iraq now. If we replace the troops by doubling the number of contractors, there's no change in progress or presence in Iraq, but we don't have to worry about American deaths any more because no one cares about guys over there to make a quick buck. They might not even be American. Heck, we could hire all those guys killing people in Darfur and put them to good use killing bad guys in Iraq. Chicken fights, dog fights and ultimate cage fights should pale next to this pit of insanity. Xtreme Reality TV! Capitalism is our thing.

2) No more Iraqi deaths.

Answer: Move the other half of the Iraqis out of Iraq.
- We'll call it Diaspora Part II and move them all to Israel. Heck, most of them are dead, missing or on the run anyway. This is killing two birds with one stone (just metaphorically!). If the number of Muslims in Israel suddenly went up by 10 million, the pressure to form two states would increase dramatically. It would be like depending on China for your economy because half your exports and three quarters of your imports were from them and insult to injury they were backing half your national debt. They would be the only game in town and they outnumber you ten to one.

The only problem with this solution is there might not be 10 million Iraqis healthy enough to move. If they were then why haven't they already moved?

3) Eliminate the threat of terrorists from Iraq.

Answer: Fight them over here so we don't have to fight them over there.
First off, I don't buy the theory that fighting them over there has saved one life here. In the entire history of this country, how many times have we been attacked by foreign terrorists and how many deaths can be attributed to them? Everyone says they are all crazy and we can't reason with them. If this is true, then how could we possibly kill them all?

Why not assume that they really have an agenda? They kill us because they hate our freedoms? If this wasn't so ridiculous and ineloquent, I would suggest it was something the Nazi propaganda machine might tell us. No, they wanted us out of Saudi Arabia (I guess we were scared because we left) and they wanted us to get rid of the evil secular cancer growing in the middle of the Islamic universe. We jumped right in and fixed that problem for them too.

*) Win the war and get out of town.

Answer: We won the war. Let's get out of town.
I must be one of those hate America Americans because I don't want to win this war. Um, we won the war in like 14 days back in 2003. It's like the winning Superbowl team sitting on the field for four years bragging about it and daring anyone to take it from them. There's no army left to fight, but we're a big target if someone wants to throw rocks (or mortars). Iraqis won't take over reconstruction projects because they're too dangerous. Would they still be dangerous if we weren't there taunting the bad guys? What happened to all those guys who said we weren't nation-builders. Wasn't our president one of them? But supposedly we can build a nation with guns and helicopters.

We just gotta leave. Imagine how many tons of food and supplies we could airlift into Iraq for half the price we're paying now. In the vacuum left by our absence, there's no way the Iraqi death rate could go up. Everyone says there will be genocide, but what do you call it now? Everybody left there has guns. Our army is giving them away. It's not like they can't protect themselves. We really believe that these people living in this country for thousands of years together hate each other more than Hutus and Tutsis or Palestinians and Israelis or the IRA and British nationalists? All over the world people live right next to each other in hatred. Cypress, Yugoslavia, Taiwan, Rawanda, El Salvador, Zimbabwe, Kashmir, Chechnya, North Korea, Sri Lanka and how many more? Why are the people in Iraq more likely to destroy each other than all these other places?

It's so stupid. It's like someone said, "What would happen if the whole government was run by retarded people?" If it wasn't really happening, no one would believe it. Instead of talking about environment, energy and education, we'd talk about immigration, gay marriage and islamic terrorists. Let's try to imagine if those three things were ten times worse than they are now. Oh my god! 100 million illegal aliens! Now there's no way I can get that job picking strawberries, mowing lawns, cooking burgers or roofing houses (or all of them at the same time). Aw crap, what am I gonna do now that all the gays are monogamous? Wait, why did I want them to be single? Islamic terrorists? We already made that at least ten times worse now through our military actions. Why don't we bomb Saudi Arabia if we want to get rid of an evil dictator? At least that Iranian guy seems to want to take care of his people. They elected him.

Maybe the majority of people in this country are retarded. Maybe we are just a big bully on the playground no one can stop. The rest of the world is a big let down too. Everyone gives Neville Chamberlain a bad rap for appeasing Hitler. How could you not put Gordon Brown (or Tony Blair), Stephen Harper (who's that you say?), John Howard (liberal my ass), Shinzo Abe (or worse Koizumi), or Hu Jintao in the same category? These guys are lapdogs hoping the crazy superstar superpower will be found dead in the bathroom from an overdose of hedonistic power. They'll step in, empty our wallet and slip out the back door.

It makes me want to puke.

Profiling Disaster

2007-02-14T13:19:00.000-07:00

What is wrong with pulling an airline passenger aside and doing a body cavity search because of skin color, clothes style or name ethnicity? I mean really, the only people with anything to hide are those doing something illegal, so why don't we just use bins to separate everyone. We'll even let people pick their own bins when there's a choice (like sexual preference and abortion). If we can put each person in a separate bin, we won't need security at airports. Just don't let the terrorist bin in!

So you get to pick male, female or other. White, Black, Asian, Hispanic or other. Democrat, Republican or Marginal. Christian, Pagan or Heathen. Hetero, Homo or no preference. Tall, Short or rather not say. Employed, artistic or indentured. Educated, artistic or military. Omnivore, carnivore or preachy. Alcoholic, recovering alcoholic or preachy. Monogamist, polygamist or misogynist (last 2 probably overlap). There's a bin for everything; Weight, beauty, laziness, yappiness, income, jerkiness, IQ, ego and ego.

Everyone gets a profile and this profile is secret so no one will ever see it like your credit card and social security numbers (unless you're a veteran). It will only be used for good to keep terrorists from sitting next to you on a plane or bus. You know they've probably not bathed in a while and they tend to take up more than their share of the seat. We could also use these profiles to help bring down health care costs and make people who use health care pay for it. I'm tired of footing the bill for those cancer and chronically ill people I work with. If we profile them out of my health care, I could actually afford my premiums.

Discrimination and stereotypes really could solve all our problems. Why is it so hard to make people see the simple truths? Or is that a stereotype?

Expand the Military

2006-12-20T15:19:00.000-07:00

We need to expand the military so it can fight terrorism "for a long period of time", says the font of wisdom who is currently commander in chief (of only the armed services, not the country!).

Awesome! I know how to do that. Just raise the minimum wage for grunts. If you make the starting pay for enlisted men begin at $150K, you will get a big army ready to do anything you say. If you need a million extra troops it will cost about 150 billion dollars a year. So long as we can finish the job in one year, that's still a lot cheaper than the money we've spent so far in this police action. Hopefully it won't escalate into a war. If we had a war in Iraq, then we might need another million troops. That would be really expensive.

Or maybe we could do what the private sector is doing: Outsource it!

Holocaust Schmolocaust

2006-12-13T15:41:00.000-07:00

Wow! Everyone is rioting! I see people protesting Jimmy Carter because he said Jewish people are partly at fault for the violence there and now it's a big deal that Iran is holding a conference to discuss whether the Holocaust horror was exaggerated to create sympathy for people of Jewish faith. Oh my god! They even brought in wacko "experts" to discuss theories that it may have been completely fabricated. Oy Vey!

Let's all calm down a minute and be adults. Why would Iran host a conference about the treatment of Jewish people sixty years ago? Most likely because it's more offensive than telling everyone that Israel's mom is a fat whore. Other than being passive aggressive, this move serves no other purpose for Iran. On the other hand, for the rest of the world, they have laid their cards on the table. After all the demonstrations and violence across Muslim communities over the Danish cartoons, the comments of the Pope, the immigrant employment conditions in France, Koran abuse in Guantanimo, and treatment of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, it's obvious that this is a move to cause reaction in the rest of the world. Someone said, "We need some Jewish riots."

Do you think anyone in Iran cares if the Holocaust really occured? Does anyone in the world care what David Duke thinks? So if the theory is the Holocaust was a lie to glean support from the rest of the world to displace Muslims and create the state of Israel, then this still doesn't change anything. If the legitimacy of their claim to the land is in question, then maybe we should give Iran back to the Sassanids, or the Parthians, or the Seleucids, or the Medians, or the Elamites. All of these people were displaced from that land.

Iran (Ahmadinejad) says Israel will be wiped from the face of the map and the zionist regime will soon be extinct. If this is a threat it sure seems like a stupid one. Right now, if Islamic leaders could keep their wits, they could garner more sympathy around the world than ever before with all the imperialistic crap going on over there. Any attack on Israel would spark a true holy world war and almost all the non-muslims (70% of the population of the world) would be inclined to approve the annihilation of Iran as a country. Then all the white people would be wearing radiation suits to extract the oil there for free.

The government of Iran knows this. They aren't going to sacrifice seventy million Muslims to get rid of a pesky 4.8 million Jewish neighbors. And to destroy the Jewish population, they would have to also kill the 1.5 million Muslims living in Israel. I'm not saying that we shouldn't take Iran seriously when they are openly or passively aggressive to other countries. The best policy in this situation is the same one that applies to individuals who use passive aggressive techniques. At the next G8 summit, or UN meeting, or big world press conference, treat Iran like you would someone with a PA problem (like me):

Circumvent: Be cooperative. Don’t be judgmental, angry, controlling.
Defuse: Call them on their behavior without judging it. Let them fix themselves.
Protect: Don’t expect or want anything from them.
Use Their Strength: Put them in situations where they need to follow orders or please others.
Heal: Be cooperative. Make sure they have a positive experience in asserting themselves.

Together we can change this dysfunctional relationship in the middle east, but not by allowing them to create more distance with petty acts like this. It's really a cry for help.

Republicans: Demons and Fools

2006-11-03T23:23:00.003-07:00

Not all Republicans are bad people. Some of them are just scared, or have no desire to pay attention to the world. On the other hand, if you are a bad person, why would you be anything but a Republican? So it's kind of like what Mister Kerry said about college (if you think you're not smart enough or motivated enough for college, then the military is one of the few choices left for you). Personally, I don't buy the missing "us" back-pedaling, but it's probably the expedient thing to say at this point, especially with the imminent election. His actual message was that without the discipline to stay in school, whether due to an inclination to distraction or an inherent lack of faculty, the only option is a military position. So just because stupid people become soldiers doesn't mean that soldiers are stupid. Some of them are, just like some Yale Law school and Harvard Business school graduates. But stupid people are people too. Bad people are people too and just because bad people become Republicans doesn't mean Republicans are bad people.

Bad people becoming Republicans doesn't mean all Democrats are good either. Some of them aren't smart enough to be bad, and some don't know what Democrat means. Some are bad people hiding behind a good name, and some were just born that way, so they don't know who they are. So why do good people choose to become Democrats? Most people can't tell you the real answer to this question even though they know it in their heart. It boils down to the basic definition of a democratic government.

It's frightening and frustrating that so many Christians equate a beneficent government to socialism, and the same people who espouse munificence to the disadvantaged metaphorically are greatly disturbed by the concept of a welfare state. I'm not saying that all Christians are Republicans, or even that all Christians are hypocrites. I'm just thankful that when the (real) Christians wake up and see they've been duped by the Republican agenda, they will come back to the light and try to help the destitute. So Democrats can eventually rely on all real Christians to vote for them.

So what is the definition of a democratic government? Government's sole purpose is to protect individual rights. Without a government we wouldn't have prisons to lock away drug addicts, police to abuse minorities, or congressmen to molest children. The point is a democratic government lets anyone do what they want, but the laws protect people by prosecuting offenders. This is assuming the laws created are the will of the people and the majority of the people make a rational decision about reasonable laws. There are problems when the people lose influence over their representatives through corporate, military and lobby interests, but it occasionally works as advertised with an informed and educated populace.

Regulated capitalism is not socialism. Corporations are not individuals with rights that need to be protected. It's the individual that needs to be protected from the corporation. Everyone has a right to a good education. Doesn't everyone have a right to health care? I try to imagine a conversation between a Christian and a sick person, "I'm sorry you're sick, but you don't have enough money to get help. Maybe you should have gone to church. It's not the government's duty to help you, so you have to die. Here's a quarter for a cup of coffee. Oh, you want a venti iced maple mocchiato espresso with soy milk? OK, here's $6.75."

Finally, this week I heard a comment from John Kerry that I could respect. It's something Michael Moore might say but then he screws it up by back-pedaling and apologizing. At least we probably won't have to deal with him running again for president in 2008. Miss Hillary Clinton's remarks were uncalled for. How dare she tell Senator Kerry that his remarks about the state of our country and the options of undisciplined youths were inappropriate. She probably thought that Senator Durbin should have apologized when he criticized the President. She's still ok with the war in Iraq. Has she no spine? How about an apology to Senator Kerry. On second thought, the two are just alike. That's the '08 ticket. Clinton-Kerry: Mettle and Moxie, it was just here somewhere...

Zarqawi: the anti-martyr

2006-06-12T00:49:00.000-06:00

Isn't it great that we have killed the most evil bad guy in the war on terror? It proves we must be succeeding, right?

I can't believe how happy so many people are about the death of someone they don't know. Listening to the news, the talk shows, reading the papers and the news magazines, it's all the same. Even people I thought were pacifists, or anti-war or just plain rational are all elated by this news. I'm not a pacifist, and if this guy is as bad as everyone believes, then it's a good thing that he's no longer causing trouble, but wouldn't you think that even a couple of the media guys would say something about it being a shame that we couldn't have brought him in alive and tried him in a court to bring him to justice?

So everyone is afraid of appearing to be soft on terror. We've been pushed so far into the war mentality that no one questions this attitude. We all have to be strong. America is great.

Why would the media be so keen to celebrate the death of one man?

1) The (liberal) media is always reporting how bad things are. They don't want us to win. Well, here's something good. They put a positive spin on this and contrast how evil the man is (make him a Hitler wannabe), and then show we are making progress in the war on terror. The media is no longer just a doomsayer.

2) If we show how evil this guy is, then we can reclaim our position as the good guys. This will negate the Haditha thing along with all the other crappy things we've done all the way back to starting a war against an innocent country and killing probably about 1/2 million people now.

3) We've got to say something positive about this because everyone else is. To say anything negative or even hesitant would show a lack of patriotism.

4) We can make this into a pep rally since this is something that we can all agree on. Destroying evil makes us good, right? Go team! Go team! Go team!

Is there really any news here? If he really did all these bad things, then what good is it to compile a list together and talk about it except to exalt him and make him into a figurehead for their resistance? Now there's some speculation that he may not have died in the bombing and we may have gone in and beat him to death afterwards. That sounds like a better story, right? Maybe we'll find out that he was tortured and degraded before someone finally killed him and that will make everyone even happier that he got what he deserved.

Why is revenge the core of so many actions and feelings? It's like the world trade center attack made us all bitter and scared. Maybe it's just uncovered our true character to ourselves and the rest of the world. It seems the only compassion we have as a country is the obligatory tithing plate donation that matches the accepted definition of charity for the day. As long as the investment is only money, we can be altruistic.

As I'm writing this, I'm watching one of my favorite war movies: Peckinpah's Cross of Iron. It describes our current situation, but then it probably describes all wars including metaphorical ones like ours. By destroying your enemies, you become them. The final quote after all the credits role is particularly relevant:

Don't rejoice in his defeat, you men.
For though the world stood up and stopped the bastard,
The bitch that bore him is in heat again.
- Bertold Brecht

Pity the fool

2006-04-23T00:54:00.000-06:00

Pity is never a pretty thing, but we should appreciate how sad it is that someone that started with such a great opportunity has wasted his entire life. Even if you or I wouldn't take advantage of some of these situations, imagine you had any or all of the following serendipitous events happen to you:

1) Your family is so rich that you don't know what to do with all the money (oil).

2) Your father is first a senator, then head of the CIA, vice president for eight years, and then president of the most powerful country in the world (1 term only).

3) During a horrible war where 63,000+ Americans died, your dad pulls some strings to get you a cushy job in the National Guard avoiding the draft and you don't get in trouble for not showing up for that.

4) You get cushy jobs with no experience as a campaign advisor, oil business board member, major league sports team owner, governor of the second largest state, and president of the United States and fail miserably at every single one of these.

5) You commit several felony insider trading acts that put Martha Stewart to shame and because your father owns the Security Exchange Commission, they strangely decide not to investigate.

6) You get at least one DUI completely removed from your driving record that would most likely ruin your political career.

7) Your family has connections to most of the bad guys perpetrating the worst terrorist act in this nation's history, but starting a completely unrelated illegal war and killing and maiming millions of people is not considered wagging the dog by most Americans.

-- You get all of these advantages. You get to start way out in front of everybody else. You have all these doors open to you. You become the most powerful man in the world with no experience, no personality, no education and no character and what do you do with this opportunity:

1) Become a cocaine and alcohol addict.
2) Become a born-again Christian but never go to church.
3) Cut up and remove brush in Crawford Texas for a vacation.
4) Commit felony insider trading for a measly 80 million dollars when you family is worth billions.
5) Use your supreme power to declassify information that should stay classified just to pettily get back at someone who submitted an unfavorable report about your project.
6) Sacrifice the poor to help out the rich by cutting programs that help them, effectively raising their taxes, not doing anything to give them affordable health care, helping the energy companies bilk them while making record profits and outsourcing all their jobs to countries with horrible human rights conditions.
7) Isolate the country (us) with the most potential to help the rest of the world by dropping out of every treaty, starting illegal wars, undermining the United Nations and doing everything possible to create unrest and chaos around the world.
8) Create a deficit larger than all previous presidents combined and a national debt that is so big, no one really can imagine it. Nine trillion dollars adds up to $30,000 for each and every American alive today. That's $150,000 that my house owes.
9) Do everything you can to kill the national education system that is one of the best in the world.
10) Sacrifice the environment so that corporations can make a few extra dollars.

So here we have a learning-disabled, unethical pretender in the white house and we spend all our time in the media laughing at the way he says nookyuler, or how he makes up words. Give it a break. It would only be a little worse if he resigned and we got that evil guy Cheney instead. Who cares if in twenty years no one remembers how bad he was and we start naming airports and highways after him like that evil Reagan. He won't be able to do any damage and we'll probably hear less from him in retirement than we did from Ford.

He'll be gone and hopefully we can all pitch in and clean up his mess. We'll have to mourn for the millions of people he maimed or killed, and many of us will be devastated economically or worse, but many of us will survive and it won't help to hold a grudge. Let's move on.

War Powers

2006-04-01T01:45:00.000-07:00

During a war, the president has special powers. You can imagine a time when the president was the commander of the military. Calling congress to session to approve certain actions would seem ridiculous, especially without private planes, telephones, video conferencing, paved roads or printing presses. (I know the press was invented in 1041 or 1436 depending on whether you're Chinese or German - let's move on). Anyway, some people will tell you that in the interest of national security these special powers are almost unlimited, but even these citizens would say during peace times, those powers should be regulated.

What is war? It's easy to show examples that are obviously war. In the revolutionary war, an invading force tried to take control and force us to do their bidding. In our civil war, part of the country seceded and there were two armies fighting for either independence or union. In the first world war, a bunch of countries separated into teams and kept killing each other until one side decided it was unbearable. During the Vietnam War, we tried to prop up a country that was incapable or unwilling to hold out against a specific threat. During the Cold War, the enemy was well defined even if it may have been somewhat contrived.

That we call the war on terror, or the war in Afghanistan, or the war in Iraq a war seems unconscionable. We might as well enact the war power for the war on poverty, war on drugs, or the war on Christmas. The threats to us are all specific to the occupying forces and there are no exit criteria and no specific targets anymore. There is no valid reason to suspend habeas corpus, to allow illegal (unregulated) wire-tapping, torture, massive deficit spending, or any suspension of law because we are systematically destroying civilization in some remote corner of the world. Before we start deciding what powers the president should have in a time of war, we should start a real war, or else these arguments are all hypothetical.

Maybe we should try China.

Veto Threats - Whatever

2006-03-08T16:13:00.000-07:00

Why does anyone think that the President would ever veto any bill? He's obviously just a puppet, but the question is, "Who is pulling the strings?" There are forty-six recorded instances in the past 5+ years where Bush has threatened to veto a bill and not once has he even sent one back to congress to make some minor changes. Here are a few of the threats that you might remember:

1) Ports deal - business trumps security
2) Torture - if we don't torture them, they won't talk
3) Stem Cell - they're killing babies (but killing babies for in vitro is ok)
4) Nov '05 Senate bill to remove tax cuts for oil companies - fix alt min tax.
5) '04 Highway bill > $256 Billion (arbitrary limit that still breaks bank)
6) '05 Highway bill $350b (higher arbitrary limit that breaks the broke bank)
7) Oct '03 - Lift Ban on travel to Cuba (would lower kickbacks from Bahamas vacations)
8) Jun '05 - Reduce spying on library records (Patriot Act)
9) 2003 - SAFE act to revoke some of Patriot Act.
10) Oct '03 - Afghanistan funding can't be a loan - (American people must pay for it - later)
11) Jul '04 - NASA budget cuts too much. (Yes, he threatened to veto a bill because they were cutting too much - Huh?)
12) Patient's rights bill - (we should sacrifice all the real protection to get rid of a few frivilous lawsuits).

For comparison:
Clinton - 37 Vetoes.
Roosevelt - 635 Vetoes.

Even President Carter and President Johnson had 31 and 30 vetoes respectively when their parties controlled congress.

Veto History

So if you hear this guy complain about pork, or talk about earmark reform, it's kind of like the alcoholic preaching abstinence. Wow! That's not even an analogy. Doesn't it make you angry that a fascist elitist ignorant jerk can hijack our country, drive it into the ground economically, bankrupt the future while skimming billions in war profiteering for himself and his cronies, killing probably more people than Stalin, selling himself as your savior and protector, telling you that he's a God-fearing man, and all the while he's spying on you and incarcerating your countrymen without trial, without representation, without charges, but with torture, indefinitely.

It's a scary place we live in.

State of the Union?

2006-02-03T01:41:00.000-07:00

If you thought the State of the Union was all just a bunch of hooey, you were wrong. Mostly hooey, yes. But when broken down into its fundamental components you can see that someone else obviously wrote it and GW must have practiced reading it for the better part of the five years he's been in office. In case anyone wants to keep score over the next three years, this speech is divided into Promises/Pledges, Claims, Facts, Theories, Goals and Pleas.

_____________________
Promises/Pledges:

1) I will do my part to confront great issues acting in a spirit of goodwill and respect.

because great issues that act in a spirit of goodwill are the scourge of humanity

2) We will act boldly in freedom's cause.

what is freedom's cause? You must not have been paying attention because the answer is "oil".

3) The United States will not retreat from the world.

despite all rumors, America is not moving to Mars.

4) I will reach out and see your good advice.

yes, he did say "see". When he said this, was he looking at Harriet Miers or Michael Brown?

5) We must keep our word, defeat our enemies and stand behind the American military.

hiding behind the military is what great junta leaders do.

6) America will continue to rally the world to confront the threat of Iran.

since we no longer possess the capability to confront them ourselves.

7) We will not sit back and wait to be attacked again.

we're going to go quail hunting!

8) We will build prosperity by strengthening our economic leadership in the world.

because economic prosperity is the only kind that's important.

9) We will shape the economic future, so don't fear it.

like when Gilligan says, "I'm building a raft. Don't worry."

10) Reduce or eliminate 140 programs performing poorly or not fulfilling essential priorities.

if we can keep reducing and eliminating they will all perform poorly and won't be needed. Actually, excluding defense, the government really only has 136 programs.

11) Save another $14 billion for tax cuts next year.

unfortunately, your health care is going to go up by $14 billion next year.

12) We will use electronic records and other health information technology to control costs and reduce medical errors.

remember, the best way to use this information to control costs is to deny insurance to anyone with a medical problem.

13) New Science Pledges: 1) double federal commitment to something vague, 2) make R&D tax credits permanent (surprise!), and 3) encourage children to take more math and science (with this speech right here).

double an undisclosed amount of research money, make corporate tax cuts permanent and encourage kids to go to school. We're all doomed.

14) We should never forget, dismiss or betray our pledge to be worthy of public responsibility.

I will be worthy of public responsibility. Not worthy of your trust. Not responsible. Did he lose his place on the teleprompter and start making stuff up? Surely no one would write this.

15) We will show courage and finish well.

so we need to display a lack of fear whether we're afraid or not. We need to be confident whether our cause is just or not. we need to finish well? I guess we can't talk about winning any more.

16) We will lead freedom's advance.

by enslaving all the cheap labor we can find around the world.

17) We will compete and excel in the global economy.

especially if it involves compromising our morals. What morals?...

18) We will renew the defining moral commitments of this land.

"renew" here means "rewrite" since those other commitments weren't working out so great.

_____________________
Goals:
1) We seek the end of tyranny in our world

fighting fire with fire?

2) Help Iraqis build an inclusive government. (relieve old resentments, marginalize insurgency).

can you really relieve old resentments by killing the resentful. It's amazing that he can use inclusive and marginalize like that in the same sentence.

3) Continue reconstruction of Iraq (fight corruption, build modern economy).

if you believe that, I've got a bridge I'd like to build for you (cost plus and no-bid).

4) Strike terrorist targets in Iraq and train Iraqis to do the same.

a) create a terrorist target by occupying a country, district or area. b) get permission to strike them because they are now terrorists.

5) Compete with confidence

did you have a bunch of brothers? the littlest guy, not so bright, easy displacement target when mom found Neil's cocaine or Jeb's porn stash?

6) Raise standard of living

for at least three people in the country.

7) Generate new jobs

because those old jobs you had paid too much.

8) Killing socialist programs will cut the deficit (that didn't exist 5 years ago) in half by 2009.

ok, he didn't say socialist, but you could hear it in his voice. Entitlement is the code word.

9) Orderly and secure borders.

this illegal immigrant trade has got to stop. We could get a piece of that action. Forget organized crime. Let's try legislated crime.

10) Try to make coverage for individuals and small businesses portable so workers can switch jobs without having to worry about losing their health insurance.

note: There are no goals to make this portability affordable, and everyone can afford COBRA, right?

11) Advanced Energy Initiative - this crusade to lower our dependency on foreign oil is going to replace it with coal, solar, wind and nuclear power.

what is this new energy source you call coal? Is it clean and renewable?

12) Gasoline dependency: a) Improve batteries for hybrid and electric cars. b) Increase research in cars powered on hydrogen. c) Increase research in producing cheap ethanol to replace or supplement gasoline.

now if they would only fund this research.

13) Replace more than 75% of our oil imports from the middle east by 2025.

Oops, I wasn't supposed to say that. Never mind.

14) We must continue to lead the world in human talent and creativity.

what is human talent? And does this mean creativity in general, or specifically "human creativity" - oh yes, we should lead the world in human cloning...

15) American Competitive Initiative - Throw some money at math and science

except that evolution theory, or the global warming theory, and not really that much money.

16) Train 70,000 high school teachers in advanced-placement courses in math and science.

isn't this about 0.45 teachers per high school in America?

17) Prepare our nation to compete in the world.

remember, the ultimate competition is war.

18) Be a compassionate, decent and hopeful society.

at least metaphorically.

19) America's Youth Initiative encouraging caring adults to get involved in the life of a child.

We need more details. This could be the subtitle of quite a few bad internet sites.

_____________________
Facts (and broad generalizations):
1) Dictatorships shelter terrorists, and feed resentment and radicalism, and seek weapons of mass destruction.

these are just stereotypes. I can think of at least one democracy that fits this description too.

2) If we leave, we show that a pledge from America means little.

let's try to keep this a secret if we can.

3) At the start of 2006, more than half the people of our world live in (so-called) democratic nations.

the other half live in China and India.

4) Lacking military strength, terrorists have chosen the weapon of fear.

we too can use the weapon of fear. Everyone's afraid of a lunatic.

5) There is a difference between responsible criticism and defeatism.

if you give him a dictionary, he'll tell you what it is. By the way, an example of responsible criticism is, "That's a great idea, Mr. President."

6) America is addicted to oil.

duh! The way a diabetic is addicted to insulin.

7) The United States is grateful for Justice O'Connor's 24 years of faithful service.

he actually meant this one to go in the "jokes" section, but ironically we are all grateful.

8) The destination of history is determined by human action.

except in the case of hurricanes, tsunamis, tornadoes, volcanoes, floods, fires, lightning, land slides, droughts, ice ages, most diseases, blizzards, solar flares, earthquakes, sink holes, avalanches, aging, giant meteors, supernovae, global warming -- wait, actually that last one is determined by human action.

_____________________
Claims:
1) State of the Union is strong.

this is required in every SOTU speech. Imagine if they had a scale or color code for the strength of the union. "Today the Union is about a 7 (out of 10)", or "We've upgraded the strength of the country to Orange." I guess this doesn't work at a pep rally.

2) We have a clear plan for victory in Iraq.

it involves Iran getting a nuclear warhead...

3) Americans believe in the God-given dignity and worth of a villager with HIV/AIDS

unlike those other losers around the world. Why don't you believe in God-given dignity and God-given worth? This villager is dying. He just wants you to believe in his dignity and his worth. That's all he wants. Keep your silly medicines. Without dignity they mean nothing.

4) We can prevent another attack by listening to phone calls from/to suspected al Qaeda operatives overseas.

the question is whether they will or not.

5) The only alternative to American leadership is a more dangerous and anxious world.

I think he meant to say "the only advantage to American leadership is a more dangerous and anxious world." Because danger in Japanese also means opportunity. Are we attacking Japan again?

6) By 2030, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will make up 60% of federal budget

there are a number of ways to achieve this goal: 1) keep cutting taxes, 2) keep cutting other programs, 3) keep letting lobbyists create legislation that allow corporations to bilk the consumer. Why do we want to do this again?

7) If we legally exploit guest workers to create temporary jobs, it will reduce smuggling and crime, make our borders orderly and secure, and increase America's competitiveness.

competitive like hungry rats fighting over a scrap of bread on a sinking ship?

8) The lifting of test scores across the country means that we are teaching children how to take standardized tests better. This will improve our economy (when there is a big shortage of standardized test takers in the market.)

ok, it was paraphrased, but that's what he said. Look it up.

9) America is a great force for freedom and prosperity

unless you're not American. Actually, great is stretching it even for Americans. Well, maybe not for a few Americans.

10) Violent crimes are at lowest levels since the 1970s.

everyone is in prison (or Gitmo).

11) Welfare cases have dropped by more than half in the last 10 years.

they've used up their 6 months and are now living on the streets.

12) Drug use is down 19% in youth since 2001.

we've redefined "youth". If you're old enough to use drugs, then you're old enough to be called an adult.

13) Fewer (documented legal) abortions than at any point in the last 30 years.

because of the persecution of abortion doctors and clinics, they might as well be illegal again, but surely the new supreme court justices will fix this.

14) Number of children born to teenage mothers has fallen every year for the past 12 years.

except in areas where they fund abstinence-only programs. How does an adoption program lower the number of births? "Oh crap, I can't have this baby. I'll have to put it up for adoption."

15) Welfare reform, drug education, and abstinence and adoption programs are responsible for these successes.

along with these magic beans, intelligent design and faith-based emergency response teams.

16) America is not in decline and our culture is not doomed to unravel.

keep saying this and it will be true. It's like a mantra.

17) Judges are servants of the law and will not legislate from the bench.

if only this were true.

18) The federal government has committed $85 billion to the people of the Gulf Coast and New Orleans - removing debris, repairing highways, rebuilding levees and dumping money into corrupt no-bid contracts with Halliburton, Bechtel and all the other companies that find it safer to pilfer here than in a war zone.

you probably only saw (heard) the edited version. They were running short on time and had to remove some of the less important facts.

19) More than a million Americans have HIV and half of them are African Americans.

why mention this statistic? Since there is no follow-up, it seems the only reason would be to insinuate that African Americans are either gay, promiscuous or heavy drug users, or was he being compassionate?

20) We live in a period of consequence.

unlike the interstitials where all actions are insignificant.

21) We did not invite this great ideological conflict we are involved in.

didn't invite it? You don't call invading and occupying two countries while killing over 100,000 people, destroying infrastructure, creating warlords to replace government and attracting neighboring anarchical malcontents to further defile everything, an invitation to conflict? I guess it wasn't a formal RSVP, but I guess we could make up some fancy RSVPs on linen with gold leaf...

_____________________
Theories:
1) Future of America depends upon the end of tyranny in our world

an end to cruel and oppressive governments? Ironical.

2) There is no peace or honor in retreat.

there is no i in team. There are no poodles under my desk. This might be true but who knows what it means? I guess our psyche is so weak that if we decided to leave Iraq because it's a quagmire and they don't want our help, our nation's spirit would crumble and we would disintegrate into a country of loser socialists like France. Look what happened after we left Vietnam.

3) Hindsight is not wisdom, and second-guessing is not a strategy.

right now, I'd settle for hindsight and second-guessing.

4) The only way to defeat the terrorists is to defeat their dark vision of hatred and fear by offering the hopeful alternative of political freedom and peaceful change.

of course this alternative includes a war, occupation, lots of death, a corrupt new infrastructure, both organized and unorganized ubiquitous crime, a fundamental theocracy with a slight flavor of democracy, and a proliferation of McDonald's and Wal-Marts.

5) Liberty is the right and hope of all humanity.

although some people would rather have food, a place to live, a healthy environment, no more bombs, affordable health care, a job, privacy, education, a robust economy, corporate regulation, transparent government, staffed and funded federal agencies that can do their jobs, robot insurance, etc.

6) Underfunding compassionate programs increases suffering in the world, undercuts security and dulls our conscience.

so why do we want to do this then? Oh wait, you're talking about faith-based compassionate programs, not real compassionate programs.

7) Our economic performance this year is the envy of the world.

if this is true, the world has really low standards. If only we had another Republican president like Bill Clinton...

8) To increase taxes would centralize economic power in Washington.

conversely, reducing taxes only weakens the president and congress. Something is wrong with this theory.

9) The way to solve the worst problem today in congress (earmarks - aka pork) is to create an even less regulated, less supervised, less controlled power: the line-item veto.

if recent history is any indication, this would be exploited and perverted in every way possible by this corrupt leader (or whoever is pulling his strings). Giving the line-item veto to this administration would be like taking the vice president hunting with a loaded gun.

10) A health savings account will magically give individuals and small business employees access to insurance that they couldn't get last year.

I added the magically in there, but it was implied. Because responsible people don't spend their money. They save it in case they have some kind of catastrophic health problem. Couldn't I just pledge to be worthy of responsibility? Then I wouldn't need a health savings account.

11) The middle east is an unstable part of the world.

debatable...

12) A life of personal responsibility is a life of fulfillment

that's all you need? No religion? Tell me again why we had to set up a theocracy in Iraq then?

13) A hopeful society depends on: 1) courts that deliver equal justice under the law, 2) institutions of science and medicine that do not cut ethical corners, 3) elected officials that uphold the public trust (in public at least) 4) giving special attention to children who lack attention and love, 5) coming to the aid of fellow citizens in times of suffering and emergency, and 6) boldly fighting diseases like HIV/AIDS.

ok, who really needs to be hopeful. Maybe we should be satisfied with rich.

14) Human life is a gift from the president's creator.

we should probably go ahead and open it.

15) Gifts should never be discarded, devalued or sold.

Christmas gifts, birthday gifts or gifts from the president's creator?

_____________________
Pleas:
1) Congress - Please demonstrate the compassion of America

Powerpoint presentation, diorama or collage will be fine. No more interpretive dances.

2) Please reauthorize the Patriot Act to give LEAs, intelligence, military and homeland security the tools they use to fight drug trafficking and organized crime to do some other unspecified task.

we've proven that the big brother concept works great in a television laboratory setting. Imagine the ratings we could get if we made the whole country a reality-based program.

3) We need the support of our friends and allies. Please help us because freedom is on the march.

it sounds like I made this up, but he really made this plea. I didn't have to paraphrase this. Honest! ... You looked it up didn't you?

4) Congress - Please give me bipartisan support in this long war against a determined enemy.

is this like a boilerplate plea? With a signature here, he could say congress agreed to anything. War on terror, war on poverty (oops, wrong party), war on abortion, war on privacy, war on employment, war on a healthy environment, war on free speech, a war against the robots.

5) Congress - Please make tax cuts permanent.

tax cuts? There were tax cuts?

6) Congress - Please pass a line-item veto.

wouldn't it just be quicker to get rid of congress so that he could write the laws and sign them at the same time? I guess using the line-item veto could be a new sport like find-a-word or the bible codes. It could be the next sudoku. (not sodoku - that's rat-bite fever)

7) Please create a commission to examine the full impact of baby boomers.

when we launch them in a rocket into the moon? Quick answer: 1) they're about to stop paying into social security and start taking all the money out of it, 2) they're probably going to need more medicare and medicaid benefits, 3) they're going to live a long time so you better not need social security or any health coverage when you retire and 4) if you want to keep the roads usable we're going to have to create a whole separate infrastructure unless we all want to drive 15 mph everywhere.

8) Please pass medical liability reform this year to make sure that doctor's, hospitals, HMOs and really anyone in the medical business cannot be sued no matter what kind of egregious mistakes or misdeeds they conduct.

because doctors work really hard and what do they get for all this hard work (besides all that money)? Grief. They have to see people die, they don't get time for a real life, they don't even have time to drive their really expensive cars or enjoy their really expensive houses, or really expensive trophy wives/husbands. When they have to work fourteen to sixteen hours a day and be on call the rest of the time, don't they deserve a little slack when they make a mistake? I guess you all want these guys to become lawyers instead. Just what we need, more lawyers. See, with this reform we won't need those lawyers any more so we're killing two birds with one stone (so to speak).

9) Please support the American Competitive Initiative because we all need to be more competitive.

do we really need an initiative to be more competitive?

10) Please stop human cloning.

from the Dick Cheney example we can see that it will only lead to disaster.

11) Please reauthorize the Ryan White Act to end waiting lists for AIDS medicines in America.

this is actually a good thing. No joke. That's a great idea, Mr. President.

12) Please God, bless America.

and let us win more gold than Germany in the 2006 Winter Olympics. USA! USA! USA!

_____________________
Jokes:
1) Two of my dad's favorite people are me and Bill Clinton.

Why is this supposed to be funny? Is it because Clinton handily defeated him in the '92 election and then showed him what a real president could do to stimulate the economy and nurture goodwill across the globe? Or is it because Clinton was a better Republican than he was and showed him how to deregulate corporations and create the foundation for all the corruption that now exists in this corporatocracy?

2) Congress did not act last year on my proposal to save Social Security... -- (applause)

Bam! Bitch slap, Mr. President!

_____________________
Notes:
1) we can pursue enemies of freedom or retreat from duties hoping for easier life.

are you all a bunch of wimpy little chickens? Bock. Bock. Bock. Don't make me invoke the draft.

2) we can lead world economy or shut off trade and opportunity.

aren't there any other choices? How about build a stable and safe economy?

3) road of isolationism and protectionism is temptation of the devil (danger and decline).

but domination, decimation, exploitation and oppression are ok?

4) Democracies replace resentment with hope, respect the rights of their citizens and their neighbors, and join the fight against terror.

democracies are supposed to allow people to decide what's best for the country. Maybe we're not smart enough to be a democracy. With the choices we're making, we're destroying the world. We aren't respecting the rights of our citizens and we don't acknowledge that our neighbors even have any rights. Maybe democracies replace hope with resentment?

5) Some men rage and fight against the success of freedom.

at first the awkward phrasing was kind of funny. After five years it's just become tiresome and frustrating. Fight against the success of freedom??? Was this written by a third grader? Who hears this and says, "Yes! Why do they rage? Why do they hate our freedoms?" I don't know. Maybe the answer is out there on the internets.

6) Radical Islam -- the perversion by a few of a noble faith into an ideology of terror and death.

to know a perversion, I guess it helps to be one. An ideology of terror and death is not a new concept to this administration either.

7) Freedom progression - dictatorship, liberation, sovereignty, constitution, national elections.

and after that, constitutional theocracy, oppression, chaos, coup, dictatorship. Circle of life.

8) Decisions to reduce troop levels are made by military commanders (like me), not by politicians (like me).

is he trying to blame the generals for not bringing troops home, or is he warning congress that he's going to only listen to his war cabinet.

9) We've changed our approach to reconstruction in Iraq.

now it's more of a hands-off approach.

10) We have a duty to speak with candor.

and I'll speak with candor right now and tell you that I'm shirking this one.

11) Iraq and Afghanistan are strategic countries.

strategic for what? Stepping off point for the eastern European campaign? Perfect spot for ArabDisney? Nice place for a new secret prison? Testing ground for new weapons? Practice arena for civil war observations? Poppies and oil?

12) The leaders of Hamas must recognize Israel, disarm, reject terrorism, and work for lasting peace.

we wrote a constitution for them too. It seems pretty arrogant for a country still mired in two preemtive wars to create an edict to an oppressed people telling them they should work for lasting peace. It appears that one way to work for a lasting peace is to kill all of your enemies.

13) Americans are rich, yet we still can't afford complacency.

maybe he means rich in compassion because we obviously still need some more tax cuts.

14) Extra $880 billion for Americans to spend with tax cuts.

you know what I'm going to buy with my extra money? 1) get poorer health insurance, 2) less air conditioning and heating for my house, 3) less gasoline for my car, 4) some apparatus to clean the air and water that I need for me and my family and 5) a boat since the ice caps are melting.

15) Last 2.5 years, 4.6 million jobs created.

this is something to brag about? It's the worst jobs creation record since the great depression. In the last 2.5 years, 3.75 million new people entered the labor market. In the 5 years he's been in office, almost 2 million people have been added to the jobless list. Unemployment is still low because we use bogus numbers to measure it. If we measured it like most European countries (including prison population, parolees, people who have given up on finding a job, etc.) our unemployment rate would be above 17%. Something to be proud of!

16) We are on the threshold of incredible advances in alternative energy sources

which seem to include coal-fired plants, solar and wind technologies, and safe nuclear energy. Incredible!

17) Three of the most critical basic research programs in science are 1) nanotechnology, 2) supercomputing, 3) alternative energy and 4) the human cloning project.

doh! I wasn't supposed to mention that last one. Edit that out.

18) You can measure our greatness by who we are and how we treat one another.

but we're asking you not to if you don't mind.

19) Things Americans are worried about: 1) unethical conduct by public officials, 2) Activist courts that redefine marriage, 3) children who need direction and love, 4) fellow citizens still displaced by natural disaster, and 5) suffering caused by treatable diseases (like gayness).

I say we focus on number one above starting at the top and get rid of the guy who 1) got us into this illegal war, 2) sold out our port security to a terrorist state, 3) broke the law and listened in on our private communications without a warrant, 4) shirked his duties as a president and spent almost 30% of his time on vacation, 5) rigged at least one election by stealing and suppressing votes, 6) facilitated war profiteering through either corruption, incompetence or both, 7) manipulated intelligence for personal gain, 8) systematically destroyed all the safeguards set up to protect our environment, and 9) created a level of hostility and hatred for us around the world such that we will probably never recover.

20) Forms of human cloning to be banned: 1) creating or implanting embryos, 2) human-animal hybrids and 3) buying, selling or patenting embryos.

Couldn't we use human clones to solve the food shortage around the world? Maybe we could breed them to taste like chicken.

_____________________
My Questions:
1) If we know the phone numbers of suspected al Qaeda operatives, then why can't we arrest/bomb them now? (or at least call them and ask them politely to stop).

2) Where does the constitution say it's ok to listen/read phone calls and email without approval (warrant) from the judicial branch?

3) If as you stated "previous presidents used the same authority with approval of federal courts", then why don't you need the approval of the federal courts?

4) Who determines the appropriate members of congress that are "kept informed"?

5) How much and how often are they briefed?

6) What terrorist attacks have been prevented? How did the surveillance program help prevent them?

7) How does getting a warrant hinder surveillance programs when you can get the warrant up to 72 hours after surveillance has started and FISA courts almost never deny a request?

8) If all of this information is classified and will never get out, and you don't need permission to listen, and you're not worried about using the information to prosecute (only to protect us), why are you telling us that you are listening? Why not just do it illegally and secretly?

9) If this government is too lazy and cheap to protect us from hurricanes, global warming, flu pandemics, environmental hazards, rising health care and oil costs and the debilitation of lack of education, then why should we believe that you are spending all this money to listen to phone calls and protect us from future terror attacks?

10) Could this really be an excuse to use surveillance to gain other information that will help in political campaigns, corporate endeavors, lawsuits, blackmail, insider information, etc.?

11) Who would believe that this president would use a line-item veto to get rid of excess spending from earmarks when he has never vetoed a single bill in the 5+ years he's been in office? Are we to believe that there hasn't been any pork in any of the bills passed, or do the benefits of those bills outweigh the necessary evil that comes with the earmarks, or did someone forget to tell the president that he has the option not to sign everything that comes across his desk?

12) Human-animal hybrids?

2005: a reflection

2006-01-03T16:34:00.000-07:00

January 7th - Brad and Jen Announce Split
She was a Bush supporter. It all makes sense now!

January 20th - Inauguration of the Recumbent Incumbent
PROGRAM
Now the gloves are coming off.

Remember the "Environmental and Clean Energy Inaugural Ball" that cost us $17.3 million just in security costs and at least another $40 million in donations?

Don't worry, they're working together to build a better tomorrow.

January 30th - Elections in Iraq
Who am I voting for? Anonymous elections? Now the violence will end...

February 3rd - Alberto "Hector" Gonzales is the new Attorney General
Wow! The most qualified candidate Attorney General was his personal attorney. What a coincidence. I wonder if he has any friends that would make a good judge.

February 12th - Howard Dean to save the day!
Finally we have a spine. Things can only get better.

February 15th - Michael Chertoff: Secretary of Homeland Security
Co-Author of the Patriot Act? Maybe he can pick a good guy to run FEMA.

February 16th - Kyoto Protocol Begins
Except for the United States and Australia where they don't have green house gasses anyway. "We don't believe in them."

February 17th - John Negroponte is appointed National Intelligence Director
More Skull and Bones buddies. Covert funding of the Contras provides excellent background experience for a role in intelligence.

March 1st - Supreme Court says Death Penalty Unconstitutional for Minors
Uh Oh! If they make it unconstitutional to execute the retarded, then Texas won't be able to kill anybody (except tourists - but who would vacation in Texas?). Better find someone to replace O'Connor quick.

March 2nd - 60 day "Fix Social Security" tour begins:
Private Accounts - The answer to your retirement worries, if you're a gambling man.

March 3rd - Steve Fossett Around the World!
How about coming up with some alternative fuels. Then I'll be impressed.

March 7th - John Bolton: Newly Nominated Plenipotentiary to the United Nations
... about avoiding the war by going to Yale in 1970:

I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy. I considered the war in Vietnam already lost - John Bolton, 1994

March 17th - Senate says it's ok to drill in Alaska
Nobody goes there anyway and most of the time it's really cold.
How old is that Senator Stevens? Shouldn't he be dead already?

March 31st - Dr. Frist owes Terri Schiavo an Apology
What's he a doctor of? Doctor of Rugs? Doctor of Love? I think it's a Doctorate of Dumbassery, or maybe he's a D.O.

April 2nd - Pope John Paul II leaves us for a better place
Few people have done more for peace.

April 13th - House Votes to Repeal Death Tax
Hope this passes the senate because I'm planning to leave more than $3.5 Million (where this tax kicks in) to my children, but hopefully by then we'll have no taxes and we'll be burning poor people as a cheap source of renewable energy. (Thanks Steve Fossett!)

April 20th - President Signs Bankruptcy Bill
Another win for the corporatocracy! And speaking of fascists...

April 24th - New Nazi Pope Ratzinger Inaugurated

May 1st - Downing Street Memo Revealed

May 10th - Live Hand Grenade Dud Lands 100 feet from President in Tbilisi, Georgia
Why would someone want to kill the biggest freedom lover in the whole wide world? They hate us for our freedoms.

May 14th - Qur'an Desecration Protests around the world continue from the Newsweek Report
I guess the torture and lack of due process, speedy trial, habeas corpus, etc. weren't a big deal. Well, their heart is in the right place. Fight the power!

June 13th - Michael Jackson Not Guilty
Finally the hostage crisis is over and our TVs and radios are returned relatively unharmed.

June 27th - Thou shalt not display
Well, sometimes you can display.

July 7th - Judith Miller Goes to Jail
Then she figures out that nobody cares and decides to come home. Surely there's a book deal in there somewhere, if only she could find a writer to help her with it.

July 24th - Lance Armstrong wins 7th consecutive Triple Crown without a Horse.
Yawn.

August 2nd - Back to the Ranch
20% of his time in office on vacation? What does he do with all that extra time? Does he have a second job? Another family? Maybe he's working on his time machine or his matter transporter, or he's trying to cure cancer or come up with an alternative fuel.

Recess appointment of John Bolton Ambassador to the United Nations.
Why doesn't he just go ahead and appoint a whole new Senate during the recess?

August 3rd - President signs CAFTA into Law

Job creation (just not in the US).
Working standards improved (Guatemalan children can now work in Nike sweat shops instead of starving).
Free trade (Cheap crap built by slave labor, or just plain slave labor now available for trade)

August 8th - National Energy Bill Signed to Law
What about oil prices or oil alternatives?

August 10th - Highway Pork Bill Signed to Law
I guess we'll have to increase taxes to cover all this pork. Doh!

August 23rd - Pat Robertson Makes a Formal Plea to Assassinate Hugo Chavez
Next he'll be blaming all the wicked people in New Orleans for Katrina and saying that Sharon's stroke was caused by his concessions to the sinful.

August 29th - Katrina Strikes

September 2nd - Goodbye Little Buddy

September 5th - Gas Prices Reach All-Time High ($3.07 per Gallon - average)
At least we've got that new energy bill!

September 8th - President Suspends Davis-Bacon to Stimulate Rebuilding Hurricane Damage
Wouldn't want to pay people a fair wage, especially people who just lost all their possessions.

September 24th - Hurricane Rita makes Landfall

September 26th - Army Reserve Specialist England Convicted
And with that, all of the torture problems in Iraq were solved. Whew! Justice is served, and camera phones are not allowed in Iraq any more.

September 28th - Michael Brown says, "What can I do? It was an act of God."

Tom DeLay Indicted
This guy isn't smart enough to squeal.

October 3rd - Harriet Miers Nominated
The president after falling off the wagon did this on a dare. He later blamed it on the eight tequila shots and the three orange cosmopolitans. Oh Stoli, why do you have to be so smooth?

October 15th - Iraqi Constitution Approved
We have a theocracy!

we the sons of Mesopotamia - Already the women aren't included in the first three words.
land of prophets and holy imams - no more secular.
creators of the alphabet - they also did that Rubik's cube thing, but forgot to patent it.
cradle of arithmetic - maybe this just doesn't translate well.
where the first law created by man was written - now you're starting to sound insecure.
here the most noble era of justice in the politics of nations was laid down - what does that mean?
the followers of the prophet and the saints prayed, the philosophers and the scientists theorised and the writers and poets created - yeah, that's what they do.

I like Article 2(a): No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam. No room for interpretation there!

October 19th - Media Circus Hussein Trial Begins
How about a trial for the crimes he committed with the weapons we gave him?
If only we had some kind of International Criminal Court...

October 28th - Scooter Libby Indicted
Scooter may have to spend some time in jail since he timed this a little early. On the other hand, Bill Frist and Tom DeLay will probably get the pardon while they are still on trial.

Scooter won't squeal. He's got the pardon coming, but Abramoff on the other hand is going to tell all. "And the walls come tumblin' down."

November 8th - Kansas Attempts to Surpass Texas as "Most Retarded State"
Intelligent Design will make them sleep. Yes... Intelligent Design.
I do believe in spooks. I do. I do. I do.

November 22nd - Xbox 360 Released
Did nothing happen in November?
I'm not going to mention Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

December 15th - More Elections in Iraq
Still no Exit Strategy

December 16th - Senate Blocks Vote to Renew Patriot Act
Huh? Aliens have taken over and are using common sense and reason in our government. What are we going to do?

December 19th - Rep. Conyers Calls for Censure
I'm sure everyone will agree to that. Heck, why don't we go ahead and impeach him? Oh yeah, cronies.

December 20th - NY Transit Strikes
This is part of the war on Christmas (along with the drought and fires in the south), isn't it?

December 21st - Senate Budget Passed (save $40 Billion sort of)
But no drilling in ANWR! Up Yours, Senator Stevens!

On a lighter note, the Official List of Poverty will now be open to millions next year.
Thank you Senate Budget!

Medicaid increase up to 10% (of cost of service) - It's mostly old people and kids. They don't vote, or have a lobbyist.
Cuts to deadbeat dad enforcers and foster care programs - Family Values!
$13 Billion in student loans gone - If you can't afford an education, are you really going to work that hard for it?
New 90% work participation requirement for public assistance families - No more sponges.

It is our duty to confront the deep, persistent poverty that has cut off generations from the opportunity of America - George W. Bush reading from the teleprompter in the wake of Katrina.

December 25th - No Christmas this year.
The war was successful and we've completely abolished Christmas. This constitutional amendment was ratified unanimously by all 50 Godless states.

Bah Humbug!

Things I wanted to talk about, but they just didn't fit:
Ahhhh, Tax Relief: It's the new crack.
John Roberts and Samuel Alito - Deserves its own post.
No Child Left Behind - Too serious a topic for this post.
Medicare/Medicaid - Too confusing, and old people don't read blogs.
Terrorism Indictments (or lack thereof) - No dates: No Indictments. Thank you Homeland Security.
Culture of Corruption - Too many people talking about it already.
Avian Flu Scare - Did Pat Robertson make this one up?
Poverty levels - Mostly affects children or people that can't read. Until now.
Health care costs - Maybe Canada wouldn't be such a bad place to live.
Torture debate - Let's send Scooter down to Gitmo and see if he'll talk.
Big Brother - No way! They're listening? I better be careful what I say.
Secret Torture Prisons - This is probably where I'll be reporting from next year.
Crime rates - Prison privatization, population and rehabilitation. Alarming.
Global Warming - Ice caps melting. Bye bye, Florida. Great. All those old people are going to move to Arizona.
Airline bankruptcies - Hint of things to come. Recovering economy, my ass.
Job Creation - 2 Million new jobs created in 2005 (over 3,700 Wal-marts and over 13,000 McDonalds in the US). 4.9% unemployment. Remember, since they don't count prison inmates/parolees, to keep this number low, just put the unemployed in prison. Poof!
Budget Deficit, National Debt, Trade Deficit, Personal Debt, Outsourcing, Interest Rates, Deregulation, Monopolies: Economy

ONLY 3 MORE YEARS.
COULD THE NEXT GUY BE ANY WORSE?

Charter Schools: the ignorance and the apathy

2005-12-24T02:48:00.000-07:00

There's nothing that threatens American society today more than charter schools. That is not a hyperbole! You've already stopped reading, and this is precisely why the evil is so insidious. No one is concerned except members of the following groups:

1) parents of private school students who don't want to pay for private and public school.

2) fundamentalist parents who want religion not only to be allowed, but required in schools (how else do we beat morals into the children?)

3) anyone who sees an opportunity to exploit children for personal gain (you mean for-profit corporations can start charter schools? - Yes, unbelievable isn't it?)

4) parents in a poor performing district who want to give up on public schools. They believe the limited charter enrollment will prevent the poor performing students from entering their new school when the public school fails.

5) parents in a home-school group who think they should get paid just like real teachers.

The rest of you think that charter schools are a fringe element that doesn't affect you, especially if you have no children in school. It's just the next step up from home-schooling, right? Wrong!

Charter schools are paid for by you. Here's a simple example. If there are 500 students in your district and there is one public school, it's easy to see how the per student funding is calculated where the cost is almost entirely infrastructure (administration, location, furnishings, utilities, busses, cafeteria, worker benefits, etc.). If four charter schools pop up and each take 100 students from the public school, now the public school is only getting 20% of the district money. Supposedly the tax payers are still paying the same amount, but a school that was getting $2,500,000 ($5000 a student per year) is now getting $500,000 but still has about the same operating costs.

You may say that money is not important, but a good education for our children is, but this money all comes from the same place. We can't get people to vote for school bonds now. If the cost goes up, why would they be more likely to fund them? Also, who gets to decide which children deserve the "good" education. You can probably make an argument that more concerned parents should be more entitled to a good education for their child, but where does that leave all the children with uninterested parents? That's right, they'll be working at McDonald's and Wal-Mart, or going into the military where an education is not required to kill islamo-fascists.

Some people say that we need more diversity in our curricula and that charter schools offer an opportunity for innovative teaching practices and specialized programs to address individual needs. But, what limits the existing teaching practice and program is standardized testing that tests whether the teacher can prepare students for these tests. To correct the problem of individual needs we need only hire more teachers. With one good teacher per eight children, it would be difficult not to address personalized demands. Show me a school with one teacher per ten students that is failing.

Two things prevent a teacher from innovative instruction or individual attention: time and money. There are no restrictions on curricula except maybe teaching about how Jesus died so that we could have Christmas and Easter. It drives me batty that the same people who say we must praise the troops' efforts without question just because they had the courage (or lack of prosperity) to volunteer, will whine and moan about how crappy all the teachers are and how they are overpaid because they get summers off. I think we should all have ribbons on our cars saying "Support the Teachers!" That's a war we should all support. Teachers are underpaid and overworked. Well maybe we could outsource it and get a better return on the investment. Heck, why not just have robots teach all our children. It's an easy job, right?

So why do the big supporters of charter schools say they want them? Here's a list of all the benefits I could find:

* Increase learning opportunities and quality education access for all students
* Create choice for parents and students within the public school system
* Provide a system of accountability for results in public education
* Encourage innovative teaching practices
* Create new professional opportunities for teachers
* Encourage community and parent involvement in public education
* Leverage improved public education broadly
* Realize an educational vision
* Gain autonomy
* Serve a special population
(If I missed any, please let me know and I'll cover them here)

I'm all choked up, but let's take these one at a time:

1) Increase learning opportunities and quality education access for all students
The underlying hypothesis of this statement is that lots of charter schools will be created in places where the public school system is inadequate, offering all students better opportunities, or simply that all public schools suck, so any alternative would be an improvement. Unless there's a one-to-one ratio of charter school to public school, this can't be an opportunity for all students. So this should really say, "opportunities for a very few students." If you believe that a bunch of amateur (non-certified potentially uneducated) teachers along with a group of probably inexperienced administrators can put together a school with no oversight that performs better than public schools that have been in place for decades where millions of teachers have come together to create a system and curriculum that works (and it does work!), then sure, these few students are probably getting a little more attention and a slightly better education. There are cheaper ways to make this education even better with the existing public school system.

Also, why would better teachers migrate to the charter schools if they don't have to be certified (have a specific education), and the charter determines the salary, so they will probably make less. Just the attraction of less students per class, or is it the autonomy? I doubt that teachers would have more autonomy in a charter school.

2) Create choice for parents and students within the public school system
This is not within the existing public school system. This should say "with the public school system's money." They want to create a parallel system that shares the same money, but doesn't have the same oversight. This choice is available now in private schools, so to rephrase this bullet point it should say, "Create a choice for parents that want to send their kids to private school where they don't have to pay for both private school and public school", or more concisely, "Let taxpayers pay for my kid's private school." So it is about the money after all.

3) Provide a system of accountability for results in public education
The argument here is either that autonomy keeps the diseased public school administration rules away from these efficiently-run personalized academies, or that when parents start abandoning public schools for these glorified home-school cabals it will force the public schools to rethink their strategies creating accountability by proxy. It seems odd that a group of people powerful enough to lobby for laws enabling these institutions in forty states with over 3600 schools and over a million students would have to resort to creating a parallel system that "works" as opposed to fixing the allegedly obvious problems in the cancerous public school system. This makes me think that the reason they want charter schools is not because the public school system is broken which makes sense since it isn't.

4) Encourage innovative teaching practices
Because, of course, we don't encourage innovative teaching practices in our public schools. I'm all for using my child as a guinea pig to try out new teaching methods, but again if the reason is the supposed deficiency in public schools, I still think we should try less students per teacher before we start the holistic efforts. I would like to see some of these innovative techniques attempted by a single teacher with thirty-two 6-year-olds. The sad part about this is that our public schools really do encourage innovative teaching practices, mostly because they have to with the large class sizes and the unfair testing that judges (1) teacher's performance by (2) student's progress. Two things that cannot be measured, period.

5) Create new professional opportunities for teachers
Something besides teaching? That scares me. I guess they're saying public school teachers are not professionals, but the (potentially) uncertified, uneducated, unexperienced charter school teachers are.

6) Encourage community and parent involvement in public education
Because everyone knows that our public schools are prison farms that don't allow the community or parents to get involved. What? If their child could go to a new school without low-income students, maybe they wouldn't be afraid to get involved with the school? Or maybe they are scared to volunteer in a secular environment where the crutch of Divine Guidance is missing.

7) Leverage improved public education broadly
I left this one in here because it's on a major charter school web-site as a benefit and the only explanation I can come up with is that since charter schools can be "for profit" corporations or backed and run by "for profit" organizations, that they might be able to leverage the corporate lobby system that plagues our government budget bureaucracy. I guess education pork is a term that would be new to us all.

8) Realize an educational vision
There are many visions that could fall into this category. The vision of segregation (poor vs. privileged mostly), the vision of religion in schools, the vision of cheaper private schools, the vision of destroying the department of education (AKA school reform), the vision of paying non-certified teachers a baby-sitter's salary in the "for profit" alternative schools in low income areas. Realization of these visions is very important to a few influential people. They probably have lobbyists and PR guys. But with a profit motive, the corruption influence will probably go away.

9) Gain autonomy
Autonomy means no oversight. Self supervision created Enron, WorldCom and the wonderful response to Katrina this year, but this is probably the one application where it would work. I guess this means autonomy by the parents because all parents know what's best for their children and it works so well when they get involved in the administration of education. If only those public school teachers would listen to the advice they get in parent-teacher conferences, the whole system would be fixed.

10) Serve a special population
Wasn't this one supposed to be a secret? How did they let the segregation bullet get out on the public site? --- But really, I guess they are probably talking about schools offering special art programs, or physical education programs. Remember when these used to be in public schools. Conservatives in the 80's said they were superfluous, but now we think they should be funded by taxpayer money through charter schools. This is like the conservatives telling you that they will outlaw abortion if you vote for them. It's there to attract a specific audience, but the promises will always fall short.

When I think about this, it just about makes my head explode, but taken in context with all the other crazy things going on in this constitutional theocracy, it shouldn't be surprising. Illegal wars, sanctioned genocide, war profiteering, fear mongering, jingoistic xenophobia and apartheid, oil and defense robber barons, borrow and spend corporatocracy, waiting for the rapture to beam us out of this polluted hell-hole we've created. That's America. Can't we take it back and fix it again? It used to be such a nice place, but these new charter schools will churn out super-smart kids that will fix all these problems in about twenty years. Thank you charter schools! What would we do without you?

Merry Christmas!

Right to Privacy

2005-12-23T01:41:00.000-07:00

Boo Hoo! The Patriot Act wasn't killed in Congress this week, but anyone out there who thinks they might stop spying on us if it's illegal should reconsider. The only place you have a right to privacy is in court. You can take someone to court for outing a secret or uncovering an embarrassing habit, or you can claim that evidence isn't valid to prosecute because it was private (even if it's true). But the police are still going to spy on you. They may be more brazen about it if it's legal and say "What are you going to do about it?", but my guess is that's what they'd say regardless.

What are you going to do about it? How about create a religion around it. We already have a religion where Santa watches over us all the time and if we're good or bad we either get treats, or coal in the next life. Well, here's a real Santa watching over us all the time. He knows if you've been good or bad. He knows what porn you like and where you get your drugs. He knows if you're cheating on your spouse, or if you're just stealing cable or copying CD/DVDs. And mostly he just sits back and collects it all in a giant database. All praise NSA the all knowing God of WWW. W? Where have I seen that letter before. Hmmm.

But really, it's like any law. There's a law against murder, but how many murders were there last week? Answer: More than the average week during the Clinton administration. You like murder, vote Republican. Check the statistics. So the law is there to protect the individual's right after the fact. If you murder me, then I (or my proxy) can take you to court and in criminal cases you could go to jail, and in civil cases you could give me (or my proxy) some money (hopefully my proxy wasn't in on it). It doesn't prevent the act, but hopefully it discourages it. But even that is not the reason we love "justice". Justice is a balance of good against the bad and in the case of capital punishment, a balance of more bad against the bad.

The right to privacy is one of our fundamental rights, but don't think your neighbor is not peeping in your window, or the police aren't listening to your phone calls, because it ain't gonna stop that. So be good because they are watching and we all know the only reason to be good is not to get caught being bad.

Peace!

Not Well-Prepared For Terrorism

2005-12-04T23:52:00.000-07:00

Extra! Extra! This just in... If you were starting to feel like we might have succeeded in making terrorism a simple nuisance like prostitution and illegal gambling, well think again. You should be scared. Very scared, because the latest report says that we are not ready for another attack. Not ready? We've spent thousands of dollars and gutted the Federal Emergency Management Agency and practically sacrificed our child New Orleans to the gods in hopes of protecting ourselves from these evil Islamofascists sent from Allah to destroy Christmas, but to no avail. We are all going to die in a fiery plague because we've become secular (translated as Godless in the GOP) anarchists who allow our activist judges to take the legislation of morality out of our representative theocracy.

But let's not stray off topic. We are supposed to be scared. If we would just cringe in fear and terror, then they wouldn't have to frighten us more with the hurricanes, the bird flu and the terrorists. You ask why they can't just build a 20 foot wall around our entire nation. This is America. We should be able to put that great wall to shame if we just get some Mexicans to build it for us. What would that cost? $50 plus materials? And if we paid them in Canadian dollars, that would be about the price of a soda. Then wouldn't we all feel safe?

But no, the reason we will never see a real wall is that they don't want to invest in making us safe. They only invest in making us scared. If you start to feel safe, then they've failed. The upshot is we don't really need to be protected so it's good that we're not spending a lot of money on this, but the bad part is that we are spending a lot of money on the corruption infrastructure that is built around this idea called homeland security. Here's some more sacrilege; It should have been anticipated earlier, but we protected ourselves from the threat of September 11, 2001 by adding a $50 lock to the pilot cabins on all commercial aircraft. No more planes flying into things. Fixed!

What else do we need protection from? We need protection from a government that keeps us under control with fear. That protection comes from transparency. The magic word that would have won an election for Democrats in 2004 (even though it was rigged.) With transparency there can be no duplicity. Why is there no honor in our government? Culture of corruption sounds too cute. Cancer of depravity or ulcer or lesion or something rotten and disgusting. I would say evil, but it's not based on anger or spite or wickedness as much as simple greed, arrogance and the fear that someone will find out that they are inept. If greed is evil, then we are all guilty of it to some degree, but they have no shame or humility mechanisms to limit the extent of their corruption. It's either ego, or the belief that they've gone so far that they have to keep lying and cheating and killing until they get caught.

What is the future of this country? I am scared for my children's sake, but not of the terrorists.

Required Discussion Topics

2005-11-29T23:57:00.000-07:00

These are the topics that must be discussed here. If anyone can think of others, leave a comment and I'll add them.

* Education and the scourge of charter schools. - DONE
Energy and the death of capitalism.
Environment and the end of humanity.
Enmity and the real reason behind the Iraq massacre
Economy and the corporate junta that has hijacked our country.
Eminent Domain - you thought it was yours. 9/10ths belongs to the people now. This theory sounds familiar.
Evolution and other facts that we should all know.
Ebortion - You mean I can get one online now?
Emergency response: a glimpse inside a septic administration.
Emigration (not from here, and not to anywhere else - you know, Immigration: the latest paper tiger)
Execution: Until we can get rid of that Hannity, we shouldn't be allowed to kill anyone.
Espionage and the core of the Patriot Act.
Excruciation - but if the death penalty is ok, why not torture? Which is more humane?

Health Care and Unions!

2005-11-27T03:18:00.000-07:00

Arrrrgh! Isn't it obvious that corporations need to get out of the health care business and concentrate on whatever product or service they are building. The reason that businesses offer health care is because it attracts employees since good health care is expensive. If the government offered good health care, or if the same health care cost the same for everyone, then there would be no need for businesses to offer these services. Pretty soon, the cost is going to be prohibitive and they will all stop offering health services anyway. The problem will fix itself. How? All sick people will die and then there won't be any need for doctors.

So American auto builders that have been cutting corners to create crappy cars for the past 30 years are now going to layoff 30,000 workers to start. Hopefully McDonald's will offer as good a health care package when they all start working there. I recently checked on the price of COBRA for my company if I have to leave for some unexpected reason and it's $978 a month. I still have a $35 copay when I go to the doctor (because I usually can't get the $10 appointment with my primary care physician), so if my family goes to the doctor 10 times a year, we're looking at about $13,000 a year not including prescriptions. If I get a job making $10 an hour, then this is 62.5% of my income assuming that I don't have to pay any income tax. Why is this example not enough to convince the unions, the government and the people of this country that we have to fix this?

Everyone believes that if we offer real insurance to the people who don't have it, our insurance premiums will go up because they are probably sicker, or more likely to abuse this service. Someone needs to explain the concept of insurance. The more people that subscribe and pay, the less each person pays (in a non-corrupt system). Also, if there are more people who make claims, there are more people to bear the burden of extra costs. Additionally, most people who are really sick will still get treatment anyway, but they will either borrow and default causing you to pay more in other areas including the cost of services, or they will burden friends and family with those costs which is still unfair (especially if that's you!).

There are lots of worldwide examples of success in national health care systems and we are the only industrialized country in the world that ties health care to the corporate interests. If you think that is a good business model that will get you the cheapest, efficient and effective health care services, then you are even more naive than I thought.

Why Don't We Get to Rewrite History Too?

2005-11-21T16:48:00.000-07:00

Revisional Historians? Here's an example of rewriting history:

When I made the decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power, Congress approved it with strong bipartisan support. - President Guess Who

Congress approved the option to use force as a last resort to allow you to go back to the UN and put pressure on them to do more or to create stricter resolutions. To rewrite history and say they all approved of the invasion is a blatant lie.

How about another example in the same speech:

Foreign intelligence services and Democrats and Republicans alike were convinced at the time that former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

If anyone was convinced, it was because you convinced them. How did you convince them? By telling everyone that you could say without a doubt that it was true. Even with this testimonial, there weren't very many members of congress with a D in front of their names that were convinced, and unless Republicans are all a bunch of sheep or are just complete idiots, my guess is that not many of them were convinced either. But look at all the profits we've made from the war. It's really boosted our economy back up and so the thousands of people dead and tens of thousands of people maimed were probably worth it. At least our gasoline prices are a lot lower now. Maybe we should invade Saudi Arabia next.

Didn't Another Great President Go to China?

2005-11-20T01:47:00.000-07:00

Plagued with scandal? Go to China! The last president with a 34% approval rating didn't last long, but unfortunately this time they've packed the Senate, House and Supreme Court with puppets that won't investigate, much less impeach or convict any wrong-doers with a big "R" in front of their names. How will leaving the country help? Out of sight, out of mind? Bringing that old time religion to the communists? Strengthening trade with our most important trade partner in the world? Or is he reporting back to the head of Specter about all the failed initiatives. Maybe Mr. Bush will have a mysterious accident on his return from Asia. Hmmm.

Of course, they've run out of hype news to act as a buffer for all the bad stuff and now the rats are starting to leave (or leak), so what will it take to get congressional Republicans to disavow this president? They obviously don't care about fiscal responsibility looking at our budget deficit, trade deficit, national debt or all the corporation mergers monopolizing energy, defense and the health industry. Corporate responsibility has never been in the GOP vocabulary. Markets will self-moderate. So when Wal-Mart kills all the competition and raises the prices (because they're not making a profit), we can all go on hunger strikes and that will show them.

But, outsourcing is the answer. If we can just pay people in other countries to do all our service work, then it will be cheap enough that we can prevent inflation. What jobs will be left here? I guess the rich people will have to have someone clean their house, mow their lawns, protect them from the mobs that live outside their walls, brave the road warrior anarchy to get their food... or will their food be the mobs that live outside their walls? Mmmmm. Soylent green is poor people.

Are We Living in Brazil?

2005-11-16T00:34:00.000-07:00

An enemy that doesn't really exist, or maybe we created him; Suicide bombers threatening us but with no real purpose (they hate our freedoms); Fifty foot Samurai kidnapped your dream girlfriend and cut off your wings with a Wushu sword... ok, maybe not yet, but close.

President Bush must be a big Terry Gilliam fan, right? Inept and corrupt ministry of information. Surrounding himself by midgets for comic relief. Spending his whole life mistaking himself for the messiah. What's next? Releasing a government created virus that kills 99% of human life so we have to place all our future hopes on Bruce Willis?

We can't bring those troops home yet. We're still attracting the crazed kill-hungry teenagers and the poor minorities with no other "purpose" in society. As soon as we weed out the people in the military and the people that want (or have) to be in the military, we will save a whole lot of defense money (their 15K to 20K a year salaries). We can give that money to the defense contractors to build robots. We need more deaths to make the military unattractive except to those guys that like to torture/bomb brown people.

Secret prisons? Cruel and fairly usual punishment? Creating false intelligence to kill between 100,000 and 200,000 Islamo-fascists. Lying about it and committing treason in a petty act of revenge against a whistle-blower. Don't worry Scooter! You just have to time your conviction for the controversial end of term pardons. If they can choreograph the Tom DeLay and Bill Frist convictions to coincide, it could be a hat trick. Since the cronies are installed in the Supreme Court, just appeal until the bribe sticks, but they have to keep abortion legal or there's no crusade to attract the crazy fundamentalists to this wicked cause.

We're rotting from the inside.

10 Reasons Gay Marriage is Wrong

2005-11-14T15:07:00.000-07:00

Concord Monitor
November 11, 2005
Letters To The Editor

Ten reasons gay marriage is wrong:

1. Being gay is not natural. Real Americans reject unnatural things, like eyeglasses, yoga and air conditioning.

2. Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, just as hanging around with tall people makes you tall.

3. Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to crazy behaviors. People may wish to marry their pets or listen to Celine Dion.

4. Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all. Women are still property, blacks can't marry whites and divorce is illegal.

5. Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage is allowed. The sanctity of Britney Spears's 55-hour marriage would be destroyed.

6. Straight marriage is valid because it produces children. Gay couples, infertile couples and old people should not marry because our orphanages aren't full yet, and the world needs more children.

7. Gay parents will raise gay children because straight parents raise only straight children.

8. Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country.

9. Children can never succeed without a male and female role model at home. That's why our society forbids single parents to raise children.

10. We could never adapt to new social norms. Just as we haven't adapted to cars, fast food restaurants or the internet.

GARY BULLOCK
CANTERBURY

Let's talk politics

2005-11-13T13:18:00.000-07:00

President Bush:
Model Republican - Greed, Fear and Hypocrisy

W = War Criminal, War Profiteer, War Mongerer and War Deserter

Any of these would be treason (maybe not mongerer) and therefore we have to execute our commander-in-chief under our law (after he is convicted), but I'm against the death penalty even in this egregious case, so maybe we can use this trial to pressure him to call in a favor with his activist Supreme Court cronies (Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Scalito) to rule that the death penalty is unconstitutional.

Letter to Senator McCain

2005-11-02T14:17:00.000-07:00

Dear Senator McCain,

I would like to make a deal with you. All that's required on your part is for you to respond directly to this email giving me some acknowledgement that you've read it, and in return, I'll promise to vote for you in the next election. I haven't voted for a Republican since Reagan and I always vote a party line and I always vote, so by taking 5 minutes of your time, you can swing my vote. Granted, that doesn't mean much in Arizona, but it's all I have to bargain with.

My original message was going to be about your endorsement of the honorable Samuel Alito nomination to the Supreme Court. I know your statement just says that we should give him a fair hearing, but my concern is not about his position on gay marriage, or abortion rights, or even gun laws. I worry about him being a card-carrying member of the corporatocracy. In truth, I cannot tell whether you belong to this group either, but you are most definitely an enabler through your support of a party that has been hijacked by such a tiny group with only the interests of their cronies at heart.

With the Democratic party beaten up over the past five years, it would be very easy for you to enlist help from across the aisle to fight a corrupt administration filled with arrogant elitist mobsters by advocating transparency and real conservative values. It appears that no one will break the party line and confront your inept leader or his sycophants no matter how obvious his incompetence becomes. Your ticket to becoming the next President of the United States is standing up to the evils perpetrated by this war criminal cabinet of automatons. How can you let this administration condone torture after what you've been through? How can you honestly say that 2000 American deaths and probably 200,000 Iraqi deaths were worth the sacrifice to bring this facade of a government to Iraq? How can you support the fleecing of our country's wealth and prosperity by the energy, health, pharmaceutical and defense corporations that now run the country through lobbyists and congressional pawns?

It makes me sad that there are so few Americans left willing to fight for real causes in our government. We are rotting from the inside.

About Me

2005-08-24T23:18:00.000-06:00

1. First name?
Aaron

2. Were you named after anyone?
After aardvark but before the AARP

3. Do you wish on stars?
Only that Johnny Depp. He's cool.

4. When did you last cry?
I ran out of tears two weeks after the Judds broke up.

5. Do you like your handwriting?
Handwriting is for sissies. I use telepathy and I invented the telepathic post-it note.

6. What is your favorite lunch meat?
Depends on the time of day, but right now it's roast beef. Mmmm.

7. What is your birth date?
January 31, 1968 - the year of the Tet Offensive, MLK Jr.'s assassination, My Lai Massacre, Russians invasion of Czechoslovakia, Chicago Democratic Convention riots, Paris Riots, beginning of the Hong Kong Flu Pandemic, 231 people die in Sicily earthquake, Prague Spring, Johnson decides not to run and allows the Republicans to regain the White House, Robert Kennedy is shot and killed, Mexican student massacre, French submarine goes down - 52 dead, Israeli submarine goes down - 69 dead, Green Bay wins the superbowl, Volcano erupts in Costa Rica, People can now legaly own telephones and record conversations and use answering machines!, Geraldo starts to grow his mustache, Oil is discovered in Alaska and that crazy Senator Stevens is elected there, Pauly Shore, Celine Dion and Vanilla Ice were born, Yuri Gagarin, Bob Jones Sr., Hellen Keller and John Steinbeck died, Hair opens on Broadway!

8. What is your most embarrassing CD?
I have an Enya CD. Embarrassed about CDs? I might as well be embarrassed about my Barry Manilow action figure set.

9. If you were another person, would you be friends with you?
Sounds difficult. Do you mean friends with the other person I would be, or are there two of me? Would we have the same name, cause I don't think I could hang with that for long. I think I would get tired of the other me being right all the time. I'm kind of an a**hole so he probably wouldn't like me. If he did, I probably wouldn't respect him. Wait, would I stay the same gender if I were another person? Could the "another person" be a famous person from the past? I think that if the other person was Bono that we would get along famously, but if I had to be that Kathrine Harris, the blue eye shadow would irritate the other me into a berserker frenzy and then there would be a showdown with fisticuffs...

10. Do you have a journal?
Sometimes, but usually only for a week or two at a time and then I get bored just talking about myself all the time. Who would want to read that except me, and since I'm living it, it's all up here (I was pointing to my head when I said that last part).

11. Do you use sarcasm a lot?
I tend to use hyperbole and metaphorical facetiousness more than blatant sarcasm. Sarcasm is usually kind of mean and I try to be pleasant to those who are present. Did you ever notice how some accidental rhymes are really irritating when you read them? What connotes "a lot"?

12. What are your nicknames?
They won't tell me. I keep trying to guess, but even if I got it right, I'm not sure they would tell me. They say that I don't need to know, but I think I do. I think I do.

13. Would you bungee jump?
Only in a video game or a dream, but not naked.

14. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off?
Now, that would be silly to untie your shoes after you take them off. My sandals don't have laces and my basketball shoes don't go back on if they are tied. 'Nuff said.

15. Do you think that you are strong?
After a good workout, yes. After a good shower, no.

16. What is your favorite ice cream flavor?
Ice cream is for sissies. I use liquid nails... Oh wait. Ice Cream. I like anything with a Heath bar or bars in it.

17 red or pink?
Pink. Undercooked meat is the leading cause of hair loss in this country.

18 shoe size?
9.5 US, 9 UK, 28 Japan, 44 EU, 270 Korea, 39 Russia and Ukraine, 9.5 Australia, 11 (Women's US)

19. What is your least favorite thing about yourself?
Negativism is never good for the soul. We should concentrate on the positive. I like my ability to adapt.

20. Who do you miss most?
I miss my wife and kids when I'm at work. I miss my brother. I miss all my family. I wish I still had some tears left to show it. Damn you Judds (except Ashley)! I miss having friends...

21. Do you want everyone you send this to send it back?
Yes, I hope that both of the people I send this to send it back. Wait, one of them sent it to me... I hope that the one person I send this to sends it back to me.

22. What color pants and shoes are you wearing?
I prefer transparent pants, but right now I'm wearing the blues with my Stoudemires of course. Amare, you're the greatest!

23. What are you listening to right now?
The drone of my fan in my cube that doesn't drown out the finger nail clipping of my neighbor Doug.

24. Last thing you ate?
A mini Cadbury Flake chocolate bar.

25. If you were a crayon, what color would you be?
What kind of question is this? If I were a pizza, I would be bacon and ham. Oinky goodness, but I think I would prefer to not be any crayon. If I were a color I would be either Winsor & Newton's Alizarin Crimson or Holbein's Cerulean Blue although Phthalo Green or Viridian would be ok too.

26. What is the weather like right now?
Hot! It's always hot here. Sunny or hot or both. It's the desert. Mmmm. Desert.

27. Last person you talked to on the phone.
My wife Jennifer. I love you Jennifer.

28. The first thing you notice about the opposite sex?
Is there really an "opposite" sex? I mean we have more in common than we do in difference. Although indifference seems to be a mostly male trait, I refuse to answer this question because it sounds sexist and I suppose it could incriminate me even though I rarely notice the opposite sex, or the non-opposite sex either. What is the opposite of opposite? "Same" doesn't sound right, it just sounds gay.

29. Do you like the person who sent this to you?
That depends on what the definition of like is. I would have to say mostly yes. But if he would clean my car, I could probably like him more.

30. Favorite Drink?
Can you really have a favorite drink? Maybe if you like Ovaltine, but I drink Diet Pepsi because I have to. Some day we may break the bonds of the soda empire, but until we can find a healthy and fun habit-forming drug with a convenient delivery method and negligible side-effects, I'll stick to the caffeine. God Bless You Caffeine!

31. Favorite Sport?
Playing: basketball. Watching: anything with midgets, or football.

32. Hair Color?
Does hair really have a color? If you magnify it 10,000 times, it's almost clear. And if you pass blue light through the hair, then the hair takes on a blue-ish hue. Also, thinking about all the hairs that we've lost over the past 30 years or so, should we talk about the ones that are left as if they were mere objects. Hairs are people too. Can't we all just get along?

33. Eye Color?
Same as hair color.

34. Do you wear contacts?
Do I ever! No, actually I don't, but sometimes I wish I did. I think you must have to be really tough to stick something in your eye.

35. Favorite Food?
Mmmm! Chicken Fried Steak. I love you chicken fried steak!

36. Last Movie You Watched?
Powwow Highway. But thanks, I was trying to forget. If you like Ed Wood, this movie is for you. I mean Ed Wood the director, not the movie.

37. Favorite Day Of The Year?
Every day is a great day here in the Valley of the Sun!

38. Scary Movies or Happy Endings?
There are scary movies with happy endings. There are unscary movies with unhappy endings, so there are really four permutations here, I would probably prefer the unscary movies with unhappy endings (like Reservoir Dogs), but between scary and happy, it depends. I really like Amelie which wasn't scary, but I really like Alien which was scary and had a happy ending except that Ripley didn't wake up for a couple of hundred years, but you didn't know that at the end of the first movie. Also you didn't know that she would eventually have a baby alien mother in her stomach or that she would die in a big lava pit and have to come back to life in the crappiest Alien movie of all that was directed by the same guy who did Amelie (my favorite movie). Life has a way of throwing you curveballs, eh?

39. Summer or Winter?
Do we really get to choose? Won't everything die if we pick one or the other? Nature has a way of adapting which happens to be one of my better qualities, but we don't seem to be adapting very well (as a country) to this Nookular winter president. Maybe when he assassinates Hugo Chavez, we'll figure it out.

40. Hugs or Kisses?
Can you really have one without the other? That's like Hardy without Laurel, or bagels without cream cheese, or Bananarama without Siobhan Fahey, unless it's a group hug. I'm not sure kisses would be appropriate then.

41. What Is Your Favorite Dessert?
The Mohave. I haven't been to many others (that I know of).

42. Who Is Most Likely To Respond?
Data miners and analytic technologists have been trying to find the answer to this question for years. How do you find out who's most likely to respond. And with statistics, it depends what message you're trying to get across. 34% of all people know that statistics can be manipulated to say anything. Or are you asking who's most likely to respond to the drugs they put in our water supply? That's a whole different problem.

43. Who Is Least Likely To Respond?
Respond comes from the French and originally from the Latin to make a promise. So I wonder if this question is about who is least likely to make a promise, or least likely to keep a promise because that's probably two different answers. Of the people who say, "Sure, I'll respond" I would say that a large percentage will respond, but more likely, everyone will not make the commitment to respond and then since there was no promise, there will be no response.

44. Living Arrangements?
Should life really be arranged? Spontaneity is under-rated, or is it over-rated? Is this kind of like that near-sighted/ far-sighted problem where if your far-sighted does that mean you have a problem seeing things far away, or you're more comfortable looking at things far away? Like the righty-tighty lefty-loosy and for every finger you point, there are three pointing back at you (unless you're alone in the dark, or you had some horrible war disfigurement). But I digress... Don't you hate it when people say that. It's like, "but I just like to hear myself talk, so I went on about something that you don't want to hear about for hours and now we can get back to the thing that you wanted to talk about."

45. What Books Are You Reading?
Freakonomics, Mirror Mirror, The Borgias, OFDM and MC-CDMA, The Narnia books, The Zinn Reader, The Great Unraveling - Yeah, I'm a reader.

46. What's On Your Mouse Pad?
Hopefully my mouse unless someone stole it.

47. What Did You Watch Last night on TV?
The Daily Show, and two episodes of the Al Franken Show, the beginning of Once Upon a Time in China II (very painful).

48. Favorite Smells?
Chicken Fried Steak.

49. Favorite Sound?
Chicken Fried Steak.

50. Rolling Stones or Beatles?
Beatles. Stones are just a bunch of hippies with no talent. The Beatles were a well-oiled machine until that Yoko came along. I'll bet she gave Naomi that hepatitis C. Damn you Yoko!

51. What's the furthest you've been from home?
The furthest I've been from home was when I went to Dover, UK with my wife. At 5342 miles from Chandler that was the furthest physically I've been from home. I won't talk about mentally...

Letter to Senator Frist

2005-06-23T14:12:00.000-06:00

Dear Senator Frist,

I want to commend your recent actions as the protector of decency in this great country of ours. Your political correctness is refreshing. Senator Durbin has been sufficiently humiliated as a result of your actions, but as the champion of decorum I wanted to help focus your attention on another offender that is equally egregious. Hopefully your influence can correct this problem too.

I'm sure that I don't have to tell you the definition of hypocrisy, but in March earlier this year Senator Santorum was faced with a similar battle as yourself when he denounced Senator Byrd's remarks comparing our government to Nazi Germany. He said,

"Senator Byrd's inappropriate remarks comparing his Republican colleagues with Nazis are inexcusable. These comments lessen the credibility of the Senator and the decorum of the Senate. He should retract his statement and ask for pardon."

At the time I agreed with Senator Santorum that Senator Byrd was out of order, but only two months later when discussing the Democrat's criticism of the "nuclear option" he himself took the analogy even further with this statement:

"It's the equivalent of Adolf Hitler in 1942 saying: I'm in Paris, how dare you invade me, how dare you bomb my city? It's mine."

Multicultural awareness and sensitivity are obviously your number one priority and without these, our Senate would devolve into a bickering contest focusing on inane distractions and no work would get done whatsoever. In the name of productivity, I think it is your duty to bring this issue to the floor and force Senator Santorum to atone for his indiscretions. If we can pull him back onto the righteous path, he will become a credible defender of moral indignation in our government.

Letter to Senator Durbin

2005-06-22T14:05:00.000-06:00

Date: June 22, 2005

Dear Senator Durbin,

Kudos to you! If only we had a Senator in Arizona with the nerve to stand up and tell it like it is on the Senate floor it would make me proud. When you described the treatment of the prisoners at Guantanamo, I think it was completely appropriate to talk about oppressive regimes and the path that we are taking by ignoring these indiscretions. I'm not sure how anyone could compare your statements with the ones by the honorable Mister Santorum when he compared Democrats to Hitler because of their opposition to the "nuclear option" and the hypocrisy of denouncing another Senator for the same hyperbolic contempt only a few weeks earlier.

What bothers me now is the apology that you have been pressured to give by the crazy right-wing radicals. You have to know that there are many of us in this country that are depending upon you to be our shield, but that we don't have the time or the megaphone to make our position heard the way the organized propaganda GOP machine can. In my opinion, this apology makes you and the rest of the Democrats look weak because you've backed down from a position where you were perfectly right. You appear to be cowed.

I'm sure that you don't need any political advice, but if you were absolutely forced to make this apology, it would have been the perfect opportunity to deflect and get one of the hundreds of other messages out that Democrats need for the people to hear. An example of an apology that would have filled the requirements for apologizing, but would attract Democratic support and Republican respect (or contempt) would
have been something like this:

Fellow Honorable Senators, I come before you humbled and would like to ask your forgiveness. Last week I fell into a trap that looms near for all of us in this era of heightened tensions. I took a gravely important situation where American soldiers and citizens both are being forced to perform despicable acts of torture and humiliation through policy decisions by corrupt or inept leaders, and I minimized it by comparing it to other similar situations in other corrupt administrations merely for the shock value of the association. Please forgive me because what this does is take the focus off the real issue of torture and puts it on me. I believe that we have to address this issue especially in light of the President's lack of willingness to acknowledge the existance of any problems. There is no reason for me to resort to the hyperbolic tactics of my fellow Senators (Santorum and Frist) to make my point here and from now on I will remain focused strictly on the facts. As you know, I do not blame the men and women who were given these foul orders, but would like only to investigate the policies that enable or condone these acts because to fight terrorism, we don't have to become terrorists. Thank you for your time.

Unfortunately, all the reports I have seen make your apology sound as if you really believe that you did something wrong and that you insulted our troops in some way. I hope that you will continue to be outspoken because the only way to get any air time on this right-wing controlled media is by saying something that ruffles feathers. You have my support. Keep fighting!