hairy alpaca

Well, somebody has to say it

2010-08-24T19:11:00.000-07:00

Does America deserve freedom of speech?

I realize it's just my opinion, and I can voice it thanks to a long history of victories against those who would seek to suppress it, but I'm starting to think that this nation is too stupid to wield such an awesome power as the right of its people to enter freely into the war of ideas. I'm not saying the current state of ideas in this country is wrong because I disagree with the various positions. I'm saying it's wrong because the political conversation has been hijacked by bold-faced liars, cheats and opportunists -- and Americans are either unwilling or unable to understand truth from fiction. We are being held hostage by rhetoric that is not only blatantly false but repeated willfully by a network of media outlets and politicians who face no repercussions for their words.

Why is this happening? It's unhinged freedom of speech. Our most fundamental and important liberty is also killing this country. It's infuriating and hilarious, all at the same time (unless you still have even a shred of faith left in the American people -- then it's just infuriating).

I could cite as a broad example just about anything that comes out of Sarah Palin's mouth on any given day, but allow me to address a specific piece of false information that Palin introduced into the war of ideas, one that was both disastrously misleading and arguably damaging to millions of people who are suffering from terminal diseases: the issue of palliative care.

Palliative care is a relatively new medical science, and it focuses on end-of-life decisions. When somebody is diagnosed with a terminal illness, such as pancreatic cancer, the option that most oncologists will support is to throw everything possible at the disease, despite the unlikelihood of being successful, and hope for the best.

Palliative care, on the other hand, takes a different tack. Patients are given the regular options that an oncologist would cover -- chemo, radiation, etc. -- but also are able to consult with doctors about how they wish to spend the rest of their time, how they wish to manage their pain and how they can deal with the various family, religious and legal issues associated with the potential end of their life. It's not throwing in the cards; it's acknowledging that the end might be near, and having an honest conversation about what that means to a terminal patient.

It makes fucking sense. And it's supported by science. A recent study showed that terminal patients who participated in palliative care lived longer and more pain-free. They also were happier, despite their dire circumstances.

Now let me take you back several months, because if you followed the health care debate at all, you've heard of palliative care -- just not in the rational, sane way that it should have been presented. Back then, Democrats inserted language into the bill that would provide funding for palliative care, and although it was such a minor aspect of the bill, it exploded as a key controversy during the debate.

That's because Palin, in a hysterical, rabid and disingenuous attempt to kill the legislation, wildly misinterpreted the wisdom of palliative care. She called it a "death panel." And the label stuck. So much so that Democrats stripped the provision from the bill to avoid all-out war.

War over what, you may ask? Nobody really knows. The logical connection between doctors talking with patients about end-of-life decisions and doctors deciding who is going to die is so disconnected from reality that it's hard to even fathom. What's even more hard to fathom is that Americans would believe such horseshit.

But Palin flapped her treacherous mouth, and Americans ate it up. Because they are idiots. It was our freedom of speech in action.

Am I suggesting we rescind our most honored tradition? Of course not. But in an age of instant replication of speech across a vast network of media, we really need some system of accountability. The fact that one person is able to lie -- and that lie is subsequently able to crush a legitimate movement toward better medical care -- just seems like an affront to what the Founders had in mind.

Or, alternatively, freedom of speech is working as intended, and this country has just gone completely insane. Maybe, just maybe, we should think long and hard about that.

Facing a new year

2010-07-13T21:38:00.000-07:00

As the sun sets on what would otherwise be another passing Tuesday afternoon, I take stock of the past year and prepare to usher in my second day of being 29. Though I have yet to greet that unyielding inevitability that is 30, it's funny to note that already my birthdays have become surprisingly insignificant to me. I acknowledge the many gracious pronouncements of cheer from my friends and family, but inside I feel as though it's just another fading sunset. I imagine that, eventually, I will reach an age where I will welcome and cherish each day of my dwindling youth, as a musician may desperately hang on the final notes of a sad song, but until then I am still convinced of my eternal and unburdened 20s.

It was an incredible year, and I changed my life in many fundamental ways. I laughed a little longer. I worked a little harder. I cherished my friends and family, spilled a little blood, shed some tears, and ultimately I gained the confidence to be the man I always hoped to be. I gave a little, and I took a little, and I always remembered to love.

I let go when it seemed impossible, and I faced some demons when they were most irascible. Some remain, tickling at my subconscious with unrelenting ferociousness. I will battle on, with the new weapons of wisdom that derive with age. Most of all, I will never surrender to fear.

So let's see what 29 has to offer. I'll let my willingness to explore light the way to these vast new adventures.

Milestones

2010-03-11T21:34:00.000-08:00

It occurred to me today that I have arrived at a particularly meaningful point in my journey to be a medic. As of yesterday, I've pulled as much knowledge as I'm going to pull from books about being an EMT. Classes and labs have ended, and all that stands between me and an Emergency Medical Technician certification is as follows:

* 140-question written examination over two terms
* Practical examination over medical and trauma patient assessment
* National written examination covering an entire 1,200-page textbook (70 to 140 questions)
* State practical examination over every skill in the EMT scope of practice: Patient assessment (medical and trauma), oxygen administration (mouth-to-mask, nonrebreather and nasal cannula), spinal immobilization (seated and supine), splinting (joint and long-bone injuries), control of bleeding and shock, and defibrillation.

I've learned an astounding amount of information about how our bodies work, how our bodies react to injury, and how to keep people alive using basic life support measures, despite the best efforts of our bodies to kill us. These include:

* Conducting effective CPR on adults, children, infants and neonates.
* Administering several medications, including: High-flow oxygen (to treat hypoxia), nitroglycerin (angina and acute myocardial infarction), epinephrine (anaphylaxis), inhalers (asthma and respiratory distress), activated charcoal (overdoses and poisoning) and oral glucose (hypoglycemia associated with diabetic emergencies).
* I can recognize and immediately treat people who are moderately or severely injured -- or near death -- from any of the following scenarios: allergic reactions, diabetic emergencies, respiratory and cardiac emergencies, environmental emergencies (hyperthermia, hypothermia, drowning), head, brain and spinal injuries, soft tissue injuries (lacerations, abrasions, avulsions, burns, amputations, eviscerations, gunshots, stab wounds), musculoskeletal injuries (fractures, dislocations, sprains, strains), poisonings and chemical exposure, behavioral emergencies, acute abdominal distress (appendicitis, peritonitis, internal bleeding), shock, venous and arterial bleeding, pediatric emergencies, and neurological emergencies (stroke, seizures).
* I can, believe it or not, successfully deliver a baby, including post-delivery care, and I can recognize and provide interventions for common obstetric complications, including breech birth, prolapsed cord, eclampsia and pre-eclampsia, placenta previa and placenta abruptio, and premature birth.
* I know how to interact with and properly assess injured kids at all ages, which is generally understood to be the hardest part of this line of work, as well as geriatric patients.
* I can use big, impressive-sounding medical terms, but I know that the key to good patient care is effective communication, respect, quick thinking, and knowing my shit. I know that I can gain somebody's trust -- even somebody who is in severe distress and fearful of dying -- simply by kneeling down to his level, looking him in the eye, asking for his name and saying I'm here to help.

I still have tons of education ahead of me. I will learn the difference between how things are done in textbooks, and how they are done in the real world. And although I will soon be an EMT, I still have a few years of school before I'm a paramedic.

But, as of now, I've accomplished what I initially set out to achieve: I can save lives. And for that I am humbled, excited and terrified.

Sunday blues

2010-02-28T17:25:00.000-08:00

Lingering moments of quiet reflection seem to be a limited commodity in this bankrupt world. I think if everybody took a few moments during their day to stop everything and think about life outside the normal stream of consciousness -- be it a fleeting acknowledgment of their lives or a whisper of a contemplation -- the gain in happiness, self-improvement and ease of mind would be immeasurable.

My reflection for the day: I'm sitting here in my cave, reading about the finer points of delivering babies in preparation for my test tomorrow, and wondering why oh why am I not outside enjoying the nice weather with my friends -- far away from this town. I worry that my goals are infringing on my adventurous spirit. I need to find some kind of balance, lest I go batshit crazy, or even worse find myself the lonely soul in a crowded room.

Also: Fuck Canada!

A lesson in subtlety: Newspapers rule and all other media suck my ass

2010-01-11T00:44:00.001-08:00

As you can probably guess from hearing me rant about journalism, I'm an old-school newspaper purist. I don't trust any other form of media, nor do I have much faith in the capability of other media to achieve the same level of quality or serve the same vital watchdog role as newspapers.

So you can imagine why I'm so depressed that newspapers are starting to suck.

Without quality newspapers, along with their vibrant staffing of superior reporters and funding for investigative projects, the state of American journalism is dead. The current downfall of print already is painful and debilitating, but you can bet that it will be much worse when we eventually rely solely on press release re-writes, gotcha celebrity drivel, weak oversight of our continually corrupt government and unskilled, agenda-driven Internet bloggers.

How can I know this? Simple concept: Newspapers drive American journalism. No other source of information plays such a crucial role in feeding other forms of media than print. In TV news, assignment editors are expected to read the newspaper to gather story ideas. Radio cites newspapers, and newspaper reporters are featured as expert witnesses to the dealings of the day. Internet journalism -- a phrase I use in the loosest possible sense -- would cease to exist in its current form without the luxury of linking to or quoting from newspaper stories.

Even if newspapers simply move their operations completely online, thus transforming Internet journalism, it's still hopeless until a miraculous new funding model can be introduced. Online revenue models for newspapers don't begin to make up for the advertising dollars that print sales used to provide, which in turn allowed for the kind of staffing and talent necessary to be the superior form of media in terms of quality. Currently, a majority of newspapers are giving away their content for free on the Internet. There surely needs to be something between free and profit that allows newspapers to thrive on the Web, and right now nobody seems to know what the hell that might be.

A story out today found that newspapers still provide a vast majority of the original local content, while the Internet only graced us with 6% of original reporting. The study also found that competing with the Internet -- that is, competing with a medium that provides its content for free -- is leading newspapers down a dangerous road of posting press release re-writes online just to get the information out quicker, and then sometimes not even updating or writing legitimate stories to follow up.

If you're unfamiliar with the concept of press release re-writes, let me give you a brief overview: It's a bullshit, lazy way to be a journalist. An organization sends the reporter a brief statement of "facts" that the journalist then re-writes in his or her own words without fact-checking or even really providing any original thought. The "story" is then regurgitated back to the masses as if actual journalism were done. This is the kind of reporting that has become necessary, according to the study, in order for newspapers to convince the American public that they are still relevant, in the sense that they are able to vomit out questionable material at a fast enough pace.

We can gather from all this that the Internet is not only killing newspapers -- it's actually destroying journalism. The daily newspaper model of researching and carefully crafting stories may not serve us in our give-it-to-me-now culture, but it damn well works out when it comes to providing quality, factual, reliable, credible information. Journalism schools don't really teach you to write; they teach you to think, question and analyze. We can only hope that those skills eventually fit in with the American desire for instant informational gratification.

Don't get me wrong -- I enjoy the luxury or reading my news online. But if a newspaper staff isn't writing it, and a city desk isn't editing it, and a copy desk isn't fact-checking it, then it's simply not credible for me. Working in the American newspaper industry has given me a certain perspective and expectation for quality journalism, and I'll stack it up to any other form of media in the world, hands down.

What I've learned, 2009 edition

2009-12-30T02:11:00.000-08:00

Some personal lessons from a very long year:

* The fear of rejection is much more debilitating than being rejected. If living in fear is slavery, then taking a chance is your liberation. I'll learn this lesson a thousand times; one of these days, I'll take my own advice.

* Following your dreams should always be painful and agonizing. That way, if you take your licks and stay on track, you know it's the right path. The reward is true happiness.

* I either don't understand love, or I don't understand women. Either way, money can't buy it.

* Soul mates exist. And no, you never really get over it.

* I realize now that I'm part social conformist and part emotional anarchist. That is, I often act within the boundaries of the group, but I never compromise my feelings. Those I own completely.

* Successful people learn how to solve problems, not seek blame for them. This can be applied to every aspect of life.

* Never talk shit. It's a fact that your target is in some way better or more talented than you, and you're probably just jealous.

* Journalism is dead. Americans killed it. Americans, and greed. I hope somebody revives it in my lifetime.

* Most people want to make a million dollars. I want to save a million lives. It's corny but true.

* The first time I glide a duel-lumen tube into somebody's esophagus, I'll know I've finally made it.

EMT perspectives

2009-12-13T21:24:00.000-08:00

I've concluded, based on what I've learned so far about the EMT experience, that one of the greatest road blocks to good patient care is an inability to empathize with the sick and injured. Undoubtedly, this shortcoming can result from any of several circumstances, be it complete burnout from dealing with horrible situations on a daily basis, skewed motivations for being a medic in the first place, or inexperience with the feelings of terror associated with the receiving end of a true emergency.

In short, if you can't empathize as an EMT, you're either sick of your job, too full of yourself to express concern, or simply can't conceptualize what it feels like to think you're about to die.

Inherent in this line of work is a tendency to feel excited about being involved in true emergencies, which carries with it a double-edged sword: In order to take part in a true emergency, somebody needs to be truly hurt. We hear medics -- both career and those in training -- excitedly tell stories about the latest mayhem as if they're comparing gleeful war stories. Does this mean these medics inadvertently enjoy seeing people in pain? Or do they just enjoy the rush of helping people get through that pain? Obviously, this career includes a hero aspect that, combined with the chemical reactions of high-pressure situations, can affect your mind like a drug.

I'll tell you one thing: The patient in crisis would be surprised to learn that his or her traumatic experience is just another exciting story for the medics. Then again, maybe the thrill of a call is what keeps people in this career sane long enough to retire.

I'm approaching this from the view of somebody who has yet to go out on a call or be exposed to an overly traumatic emergency situation. But I find myself getting eager about the prospect of seeing these things, and I wonder whether this is the right perspective to take. When it comes time for me to decide what kind of medic I'm going to be, I think I have to find a balance between my motivation to help people in a professional, skilled and empathic manner, and my urge to experience the adrenaline associated with crazy and gruesome situations. I imagine that if you lean too much one way or the other, you ultimately become an ineffective emergency provider.

My journey begins

2009-10-18T21:39:00.000-07:00

I was reflecting the other day to a friend that life can be equated to a series of significant events that, once experienced, can never be relived the same way ever again. I listed off some examples from the top of my head: first sleepover, first kiss, first time driving, first graduation day, first marriage day, first birth, first night living away from home.

Most optimists would say that the challenge is to make all the insignificant events that happen in between -- what you're doing here, now, at this moment -- matter for something. Unfortunately, this root beer I'm drinking will never taste quite like the first time I ever tried root beer. But it's still sweet, and it still bubbles in my mouth, and I can still remember the first time.

If I had a book of significant events in my life, I would include an entry for the first day of my first Emergency Medical Services class. It wasn't as much what I learned as what I didn't learn.

I would love to say that I had some cosmic epiphany during this first class about the deeper meaning of dedicating my life and well-being to people who will meet me in their worst possible circumstances. I would be humbled to report that I was so inspired by the instructor's words that I found the underlying reason for my desire to be slapped by the harsh palm of reality. At the very least, it would be nice if I could deliver a significant explanation for this journey on which I've embarked -- to be a paramedic.

I can do none of those things.

Maybe it's because I don't need an explanation. Maybe my drive for logical reasons for everything that happens in my life has broken down. I feel so overwhelmed by the weight of this journey that I can't breathe. I ache at the notion that I'm making the wrong decision.

Then I remember that day last term in my biology class when I discovered the meaning of my path. I saw a girl collapse out of her chair, and I didn't think; I reacted. Here's another one for that book of significant events: First emergency. I was at her side in a blink, and I watched her open her eyes as I was bending down to check her breathing and pulse. I looked at her, and she looked at me, and we shared a moment of panic. That moment affected me deeply. She's OK, I thought to myself. Or did I say it out loud? Then, the rush of chemicals, the dizzy feeling in my head, and that internal knowledge that I was experiencing a deep, human feeling with her: the fear of the unknown.

I was still kneeling. I looked down at my arm; it was still clutching her shoulder. I'd put it there to gently shake her when she was momentarily unconscious. My mouth was dry. My vision was clear and focused. I asked if she was OK. She looked confused. Finally, she nodded.

The exhilarating panic was replaced with relief. She was breathing, and I didn't have to crack her ribs. When I looked around the room, I was shocked. I was the only one there.

I felt something that day that I'd never experienced before, and it's not something you read in a book. It's not something that an instructor can dictate to you on the first day of your first EMS class. It was facing the unexpected with confidence and accepting the fear. It was exciting. It was frightening. It was beautiful.

Who let the dipshits out?

2009-08-12T22:02:00.001-07:00

It must be very disheartening to be a Congressman.

You kiss millions of asses and spend millions of dollars to win a tiny office in the nation's Capitol, where you spend your years vying for power with 434 other lawmakers. You rant, rave, kiss babies, sell your soul and dodge scandals, and at the end of the day when it's time to come home and relax, you're greeted with a bunch of constituents who attend your town hall meetings and spew a bunch of bullshit from the Glenn Beck show. They yell and scream about socialism and Nazis and birth certificates until the whole world seems like it's going to collapse in a wave of paranoid schizophrenia.

And then the realization hits: You've just wasted years of your life representing a bunch of idiots who actually believe the president of the United States is endorsing a diabolical plot to kill babies and grandmas. These constituents are lacking the basic reasoning skills necessary to understand that the system we have now, where insurance companies decide whether or not you are worthy of getting health care, is more akin to "death panels" than a government option, where all people would be accepted regardless of pre-existing conditions. Oh, and don't forget rationing! As if our current system doesn't ration health care to those who can pay exorbitantly high premiums -- and leave everybody else in the cold.

I never imagined Americans could be so capable of stabbing themselves in the back.

Psychic regurgitation

2009-08-02T22:32:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been struck with the sickening, panic-stricken feeling that I have a fundamental misunderstanding of human relationships. This is usually followed by a short period of soul-wrenching hopelessness, in which I over-analyze every attempt I've made to connect with a female. Brooding comes next, often as I speed through the city at night, cursing myself for being so obsessively introspective. Anxiety pulses through me. I feel like I'm in a dark comedy, only I'm not completely in on the joke.

What I can't conceptualize during these bouts of hazy loneliness is how anybody can possibly hang on long enough to cut through this shell I've constructed for myself. Long enough to see that I'm actually a pretty happy, outgoing person under these layers of jaded boredom. Because it's becoming increasingly hard for me to give a shit when I'm feeling like this. I desperately search for some kind of meaning, but I only find emptiness and anger boiling inside me over my own failures.

And just like that, the feeling fades away. I force it to fade away. Life is way too fucking short to feel like this.

On being self-absorbed

2009-06-21T15:56:00.001-07:00

A short moment for personal crap:

Lately I feel stuck when I try to write, like I have nothing interesting to say, or I have too much to say and my brain can't conceptualize it. Mostly I'm just too stressed out to care about anything past my own problems. It's a selfish self-absorption, a byproduct of following nearly impossible dreams and worrying endlessly about my place in the world. Often, the consequence plays out in my relationships, and thus I'm back to where I was a couple years ago: wondering what comes next. A little bit lonely. A little bit scared. Left with the overbearing feeling that I'm running out of time to get it right. My eyes are open, but I'm stumbling around in the dark.

Maybe the dark is where I'm most comfortable. It hurts when I hit a wall, but it's challenging and morbidly exciting. Boredom is more than a feeling for me; it's a significant detour to living my life. I want to fight boredom on all fronts, and maybe the unconscious way I do that is to force uncertainty on myself. Unfortunately, my hunger for adventure is often too single-minded. It's hard for me to share the hunger with others.

I would call this a momentary feeling of discord, but I'm reminded of something I wrote a few years back during a similar period. It sounds eerily familiar:

My life is always so dull when I'm comfortable. What I really need is a little chaos, agony, repression, emotional warfare. I think it invigorates my soul. I think it reminds me that I'm human and alive and capable of doing something besides this corporate, soul-eating office life.

So here I go again, taking another step into darkness. Also: Can anybody remind me how to, like, date?

@ Grassley: u r an asshole

2009-06-07T21:18:00.000-07:00

One thing I've never understood about the American political system is how being elected president seems to automatically exclude you from the right to enjoy yourself ever again. Granted, some presidents have taken the idea of down time to the extreme, such as Bush's penchant for vacationing in Texas every time Cheney had a heart arrhythmia. But this obsession with Obama's extracurricular activities, and the notion that he shouldn't be able to leave the office long enough to show his wife a night on the town, is just getting ridiculous.

I mean, the man can't even have a fucking cheeseburger without Fox News concluding that his taste for mustard is anti-American. We've reached a sorry state of affairs when a major news network in America spends an entire week dissecting the president's choice of condiments.

Today, Chuck Grassley of Iowa bitched about Obama sightseeing in Paris during his trip to Europe. Grassley, who apparently doesn't speak the English language, had these things to say, via Twitter:

"Pres Obama you got nerve while u sightseeing in Paris to tell us 'time to deliver' on health care. We still on skedul/even workinWKEND."

"Pres Obama while u sightseeing in Paris u said 'time to delivr on healthcare' When you are a 'hammer' u think evrything is NAIL I'm no NAIL."

First of all: What the hell is he talking about? I can gather that he's angry about Obama inserting himself into the health care debate as Congress plods along on legislation, but the whole hammer/nail thing is escaping me. And whoever showed a 150-year-old Republican senator from Iowa how to use Twitter must be shot. Immediately.

Drudge also whined today about how Obama's wife and kids stayed in Paris for an extra day so they could shop, while Obama headed back to the White House. Well, holy shit. I can't believe the travesty. I can't believe the first family would want to shop in one of the world's most popular places to, uh, shop. The audacity is beyond words.

Protesters protest....uh....what?

2009-04-15T22:04:00.000-07:00

My hope in the next sentence is that I can write a summary of today, Tax Day, without lapsing into a fatal depression.

So, here goes: Waving overtly racist signs and grasping desperately for relevance, a sea of Fox News viewers calling themselves "tea baggers" took to the streets on Tax Day, hoping to catch the spirit of the historic Boston Tea Party in which American colonists rose up against unfair taxation by the British. And somehow -- some fucking how -- that makes sense to every leading conservative commentator in America.

Well, apparently, this country is still rampaged by toothless idiots in Sarah Palin T-shirts who mistake racism for a legitimate airing of grievances. People who clearly skipped their high school history classes to smoke meth in the bathroom and hit each other in the head with hammers from the wood shop. People who wield the greatest power in the world -- freedom of speech -- to wave racially charged signs about Barack Obama's heritage at a fucking anti-tax rally. Huh?

The organizers of these protests probably thought the populist message would usher in some new conservative era, like a generational wave washing over America in some bullshit sea change of Republican politics. Instead, it made one thing clear: Nobody in the conservative movement knows what the fuck they're doing. I mean, what was the message of Tea Bag '09? You surely won't be able to tell from the signs. Was it that corporate bailouts are bad? Was it that Obama is a socialist/facist/Hitler/Kenyan/Jew? Was it that Obama wasn't born in America? Was it that income taxes are unfair? Was it that liberals want to kill your children? Was it that conservatives are just pissed off and aren't capable of collectively deciding what they're pissed off about? Please, somebody tell me; I'm dying to know.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised, or enraged, by the fact that so many people are incapable of independent thought. This is the same schtick that's been running on conservative airwaves since Obama declared his candidacy. We aren't hearing anything new, and if this is the future of conservatism, I guess we can rejoice.

Oh, and how could I forget the best part of the day: Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Hopping on the hysterical rhetoric bandwagon, Perry toured the state with his new Texas-must-secede message. As if the possibility of Texas leaving the union is supposed to be some revolutionary act aimed at stoking populist rage and proud Texan independence. SNORE. Hell, it's perfectly OK with me. I hope the whole state breaks off from the continent and floats away into the Gulf of Mexico. The sooner Texas leaves the United States, the sooner we can kick their congressmen and senators to the curb. Not to mention that we can avoid any possibility of one of the Bush twins running for president.

Religion: The abusive drunk uncle that won't go away

2009-04-03T12:27:00.000-07:00

I've reached the stage in the pre-paramedic program where the school tries to cram as much science into my head as possible in a 10-week period. The hope is two-fold: One, students will realize that it's way too much work and just quit, thus weeding out the slackers from the dedicated; and two, students will either learn or relearn how to think at the scientific level -- that is, make critical conclusions based on observable information.

Clearly, science-based observing and concluding is helpful with medical emergencies, such as when somebody is grabbing his throat and looking panicked. A critical thinker might draw the conclusion based on these observations that the man is choking. Conversely, a fundamentalist might draw the conclusion based on these observations that that the man has been taken over by an invisible demon living in the ground. And thus you have the difference between science and religion.

The crux of my little observation here is that the so-called "war on science" by religious people and groups is a misnomer. War implies that two sides or factions are fighting each other. This is incorrect. The core mission of science is not to disprove religion, or to disprove anything for that matter. That's the whole point: Science doesn't prove anything, it only theorizes based on observations over a period of time. We're all pretty sure that when we throw a ball in the air on Earth, it will fall. However, it's possible that one day, it'll just keep going up, and then the theories will be revisited. It will most likely never happen, but science concedes that it could. Until then, gravity is the highest truth available based on the facts.

Scientists will never ask the question of whether God created gravity, not because science is fighting religion but because the hypothesis is impossible to test. Why should science suddenly reject its method of observing simply because a massive group of people believe in God? The faithful keep treating scientific theories as a war on God, but really it's science that is being assaulted. The fundamental beauty of science is that it can evolve and change as new information becomes available. You can't say the same about faith.

Rhymes with dope

2009-03-17T13:24:00.000-07:00

So the pope -- you know, the God-chosen leader of the Catholics -- traveled to Africa -- you know, where 22 million people are dying of AIDS -- and told its people that condoms are bad. Why? Because an invisible man in the sky who created the vast universe and life itself apparently gives a shit if somebody straps on a piece of latex before having sex. That's why. Yet more evidence that the pope is a soulless, hysterical idiot:

(From The Advocate, via Google News) Pope Benedict XVI has declared that condom use not only doesn't slow down the spread of HIV/AIDS, but actually makes the pandemic worse.

"You can't resolve [AIDS] with the distribution of condoms," the pope told reporters on Tuesday aboard a plane headed to Africa, a continent ravaged by AIDS. "On the contrary, it increases the problem."

According to the New York Times, Benedict has never addressed condom use. Predecessor Pope John Paul II often proclaimed abstinence, not condoms, would prevent the deadly spread of AIDS.

The Roman Catholic Church rejects the use of condoms based on its teachings against artificial contraception.

Hey, Cardinal Ratfucker, here's a tip: What the people of Africa need is some fucking help, not a sanctimonious speech from a man who lives in a golden palace in Rome and tells other people how to live. If you really want to make a difference, put down your diamond-studded scepter and feed an African child dying of starvation.

Cheney the irrelevant

2009-03-16T13:39:00.000-07:00

I was beginning to enjoy my life as an American again, when suddenly I was reminded that this country twice elected a criminal mastermind. And then my day really started to suck.

This troubling nugget of history roared back into my consciousness when the madman himself managed to con his way onto Sunday's TV circuit and try to scare the pants off us, just like he did when he was our fearless leader. But for all of Dick Cheney's masterful efforts at controlling his emotions while whining hysterically about our intrusive Constitution, I couldn't help but sense an overt fear in his own rhetoric. A sort of thinly veiled desperation.

And I know why.

It's simple: The only way history will justify the actions of the Bush administration is if Obama fails to prevent another attack on America. Just picture how awful Bush/Cheney will look if Obama succeeds in ending the wars AND preventing an attack AND repealing all of the sinister, Constitution-violating "reforms" of the Bush administration. I think we'll all reach the same conclusion: All those "reforms" -- the torture, rendition, spying, violations of civil liberties -- were a bullshit power grab that didn't necessarily protect us from anything. In this sense, Cheney is secretly praying for an attack while feigning all this concern for America. What a dick.

So, yeah, Cheney is kind of freaking out. Imagine an America where people can enjoy safety from terrorism while retaining their civil liberties (and that even goes for alleged terrorists, who deserve due process just like any other accused criminal). An America like that is a threat to Cheney and his fascist, big-government ideals.

After watching the Cheney spectacle and reaching these conclusions, I felt a lot better. Cheney isn't doing anything more than trying to sell his legacy to an increasingly skeptical public. After all, who wants to die knowing he or she was arguably the worst thing that ever happened to America?

The power of spelling

2009-03-08T14:33:00.000-07:00

Not doing much for your cause there, buddy.

EDIT: As mentioned on the ensuing comment section, an increase in inter cranial pressure is generally, you know, a bad thing.

Housekeeping

2009-03-06T10:13:00.000-08:00

Observations for the day:

#1: I need to stop prefacing my sentences. Free tip: Overused subordinating and dependent clauses make writing weak, especially if you use them to pad the effect of a sentence. An example in a recent blog post:

I don't know if anybody else has noticed this, but our culture has officially cratered into an abyss of mindless superficiality, petty judgments and worthless bottom-feeding celebrity gossip drivel.

The subordinating clause of that sentence is useless and lazy. Who cares if anybody else has noticed it? This is opinion writing, after all. I'm making the statement; if anybody else noticed my observation, they'd either agree, disagree or move on with their lives. It's a fallacy that longer sentences make the writer sound more intelligent. Instead, use direct language for argument -- too many words clutter the effectiveness of the language. Removing the subordinate sentence makes the whole clause much stronger:

Our culture has officially cratered into an abyss of mindless superficiality, petty judgments and worthless bottom-feeding celebrity gossip drivel

#2: I talked of losing my idealism in the last post. I was working at that time in a state of deep discomfort and rage. It simply isn't true that I've lost my idealism, although I have lost my faith in media. The thing is, journalism is not a product, as much as publishers and money managers would like to make it so. Journalism is an idea that can never die, no matter the medium. The principle that people must be informed and allowed to participate in public discourse is the foundation of our democracy.

No, my idealism will never die, no matter how much bullshit gets thrown at me by corrupt bureaucratic trolls. Idealism transcends career. Idealism is the willingness to say that what you're doing is good and helpful and even heroic at some level. Without that, working is reduced to the thing you do between 9 and 5 for a paycheck.

#3: Getting up early rocks. I used to hate it, but it's really the only way to start the day.

Folks, I promise a politically related update soon, and not so much of this personal crap. After all, this is for the most part a political blog. And I haven't ranted about Rush "Oops I Destroyed The Party" Limbaugh's disturbingly jilted head-to-body ratio yet. For shame.

Catharsis

2009-03-04T01:37:00.000-08:00

Come one, come all. See the acrobats and monkeys. Witness the death of journalism. This, friends, is the media circus.

Oh, the man behind the curtain? Don't mind him. He's only here to help. Keep drinking that bitter concoction. It's for your own good, son. Soon, you'll see, everything will be numb.

I have savage news, friends. Savage indeed. I'm afraid I've lost my way. My flashlight has flickered out. I've been plunged into the darkness of uncertainty. The guiding light, my principles, has been sapped. I carry with me only enough precious bread to make it through the night. Tomorrow, the unknown will peak above the horizon. Tomorrow, I face the day with heavy doubt.

It's been a bad day. I take that back. It's been one of those days where you're so jilted by an impenetrable force that you spend most of it questioning yourself. The scope of it is confusing: Am I really seeing clearly? Or am I simple jaded by cynicism and hopelessness? Is this really happening?

If this is cryptic, I apologize. Wise people have told me it's not smart to poop where you eat. But writing is catharsis. This is catharsis. Suffice it to say that, for me, this is my eulogy for idealism. I'm not even sure what the word means anymore. Maybe it's a product; maybe it's that grand idea that can't die. I hope it's the latter. I hope, for the future of journalism.

Trouble in frozen Camelot

2009-02-17T16:59:00.001-08:00

Bristol Palin, America's favorite symbol of failed abstinence-only education, granted an interview with Fox News this week. I was so giddy about this story that I nearly crashed into Planned Parenthood as I read it on my way to work. Ah, irony:

Bristol Palin has a difference of opinion with her famous mother, saying teen abstinence is "not realistic at all."

"Everyone should be abstinent, whatever, but it's not realistic at all," the 18-year-old mom said in an interview with Fox News' Greta Van Susteren, who pressed her on why.

"I don't want to get into detail about it," Palin said, before explaining that sex is "more and more accepted now... among kids my age."

She hopes other teens will learn from her story.

"You should just wait 10 years," she said. "It would just be so much easier."

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is a strong advocate of abstinence-only education, a position that drew attention and sometimes scorn when the family announced, soon after John McCain named Palin as his running mate, that Bristol was pregnant at 17.

One of the things teens can avoid by waiting to have sex is a very awkward talk with their parents. Palin said she enlisted the baby's father, Levi Johnston, and her best friend to tell Todd and Sarah Palin she was pregnant. But getting the words out, she said, was "harder than labor." Eventually her friend "blurted it out."

The 18-year-old said her son brings her so much joy that she doesn’t regret having him at all. She’s engaged to Johnston, the baby’s father, and said her fiance sees their son every day.

She also said she didn't regret the birth of 8-week-old Tripp, and that the decision was hers, not her mother's.

"I wish it would happen in like 10 years so I could have a job and an education and be like prepared and have my own house and stuff. But ... he brings so much joy. I don't regret it at all."

She added: "I hope that people learn from my story and just like — I don't know, prevent teen pregnancy, I guess." -- From The Seattle PI

Well, so much for Sarah Palin's storied keep-my-family-out-of-it whine fest. Kinda hard to argue that the media are maliciously targeting your brood when your daughter volunteers for it.

Hilariously, Bristol Palin's intent was, like, to totally, like, inform America's troubled youth about the bummer of, like, teen pregnancy. In the process, I'm guessing she was hoping to help the abstinence cause. Then she dropped the bombshell: Abstinence doesn't work! Uh-oh. She must have a fundamental misunderstanding about which part of the interview the media would find more delicious: Her honorable efforts at informing America's youth, or her rejection of abstinence-only education, which as we know is a major part of the failed Sarah Palin platform.

And by the way, when your chief quality as a dad is that you bother to show up on a daily basis to see the baby, it might be time to reconsider the whole fatherhood thing. Any idiot can do that; it takes real skill to assure that the baby doesn't grow up to be a raving hick with a five-word vocabulary.

So pinch me now if I'm dreaming, friends, because this is almost too good to be true. I never thought these two words would ever appear in the same sentence: Bristol Palin, you're my new hero. Not only have you directly contradicted your own batshit crazy governor mom on a hot-button political issue, but you've slapped every last abstinence-only advocate right in the face with some truth. Nice work (no joke!).

Celebrity journalists should all get ass cancer. That's right, I said it.

2009-02-15T21:05:00.000-08:00

Our culture has officially cratered into an abyss of mindless superficiality, petty judgments and worthless bottom-feeding celebrity gossip drivel.

I'm talking specifically about the latest on Jessica Simpson, a story that has gained surprising steam among what I once considered to be legitimate realms of journalism. This whole Jessica-Simpson-is-fat thing is a sorry chapter in our grocery-store-line mentality. It's a hilarious depiction of classic American laziness and self-satisfaction, where bored, truly obese housewives with 27 children can feel better about themselves because the gossip mongers have declared that a member of the Celebrity Elite is insufficiently anorexic. It gives a flicker of blissful hope to that mind-numbingly stupid section of society that actually believes this shit matters.

OK, I'll bite. Briefly.

First of all, Jessica Simpson is a talentless hack who has clawed her way to notoriety through a variety of failed enterprises that grow increasingly annoying as time passes, painfully and slowly. I haven't actually enjoyed a single piece of entertainment sap that she's ever created, and if it were up to me, she'd be working at the local Muchas Gracias and serving up beef tacos to drunk frat boys at 4 a.m.

But despite the the fact that I hate everything she does and says -- including her bullshit religious rhetoric that she obviously uses to win fans -- and her douchebag of a dad who whores her out to the masses like low-quality crack, I'm compelled to concede two things:

First, Jessica Simpson is not fucking fat. Are you kidding me? Look at that picture. In a culture that crams Big Macs like hot cakes and salutes the corporate KFC flag like it was raised at Iwo Jima, you're telling me that THIS counts as fat? A bad choice of pants, perhaps, and a healthy amount of meat on the bones, but not fat. No, idiots, let me show you overweight, not that it even matters:

Good. I'm glad we could clear that up. Moving on to concession #2:

Hey celebrity "journalists": Asserting in every dirt Web site, crappy gossip rag and mindless Hollywood TV show that Jessica Simpson is obese is a sure sign that your life has officially been equated to a steaming pile of dog shit. The "journalists" who continue to perpetuate this false reality that 35 pounds and 0% body fat is the average American image of beauty can all die of ass cancer. Do you hear me? Ass. Cancer.

Jessica Simpson, I still hate your music, movies, TV shows, clothing lines and fragrances. But you don't deserve to have your moderately enlarged butt pedaled around these idiot magazines like a two-dollar hooker, and it especially isn't fair for a bunch of second-rate gossip mongers to capitalize on the falsification of beauty and the bastardization of female body image. Now look at me, I sound like a militant feminist. God I hate you celebrity "journalist" jackasses. Go back to your scummy holes and meaningless Bill O'Reilly internships, you insignificant flecks of journalistic afterbirth.

FACE.

Palin Watch '09: Nobody Cares Anymore Edition

2009-02-08T13:59:00.000-08:00

Is it just me, or is Sarah Palin the only person who continues to bring up the whole who's-the-real-mother-of-Trig fiasco? For fuck's sake, somebody in Alaska needs to tap her on the shoulder and inform her that nobody cares anymore. Nobody really believed it in the first place -- although it was hilarious -- and now it's just getting ridiculous.

In a recent interview with Esquire, in which the late VP pick continued to mischaracterize her own candidacy, Palin would have us believe that a legitimate newspaper in Alaska is still calling her office to ask about it. Riiiiight.

Palin: "I'll tell you, yesterday the Anchorage Daily News, they called again to ask — double-, triple-, quadruple-check — who is Trig's real mom," Palin told Esquire. "And I thought, 'Okay, more indication of continued problems in the world of journalism.'"

In the interview, Palin also decried how she was handled by the McCain campaign, saying she should have let them know she'd be "callin' some of the shots." Palin indicated that a lack of understanding led to her limited role. Personally, I think it's because she's a worthless, pandering symbol of batshit crazy fundamentalism who the campaign could strut out on stage like a show horse and then lock in a hotel room so she wouldn't speak. Yet in true Palin form, the good governor continued to take her own quotes out of context to make herself look like the real brains of the operation. Here's what she had to say about her famous Alaska-Russia link (Emphasis included):

Palin: You have to let it go. Even hard news sources, credible news sources — the comment about, you can see Russia from Alaska. You can! You can see Russia from Alaska. Something like that — a factual statement that was taken out of context and mocked — what you have to do is let that go.

I think Palin's fatal flaw is that she hasn't discovered the wonders of fact checking, which is sad considering this woman has a journalism degree. We didn't laugh at her for stating that one can gaze upon Russia from the shores of Alaska; we laughed at her for saying that the proximity qualified as foreign policy experience. Is she so stupid that she doesn't even realize why her quote was so ridiculous? For somebody who seems to care so much about the media using context, she certainly doesn't grasp the concept very well. Here's her quote, in context:

"As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where– where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border." --Sarah Palin, explaining why Alaska's proximity to Russia gives her foreign policy experience, interview with CBS's Katie Couric, Sept. 24, 2008

You just can't make this shit up, people. It's a wonder I made it through this interview with my sanity intact. She wrapped it all up with a telling quote:

Palin: Everything I've ever needed to know I learned through sports.

Oh really?

Conservative pundits: Still lying after all these years

2009-01-26T17:35:00.000-08:00

The soulless ghouls who lurk within the halls of conservative media have always been easily ignored, but it's hard to shrug and move on when their insane alarmist whining turns to outright lies.

Consider the three stooges of fear-based conservative ranting -- Rush "Jesus I'm Huge" Limbaugh, Sean "Please Lord Shave My Eyebrows" Hannity, and Michelle "It's Not Racist Cause I Sort Of Look Asian" Malkin -- who recently hit the airwaves raving about Obama's economic adviser Robert Reich. Reich, it seems, told Congress that stimulus money should create jobs that benefit a wide range of people, such as women and minorities, and not JUST white construction workers who dominate infrastructure jobs. The "just" is a key word here, as Reich was adding people to the list, not disqualifying. Here's what he said:

Now let me say something about infrastructure. It seems to me that infrastructure spending is a very important and good way of stimulating the economy. The challenge will be to do it quickly, to find projects that can be done that have ahigh social return that also can be done with the greatest speed possible.

I am concerned, as I'm sure many of you are, that these jobs not simply go to high skilled people who are already professions or to white male construction workers. I have nothing against white male construction workers. I'm just saying that there are a lot of other people who have needs as well. And therefore, in my remarks I have suggested to you, and I'm certainly happy to talk about it more, ways in which the money can be -- criteria can be set so that they money does go to others: the long term unemployed, minorities, women, people who are not necessarily construction workers or high-skilled professionals.

Enter the panic police, those serial killers of journalism. When Reich said MORE people should be eligible for stimulus-based jobs, apparently Malkin/Hannity/Limbaugh heard that FEWER (white) people should be eligible. Which makes sense, I guess, if you're a fucking idiot. Here's what Malkin said:

And just today -- I think this is very related, Megyn -- another video came out of Robert Reich, the economic adviser formerly from the Clinton administration and now from [President] Obama, talking about how the stimulus funds should not go to white male contractors. It's the same kind of mentality of bean counting, and, you know, it's the same old, same old. It's the same old Democrat mentality of treating people based on the color of their skin rather than the content of their character or the content of their resumes. You know, not exactly the kind of legacy we thought Martin Luther King was supposed to leave.

Hey Malkin, I'm just throwing this out there, but do you think it's wise to blatantly misquote a public figure when his statement is easily accessible and in pretty clear English? I'm just saying it might make you look like a real asshole in front of all those savvy Fox News viewers (hold for laughter). Now, watch how Limbaugh puts down his cheeseburger for eight seconds to add some healthy racism to Reich's statement:

LIMBAUGH: Talking about the money we're going to spend on the infrastructure plan. Roads, bridges, all that stuff. But he doesn't want it to go to white construction workers; he wants it to go to inexperienced minorities and single women. He's got nothing against white construction workers but, but, but, but the money needs to go to others. These people are crazy. They're just -- if I heard myself talk like this I would be so embarrassed.

What was that about the liberal media again?

Our long fundamentalist nightmare is over

2009-01-20T21:48:00.000-08:00

"We know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelievers." -- Barack Obama

Pitter patter of little feet (in Palin's mouth)

2009-01-09T19:23:00.000-08:00

I was viewing this absurd video the other day featuring a (still) breathlessly amateur and semi-literate Sarah Palin and some hackish "interviewer" who made me want to tear out my retinas. The gist of the illuminating conversation -- a result of laughably obvious, pandering and leading questions -- was the following:

* Sarah Palin's inability to answer tough questions -- such as "what newspapers and magazines do you read?" -- was actually a media conspiracy by Katie Couric to make Palin look bad.

* The reason why Palin couldn't name any specific reading material is that Katie Couric's question was unclear and misleading. This is a blatant lie, of course, given that Couric was crystal clear when she asked: "When it comes to establishing your worldview...what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped?" And when Palin responded by saying "any of them," Couric followed up with: "Which ones specifically?" Sadly, Palin couldn't name a single fucking newspaper, even after Couric elaborated. Now, Palin wants to write it off as though she didn't understand the question, hoping nobody will actually go back and review the Couric interview. Some day, politicians are going to realize that YouTube has been invented.

* Just for giggles, after essentially saying that the English language is a foreign concept, Palin rails off a few publications she peruses: USA Today and The New York Times. Hey Palin, just a suggestion here, but if you're trying to convince people of your creativity in the newspaper department, you might want to pick something other than the highest circulated paper in the country.

* Palin feels it isn't newsworthy for a Republican candidate who publicly supports failed abstinence-only policies to have an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter. Further, when comedians poke fun at the hilarious irony, she turns into a "mama grizzly" (although she's most likely the last, given Alaska's fetish for killing off wildlife). Instead of attacking her family, Palin says, the media should focus on her. Unless the media are questioning her qualifications or reading habits, then that's off limits, too.

* Palin's stupidity provides job security for people in the "elite" media, and she's happy to oblige. Or something. I stopped paying attention so I could go throw myself off a building.

Here's a link to the video.

Blah blah blah Kennedy blah blah blah

2008-12-29T01:16:00.000-08:00

I've been reading a lot about this Caroline Kennedy thing in New York, but I'm finding it to be detrimental to my health, what with the constant urge to bash my head into the wall. New York politics interest me about as much as Sarah Palin's recipe for caribou pâté. I'd rather spend my time debating Kantian ethics with Todd Palin, or summoning the ghost of Jesse Helms to ask him why he was such a tremendous sack of crap. Actually, that last one sounds pretty nice.

Anyway, speaking of Palin (the woman, not the asshole), one good thing has come out of the endless Kennedy coverage: We (the media) are showing the world that crucifying would-be politicians isn't solely reserved for inexperienced, religiously insane Republicans from Alaska. We pretty much do it to anybody who pisses us off or aims too high without the experience or ideas to justify it. As watchdogs, we journalists are very serious when it comes to slapping overly motivated but underqualified political hopefuls right in the face. Right. In. The. Face.

Of course, it isn't the media's fault that Kennedy's road to the Senate is eerily reminiscent of Palin's disastrous bid for vice president. In fact, I've seen the phrase "Palin-ized" more than once, apparently a word now used to reference politicians who try to hide from the media -- due to inexperience or fear or incompetence -- and are subsequently hounded by angry reporters until the reason for their elusiveness is uncovered. This isn't unreasonable; it's called watchdog journalism.

I'm not saying Kennedy is a bad person by any means. She's been a great community leader and fundraiser for legitimate causes. But she's never held elected office in any capacity, or even bothered to vote in many elections, and now she wants to go straight to a powerful New York Senate seat. And it can't be ignored that the only reason anybody is taking her seriously in this endeavor -- a complete newcomer to politics seeking a place in the top legislative body -- is her last name. If there's one thing journalists hate, it's fucking monarchy.

My advice to Kennedy would be to learn how to look reporters in the face and refrain from treating them like idiots if she wants to salvage her political ambitions. Not that I really give a shit.

Yeah, that pretty much sums it up

2008-12-27T18:53:00.001-08:00

JibJab year in review:

Rick Warren is a piece of shit (and other reasonable conclusions)

2008-12-18T01:28:00.000-08:00

As these cold, dark December days slog by and George W. Bush intensifies his desperate campaign of telling the world that he's not such a bad fascist after all, I can't help thinking that inauguration day seems too far away. In fact, I'm so atwitter by the prospect of returning to an era of reason that I've been compiling my Official Inauguration Checklist, aided by a contingent of frothing media types who write wordy, fawning stories daily about the upcoming extravaganza. Here's what I have so far:

* Performance by the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin (check)
* Reading by Elizabeth Alexander, a renowned black poet (check)
* Speech by Sen. Diane Feinstein of California, the Bay Area Badass (check)
* Invocation by evangelist Rev. Rick Warren, an insane religious zealot and renowned gay basher (check)

Ah yes. An affair to remember. And perfectly planned! This way, right before I enjoy the Constitutional passage of the torch to the nation's first black president and celebrate the official end of the Bush era, I can listen to the thoughtful remarks of a raving madman who symbolizes everything I hate about America.

Are you fucking serious? Rick Warren? Obama, I love you to pieces man, but please, please stop pretending that you give a crap about the religious right. I mean, you fucking won! It's time to let your hair down. Don't you remember the campaign? These are the same people who spread a rumor that you were a Muslim and your wife was an atheist. This is the level of intellectualism we're dealing with here.

Look, I understand that the United States is not a liberal nation. I get that the union is strung together by blocs of ultra-left and ultra-right, and the majority lands in the middle. We're a moderate country, and that is reflected in the incoming Cabinet. But Rick Warren is not a moderate; he's an extremist. We're talking about a shameless and delusional culture warrior who compares abortion to the Holocaust and supports the assassination of foreign leaders. This man has dedicated his life to brainwashing frothing masses into believing an all-powerful God actually cares if two insignificant people of the same insignificant sex living on one insignificant rock in one insignificant galaxy shack up and call themselves "married."

Rick Warren? Not exactly a great start to the era of reason.

My long farewell to certainty

2008-12-04T01:43:00.000-08:00

I believe there are three types of people.

The first type, whether as a result of external influences or some internal desire for comfort, tend to cling to familiarity and naturally rule out decisions that result in instability or chaos. This isn't a bad way to live, given its ultimate safety and high likelihood of a long, relatively worry-free life. These people have an uncanny ability to transform boredom and complacency into the idea that these feelings are a rational and expected part of being human and American, and that the ultimate goal of living is not to be fulfilled but to lead the life that makes the most sense: college, job, money, marriage, death.

The second type, whether as a result of external influences of some internal desire for fulfillment, understand that humans are insignificant specs in an eternal universe of ideas and personalities, and if they're going to make their mark in the world -- be it by having a job they love, being famous, being rich, raising a family, whatever -- they'd better do it before their time runs out. These people don't necessarily know their ultimate goal in life, but they have a solid grasp on what they don't want: a wasted existence, and the fear that in 60 years they'll be cowering in their bed, wasting away and seeking frantically with each feeble, dying breath for some kind of meaning or explanation for the seconds, minutes and hours that equal a lifetime of thoughts and actions.

The third type: Happy with whichever path they've chosen, and fulfilled because they had to work and sacrifice for their comfort. The future is unknown, but there's a certain sense of optimism with that inevitability. I have great respect and admiration for these people.

The easy part is recognizing these three types of people. The hard part is figuring out which one I am, and which one I want to be, and how to evolve. It's about taking a long, deep look at what's important to me -- what makes me feel passionate about living.

For me, it seems easy: occupation, family and friends. But it goes way beyond that.

Person #1 would say occupation is important because it's what you do to get paid, and getting paid is how you function. Person #1 would say family because it's the logical next step attaining normality in our society. Person #1 would say friends because being alone just doesn't make sense with so many people walking around.

Person #2? He would say occupation because it's his passion, his ultimate reason for getting up and doing what he loves every day, be it flying rockets into space or pumping gas. Person #2 would say family because he feels he has an eternal soul mate, and his kids are a part of him: fascinating, fresh souls in the world whom he can nurture, love, shape and raise, and not just something to prove to the rest of society that he is normal. Person #2 would say friends because friends sacrifice themselves for each other, and knowing that somebody will do that for you is a powerful force against selfishness and hatred in this world.

Who am I? It's a question I can't possibly begin to fathom. It's also terrifying; after all, the answer will dictate nothing less than the rest of my life. Am I the person who floats through an empty occupation, going through the motions with no emotion so I can get through the day? Or am I the person who takes action? Am I the person who subverts the overwhelming, natural influence to be comfortable, to be safe -- to be empty? Or am I the person with the courage and recklessness to enter the unknown? Am I the person who accepts his perceived fate? Or Am I the person who realizes that all the chapters in my life haven't been written yet?

The unknown. Holy shit.

Gangsta

2008-11-25T13:30:00.001-08:00

Don't read this if you're still happy (or, I drank what?)

2008-11-20T01:26:00.000-08:00

After enjoying the prolonged afterglow of GOP suffering and other election bliss, I feel as though I'm slowly waking from a two-week bender, hazy and stinky, and desperately trying to remember how much I had to drink and why I'm wearing this fire helmet.

My conclusion: I wish I would have kept on drinking.

I hate to sound defeatist here, but for all the joy and relief that accompanied the victory of our first black president and the ouster of a disastrous Bush-era brand of Republicanism, I must sadly face the inevitable: This world still sucks.

(pause for crucifiction)

Seriously, has anybody been watching the news lately? The fucking Mormons -- who, by the way, didn't allow black people into their priesthood until the late 1970s and many who freely practice polygamy -- joined together to pass a measure that bans same-sex couples from entering into the same government-supported legal contracts as heterosexual couples (or marriage, if you want to get technical about it). Then, hilariously, when the gay community revolted against the church's efforts to discriminate against them, the Mormons whined about religious persecution. And the wheels turn, turn, turn.

Oh, and you should probably know that Barack Obama's election didn't magically purge this nation of insane religious zealots or gun-toting, conspiracy-minded, racist conservatives with third-grade educations. I know, I was disappointed, too. One indication: gun sales skyrocketed the day after the election, mostly because the National Rifle Association convinced gun owners that Obama was personally going to show up at their trailers and seize their God-given weapons.

The first thought that came to my mind: Jesus, these people have guns? Clearly they are slightly unhinged if they actually believe the president is going to single-handedly overturn more than 200 years of gun rights. Do they not understand the structure of U.S. government? The president can't exactly sign a fucking executive order that bans guns. It takes, like, legislation, Congress and, what the hell, I bet the Supreme Court would even be involved.

Anyway, my point is that America may have changed in the sense that half the country hated Republicans enough to elect Democrats this year, but it would be a grave mistake to believe our nation has undergone some fundamental transformation. I can hope for the future, maybe, but as long as I'm living in the present, I'll go ahead and continue to acknowledge that we belong to a society dominated by bullshitters and idiots. I just hope Obama can make it a little more tolerable.

Now with diet brand

2008-11-07T20:33:00.000-08:00

Don't forget

2008-11-05T21:06:00.000-08:00

While you're savoring this victory over the sinister Republican forces in America, don't forget to wander over to some of the hysterical conservative blogs and revel in the sheer glory of their panic-stricken despondency. After eight years of political tragedy, it's almost amazing that they can feign bitterness so well.

This was so worth it.

2008-11-05T01:39:00.000-08:00

That feeling

2008-11-04T21:32:00.000-08:00

I have an odd feeling. I think it's a flicker of hope. Maybe some restored faith in the American people.

Wow.

Election Guide

2008-11-04T13:49:00.001-08:00

From The Associated Press:

A guide to battleground states

As results start pouring in tonight, a handful of states will tell you where this election is going. It takes 270 electoral votes to win. Here’s what to watch (all times Eastern Standard).

Polls close at 7 p.m.

Virginia: Sen. John McCain spent precious last-minute time in Newport News, as sure a sign as any that his campaign believes polls that show Sen. Barack Obama leading. If this Republican redoubt flips from red to blue for the first time since 1964, it’s a sign that McCain is in for a long night.

Georgia: Heavy turnout among African-Americans could put this rock-solid Republican state in play. McCain leads in polls, but it’s still a tossup. If McCain wins, he’s meeting expectations; if Obama wins, this election could be over early.

Indiana: McCain is scarcely ahead in a state that has a perfect GOP voting record since 1964. Obama made inroads as a favorite son of neighboring Illinois and a win here would be a startling turn against the GOP.

Polls close at 7:30 p.m.

Ohio: Along with Florida and Pennsylvania, it’s one of three traditional battleground states. Polls show Obama leading, but McCain is running hard and Ohio is not quite as predisposed to Democrats as Pennsylvania.

Polls close at 8 p.m.

Florida: Most of the state’s polls close at 7 p.m., but the Panhandle time zones are an hour later. It’s quite simple: The electoral math doesn’t work for McCain without having Florida in his column. If Obama manages to hold on to his lead in the polls (which has been slipping) and captures the state, McCain would have to score an unlikely set of upsets to recover.

Pennsylvania: This rich prize has tilted toward Democrats in recent elections and favors Obama strongly in the polls. McCain has not given up, though, and an upset win here could signal that McCain is drawing blue-collar voters who are important in other key states like Missouri.

Missouri: McCain is leading slightly in this swing state that has voted with the winner every time since 1964. It has been a historic bellwether, but the new map that has so many traditionally Republican states in play means a victory here may be less important than it has been.

Polls close at 8:30 p.m.

North Carolina: Polls show a tie, but implications of an Obama victory here would be significant. Like Virginia, this Southern state is one McCain was expected to win.

Polls close at 9 p.m.

Colorado: Democrats held their convention in Denver to capitalize on a trend that had been showing up in recent elections. Now Obama is favored to win the state that has gone with a Democrat only one other time since 1964. If so, it could be the first sign that the GOP hold on the West is cracking.

Montana: Not many votes here, but this state shares Colorado’s history of choosing Republicans (except Bill Clinton in 1992). President Bush carried this state by huge margins both times.

Arizona: McCain leads in his home state but not by much. It’s considered a tossup. If Obama snatches this one, McCain would be in a bad, bad spot in terms of electoral votes and embarrassed on top of it.

Polls close at 10 p.m.

Nevada: In the last battleground state before the solidly Democratic West Coast, Obama leads by an average of 6 points. This state has mostly been Republican, but it did support Clinton both times

A revelation

2008-11-03T13:21:00.000-08:00

I just had a staggering realization as I was reflecting back on these 27 zany years and the things I've experienced politically on local and global levels.

After some consideration, I can say with full confidence that seeing Sarah Palin lose on Tuesday will be the happiest day of my life.

Bizarre.

Do the media revolution

2008-10-28T22:50:00.000-07:00

As another bitter and hysterical U.S. election draws to a close, it's important for mainstream media consumers to take a step back and recognize the incredible shift that has taken place in American journalism during this election. If you've been reading newspapers and watching the endless TV coverage over the past several weeks, you've probably noticed that journalists aren't exactly hiding their view that Barack Obama will win.

Most media outlets have shuffled their coverage from "Obama is winning" to "what will Obama do when he wins?" to "how will Obama be successful in doing what he does when he wins?" These outlets aren't necessarily advocating or celebrating an Obama victory; instead, they are simply predicting the outcome by interpreting polls and capitalizing on the sense that Obama has unstoppable momentum.

After weeks of this, Americans are starting to wonder aloud: Has the mainstream media gone insane? It follows that among the flurry of Obama-will-win stories are an increasing number of opinion columns questioning the media's news judgment, and trying to figure out just what the hell is going on with American journalism.

Industry veteran Michael Malone, in a column last week, equates the trend to a wholesale media sellout -- a blasphemous slap in the face to all that is good and holy about professional journalistic standards. Malone attributes the slanted coverage to burned-out newspaper reporters and editors realizing that the Titanic newspaper industry has officially hit the iceberg, and the violins are playing a very sad song.

Politico, meanwhile, says the McCain campaign is at fault. The Web-based media outlet contends that its coverage is simply reflecting the tone and progress of the election campaign, and it would be disingenuous to manufacture "artificial balance." The coverage, according to Politico, is slanted negatively toward McCain simply because McCain isn't doing well in the election.

Well, journalism professors and media purists, light your torches and prepare the cross, because I offer an alternative perspective: The natural de-evolution of the mainstream media to their original roots and a widespread revolt against sensationalism. But before I explain this outrageous theory, it's important to note some media history.

Before the 20th century, American newspapers weren't much different from today's fledgling Internet news machine. Much like blogs and political Web sites now exist for every social issue or political ideology, so it was for newspapers from the dawn of the United States through the late 1800s. Today, if you disagree with a political blog, it's as simple as moving on to the next one, or better yet starting your own. It was the same during the glory days of American journalism: Newspapers were so numerous -- and it was so easy to start your own -- that readers could find a new viewpoint by picking up the next newspaper or even establishing a new one.

Keep in mind that although newspapers in this period were primarily driven by ideology, they weren't necessarily prone to sensationalism or outright fabrication. The idea, according to journalism scholar Robert McChesney, was to "persuade as well as to inform" -- not lie to generate sales or sway the public. The media environment was viewpoint-driven and highly partisan, but it was so saturated that it allowed for incredibly effective information gathering.

That is, until market-driven commercialism saw an opportunity for profit.

In the late 1880s, during the roots of the Gilded Age, society's wealthiest individuals started to distort what was a vibrant system of informing the public. Suddenly, journalism turned into a highly profitable enterprise, and newspapers transitioned from "persuade and inform" to "sensationalism equals sales." Vast corruption, driven by the desire for profits, transformed newspapers into agents for propaganda and outrageous tales of sex, crime and "yellow" journalism. With the concentration of media power and the money flowing into the industry, it was no longer possible for people outside the elite to launch their own media outlets and compete. Commercial interests began consolidating newspapers and collecting vast profits from sensationalistic stories. Journalism, in its early greatness, was dead.

A few decades later, as the 1800s dwindled and the 1900s roared to life, American journalism was reborn. After years and years of hysteria and greed, people started to realize that newspapers were the lowest form of discourse. Conservatives lamented the use of immoral content -- sex and crime -- to generate sales, while progressives decried the corrupting influence of capitalism in the media. Fearing a revolt, newspaper publishers created what McChesney calls "Professional Journalism" -- the idea that to be legitimate, journalists must obtain an education at an established school and learn basic tenants of objectivity and fairness. The goal was twofold: convince the public that media conglomeration was a good idea as long as certain standards were followed, and keep making money by the truckload through monopolization. After all, the publishers concluded, why would America need a variety of media options when the few that exist adhere to a strict code of neutrality?

Unfortunately, this "professional" model, while pure at its face, had serious flaws. The most dire shortfall was that objectivity simply doesn't exist: All news decisions are an expression of some form of bias. With the rise of "Professional Journalism," not only did people have fewer news outlets, but these outlets claimed the impossible dream. What was sold as a breakthrough in promoting democracy was actually an ingenious cover-up of what was essentially the corporate takeover of the U.S. media.

Another problem with "Professional Journalism" that McChensney notes -- and one we're seeing daily during this election -- is the notion that journalists "who raise issues no official source is talking about are accused of unprofessional conduct and of attempting to introduce bias into the news." That is, under the tenants of neutrality, journalists are being unethical if they provide any form of their own news analysis to "objective" stories. Sound familiar?

The big question, then: What has changed so fundamentally about this media model that has led newspapers to abandon professional standards, especially during this election? Three words: Internet media revolution. What is happening today is what the industrialists squashed after the Gilded Age: a sweeping revolt of media consumers. People have grown so weary of sensationalism in the "objective" mainstream news -- Britney Spears, terrorism, celebrity crime -- that they are turning to the Internet and the escape from conformity it provides. Except this time, a sweeping reform of journalism won't save newspapers, because corporations will never own the Internet. The damage has been done.

With the infinite market of viewpoints available on the Internet, it's of little surprise that Professional Journalism in the mainstream media is starting to falter, with more focus put into news analysis over strict objectivity. Internet bloggers and political Web sites may approach issues with a general sense of neutrality, but they certainly won't maintain this impossible, suffocating ideal when it comes to interpreting the news. And to compete with this increasingly popular Internet model, the mainstream media are adapting with standards reminiscent of American journalism's birth.

We're not facing a format revolution, from print and broadcast to the Web. We're facing a revolution of information gathering. We're facing a massive shift in media expectations. We're facing the death of objectivity. Finally.

The coverage of this election signals the final death twitch of the dying newspaper industry; a last, desperate attempt to be relevant. Despite their rules of objectivity, newspapers are slowly being forced by the Web to give readers what they actually want: an acknowledgment of their beliefs and assumptions about the world.

Sadly, newspapers can't possible win this battle. Readers are so conditioned to expect an impossible standard of objectivity that they will continue to abandon print if newspapers keep blurring the lines. Yet, if newspapers stay dedicated to objectivity, readers won't get the variety they can easily obtain on the Internet. News objectivity simply can't compete in a nation of people who are inherently incapable of viewpoint neutrality.

That's either a tragedy, or the most beautiful thing I've ever realized.

Thought for the day

2008-10-28T13:49:00.000-07:00

I'm still unsure how I feel about being involved with a dying industry, but I'm positive it will make a great story for the grandkids when they ask what it was like to read a newspaper.

Another sign

2008-10-26T14:32:00.000-07:00

The apocalypse is nigh.

GOP desperation and self-mutilation

2008-10-24T10:59:00.000-07:00

I fucking knew it:

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ― Police sources tell KDKA that a campaign worker has now confessed to making up a story that a mugger attacked her and cut the letter “B” in her face after seeing her McCain bumper sticker.

Ashley Todd, 20, of Texas, initially told police that she was robbed at an ATM in Bloomfield and that the suspect became enraged and started beating her after seeing her GOP sticker on her car.

Police investigating the alleged attack, however, began to notice some inconsistencies in her story and administered a polygraph test.

Authorities, however, declined to release the results of that test.

Investigators did say that they received photos from the ATM machine and “the photographs were verified as not being the victim making the transaction.”

This afternoon, a Pittsburgh police commander told KDKA Investigator Marty Griffin that Todd confessed to making up the story.

The commander added that Todd will face charges; but police have not commented on what those charges will be.

According to police, investigators working on the interview process detected several inconsistencies in Todd’s story that differed from statements made in the original police report.

Pittsburgh Police Public Information Officer Diane Richard released a statement earlier today, saying: “Because of the inconsistencies in her statements, Ms. Todd was asked to submit to a polygraph examination which she agreed to do.”

No photos of Todd are being released by Pittsburgh Police at this time.

The investigation is continuing as officials determine what charges will be filed.

I had reservations as soon as I saw this story, and not just because I like Obama. I find it very suspicious that a thug would actually stick around long enough at the scene of his crime to carve somebody's face to make a political point. How many ultra-violent muggers do you think follow politics? I would wager: not many. This story was too insane for its own good. Total fabrication.

Rhymes with idiot

2008-10-23T21:38:00.000-07:00

As part of my ongoing Unsolicited Political Advice handbook:

How not to win an election, step #45987458: Tell every voter living in a populous city that they are unpatriotic. Then, instead of apologizing for making this ridiculous claim, say you're sorry that big city people didn't understand what you really meant by saying they were unpatriotic. Finally, don't elaborate on what you actually meant when you said they were unpatriotic. For example (not actual direct quotes):

Clueless candidate: "I like coming to small towns, because people in small towns are patriotic and big cities are anti-America."

Enraged big-city voters: "Why don't you take your domestic-terrorist-supporting husband and 15 babies and go back to your frigid wasteland of a state, you hysterical, pandering bitch."

Clueless candidate: "I apologize if anybody in a big city misinterpreted my statement, "big cities are anti-America," to mean big cities are anti-America. That's not what I meant at all."

Enraged big-city voters: "That's weird. It seems like "big cities are anti-America" was pretty self-explanatory."

Clueless candidate: "Down syndrome!"

Other guy: "Fucking hell I'm old. Sooooo old. God, how do I even get out of bed in the morning? Cindy, you whore, fetch me my cane so I can go mumble incoherently to the public."

Clueless candidate: "Maverick!"

American lol!!!!!!!!!111111111

2008-10-23T16:53:00.000-07:00

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Wait.. no.. really. The Lord will save us! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

The Powell bitchslap

2008-10-19T21:16:00.001-07:00

Hilariously, Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama is politically untouchable. After all, Republicans can't exactly criticize a highly decorated war hero, given their candidate is using that status as his entire platform. And they can't blame Powell for screwing up on the Iraq intelligence to the United Nations, given that John McCain repeatedly endorsed that very intelligence. All the Republicans have left is to play the race card. Good luck with that, guys!

It's all so gleefully karmic.

Joe the Fraud

2008-10-19T13:12:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama has consistently talked about realistic solutions to real problems, and the best answer McCain can muster is a classic American redneck fraud named Joe. Seriously, "Joe" has lied through his teeth from the moment he was ejaculated into the national media spotlight after whining that his fake plumbing business would be taxed too heavily under Obama. Since then, with the help of a merciless media machine with no stomach for bullshit, we've learned:

1. Joe the Plumber is not actually named Joe. His name is Sam. Using "Joe" was just another failed attempt by McCain to be a pandering, populist dipshit like Sarah Palin.

2. We think his last name is "Worzelbacher," but we can't be sure because it appears his name is spelled incorrectly on his voter registration card. Might be government error, or he could just be that stupid. We'll never know.

3. "Joe" is probably breaking the law by being a "plumber" in the first place, considering the fact that he doesn't have a fucking plumbing license in his county of residence. Oh, and neither does his boss, who owns the company. It's unfortunate, really, because McCain could definitely use a licensed plumber to take care of his bullshit problem.

4. "Joe the Poor Math Student" confronted Obama at a rally because he was concerned that the Democrat's tax plan would end in higher levies if Joe decided to start his own illegal plumbing business. But many analysts say his concern is unfounded, and he'd actually be eligible for a tax cut if the gross business receipts hit $250,000 (as Joe himself said they would). The New York Times did a nice graphic about it here.

5. It's funny that Joe is so worried about paying more taxes, seeing as he hasn't paid any taxes in the past. He currently has an outstanding personal tax lien on his name for more than $1,000. Hey asshole, how about paying your fucking taxes like the rest of us before you gripe about anybody's tax plan? You've got egg on your face, or maybe horseshit, I can't tell.

So to recap, McCain's symbol of the tortured American worker is an illegal plumber he calls Joe, but who isn't actually named Joe, who claims to be afraid of paying more taxes under Obama but doesn't actually pay his taxes. If McCain worked for Bush, he'd be nicknamed McCainy, and Bush would say: "Helluva job, McCainy!" Grand slam.

Joe sets an interesting example for the rest of us. Specifically: We can lie, too! In fact, based on my early calculations, John McCain's tax plan will rape grandmothers and murder kittens. I'll be expecting the news vans any second.

Sources:

Toledo Blade
Daily Kos
MSNBC
NYT

Using Republican logic, I prove McCain is a terrorist

2008-10-14T00:57:00.000-07:00

Campbell Brown over at CNN made an excellent point recently about the perception among a vast swath of ignorant Americans that Barack Obama is a Muslim, and the fact that such a staggering number of people view this as the primary reason to vote against him. Brown asks a simple question: Even though he's clearly not a Muslim, should it really matter if he were?

The answer, obviously, is no it shouldn't, but the reality: Yes it will. And that really says something about our country. Even though a majority of voters appear prepared to release their prejudices long enough to elect a black man as president, this nation still has a long way to go. A long, long way.

This election has been infected with blatant overtones of racism from the beginning, and it hasn't always been about black-and-white politics. Consider some recent comments from John McCain at a campaign rally, when he responded to a voter who declared she wouldn't vote for Obama because he's an Arab (never mind the fact that if he were an Arab, as opposed to an American, the Constitution would bar him from running for president in the first place):

No ma'am, no ma'am. He's a decent family man, citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues. That's what this campaign is all about. He's not, thank you.

Think about what McCain is saying here: No, is Obama not an Arab, he's a decent family man. Maybe it was subconscious, maybe it was unintentional, or maybe I'm just reading too much into it, but it sure seems like he's making a sharp distinction between Arabs and decent family men. Sure, you can say he's just practicing good politics, and that's exactly the type of distinction the people who attend his rallies would expect him to make. Fine. But then what does that say about the Republicans who attend his rallies?

As Campbell noted in her essay, it shouldn't matter which religion you practice, just as it shouldn't matter if you're black, white, Asian or an alien from Planet Gargamel (as long as you were born in America!) And although Americans might soon pass a milestone in seeing beyond Obama's skin color, clearly many are still hung up on the fact that he could be a Muslim.

The elephant in the room in this case is Sept. 11, and the Americans who were killed by Arab terrorists. The argument goes, I guess, that those hijackers were a representation of all Arab culture, and therefore all Arabs are not to be trusted. But using that logic, I could say that Timothy McVeigh -- a white, American domestic terrorist who killed 168 people in the Oklahoma City bombing -- is a representation of all white Americans. Does that mean I should vote against John McCain?

Maybe I'll do just that.

It's come to this

2008-10-07T14:30:00.000-07:00

The desperation and deception of McCain's new campaign strategy -- unleash Sarah Palin to lie shamelessly in front of adoring, racist crowds -- wrapped up nicely by Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank:

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- John McCain is collapsing in the polls in Florida and other swing states, but Sarah Palin, God bless her, has a solution.

"For me, the heels are on, the gloves are off," she announced at high noon Monday to a group of Republican donors at the Naples Beach Club.

You betcha.

As the donors sipped their bloody marys and mimosas, she added, in a conspiratorial stage whisper, "I'm sending the message back to John McCain also: Tomorrow night in his debate, might as well take the gloves off."

Darn right.

Of course, it's not only gloves and heels; headgear has a role, too. "Okay, so, Florida, you know that you're going to have to hang on to your hats," she said at a morning rally in Clearwater, "because from now until Election Day, it may get kind of rough."

Say it ain't so, Sarah!

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a McCain confidant, told The Post's David Broder that the campaign would "go down in history as stupid if they don't unleash" Palin. Well, the self-identified pit bull has been unleashed -- if not unhinged.

Barack Obama, she told 8,000 fans at a rally here Monday afternoon, "launched his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist!" This followed her earlier accusation that the Democrat pals around with terrorists. "This is not a man who sees America the way you and I see America," she told the Clearwater crowd. "I'm afraid this is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to work with a former domestic terrorist who had targeted his own country." The crowd replied with boos.

McCain had said that racially explosive attacks related to Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, are off limits. But Palin told New York Times columnist Bill Kristol in an interview published Monday: "I don't know why that association isn't discussed more."

Worse, Palin's routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."

McCain's swoon is largely out of his control, the result of an economic collapse that ignited new fears Monday when the Dow Jones industrial average closed below 10,000 for the first time in four years. That's why his lead in Florida polls, which once reached as high as 15 points, has turned into a three-point deficit.

But the campaign has reacted with recriminations (the St. Petersburg Times reported that the Florida Republican Party chairman, after questioning Palin's aptitude, was told that he couldn't fly on her plane) and now Palin's rage.

The angry GOP vice presidential nominee even found a way to blame the market decline on the yet-to-be-enacted tax policies of the yet-to-be-elected Obama.

"If you turn on the news tonight when you get home, you're gonna see that, yah, this is another woeful day in the market, and the other side just doesn't understand -- no!" she said at an afternoon fundraiser at the home of mutual fund giant Jack Donahue. "Especially in a time like this, you don't propose to increase taxes. The phoniest claim in a campaign that's full of them is that Barack Obama is going to cut your taxes."

Of course, Obama never promised to cut taxes for people at $10,000-a-plate lunches in air-conditioned tents on waterfront compounds. And the crowd -- among them New York Jets owner Woody Johnson -- reacted without applause to Palin's Joe Six-Pack lines. After they didn't strike up the usual "Drill, baby, drill" or "USA" chants, Palin, rattled, read hurriedly through the rest of her speech.

The reception had been better in Clearwater, where Palin, speaking to a sea of "Palin Power" and "Sarahcuda" T-shirts, tried to link Obama to the 1960s Weather Underground. "One of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers," she said. ("Boooo!" said the crowd.) "And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,' " she continued. ("Boooo!" the crowd repeated.)

"Kill him!" proposed one man in the audience.

Palin also told those gathered that Obama doesn't like American soldiers. "He said that our troops in Afghanistan are just, quote, 'air-raiding villages and killing civilians,' " she said, drawing boos from a crowd that had not been told Obama was actually appealing for more troops in Afghanistan.

"See, John McCain is a different kind of man: He believes in our troops," she said.

At times, Palin hinted at the GOP campaign's troubles. "It's going to be a hard-fought contest, especially in these swing states, some maybe we would not have expected," she admitted to donors. She allowed that "John McCain and I need to do a better job" of talking about the economy.

At other times, she had troubles of her own, as when she spoke over the weekend of "our neighboring country of Afghanistan" or when she got choked up at the Clearwater rally, saying, "Some of your signs just make me wanna cry," without explaining which ones or why.

But then the gloves came off, the heels came out, and Palin was once again talking about her opponent hanging out in a terrorist's living room.

The facts, finally

2008-10-06T23:02:00.000-07:00

Click here for the most incredible investigation of John McCain's career of deception and dishonor that you'll ever read. You'll never look at him the same way again.

Also, note to the McCain campaign: Nobody gives a shit that Obama was on the same charity board as a guy who was a radical 30 years ago. People want to know why billionaire CEOs are walking away rich while Wall Street crumbles, and why we're still sending billions to Iraq when we can't even run our own economy. Your entire campaign is a now a national parody. You're gonna lose, bitches!

Counting down to November

2008-10-04T16:29:00.000-07:00

The sudden reversal of the McCain campaign's treatment of its beloved Sarah Palin is not surprising given that a week spent on the interview circuit has lowered expectations of her experience and competence to such a historically low level that a change in strategy was imperative. McCain will still lose, of course, but at least he'll go out fighting -- or whining, as Palin is apt to do so exquisitely.

Interestingly, the campaign decided to take off the leash and send Palin on the offensive. Instead of stumping the policies of a McCain administration, she's leveling personal attacks on Obama's character and leadership. In the past two days, Palin has more or less labeled Obama a terrorist sympathizer and called him unqualified to lead an army (in her universe, Obama is somehow unpatriotic for pointing out that we should avoid carpet-bombing Afghan villages and slaughtering innocent civilians by the truck load).

All this is hilarious considering Palin was so clearly recruited not for her character or leadership, but for her uncanny ability to court social conservatives with folksy platitudes and meaningless emotional drivel. Palin is a self-parody, and sometimes I wonder if she's even smart enough to realize her role in the campaign is purely superficial.

The big question this week: Will American voters be able to see the irony in everything Palin says and does? Will they be turned off by her hysterical rhetoric? Have we finally moved past terrorism politics? And, most important, will Obama respond in a way that is effective and powerful? For the sake of America, I sure hope so.

Republican fear machine back in action

2008-10-04T15:31:00.000-07:00

As I've pointed out, the Republicans can't win without fear-mongering about terrorism. If people aren't terrified of their imminent deaths, the GOP has no legs to stand on. This is only the beginning:

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (AP) - Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on Saturday accused Democrat Barack Obama of "palling around with terrorists" because of his association with a former 1960s radical, stepping up the campaign's effort to portray Obama as unacceptable to American voters.

Palin's reference was to Bill Ayers, one of the founders of the group the Weather Underground. Its members took credit for bombings, including nonfatal explosions at the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol, during the tumultuous Vietnam War era four decades ago. Obama, who was a child when the group was active, served on a charity board with Ayers several years ago and has denounced his radical views and activities.

The Republican campaign, falling behind Obama in polls, plans to make attacks on Obama's character a centerpiece of presidential candidate John McCain's message with a month remaining before Election Day.

Palin told a group of donors at a private airport, "Our opponent ... is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country." She also said, "This is not a man who sees America as you see America and as I see America."

Palin, Alaska's governor, said that donors on a greeting line had encouraged her and McCain to get tougher on Obama. She said an aide then advised her, "Sarah, the gloves are off, the heels are on, go get to them."

Barracuda? Sounds about right

2008-10-03T15:57:00.000-07:00

An observation: The McCain campaign continues to label Sarah "You Betcha" Palin as a political barracuda. Sen. McCain repeated the metaphor in a speech today when he declared, in reference to Palin's debate performance: "Viva la barracuda!"

Yet, I wonder whether the campaign has bothered to look up "barracuda" in the dictionary? It yields interesting results (from merriam-webster.com):

1: any of a genus (Sphyraena of the family Sphyraenidae) of elongate predaceous often large bony fishes of warm seas that includes food and sport fishes as well as some forms frequently causing ciguatera poisoning

2: one that uses aggressive, selfish, and sometimes unethical methods to obtain a goal especially in business

I don't get it. Are they saying she's a fucking fish, or are they saying she's aggressive, selfish and unethical?

I'd tell you what I think about Palin, but I've chewed off my tongue

2008-10-02T20:15:00.000-07:00

Sarah Palin's down-home, aw-shucks personality makes me want to tear my eyelids off and set my eyeballs on fire. I want to ram a red-hot poker into my ear, sever my brain stem and drown myself in boiling water. All these things I would rather do than listen to her bumble for one more second like she's running for spot on the Wasilla PTA. If she wants to make the claim that she's part of the "middle class," as she did so many times during Thursday's debate, then she might want to burn down her mansion in the pristine Alaskan wilderness and give away that $1,000,000 she has in the bank. Middle class? Please. She wouldn't know middle class if she shot and skinned it during a raving moose hunt. She can drag as many pregnant teen daughters and Down syndrome babies onto the stage as she wants.

Sen. Biden skewered her like a clueless schoolgirl on foreign policy and domestic issues. Unfortunately, Americans inexplicably insist on electing idiots, so it's all meaningless. That said, any self-respecting independent and undecided voter couldn't possibly watch that spectacle and come out with the conclusion that this astoundingly inexperienced Republican madwoman is fit to sit in the White House.

Palin: Much worse than a faceplant into cement at high velocity

2008-09-28T22:19:00.000-07:00

I've maintained since the nomination of Sarah Palin that America hasn't reached the astounding level of political cynicism and superficiality necessary to elect a woman this abhorrently unqualified. The bad thing about voicing these predictive political theories, however, is that I can brag about being right in November if she loses, but I'll have no choice but to throw myself off a building if I'm wrong. Indeed, every time I read a story about Palin's political history or core belief system, that tall building gets a little bit higher:

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Los Angeles Times) -- Soon after Sarah Palin was elected mayor of the foothill town of Wasilla, a local music teacher said, she startled him during a casual conversation by insisting that men and dinosaurs coexisted on an Earth only 6,000 years old -- about 65 million years after scientists say most dinosaurs became extinct.

After conducting a college band and watching Palin deliver a commencement address to a small group of home-schooled students, Wasilla resident Philip Munger said he questioned the young mayor about her religious beliefs during a June 1997 encounter.

Munger said Palin told him that "dinosaurs and humans walked the Earth at the same time." When he asked her about prehistoric fossils and tracks dating back millions of years, Palin said "she had seen pictures of human footprints inside the tracks," recalled Munger, who teaches music at the University of Alaska inAnchorage and has regularly criticized Palin in recent years on a liberal political blog.

Although in her race for governor she clamored for faith-based "intelligent design" to counter the teaching of evolution in Alaska's classrooms, Gov. Palin has not sought to require it in state schools, Alaska educators say.

As governor and in her formative role as mayor of Wasilla, Palin has tread carefully between her evangelical faith and public policy.

In issues ranging from abortion to library books, she has pressed the envelope as far as Alaska's live-and-let-live culture will allow. But she has not always bolstered her strongly held beliefs with government action and has at times retreated when her moves sparked controversy or proved politically impractical.

She has harnessed the political muscle of social conservatives and antiabortion groups, yet did not push hard for a special legislative session on abortion and reluctantly did not challenge a court ruling that allowed health insurance for same-sex partners of state workers.

Palin has repeatedly attended prayer sessions with Christian pastors and has quietly sought their guidance -- but she is often mum on matters of faith in high-profile public forums.

Her aides say Palin's caution at the intersection of religion and governance is a studied effort to share her beliefs without imposing them on Alaska's fiercely independent political culture.

"She's obviously an intensively religious person," said Bill McAllister, Palin's chief spokesman as governor. "She understands that she's the governor and not preacher-in-chief. Religion informs her decisions, but she is not out to impose her views on Alaska."

McAllister said he has never heard Palin reprise those 1997 remarks about dinosaurs and that Palin has preferred not to discuss her views on evolution publicly -- though a former campaign aide said that Palin privately made a similar reference during her 2006 race for Alaska governor. "I've never had a conversation like that with her or been apprised of anything like that," he said. McAllister added that "the only bigotry that's still safe is against Christians who believe in their faith." The thought that dinosaurs and men coexisted early on in a world newly created by God is a popular strain in creationist belief.

Critics say she holds back from trying to codify her fervent faith-based views when she senses that she'll have a political price to pay.

"She's got a fine-tuned sense of how far to push," said John Stein, who was toppled as mayor of Wasilla by Palin after he guided her into her political career.
Stein said Palin displayed only vague hints of her fundamentalist Assembly of God upbringing when he first backed her for a nonpartisan run for Wasilla City Council in the early 1990s. But in 1996, when Palin ousted Stein with the aid of pink-colored antiabortion mailers and busloads of Christian grass-roots activists, she grew more overt about her plans, he said.

She combined her staff meetings with prayer sessions, Stein said, and upset the town's chief librarian by asking about how to ban books that she considered offensive. The move was never carried out, Stein said, only because "the library director was horrified and stood up to her."

"Sarah brought it up because she knew there was a moral majority in Wasilla who needed their voices heard," counters Geri McCann, who ran Wasilla's town museum under Palin.

Jesus tits, we've got two more of these things?

2008-09-27T22:01:00.001-07:00

We'll all be better off when everybody realizes how much of a farce the presidential debates are in determining anything of substance about a politician. With that said, I learned from the debate that John McCain is a condescending, bitter old man who looks like he's running low on his Alzheimer's pills and skipped his afternoon nap. What does that tell me about his policies?

A better question: In America, who cares?

Jesus loves you

2008-09-24T10:10:00.001-07:00

Unless you're black, apparently:

NEWBERG, Ore. (AP) - Officials of a Christian university say a life-size effigy of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was hung from a tree on the campus.

George Fox University President Robin Baker says a custodian discovered the cardboard cutout of Obama early Tuesday at the Oregon school and removed it.

The effigy was accompanied by a message targeting participants of a minority student scholarship program called Act Six.

It read, "Act Six reject."

Baker says he met with the students in the Act Six program, who receive full scholarships, late Tuesday and plans to address the school's student body Wednesday.

Yet another face-in-palms moment

2008-09-23T17:39:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I consider the possibility that Americans are way too stupid to recognize the significance, function and reality of a free press:

BANGOR, Maine — A Maine TV news anchor who bears a resemblance to the Republican vice presidential nominee says she's been getting "hate mail and nasty phone calls" from viewers who think she's trying to copy Sarah Palin's signature style.

Cindy Michaels from WVII-TV has long brown hair that she sometimes wears up in a style similar to Palin's, and she also wears glasses on occasion.

Michaels says viewers recently began accusing her of trying to copy Palin's style or, worse, somehow trying to subliminally sway votes.

While smarting over accusations of bias, Michaels says she's generally flattered by the comparisons to Palin. Michaels describes her as a "beautiful woman."

Palin violates the truth about rape victims

2008-09-22T18:37:00.001-07:00

An interesting quote from the McLies campaign today:

"As her record shows, Gov. Palin is committed to supporting victims and bringing violent criminals to justice," Hazelbaker said. "She does not, nor has she ever believed that rape victims should have to pay for an evidence gathering test."

Oh really? Well, what about this:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's hometown required women to pay for their own rape examinations while she was mayor, a practice her police chief fought to keep as late as 2000.

A former Alaskan lawmaker says it seems unlikely that Gov. Sarah Palin was unaware of Wasilla's policy.

A former Alaskan lawmaker says it seems unlikely that Gov. Sarah Palin was unaware of Wasilla's policy.

Former state Rep. Eric Croft, a Democrat, sponsored a state law requiring cities to provide the examinations free of charge to victims. He said the only ongoing resistance he met was from Wasilla, where Palin was mayor from 1996 to 2002.

"It was one of those things everyone could agree on except Wasilla," Croft told CNN. "We couldn't convince the chief of police to stop charging them."

Alaska's Legislature in 2000 banned the practice of charging women for rape exam kits -- which experts said could cost up to $1,000.

Palin, the Republican nominee for vice president, often talks about her experience running Wasilla, population approximately 7,000, and that has prompted close scrutiny of her record there. Wasilla's practice of charging victims for their rape exams while she was mayor has gotten wide circulation on the Internet and in the mainstream media.

...

Judy Patrick, who was Palin's deputy mayor and friend, blames the state.

"The bigger picture of what was going on at the time was that the state was trying to cut their own budget, and one of the things that they were doing was passing on costs to cities, and that was one of the many things that they were passing on, the cost to the city," said Patrick, who recalls enormous pressure to keep the city's budget down.

But the state was never responsible for paying the costs of local investigations. Patrick was also a member of Wasilla City Council, and she doesn't recall the issue coming before council members, nor does she remember discussing the issue with Palin.

She does recall Palin going through the budget in detail. She said Palin would review each department's budget line by line and send it back to department heads with her changes.

"Sarah is a fiscal conservative, and so she had seen that the city was heading in a direction of bigger projects, costing taxpayers more money, and she was determined to change that," Patrick said.

So, here's what we know: 1) Gov. Sarah Palin was the mayor of Wasilla; 2) Wasilla forced women to pay for their own rape kits; 3) Gov. Palin was heavily involved in funding activities for the city and even went "line by line" through the city budget. So, basically, either the McCain campaign is lying about her lack lack of support for rape victims, or she was completely clueless about funding in her own city. I question the argument that she didn't know about the rape kits, given that her own police chief was fighting legislative efforts to require city funding:

Tara Henry, a forensic nurse who has been treating rape victims across Alaska for the last 12 years, told CNN that opposition to Croft's bill from Wasilla Police Chief Charlie Fannon was memorable.

So, then, was she unaware of her own police chief's lobbying efforts? Or is she just lying through her teeth? More likely, Palin was taking the insane religious stance that emergency contraception, which is part of a rape kit, is akin to abortion. Awesome.

Palin: Too clueless to debate but, like, soooooo qualified!!!!!!!

2008-09-20T21:10:00.000-07:00

Gov. Palin, apparently, is much too stupid to debate Sen. Joe Biden in a traditional setting, so the McCain campaign is simply changing the rules. Interesting. Last week we were hearing all about how nobody should dare question whether Palin is qualified, and now the campaign is acknowledging that she is incapable of even debating another politician. The hypocrisy is nearly as clear as seeing Russia from Alaska:

(NYT) The Obama and McCain campaigns have agreed to an unusual free-flowing format for the three televised presidential debates, which begin Friday, but the McCain camp fought for and won a much more structured approach for the questioning at the vice-presidential debate, advisers to both campaigns said Saturday.

Mr. Obama, shown in Florida on Friday, won an agreement for the first debates to be about foreign policy and national security.

At the insistence of the McCain campaign, the Oct. 2 debate between the Republican nominee for vice president, Gov. Sarah Palin, and her Democratic rival, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., will have shorter question-and-answer segments than those for the presidential nominees, the advisers said. There will also be much less opportunity for free-wheeling, direct exchanges between the running mates.

McCain advisers said they had been concerned that a loose format could leave Ms. Palin, a relatively inexperienced debater, at a disadvantage and largely on the defensive.

The wrangling was chiefly between the McCain-Palin camp and the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, which is sponsoring the forums.

Commission members wanted a relaxed format that included time for unpredictable questioning and challenges between the two vice-presidential candidates. On Wednesday, the commission unanimously rejected a proposal sought by advisers to Ms. Palin and Senator John McCain of Arizona, the Republican presidential nominee, to have the moderator ask questions and the candidates answer, with no time for unfettered exchanges. Advisers to Mr. Biden say they were comfortable with either format.

Both campaigns see the four debates as pivotal moments in a presidential race that is not only extraordinarily close but also drawing intense interest from voters; roughly 40 million viewers watched the major speeches at the two parties’ conventions. The upheaval in the financial markets has recast the race in recent days, moreover, which both sides believe will only heighten attention for the debates.

A commission member said that the new agreement on the vice-presidential debate was reached late Saturday morning. It calls for shorter blocks of candidate statements and open discussion than at the presidential debates.

McCain advisers said they were only somewhat concerned about Ms. Palin’s debating skills compared with those of Mr. Biden, who has served six terms in the Senate, or about his chances of tripping her up. Instead, they say, they wanted Ms. Palin to have opportunities to present Mr. McCain’s positions, rather than spending time talking about her experience or playing defense.

Thanks, AP

2008-09-18T21:32:00.000-07:00

Urgent! We have no information! (From the AP wire feed, emphasis mine):

BC-AS--Koreas-Nuclear, 1st Ld-Writethru,0207
URGENT
NKorea: Regime preparing to restart nuke facility

Eds: APNewsNow. UPDATES with White House reaction.

PANMUNJOM, Korea — A North Korean diplomat says the communist regime is undertaking "thorough preparations" to restart its nuclear reactor in Yongbyon.
Hyun Hak Bong has told reporters at the border Friday that North Korea stopped disabling the Yongbyon complex as previously agreed because the U.S. has not kept its end of a disarmament-for-aid deal.
He says "we are making thorough preparations to restart" the facility, but did not say when it would be running again.

The White House had no immediate reaction on the North Korean plans.

Hyun spoke before the start of talks at the border village of Panmunjom with South Korean officials on sending energy aid to the impoverished North amid a deadlock in the six-party disarmament talks.

Palin: Too dumb to talk to reporters?

2008-09-16T21:38:00.000-07:00

Sarah Palin's voice makes me want to tear my fucking eyeballs out. At least then I could convince myself that I'm not really witnessing the possibility that this dingbat will be our vice president and inadvertently trigger a war with Russia. For your enjoyment, a story about how Gov. Palin's own campaign is hiding her from the media, lest she accidentally shed light on the criminal investigation against her (or simply be exposed as a clueless fraud):

DAYTON, Ohio (AP) — Asked about her refusal to turn over e-mails to an Alaska investigator, Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin looked up, smiled — and then stepped wordlessly into her waiting car.

Four days after leaving Alaska for her first solo campaign trip, Palin's hallmark is a disciplined adherence to a sparse public schedule. Appearances are few, interviews with the news media fewer still, and unscripted moments nonexistent.

She is frequently feisty in front of an audience, including Monday evening when she drew cheers as she laid into "far-East Coast politicians" who don't understand the need for control of coyotes or other predators. Or when her introduction of husband Todd as "first dude" evoked a few wolf whistles at a fundraiser.

But by the campaign's design, the self-described pitbull with lipstick, a history-making vice presidential candidate who has helped reshape the race for the White House, doesn't freelance.

"The American people are going to get to know Gov. Palin very well by the end of the campaign," says Steve Schmidt, the top strategist for presidential candidate John McCain. He said she has appeared in public nearly every day since her introduction as ticketmate more than two weeks ago, had a lengthy interview with ABC and been "delivering the reform and change message apart from John McCain and with John McCain."

In the coming days, he said, there will be more interviews, and Palin will join McCain for their first town hall-style appearance.

Yet some Republicans concede privately that Palin lacks familiarity with the numerous complex issues that she must deal with as the campaign progresses and question her readiness for high public office.

A gaffe could prove devastating to her and the ticket, they add. At the same time, she also must prepare for a nationally televised debate in October with her Democratic counterpart, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware.

Several senior campaign officials accompanied Palin to Alaska recently for what amounted to a crash course in running for vice president, and the tutorial continues as she travels around the country.

"The campaign is not being run for the benefit of the press," says Rich Galen, a Republican strategist with extensive political experience. "The campaign is being run for the benefit of the campaign, and when everything is going well, then there is no need to change from what has been working."

Whatever concerns about Palin's readiness, the enthusiasm she has brought to McCain's candidacy is evident.

Polls nationally and in several key states show a swing toward McCain since she was added to the ticket, as conservatives warm to a politician they have long viewed warily. She is also the first woman running mate on a Republican ticket in history, making her a draw for female voters. The organizers of a fundraiser in Ohio where she spoke on Monday said the event raised nearly $1 million.

Yet surprisingly, even some of those who come to hear her speak temper their enthusiasm.

"She might not have the experience but a lot of people don't have experience when they take a job," said Candy Cartaya, a Cuban-American and retired accountant.

Loyal Merrick, a 32-year-old Denverite with his toddler daughter perched on his shoulders, said he has long admired McCain. "I think she's the style to his substance," he says. "She has about as much experience as (Barack) Obama does, so if you want to compare our No. 2 to their No. 1 I'm fine with that."

The governor faces an investigation back home into abuse-of-power allegations in connection with the firing of a state official, and her husband has been subpoenaed to testify in the probe.

Her views on numerous issues remain unknown. Her interview with ABC drew notice when she speculated about a possible war with Russia, and when she seemed to agree with Democratic presidential nominee Obama that U.S. troops should be permitted to cross into Pakistan to track terrorists.

Yet ironically, McCain himself was responsible for one of the ticket's most obvious public stumbles in recent days as he tried to take advantage of Palin's presence on his ticket.

Last week, he erroneously claimed she had never sought federal earmarks as governor, an assertion neither he nor his campaign disavowed. Asked about the issue on Monday, he said Obama had sought more earmarks than Palin. "The important thing is she's vetoed a half a billion dollars in earmark projects — far, far in excess of her predecessor and she's given money back to the taxpayers and she's cut their taxes, so I'm happy with her record," he said.

It's the type of questioning that the campaign has severely limited for Palin.

Since departing Alaska on Saturday for her first solo campaign trip, Palin has spoken before two rallies and appeared at a fundraiser.

After a speech in Carson City, Nev., on Saturday, she flew to Denver and made no public appearances on Sunday. She spoke in Colorado on Monday morning, then held her first solo fundraiser later in the day in Ohio. One scheduled interview was postponed due to storm-related damage. She has refused to answer shouted questions about issues ranging from the economy to the home-state investigation.

Aides keep reporters well away from her when she is campaigning, and also protect her privacy aboard her chartered campaign plane by pulling a curtain across the center aisle to separate the Palins and her top aides from the rest of the passengers.

Even Palin's carefully scripted moments can produce puzzlements.

"Too often, the government gets in the way when innovators take on cancer or Parkinson's or Alzheimer's," she told an audience in Golden, Colo. One aide suggested later that was a reference to federal earmarks that lawmakers sometimes insert into legislation, but the campaign provided no documentation for the claim.

Then, too, Palin seems to relish repeating claims that make selective use of undisputed facts. She told one audience she said "thanks, but no thanks" to the infamous Bridge to Nowhere" that was intended to link a small Alaska village to its airport on a nearby island.

In reality, she welcomed federal funding for the project until it became a national symbol of wasteful spending.

Disgruntled

2008-09-15T20:54:00.000-07:00

I wish I could go on the Internet without seeing photos of talentless, anorexic celebrities. I really, really do.

I still hate the pope

2008-09-15T13:43:00.000-07:00

Dateline, France: Pope Benedict XVI, aka Cardinal Ratfucker, crawls out from his palace to tell an adoring crowd of dying people that they should quit whining and just wait for God to kill them off. Also, he announced the Vatican would open a full and fair investigation into the plague of child molesters that is penetrating the ranks of the Catholic priesthood.

Quick, which part of that did I make up?

(Link)

I'd say she looks more like a horse

2008-09-10T22:26:00.000-07:00

Hey, look, Gov. Sarah Palin is a lying bitch!

ANCHORAGE — When Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska took center stage at the Republican convention last week, she sought to burnish her executive credentials by telling how she had engineered the deal that jump-started a long-delayed gas pipeline project.

Stretching more than 1,700 miles, it would deliver natural gas from the North Slope of Alaska to the lower 48 states and be the largest private-sector infrastructure project on the continent.

“And when that deal was struck, we began a nearly $40 billion natural gas pipeline to help lead America to energy independence,” said Ms. Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee. “That pipeline, when the last section is laid and its valves are opened, will lead America one step farther away from dependence on dangerous foreign powers that do not have our interests at heart.”

The reality, however, is far more ambiguous than the impression Ms. Palin has left at the convention and on the campaign trail.

Certainly she proved effective in attracting developers to a project that has eluded Alaska governors for three decades. But an examination of the pipeline project also found that Ms. Palin has overstated both the progress that has been made and the certainty of success.

The pipeline exists only on paper. The first section has yet to be laid, federal approvals are years away and the pipeline will not be completed for at least a decade. In fact, although it is the centerpiece of Ms. Palin’s relatively brief record as governor, the pipeline might never be built, and under a worst-case scenario, the state could lose up to $500 million it committed to defray regulatory and other costs. (Read the whole story)

Interestingly enough, Palin's puppet-masters have informed us that we should view the good governor's blatant lies "in context":

A spokesman for Ms. Palin, Bill McAllister, denied that her recent statements about the pipeline were misleading. He said they should be viewed within the context of the project’s long and frustrating history, dating back to the Carter administration.

“When the governor signed the legislation giving her administration the authority to grant the gas line license to TransCanada, Alaska came closer than it has ever been to seeing the project actually happen,” Mr. McAllister said. “There is no denying that a major milestone in the project has been reached.”

Oh, context you say? Then certainly this same standard should also apply to Barack Obama when he speaks his mind, like this:

"You can put lipstick on a pig. It's still a pig. You can wrap up an old fish in a piece of paper and call it change. It's still going to stink after eight years. We've had enough," he exclaimed to a standing ovation.

Of course, that's the only part of his comments that the GOP character assassins want you to see. When when you add context, as Palin's own handlers tell us we should, you see his comments a bit differently:

"We've been talking about change when we were up in the polls and when we were down in the polls," Obama said as surveys suggested McCain has overhauled his lead for the November 4 election.

"The other side, suddenly, they're saying 'we're for change too.' Now think about it, these are the same folks that have been in charge for the last eight years," the Illinois senator told a crowd of 2,400 people in Lebanon, Virginia.

"You can put lipstick on a pig. It's still a pig. You can wrap up an old fish in a piece of paper and call it change. It's still going to stink after eight years. We've had enough," he exclaimed to a standing ovation.

Clearly, reading that quote in context would lead to the obvious conclusion that he is referring to McCain/Palin's insane policies, and the pig/lipstick business is just a metaphor for sugar-coating terrible ideas that will ruin the country. The GOP hitmen couldn't possibly accuse him of personal attacks once they see the context, right?

Barack Obama spent much of the day defending himself against charges of sexism after a speech decrying Republican efforts to present themselves as agents of change. “You know, you can put lipstick on a pig,” he said on Tuesday to loud cheers and laughter, “but it’s still a pig.”

John McCain’s campaign said that this was a clear reference to Sarah Palin, the vice-presidential nominee, who told the Republican convention that the only difference between a “hockey mom” such as herself and a pitbull terrier was lipstick.

Huh. Well, so much for the importance of context. I guess Palin is a dirty liar after all, and Obama was literally referring to Palin as a "pig" -- which is, like, totally original, except for all the other people who have used the exact same phrase:

“I think they put some lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig”
- John McCain, in October 2007, on Hillary Clinton's healthcare plan

“John Kerry tries to put a bunch of fancy, fancy talk . . . but there is nothing you can do to really - to really obscure that record. You can try, though . . . We call it putting lipstick on a pig”
- Lynne Cheney during the 2004 presidential campaign

“Mr President, it's not that easy. This town is full of people very experienced when it comes to putting lipstick on a pig”
- GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Washington in April 2004

That guy who was tortured/Palin '08

2008-09-08T14:49:00.000-07:00

Oh boy! New poll numbers!

John McCain leads Democrat Barack Obama by 50%-46% among registered voters, the Republican's biggest advantage since January and a turnaround from the USA TODAY poll taken just before the convention opened in St. Paul. Then, he lagged by 7 percentage points.

The only reasonable explanation, of course, is that 50% of likely American voters are straight from the tool factory.

(/shameless Maddox reference)

"This isn't a racial thing, is it?"

2008-09-07T13:53:00.000-07:00

Sky: Up? Ocean: Blue? Palin: Racist?

2008-09-06T17:05:00.000-07:00

Who knows whether it's true, but it sounds about right for a relentless hick from Alaska (from LA Progressive. More on the link):

“So Sambo beat the bitch!”

This is how Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin described Barack Obama’s win over Hillary Clinton to political colleagues in a restaurant a few days after Obama locked up the Democratic Party presidential nomination.

According to Lucille, the waitress serving her table at the time and who asked that her last name not be used, Gov. Palin was eating lunch with five or six people when the subject of the Democrat’s primary battle came up. The governor, seemingly not caring that people at nearby tables would likely hear her, uttered the slur and then laughed loudly as her meal mates joined in appreciatively.

“It was kind of disgusting,” Lucille, who is part Aboriginal, said in a phone interview after admitting that she is frightened of being discovered telling folks in the “lower 48” about life near the North Pole.

Then, almost with a sigh, she added, “But that’s just Alaska.”

Racial and ethnic slurs may be “just Alaska” and, clearly, they are common, everyday chatter for Palin.

Besides insulting Obama with a Step-N’-Fetch-It, “darkie musical” swipe, people who know her say she refers regularly to Alaska’s Aboriginal people as “Arctic Arabs” – how efficient, lumping two apparently undesirable groups into one ugly description – as well as the more colourful “mukluks” along with the totally unimaginative “f**king Eskimo’s,” according to a number of Alaskans and Wasillians interviewed for this article.

But being openly racist is only the tip of the Palin iceberg. According to Alaskans interviewed for this article, she is also vindictive and mean. We’re talking Rove mean and Nixon vindictive.

No wonder the vast sea of white, cheering faces at the Republican Convention went wild for Sarah: They adore the type, it’s in their genetic code. So much for McCain’s pledge of a “high road” campaign; Palin is incapable of being part of one.

Summer's best comedy

2008-09-05T13:16:00.001-07:00

The GOP convention, you ask? I don't think it could have been any more hilarious had the Apatow crew scripted it. It was like a cross between Pineapple Express and Tropic Thunder: You had to be high to watch it, and it only had one black guy.

Republican hypocrites: The only evidence you'll ever need

2008-09-04T20:22:00.000-07:00

Now if Gov. Palin's 17-year-old daughter had Jon Stewart's baby, I wouldn't be complaining so much:

I still hate Sarah Palin

2008-09-04T15:58:00.000-07:00

After spending most my recent years as a cynical political animal with a general suspicion and hatred of most elected officials -- especially evil, smug, two-faced, gun-toting fundamentalists -- I just donated money to a political campaign for the first time.

That's how much I despise Sarah Palin.

I'm running out of ways to describe my hatred for Sarah Palin

2008-09-04T03:25:00.000-07:00

Not only is God hard at work punishing the gays and the ACLU, he's also holding out for that $30 billion Alaskan oil pipeline and crossing his fingers that America invades Middle Eastern countries and kills those motherfuckers. Right, Gov. Palin?

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told ministry students at her former church that the United States sent troops to fight in the Iraq war on a "task that is from God."

In an address last June, the Republican vice presidential candidate also urged ministry students to pray for a plan to build a $30 billion natural gas pipeline in the state, calling it "God's will."

Palin asked the students to pray for the troops in Iraq, and noted that her eldest son, Track, was expected to be deployed there.

"Our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God," she said. "That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that plan is God's plan."

A video of the speech was posted at the Wasilla Assembly of God's Web site before finding its way on to other sites on the Internet.

Palin told graduating students of the church's School of Ministry, "What I need to do is strike a deal with you guys." As they preached the love of Jesus throughout Alaska, she said, she'd work to implement God's will from the governor's office, including creating jobs by building a pipeline to bring North Slope natural gas to North American markets.

"God's will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that," she said.

"I can do my job there in developing our natural resources and doing things like getting the roads paved and making sure our troopers have their cop cars and their uniforms and their guns, and making sure our public schools are funded," she added. "But really all of that stuff doesn't do any good if the people of Alaska's heart isn't right with God."

Palin attended the evangelical church from the time she was a teenager until 2002, the church said in a statement posted on its Web site. She has continued to attend special conferences and meetings there. Religious conservatives have welcomed her selection as John McCain's running mate.

Rob Boston, a spokesman for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, lamented Palin's comments.

"I miss the days when pastors delivered sermons and politicians delivered political speeches," he said. "The United States is increasingly diverse religiously. The job of a president is to unify all those different people and bring them together around policy goals, not to act as a kind of national pastor and bring people to God."

The section of the church's Web site where videos of past sermons were posted was shut down Wednesday, and a message was posted saying that the site "was never intended to handle the traffic it has received in the last few days."

Sarah Palin is George W. Bush with a vagina. If elected, she will destroy any last hope of surviving the Republican era. I'm counting the days until she slithers back to her wasteland.

Glad somebody said it

2008-09-03T18:53:00.000-07:00

Palin sucks (and I tell you what I really think)

2008-08-31T22:09:00.000-07:00

Five reasons why I hate Gov. Sarah Palin:

1. Sarah Palin is an insane religious fundamentalist who is overwhelmingly supported by the shameless fascists of the Christian Right. James Dobson, president of Intolerant Hicks for Jesus, emerged from his S&M dungeon to hail her as the saving grace of the McCain candidacy (he immediately returned to his cave, however, before the sunlight could melt his face). Rush Limbaugh stopped cramming cheeseburgers into his morbidly obese mouth long enough to label her a "babe." Certified Christian madman Gary Bauer called her a "grand slam home run." Most God-fearing zealots on the blogs view her as a saint because she steadfastly refused to get an abortion after finding out her (alleged) fifth child had Down syndrome. Wow, really? A young and popular Republican governor of a conservative state decided against an abortion? What a maverick! That must have been a really hard decision: a choice between swift and immediate political suicide or giving birth to a handicapped child. Boy, she must have good judgment!

2. Sarah Palin has spent a total of 12 years in elected office, 10 of them as a city councilor and mayor of an Alaskan village with 7,000 people, and the remaining two years as governor of a state famous for breeding two types of animal: caribou and corrupt politicians. She's been labeled as an independent-minded political bulldog because she defeated a member of her own party in an election after he spent his entire administration mired in various scandals and sinking deeper into unpopularity. Running on a platform of clean ethics, she proceeded to (allegedly) influence the firing of her sister's slightly unhinged ex-husband from the police department. She was also an early supporter of the 2006 "bridge to nowhere," which came to be a symbol of every slimeball fiscal tactic in all of Congress.

3. Sarah Palin is an idiot. Allegedly pregnant with her alleged fifth child, Palin flew from Texas to Alaska while in labor -- undoubtedly leaking amniotic fluid down those beauty queen legs -- so the alleged child could allegedly be born in Alaska instead of Texas. Who could blame her? Except it's a 12-hour flight. Also, she gave a speech before she left. Of course, this is assuming she even gave birth and is not covering up her teenage daughter's pregnancy, which you can giggle about here and here.

4. Sarah Palin represents the cynical Republican theory that female voters in America will blindly cast their vote for a politician who meets the simple qualification of possessing a vagina and squeezing out (allegedly) five children. Yet more proof that Republicans have utter contempt for the voting public. After spending the past decade demonizing Hillary Clinton for being a strong-willed woman, the Republicans have finally clarified their preference for a female candidate: A pretty face with too little political experience to get in the way of the men. However, it might be nice if our first female vice president has done more than sit in an office in the middle of a frigid wasteland and lobby for more oil drilling in Alaska.

5. Palin supports "teaching" intelligent design, which is just a thinly veiled fraud aimed at pushing religion in schools. Here's what she had to say about it:

Teach both. You know, don’t be afraid of information.

Healthy debate is so important and it’s so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both.

And, you know, I say this, too, as the daughter of a science teacher. Growing up with being so privileged and blessed to be given a lot of information on, on both sides of the subject — creationism and evolution.

It’s been a healthy foundation for me. But don’t be afraid of information and let kids debate both sides.

Obviously, Palin's "science teacher" parent didn't pass on the point of science, which is to present theories about the physical world based on fact-based observations. You can't really have a debate when one side says "here's my theory, based on these various conclusions formed from an established scientific method" and the other side saying "an invisible man in the sky created everything because life is too complicated to be explained rationally, and to support my theory I have absolutely no evidence."

My millionaire candidate can beat up your millionaire candidate

2008-08-26T15:30:00.000-07:00

I've been hearing all this noise lately about Barack Obama the elitist, and I'm confused. We are talking about the black guy, right? The guy who is fighting to lead a nation that hasn't mustered the courage to elect a nonwhite president in 219 years of representative democracy? The guy who moved from household to household in poor African and Indonesian cities while he was growing up? The guy who worked his way through college on scholarships and dedicated his early life to helping the poor in the slums of Chicago? The guy who is roughly $39 million poorer than John McCain and isn't fortunate enough to have a ranch in Arizona and a vacation house in Connecticut? I'm to believe this is the elitist in this race?

The fundamental problem is that conservatives have a poor understanding of elitism. To them, elitism is drinking expensive coffee, being educated at top-notch schools and voicing well-reasoned ideas about how to make America a better place (God forbid anybody assume America isn't a perfect free market paradise that is immune to change). This view of elitism infects conservative America to the point of absurdity. Consider Jonah Goldberg this week, talking about why Obama hasn't been polling so well:

Indeed, perhaps there’s no mystery at all, and Obama’s problems are the same problems Democrats always have at the presidential level: He’s an elitist.

Oh, I know. Upon reading that, some liberal spluttered herbal chai tea from her nose at the injustice of this whole elitist canard, and the earnest Ivy League interns at some liberal magazine have burst into laughter, offering the appropriate bons mots from Balzac at the preposterousness of such a suggestion, saying: “Don’t you conservatives understand? Democrats care about the little guy. They’re on the side of the proletariat — I mean workers — and as Obama has so eloquently put it, if the workers would only stop clinging to their silly sky god and guns, they’d understand that.”

What a convenient lie. Goldberg has succeeded in lumping all liberals into one stereotype -- the chai-drinking, Ivy-League-school attending, opinionated, secular know-it-all. Unfortunately, stereotyping is useless in any serious discussion about social trends. Surely these people exist, but certainly not universally. For instance, I share many of the same opinions on social matters as Obama, yet I attended the run-of-the-mill University of Oregon, I fucking hate chai and I say "fuck" a lot. I wonder: Am I what Goldberg has in mind, or is my personality not convenient enough to fit his ludicrous vision?

Conservatives are so drunk with ecstasy over the idea of fighting the haughty liberals who are trying to overthrow the nation that they can't take a look in the mirror. Sure, for Jonah Goldberg, the pinnacle of elitism is drinking herbal tea and going to a good school. But for my money, I'd say elitism is assuming the American standard of democracy is the purest form of government, and then invading other nations to force it down their throats. Or how about telling one segment of the populace that they aren't good enough to marry who they want. Or telling women they aren't up to the task of deciding whether they need the morning after pill. You want to talk about elitism? Let's talk about George W. Bush spending the past eight years subverting the Constitution, as though he's above such democratic foolishness. And I have no doubt that somewhere out there, a neocon is enjoying a fresh cup of herbal chai tea, while a Harvard frat boy majoring in Sociology is doing a Budweiser keg stand.

The point is that it doesn't fucking matter what you drink or where you go to school or even where you work. What matters are your actions -- and for the past eight years, Republicans have destroyed this nation with secretive spying programs, discriminatory laws, illegitimate wars, and handout after handout to corporate America. What is so elitist about seeking to end an era of government that has spit in the face of everything decent and good about America?

In the end, all conservatives have against Obama is his Harvard degree and his hope that a Democrat can salvage the steaming mess left behind by the Republicans. And, what the hell, I bet he even drinks regular coffee.

It's the infidelity, stupid

2008-08-11T12:29:00.000-07:00

I give a lot of well-deserved flack to Republicans on this blog, but the reality is that if you're running for elected office -- or have attained such a role -- and you have either an R or a D next to your name, chances are you're either a shameless liar or devoted hypocrite.

Hilariously, all of this could be avoided if politicians had any clue about true American values. For instance, many men in America cheat on their wives with such frequency that most people have become numb to the concept (I'm not saying it's a good thing or that I would cheat on my wife, but there you have it). On the other hand, Americans continue to despise liars. With these two facts in mind, it floors me when politicians who cheat on their wives continue to lie about it, especially when it's the lie -- not the cheating -- that gets them impeached or tossed out of office or publicly crucified.

Good example: Bill Clinton. He would have happily served out his term of record budget surpluses without the threat of getting thrown out of office had he not lied about cheating on Hillary. He should have realized that sitting on one of the greatest economic booms in U.S. history -- one that ushered in a new technology age -- was about enough for Americans to overlook the whole cigar vagina thing. But no, he lied, and when elected officials are caught lying, it reminds Americans of the basic reality that politicians are just a bunch of crooks. As a result, Clinton had to spend his time trying not to get ejected from the White House instead of making the country even more ultra rich.

When John Edwards finally admitted last week to having an affair, it was far too late for him. Why? Because he lied about it a long time ago -- and continued to do so -- instead of saying "I did it and it was a mistake." If he had come out in the beginning when the questions first arose, he might have had a prayer to continue his political career anytime in the next 30 years. I say 30 years because that's how long ago John McCain was cheating on his wife, and look at him now. He's practically the fucking president of the United States. Which brings me to my second point: hypocrites.

Republicans could easily avoid the label if they would just shut the hell up about marital indiscretions. This is a political pastime that is enjoyed relentlessly by both parties, and when it comes to banging hot interns or trying to sleep with men at an airport, party affiliation is meaningless until one party tries to paint the other as morally corrupt. News flash: All you politicians all morally corrupt. Every last one of you. It's pointless to dwell on levels of moral corruptness when there's a damn good chance that "family values Republican" sitting next to you likes to be chained up in leather by Idaho's vast selection of hookers and beaten with a bull whip.

Of course, a secondary lesson could be learned from all this, if politicians weren't so incredibly dim. Here it is: The media always fucking win. If it's not The New York Times it will be the National Enquirer. Or maybe a guy named Drudge who started out with an e-mail list and outed Clinton's adventures in Monica Lewinksy. Or some rabidly disgruntled blogger. It doesn't matter. In the Internet age when everything a politician says is recorded and analyzed, lying is just a recipe for extinction. If you're elected, and you're going to sleep with someone other than your wife, then at least admit to it when we inevitably uncover your cheating ass -- have some dignity; save some face. It worked for John McCain.

My shortest movie review ever

2008-08-03T15:31:00.000-07:00

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor:

Take every cliché ever used in an action movie. Add a mummy.

Fun with definitions

2008-07-29T23:02:00.000-07:00

Hilarious (hi-lar-i-ous)
- adjective

1. Arousing great merriment; extremely funny.
2. Marked by or causing boisterous merriment or convulsive laughter.
3. At least 50 people have lost their sight after staring at the sun hoping to see an image of the Virgin Mary, according to reports.

Click for happiness

Republicans get anal about birth control

2008-07-28T15:16:00.000-07:00

First they came for our civil liberties; now they're coming for our birth control. I'm talking, of course, about Republicans.

As I've demonstrated many times, Republican politicians are generally the most vile hypocrites to ever disgrace our fair democracy. They whine insensately about the big bad government trying to infringe on their rights to do insane things like execute people and shoot each other with automatic weapons, but when they fail miserably with their vision of religious extremism, they simply try to force it down our throats with dirty tricks.

Now, after many years of failing to subvert the will of the people on issues such as abortion rights and birth control, these faithful bureaucrats have cooked up a new plan: change the meaning of "conception." The new rule, proposed by the Bush administration, would alter the government's definition of human life by saying it begins when a human egg is fertilized -- not when the egg implants in the uterus. This new concept of conception is ludicrous when you consider that a fertilized egg is basically a female cell with male DNA that is wandering around the fucking reproduction system. Not until the egg is implanted does development of life actually begin.

So what's the problem with this travesty? Well, because birth control pills often expel fertilized eggs to prevent implantation (and, thus, pregnancy), the rule change would allow the government to regulate birth control by essentially classifying it under "abortion." Hilariously, no test exists to determine solely whether an egg has been fertilized, as pregnancy tests rely on the influx of hormones that results from implantation.

The consequences are staggering. Insane religious zealots in the government could cut funding -- and thus, free access -- to birth control from hospitals and nonprofit services such as Planned Parenthood. Rape victims could be denied emergency contraception from emergency rooms and pharmacies. Doctors would be allowed to refuse birth control to patients based on misguided religious beliefs (currently, many states have laws requiring birth control as an option for women -- but not abortion services, which is how Republicans hope to classify birth control).

Hey, here's an idea for all you aspiring gynecologists out there: If you don't belief in birth control based on information from some asshole in Rome who thinks an invisible man in the sky talks to him, FIND A NEW CAREER.

This whole sordid situation left me with one burning inquiry: What exactly do Republicans have against sex? Then I remembered that the majority of Republican politicians consider sex to be either a fling with a male page in the halls of Congress or secret trysts with strangers in a men's bathroom -- neither of which traditionally necessitate the use of birth control. It's all coming together now.

far and away

2008-07-23T21:29:00.000-07:00

I'm still alive.

Moved to a new place, but my computer should be up and running again soon, at which point I will continue my bitchfest.

Good times!

Confirmed: McCain is definitely a white guy

2008-07-16T11:53:00.001-07:00

John McCain, the shameless panderer and opportunist, is probably too old to remember that he even did this, but I'll bring it up anyway as a matter of principle. Most people with a passing interest in politics won't read much into it, but for a paranoid, rabid anti-politician such as myself, it speaks volumes.

As we are all aware, McCain has been circling the country, heaping criticism on his rival, Barack Obama, about everything from his youth to his lack of national security experience to the fact that Obama's wife isn't an insane ex-USC cheerleader who dines on the tears of starving children (or, in McCain's own words, a "cunt.")

Although bashing your opponent by using clever language and non-answers -- when asked whether he thought Obama was patriotic, McCain responded by saying he is a "great success story" -- the real test of integrity lies with how you react within an audience that may be skeptical of your message. Do you press on with your view that your opponent is a hopeless kid? Or do you try to win them over by faking respect?

We found out on Wednesday, when McCain found himself speaking before the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. While you'd expect McCain, like at any campaign rally, to eviscerate his opponent and highlight the vast differences in policies, McCain sounded more like he was stumping for Obama:

* "Don't tell him I said this, but he's an impressive fellow in many ways," McCain said to applause from the crowd. "His success should make Americans, all Americans, proud. Of course, I would prefer his success not to continue quite as long as he hopes," he quipped.

* "My opponent and I have honest differences as well about the growth of government. And it may be that many of you share his view. But even allowing for disagreement, surely there is common ground in the principle that government cannot go on forever spending recklessly and incurring debt," he said.

Huh! These fawning quotes are coming from the same man who said, regarding Obama, that it was "clear who Hamas wants to be the next president"? And this sudden switch not because he's always been an even-keeled campaigner (he isn't) but because he suddenly found himself before an audience of black people?

Taking a page from fear-mongering Republicans, I would ask this: If McCain crumples under the pressure of people who disagree with him, or don't share his skin color, how will he respond WHEN THE TERRORISTS ATTACK AHHHH WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!!!!

Birthday blues

2008-07-14T15:18:00.000-07:00

Three things I've learned so far about being 27:

* I'm too old to run at full speed and jump over bodies of water at the beach. Similarly, hobbling around town is an inefficient mode of transportation.

* You won't win the lottery, even if it's your birthday.

* Turning 25 was a lot worse.

Happy (belated) Independence Day

2008-07-09T12:39:00.000-07:00

It occurred to me that I hadn't done a post on Independence Day, which is really the best day of the year to point out how far this country has drifted from the original ideals of its founding. Beyond the fact that we're all waving red, white and blue instead of the British cross -- and that I retain the freedom to write this in the first place -- I continue to be deeply disturbed by the gross abuse of power that has corrupted our way of life.

Torturing our enemies, invading countries that don't directly threaten us militarily, curbing civil liberties -- the list goes on, and everyday this nation goes a bit farther down the rabbit hole.

But probably the worst symptom of our decaying willingness to be free is the notion that dissent is unpatriotic. In fact, it is exactly that mindset that leads to the ugly reality of fascism -- without a solid belief that revolution against a dominant power is sometimes necessary to maintain a free society, as Thomas Jefferson said, we are susceptible to losing our freedom. The political tyrants currently holding our government in a stranglehold against the Constitution want nothing more than a society of docile, powerless sheep.

Since Sept. 11, Americans who fancy themselves patriots have increasingly fallen into this delusion that to be a good citizen in a time of uncertainty, one must blindly follow the leaders who may or may not have our best interests in mind. Yet, this country was founded on dissent and upheaval against forces that sought to oppress us or serve their own interests over those of the people. I would even dare to say this: Supporting a society that is free of protest is inherently un-American. It is absolutely unpatriotic to stifle dissension. The people who say "if you don't like it, you should leave" -- as if disagreement were grounds for dismissal -- are exactly the kind of people who will destroy this dream of independence.

Thomas Jefferson, the man who masterminded the document that declared our independence from the mighty grip of monarchy, had the rumblings of revolution in many of the same quotes repeated by people who longingly defend a society that blindly follows its highly corruptible leaders. Americans would be well-served to remember his message: "All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent."

Oh, and fuck Bush.

Helms dead; world loses one more redneck

2008-07-04T11:54:00.000-07:00

I don't like to disparage the dead, but fuck you Jesse Helms.

From Wikipedia, on Helms' long career of bigotry:

Helms blamed gays and lesbians for "the proliferation of AIDS," and stating he disliked using the word "gay" to refer to them since, "...there's nothing gay about them."

Of civil rights protests Helms stated in 1963 that "The Negro cannot count forever on the kind of restraint that's thus far left him free to clog the streets, disrupt traffic, and interfere with other men's rights."[6] (WRAL-TV commentary, 1963) He also wrote, "Crime rates and irresponsibility among Negroes are a fact of life which must be faced." (New York Times, 2/8/81)

Helms' referred to the University of North Carolina (UNC) as the "University of Negroes and Communists." (Charleston Gazette, 9/15/95)[7]

Helms once deeply offended a black colleague, Democratic Senator Carol Moseley-Braun of Illinois, by singing part of "Dixie" on a Capitol elevator.

Soon after the Senate vote on the Confederate flag insignia, Sen. Jesse Helms (R.-N.C.) ran into Mosely-Braun in a Capitol elevator. Helms turned to his friend, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R.-Utah), and said, "Watch me make her cry. I'm going to make her cry. I'm going to sing 'Dixie' until she cries." He then proceeded to sing the song about "the good life" during slavery to Mosely-Braun (Gannett News Service, 9/2/93; Time, 8/16/93).[7]

While working on the 1950 Democrat primary campaign of Willis Smith against Frank Porter Graham, Helms helped create an ad that read "White people, wake up before it is too late. Do you want Negroes working beside you, your wife and your daughters, in your mills and factories? Frank Graham favors mingling of the races." Another ad featured photographs Helms himself had doctored to illustrate the allegation that Graham's wife had danced with a black man. (FAIR 9/1/01, The News and Observer 8/26/01)

Helms had close ties to the rightist Salvadoran death squad leader Roberto D'Aubuisson and was considered a main sponsor of D'Aubuisson's political party, the Nationalist Republican Alliance.[8] When confronted with evidence that D'Aubuisson ran death squads that systematically murdered civilians, he replied that "[a]ll I know, is that D'Aubuisson is a free enterprise man and deeply religious."[9]

Helms was an ardent supporter of the late Chile dictator Augusto Pinochet.[10]

When Roberta Achtenberg was appointed Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in 1993 by President Bill Clinton, Helms attempted to block her confirmation, stating that he refused to vote for her "because she's a damn lesbian."

In 1994 Helms spoke out against metal industrial singer Marilyn Manson. Manson responded by painting an anti-gay slur on his chest during a show in Winston-Salem, in a sarcastic and critical display against Helms's social viewpoints.

Hendrik Hertzberg of The New Yorker noted in his memoirs that Helms had "the 'humorous habit'" of calling all black people "Fred".

Helms used race issues in many elections; for instance, in 1990, he ran the famous "Hands" television ad in a tough re-election race. The ad has become legendary in Southern political circles as the most direct appeal to white backlash in modern American politics. The ad played upon white voters' ideas that affirmative action might lead to a job going to a less-qualified candidate ("Gantt supports Ted Kennedy's racial quota law, that makes the color of your skin more important than your qualifications.") (watch the ad).

Helms opposed an amendment offering war reparations to Japanese-Americans who had been interned during World War II; he proposed an amendment stipulating that no reparations would be made unless the Japanese government compensated the families of Americans killed at Pearl Harbor.

In 1994, Helms created a sensation when, on the anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination, he told broadcasters Rowland Evans, Jr., and Robert Novak that Clinton was "not up" to the tasks of being commander-in-chief and suggested that Clinton had "better not show up around here [Fort Bragg] without a bodyguard."[11]

Helms was a strong supporter of drug prohibition, and opposed former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld's nomination as Ambassador to Mexico because Weld supported medical marijuana.[1] Helms proposed several bills as part of the war on drugs.[12]

Helms once claimed that "The New York Times and Washington Post are both infested with homosexuals themselves. Just about every person down there is a homosexual or lesbian."[13]

Yeah, a real American hero.

2008-07-03T21:51:00.001-07:00

Bush Tours America To Survey Damage Caused By His Disastrous Presidency

I try to figure out Republicans and lose my grip on reality

2008-06-30T00:57:00.000-07:00

I keep hearing this weird rumor that Republicans are fond of small government and, following that belief, are of the opinion that strong-arm federal officials have no place dictating how we manage our personal affairs.

Like whispers in the wind, I hear this small-government schtick whenever God-fearing GOP soldiers lambaste national health care ("Why, you don't want the nasty government making your medical decisions!") or decry the so-called liberal elitists who are apparently using their superior intellectual prowess to control the masses. The same intellectual prowess, I might add, that was gleaned from the halls of the same Ivy league institutions that many Republican politicians once walked. But, as we all know, attending Harvard is only a sign of elitism if you're a Democrat.

Anyway, then I read the news, and I see stories about "small-government" Republicans who support warrantless spying on Americans, or a Republican attorney general in Alabama who wants to enforce a law criminalizing the use of sex toys among private citizens. I read this shit, and I get confused. Eavesdropping on my phone calls? Banning sexual devices? Why, that sounds like something an intrusive, big government would do!

The latter example of Troy King, the Alabama AG, is just a highlight of Republican insanity infecting our nation's proud tradition of doing whatever the fuck we want in our own bedrooms. King, who may or may not have a penis, is pushing the Alabama Legislature to toughen up an earlier law it passed banning vibrators and other such "obscene" devices. This news immediately led me to the obvious conclusion: Perhaps Republicanism is just the inherent result of extreme sexual frustration.

King's courageous crusade against the insidious orgasm should be an inspiration to us all. I can't help but wonder whether King's first wife died in a bizarre dildo tragedy, sparking his lifelong mission to rid the Earth of sex toys. An image popped into my head of King as a young man, standing in a blood-soaked room, holding up a vibrator and tearfully vowing to his dead wife's soul: "Never again!" Then I gouged out my frontal lobes in a moment of awful soul-wrenching terror.

Not to be deterred by the sudden and debilitating lobotomy that resulted in the knowledge that this man is trying to criminalize sexuality, I was able to scan the GOP's official party platform before slipping into sweet unconsciousness. I kept looking for the part where the GOP overlords explain how vibrators are tantamount to terrorist activity, or how the party is in lockstep behind their elected leaders banning the sale of fake vaginas. Alas, nothing.

I should point out, however, that I did read a whole lot about the importance of upholding marriage as a sacred right between a man and a woman, but nothing about whether said man and woman should be allowed to use a vibrating piece of plastic in their own bedrooms. So, for those of you keeping score, just remember: Heterosexual marriage: good; Sexual freedom: bad.

Jesus, no wonder these people are so pissed off.

Roving lunatic

2008-06-24T02:32:00.000-07:00

A report is floating around the Internet that Karl Rove, the man responsible for the past eight years of George W. Bush terrorizing America, accused Barack Obama of being an elitist. Personally, I can't possibly fathom why people still quote Rove, who boasts a long career as a shameless liar, cunning manipulator and prolific propagandist.

Here's what he said:

ABC News' Christianne Klein reports that at a breakfast with Republican insiders at the Capitol Hill Club this morning, former White House senior aide Karl Rove referred to Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, as "coolly arrogant."

"Even if you never met him, you know this guy," Rove said, per Christianne Klein. "He's the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by."

The implication here is that Obama is just another arrogant liberal who lords his good fortune and status over those who apparently lack his charisma and boyish good looks. The problem is that this notion is not supported by anything but blatantly false stereotypes that liberals are oppressive elitists (after all, isn't it the conservatives who flaunt their religious beliefs over other people and believe they can do this marriage thing better than everybody else?)

Obama -- who is married to a woman who grew up in the ghettos of Chicago's south side, not the luxurious Connecticut pastures of Rove's coveted Bush family -- started his career at a community center in south Chicago, helping the poor. After receiving his law degree, he was elected to the Chicago state Legislature, where he increased tax credits for low-income workers and cracked down on predatory lenders. While Rove was thriving in his innate ability to elect money-grubbing, corrupt Republicans, Obama was helping poor black kids get into college.

Yet, it's Obama who is the elitist. It's Obama -- the black guy -- who is more likely than Rove to stand in a fucking country club with a cigar in his hand. Riiiiight.

Jake Tapper of ABC News had some interesting insight on the matter:

Interesting that Mr. Rove would use a country club metaphor to describe the first major party African-American presidential candidate, whom I'm sure wouldn't be admitted into many country clubs that members of the Capitol Hill Club frequent.

But the picture Rove paints is interesting. Who, pray tell, is Rove at this country club?

The guy telling funny stories near the band?

The charming president of the club's philanthropic arm?

The brainy guy with all the sports scores?

Or the guy who vandalizes your car and blames it on the kitchen staff?

Side note: If you want to understand exactly how conservatives in this country have attempted to convince Americans that liberals are all elitists -- and why that idea is so ludicrous -- read "What's The Matter With Kansas" by Thomas Frank. You won't regret it.

Back on the McCain gang

2008-06-17T02:56:00.001-07:00

During my short visit to Japan in the past few weeks, I felt a lingering feeling -- a constant pang of distant awareness, too vague to grasp -- as though something vitally important (or vitally apocalyptic) was missing from my life. As the days passed and I was entrenched in the vastly peaceful feeling of disconnection, I realized what it was that I had abandoned back home: The fluidly constant stream of bullshit, lies and treachery that is American politics.

Luckily, the moment I arrived back in the glorious republic to end all republics, I was bombarded by the Great American Cynicism, and I can happily say I am once again swimming in the discontent that accompanies any exposure to this wasteland of political circus clowns. And as I drove down the interstate from the airport -- grateful to be behind the wheel instead of screaming in terror as my dad navigated Asian roads -- a curious thing happened. I felt great. I felt at home. I fucking love this country!

No, not the wave-the-flag-and-masturbate-to-your-Hummer kind of love for this country. It's more the I'm-watching-a-trainwreck-and-can't-look-away kind of fascination. For some reason, I feel much more accomplished writing about the crushing depression of American politics while I'm actually in the nation in question -- not thousands of miles away, where I'm virtually immune to the fallout of fascist Republican religious fanatics preaching "small government" glory while systematically working to rape Americans of our rights to watch what we want, marry who we want and say what we want. The fight for preserving the classic American rights to freedom is just not as fulfilling on foreign soil.

That being said, I'm happy to report that, while once reluctantly acknowledging that John McCain could possibly be the closest thing to principled that any Republican has ever achieved, I've finally realized that he is just another opportunistic vulture in an endless sky of spineless, two-faced political scavengers. How do I know this? Well, in order to win his unlikely victory to our nation's highest office, he's attempting to be more Republican: That is to say, he's rejecting all his purported "moderate" beliefs about freedom and decency in favor of a discriminatory police state that is more aligned with the GOP.

When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled this week that Bush has basically pissed on the Constitution by seizing people from foreign nations and throwing them in U.S. military prisons with no access to the fundamental rights granted to U.S. citizens, McCain boldly told the nation: "I think it's one of the worst decisions in history. It opens up a whole new...interpretation of our Constitution."

Interesting. Sounds like a normal response from a man who has recently discovered his undying love for the Bush administration, despite the fact that Karl Rove torpedoed McCain's primary campaign in 2000 by circulating a rumor in South Carolina that the senator had fathered an illegitimate black child (but I digress). Of course, McCain's tone on Guantanamo detainees is a bit different from his rhetoric back in 2007, when he was still a long-shot candidate and didn't have to worry about rallying his base around a guy who was basically a Democrat. Here's what he told Fox News Sunday on April 2, 2007, when asked "how (he would) fight the War on Terror differently than it's being fought now":

McCain: I would probably announce the closing of Guantanamo Bay. I would move those detainees to Fort Leavenworth. I would announce we will not torture anyone. I would announce that climate change is a big issue, because we've got some image problems in the world. Clearly, in the area of "propaganda," in the area of the war of ideas, we are not winning--well, in some ways we are behind. Al-Jazeera and others maybe, in my view--may sometimes do a better job than we are. At the end of the day, it's how people make up their minds as to whether they want to embrace our values, our standards, our ideals, or whether they want to go the path of radical Islamic extremism, which is an affront to everything we stand for and believe in.

Right. So, in 2007 McCain bitches that the treatment of Guantanamo detainees is an affront to American values, and we should just close the goddamn place, and we shouldn't torture, and oh yeah we should probably do something about the world thinking we're a bunch of brutish totalitarian hypocrites because we don't afford "enemy combatants" any legal rights. Now, just a year later and facing heavy criticism about his waning conservative credentials, McCain says granting basic rights to the prisoners -- including such outlandish ideas as hearing the charges against them or facing their accusers -- is "one of the worst decisions in history."

That's a pretty bold statement, considering the Supreme Court has put out more than its share of disastrous and misguided decisions. To name a few:

* Dred Scott v Sandford: U.S. Supreme Court rules that African Americans shipped to the United States for the purposes of slavery could never become U.S. citizens and were the rightful property of slave owners.

* Plessy v. Ferguson: U.S. Supreme Court upholds racial segregation as constitutional.

Anyway, you get the picture. McCain may have been a legitimate moderate -- and, quite possibly, very genuine in his beliefs -- at one point. But that day has long passed, replaced now by the ambitions of a career politician who believes he can ride his Vietnam torture record straight to the Oval Office. He's Bush Light, and if he wins, he'll either continue down the path of insane neo-conservatism, or he'll revert back to his moderate ways and expose himself to be the shameless con man many believe him to be. Either way, we all lose. Big time.

Back in the U.S.A.

2008-06-15T14:43:00.000-07:00

I'm back. Updates to come again soon. Jet lag is a bitch.

Dispatches from Nippon

2008-06-02T21:39:00.000-07:00

MAEBASHI, Japan -- Things have changed since I was last here.

I'm no international sociologist with my finger on the pulse of Japanese culture, but this city appears to have transformed into an imperialistic tourist's wet dream. To wit, I can look out my window and gaze into the depressing plastic nightmare of a McDonald's sign. Down the road from that endless symbol of American flatulence, I arrive at a shopping mall, complete with alien florescence and trendy fashion shops.

Now this might not seem like a big deal to the average American, but to somebody who was here just eight years ago and hadn't even considered the possibility of a shopping mall, it was a frightening blow of reverse culture shock. The mall's consumerist glory actually made me feel at home, which is exactly what I was trying to avoid by coming here. Who wants to fly 10 hours over the Pacific Ocean and feel at home?

Yet, I'm also reminded of the simple, chaotic beauty of this place. Aside from the corporate fast food chains and capitalistic shopping extravaganzas, this country has taken every aspect of American culture and reversed it. I am constantly plunged into a state of acceptence and friendliness. I was in a restaurant today, and my server was delighted by the fact that I didn't speak a lick of Japanese. In America -- where those who lack English skills are demonized and insidious lawmakers attempt to pass Official Language laws -- my lack of communication ability would be looked at with scorn. Here, it's just amusing. I feel a constant sense of adventure with my inability to read or speak, mostly because getting lost isn't really a big deal. An overwhelming sense of safety permeates this land, whereas in America, a wrong turn in a similar big city could lead to disaster.

Being American in this town is probably similar to being black in Eugene, minus the racism. Here, I'm part of a very small minority. It feels oddly refreshing. The people here are gracious and welcoming, and it's hard not to feel a little like a rock star. People are curious, and they stare, but only because it's such a rarity for an American to walk down the street.

This weekend I hope to travel to the countryside, where the real rugged beauty of Japan emerges. It's simply impossible to experience this unspoiled wilderness and come out without a renewed sense of humanity. It's probably the closest thing to spiritual enlightenment that a career nonbeliever like myself will ever achieve.

---
Yesterday I played with my little sister for the first time in too many years. The last time I saw her, she was just about big enough for me to hold with one arm. I have a vivid memory of taking her into the China Sea -- her first experience in a large body of water -- and watching with amusement as the Japanese beachgoers stared at this foreigner strutting down the sand with a cute 2-year-old in tow. This was, of course, back when I could take off my shirt at the beach and not feel flubby -- the unfortunate result of beer, pizza and a day job.

My sister is half Japanese, but I can see the resemblence to my bloodline very clearly. Her mouth is, unfortunately, a victim of the Montry family heritage of bad teeth (as is my little brother's acne), but her smile is contagious. We went to the park, and she attempted to translate the rules of her Japanese games in a way I would understand. I pretended to know what she was talking about, but in the end I was only able to comprehend a mix between soccer and hide-and-seek. She seemed content with that, and the fact that she was mercilessly kicking my ass at this game.

Later, we played Uno, and I had no choice but to smile and laugh when she blatently cheated. With one eye on me at all times to ensure I didn't notice, she would deal herself a bunch of Draw 4 cards, and at the end of the game she would lay them all down in victory. I couldn't possibly stop her. Her eyes would grow very wide after the cards were dealt, and she would exclaim, as if in total surprise at her good fortune: "Oooooh, rucky!" Even with American blood pumping through her veins, the characteristic Japanese inability to pronounced the "L" sound was too hilarious for me to pass up. Then we ate sushi.

Vacation time

2008-05-31T04:27:00.000-07:00

I'm grazing on to other pastures for a few weeks. The blog will be on hiatus until around June 13, although I'll try to update from Japan if I can.

The truth hurts

2008-05-28T03:05:00.001-07:00

I've always viewed White House press secretaries throughout Bush's reign of terror as soulless ministers of deception -- the enemy of Journalism. And if you watch carefully, it only takes a short tenure of lies and treachery before these despicable flacks get this vacant look in their eyes, as if they have finally realized the internal consequences of their loyalty to an administration that has utterly tainted American society.

Of course, it takes a special kind of evil to stand in front of the media every day and spew pure propaganda and half-truths, knowing that these lies will be disseminated among the hapless public. I can only imagine what it must feel like as every drop of integrity slowly seeps away. The psychological pain of defending a man who is responsible for so much needless destruction and death must be unbearable.

Yet, it seems one of these political hyenas has seen the error of his ways. After a few years of spreading the myth of Bush's America, former press secretary Scott McClellan is admitting in a new book that he was, in fact, full of shit, as was the entire administration. McClellan, of course, was the carnivore who fed on the rotting carcass of Bush's failed policies during Hurricane Katrina and much of the war in Iraq. Also, he doesn't blink. What an asshole.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The spokesman who defended President Bush's policies through Hurricane Katrina and the early years of the Iraq war is now blasting his former employers, saying the Bush administration became mired in propaganda and political spin and at times played loose with the truth.

Former White House spokesman Scott McClellan blasts President Bush and advisers in a new book.

In excerpts from a 341-page book to be released Monday, Scott McClellan writes on Iraq that Bush "and his advisers confused the propaganda campaign with the high level of candor and honesty so fundamentally needed to build and then sustain public support during a time of war."

"[I]n this regard, he was terribly ill-served by his top advisers, especially those involved directly in national security," McClellan wrote.

McClellan also sharply criticizes the administration on its handling of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.

"One of the worst disasters in our nation's history became one of the biggest disasters in Bush's presidency," he wrote. "Katrina and the botched federal response to it would largely come to define Bush's second term."

A few thoughts on Quotegate

2008-05-25T00:32:00.000-07:00

As America reels in horror at the latest Hillary Clinton scandal, I think we should all keep in mind an important political standard: The majority of interviews with politicians are meaningless because the majority of politicians are full of shit.

Allow me to explain.

Every word muttered by a politician is carefully calculated and gauged to get the appropriate response from the designated electorate. The resulting "dialogue" is usually nothing more than politically tested talking points with no substance -- as much empty rhetoric that can be said without saying anything at all.

However, sometimes a politician really screws up and goes off message or says something completely ridiculous. These moments -- usually the only indication that a politician is human and not some automaton designed to say strictly what we want to hear -- are what we affectionately call "gotcha journalism." As much as I despise gotcha journalism, I have no choice but to concede its great importance, given that the only time we can expect true honesty from a politician is when something is said in error.

If everything a politician says about an issue is either bullshit or an accident, then voters would be wise to keep close track of the latter. Unfortunately, with Clinton, it's really hard to tell.

Quick recap (and some boobs!)

2008-05-19T01:32:00.000-07:00

Well, here we go again with this human three-ring circus.

The California Supreme Court decides discrimination is generally a bad thing and announces that gay couples can enjoy the same rights as me and my fellow straight people. Yet another victory for civil rights that I'm positive the voters of California, in their infinite wisdom and homophobia, will destroy in November with a constitutional amendment.

In response, the Pope shits a golden brick from that soulless, decrepit ass of his and mumbles something that I couldn't understand because I don't speak fascist; the Christian elite in America retreat to their mansions in panic at the upcoming social apocalypse; and I'm sitting here wondering how any of these boneheads were allowed to dictate a personal decision like marriage in the first place. Again, I'm left to wonder.

Meanwhile, as the culture war rages and I yawn in agony, a Christian group in San Diego called The Resistance pushes for a boycott of Starbucks because the company's new logo depicts a mermaid with breasts. No word yet on how a barely legible drawing of breasts on a mermaid is decaying the fabric of our morality, although it does raise troubling questions about my bizarre attraction to mermaids. We won't go into that.

Hey, The Resistance, let me do you a fucking favor:

There we go. Now they're old news.

O'Reilly dance remix (NSFW--language, hilitary)

2008-05-15T14:53:00.002-07:00

How America is killing political journalism

2008-05-12T01:05:00.001-07:00

Election years are brutal for political journalists. Politics, like no other realm of journalistic inquiry, incite rabid passions as politicians dish out savage rhetorical beatings until a winner emerges, victorious but battle-worn after experiencing the harsh reality of our democracy.

In the middle of this tedious brawl of emotions and hysteria is the political journalist -- the underpaid and jaded intellectual masochist who is left with the arduous task of cobbling together the copious amounts of lies and empty oratory and delivering some semblance of Truth^©. Subsequently, it's no accident that political journalism is often associated with heavy drinking and liberal abuse of any substance available to numb the pain of rowing down a constant stream of bullshit.

And therein lies the problem. In the end, political journalists are dishing out the Truth^© to a public full of stubborn voters who SAY they want to be informed objectively but really just want the media to deliver evidence of their pre-conceived notions about political realities. If a political journalist fails in this task, or even has the audacity to contradict such notions, he is either biased or uninformed. Sadly, these are the only two options for Average Joe Voter, who retains such a clear picture of the political landscape from the comfort of his armchair that logical inquiry is moot. And this, of course, is how the American public can continue to elect people like George W. Bush.

The culmination of this vicious cycle -- that is to say, political journalists barely surviving election after election in order to deliver facts to people who don't really want them -- is rather hilarious. It goes something like this: The citizens who are presented with political facts but choose to ignore them simply spew out their asinine misconceptions, which the media gather and redistribute in order to develop some absurd gauge of political success. Allow me to demonstrate:

WILLIAMSON, West Virginia (AP) -- Like most people in Mingo County, West Virginia, Leonard Simpson is a lifelong Democrat. But given a choice between Barack Obama and John McCain in November, the 67-year-old retired coalminer would vote Republican.

“I heard that Obama is a Muslim and his wife’s an atheist,” said Mr Simpson, drawing on a cigarette outside the fire station in Williamson, a coalmining town of 3,400 people surrounded by lush wooded hillsides.

Mr Simpson’s remarks help explain why Mr Obama is trailing Hillary Clinton, his Democratic rival, by 40 percentage points ahead of Tuesday’s primary election in the heavily white and rural state, according to recent opinion polls.

Wow. Where do I even begin? First, and most depressing, is that a participant in this democracy would be such an idiot as to base his vote on some outlandish rumor without even attempting to verify its accuracy. A brief search on the Internet would reveal to this man that Barack Obama and his wife are both Christians. One would think Obama's religious affiliation would be evident by the 24-hour coverage of Obama's former Christian pastor. Another clue might be the unlikelihood that a devout Muslim would marry an atheist. Yet, undoubtedly, this voter has already decided that Obama is a Muslim, and thus any independent investigation on his part is fruitless.

Still, the clear stupidity of this one voter didn't deter the reporter, who simply concluded that the state must be full of Obama-haters, as if talking to one uninformed citizen in the backwoods of West Virginia is somehow an indicator -- and explanation -- of Obama's lack of support in the state. Last time I checked, a retired miner living in the Appalachians is not the fucking spokesman for West Virginia. The only information I can glean from this man is that the town is occupied by at least one idiot. Well, make that two conclusions: In West Virginia, John McCain appears to have a great start at securing the moron vote.

Basically, people in this country need to learn how to fucking fact check. And the media in this country need to learn how to distinguish between one delusional voter and the political persuasions of an entire state. Until then, this orgy of absurdity will continue, and we'll undoubtedly keep electing people who are utterly full of shit.

A dark time

2008-05-09T11:33:00.001-07:00

I'm not sure which alignment of the stars resulted in this cinematic catastrophe, but apparently some misguided Hollywood executives with no respect for true art think a no-name hack director should revisit the disturbingly genius "Donnie Darko." The sequel starts production this month, and I wish I were kidding.

The travesty is Richard Kelly was traded for Chris Fisher, the guy who directed "Nightstalker" and other mind-numbing epics. Haven't heard of that one? Well allow me to enlighten you: "A horror film based on the life of Richard Ramirez, aka the Night Stalker, who terrorized people in the Los Angeles area during the mid-1980s." So you can tell already the bar has been set really high by the people responsible for this nightmare.

According to Wikipedia, the story follows Darko's younger sister as she accompanies her friend on a road trip to Las Vegas, where I'm positive the story devolves into some utterly childish horror dreck worthy of the guy who made "Nightstalker." Here's the full synopsis, if you can bear it to read it:

Filming will begin for S. Darko, the sequel to Donnie Darko. UK-based sales company Velvet Octopus will be launching sales for the film in Cannes, with Fox already having required North American rights. S. Darko will be set seven years after the end of Donnie Darko, when Donnie's little sister Samantha and her best friend Corey are now 18 and on a roadtrip to Las Vegas when they are plagued by bizarre visions. Daveigh Chase, who portrayed Samantha Darko in Donnie Darko, will be reprising her role. The cast will also include Ed Westwick, Briana Evigan and Justin Chatwin. Chris Fisher will direct the film, shooting on an estimated $10,000,000 budget and commenting he is "a great admirer of Richard Kelly's film and hope[s] to create a similar world of blurred fantasy and reality." Donnie Darko director Kelly is, however, not involved. According to Simon Crowe of Velvet Octopus, the character of Donnie Darko will not be coming back, but there will be "meteorites and rabbits".

Oh gee, I guess it won't be so bad given the meteorites and rabbits will be represented. But, um, what about the incredible dialogue? The mysterious and interesting plot? The social commentary? The cast of top actors? The paranoid schizophrenia? Will we be treated to any of that in this brilliant new production?

Incidentally, Daveigh Chase, the actress who played Darko's sister in the first movie, is from Albany, Oregon. She apparently spends quite a bit of time there when she's not living in Los Angeles or crawling out of TV sets in movies like "The Ring." I could conceivably go to Albany and ask why she is contributing to the death of cinema, but Albany fucking sucks.

Florida: Home of the crazies since 1845

2008-05-07T12:03:00.000-07:00

Ah, Florida. The land of wrinkled retirees, media whore amusement parks, stolen elections and crackpot paranoia. Oh, and apparently news travels pretty slow to the fabled southern state, as many people there are apparently under the impression that the world is populated by wizards:

A Florida teacher may have to pull an unemployment check out of his hat after performing magic in front of students, according to reports.

Jim Piculas said he made a toothpick disappear and reappear in front of students at the Rushe Middle School in Land 'O Lakes, Fla., Local6.com reported. He said he later got a call from the supervisor of teachers, saying he had been accused of wizardry.

"I get a call the middle of the day from head of supervisor of substitute teachers. He says, 'Jim, we have a huge issue. You can't take any more assignments. You need to come in right away,'" he told Local6.com.

Piculas said he’s concerned the incident may prevent him from being considered for future jobs.

I guess this explains how Jeb Bush can keep getting re-elected. The whole fucking state is delusional!

Quick update before I pass out from exhaustion

2008-05-06T01:07:00.000-07:00

Here's a chilling story, especially for parents: A U.S. soldier from a small town on the Oregon coast accidentally called his parents during an intense battle against insurgents in Afghanistan. The soldier's parents weren't home at the time, and when they arrived later they discovered a three-minute-long message on their answering machine, filled mostly with sounds of gunfire and frantic shouting. At the end of the message, a soldier yells a warning about incoming artillery, and then the message abruptly ends:

OTIS, Ore. -- An Oregon couple received a frightening phone call from their son in Afghanistan when he inadvertently called home during battle.

Stephen Phillips and other soldiers in his Army MP company were battling insurgents when his phone was pressed against his Humvee. It redialed and called his parents in the small Oregon town of Otis.

Sandie Petee, Phillips' mother, and her husband, Jeff Petee, weren't home at the time of the call. They returned home to find a three-minute voice mail on their answering machine.

"His friend died a year ago in Iraq and I'm thinking, 'Oh my God, this may be the last time I hear my son's voice on the phone,'" Petee said.

They heard shooting, swearing and shouted pleas for more ammunition on the phone call from their son.

"They were pinned down and apparently his barrel was overheating," said Jeff Petee. "It's something a parent really doesn't want to hear. It's a heck of a message to get from your son in Afghanistan."

The three-minute call ended abruptly.

"You could hear him saying stuff like, he needs more ammo, or he needs another barrel," said John Petee, Phillips' brother. "At the end, you could hear a guy saying 'Incoming! RPG!' And then it cut off."

As soon as the voice mail stopped playing, the Petees began trying to reach their son in Afghanistan. The family figured out Petee had tried to call home earlier that day, but he didn't leave a message and the phone later redialed during battle.

They eventually reached their son.

"I finally got a hold of him," Sandie Petee said. "He was embarrassed, he said, 'Don't let Grandma hear it.'"

Stephen Phillips is scheduled to return home next month, when his tour is complete, his mother said.

Late night boredom: Cinema edition

2008-05-01T23:02:00.000-07:00

Did anybody fucking understand the movie "I'm Not there"?

I understand the filmmaker's intention to progress the plot like some philosophically disjointed yet poetic hallucination similar to a Bob Dylan song, and I understand the all-star cast of incredible actors and the rave reviews and the greatness of independent cinema and blah blah blah. But seriously, what the hell? Not only did I find the movie incredibly boring, bloated and trite, but two hours of scratching my head only resulted in a gaping wound and blood gushing down my face.

Alas, my inner narrator wasn't too helpful during the movie: "Hey look, it's a folk singer, like, singing and stuff. Wow! Looks like we might actually see some character development. Sweet, he's talking! Hurray for dialogue! Oh fuck, it's another cut scene of somebody being interviewed (I think?). Oh cool, we're back to the folk singer again. More character development! But wait, it's another actor now? What? And he's black? Wasn't he a white dude like five minutes ago? Am I supposed to be high on something to understand this?"

Now if you want to talk about quality cinema, let me just throw this out there: "Teeth." Unfortunately, I can't tell you what the movie is about because you won't watch it. I'm afraid, for your sake, that you'll just have to let your morbid curiosity take over. Let that little voice in your head lead you to the video store, take "Teeth" off the shelf and put it in your DVD player. Don't look it up on the Internet, you cheaters! This is a test of emotional endurance: Can you can make it through the entire movie without reeling in horror or throwing yourself off a tall building? Find out now!

Something rotten in Austria

2008-05-01T14:30:00.000-07:00

For almost a quarter of century, as life unfolded in the quiet Lower Austrian town of Amstetten, Elisabeth Fritzl was enduring an unimaginable ordeal behind the plain gray walls of a nondescript house there.

Her 73-year-old father, Josef, today confessed that he held his now 42-year-old daughter captive for 24 years in a concealed, windowless basement hideout, where he repeatedly had sexual intercourse with her and where she gave birth to seven of his children. The shocking case has reminded many Austrians of the fate of Natascha Kampusch, who was kidnapped at the age of 10 and kept in a narrow basement for eight years until she managed to flee in August 2006. But the senior investigator in Amstetten, Franz Polzer, said that the cruel deliberateness of Josef Fritzl's deed outstripped the Kampusch case "by far." Though cases of such longstanding hidden crimes have cropped up elsewhere in recent years, the revelation of two in less than two years has set about a round of public soul-searching in Austria.

That's some top-notch parenting there. Given this man has a penchant for locking up and raping his children for decades, I'd say it's time to stop him from breeding. In fact, I'd be first in line for the hacksaw castration.

Magazine exploits young lust, hilarity (sort of) ensues

2008-04-28T00:16:00.000-07:00

I don't cackle with glee as much as when a supposedly wholesome celebrity who has built her media empire on the pillars of her virginity is shamed by scandalous photos circulating the dirty depths of the Internet. From my comfortable chair here in the middle of nowhere, I can almost hear the distant cries of terror from those millions of adoring fans who thought the subject of their latest worship was incapable of expressing any sort of sexuality. Then I hear the shrill screams from the parents who thought they could forever shield their youngsters from the naughty midriff of reality, and my life is complete.

What I find slightly disturbing, however, is when a legitimate magazine cover features scandalous photos of 15-year-old Miley Cyrus, who has accomplished as much for advancing the quality of artistic expression in this country as a monkey throwing shit at a musical instrument. Regardless, an upcoming issue of Vanity Fair shows the excruciatingly young-looking girl in a way that I find morbidly pedophelic, holding a loose satin sheet over herself and throwing a haggard smirk at the camera like she just got done with a three-way. I'm sure it will please the sexual predator block of the local penitentiary, but as for me I could do without leering at the bare, bony back of a girl who can't legally smoke, drink, vote Republican or kill people in foreign countries.

As hilarious as it may be on its face that a rising star of awful, soulless music will probably face a mass exodus of her fan base, I still find the whole thing rather creepy. What I fail to understand is how her own father, who was present during the photo shoot and was able to sign off on the digital pictures, didn't see a problem with broadcasting his 15-year-old daughter half-nude for the world to see. Is this the part of her life where she turns into the "bad girl" and goes batshit crazy? Will she start mowing people over with her luxury BMW and shaving her head? At what point will this girl be allowed to have a childhood?

It's a wonderful example for all the American kids out there: In this great country of ours, even YOU can be exploited in every way possible, make a billion dollars for screeching out bubble-gum bullshit, and appear half-nude on the cover of prestigious media-whore magazines before you can even drive a car.