Archive for October, 2008

I got on another of my Sting kicks again. I thought I’d share.

In his imagination she’s a universe away
Too many of his promises got broken on the way
So she wrote it in a letter, all the things she couldn’t say
And she told she was never coming home

I’ve been dying to write about something other than politics, but it’s the season where I think about very little else. Thankfully BG approved thievery from her site. So it’s meme time.

What is your favorite thing to wear? Camp shirts, which I have just discovered are not called bowling shirts, and my sk8r boi denim cargo shorts. And the socks must be new to be enjoyed thoroughly.

Last meal you had at a restaurant: I brought Patton out for lunch last week to Red Lobster, one of the rare occasions that we were able to enjoy one another’s company without having to threaten our unruly children with all manners of evil things.

Name one thing that scares you: The return of Zubaz. It’s one of the signs of the coming apocalypse. Look it up, people.

(Edit: In the interest of space, the rest is below the jump…)
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There are certain things one can count on in presidential election season:

• The media will always buoy the underdog because close races mean better ratings.
• You are bound to hear the phrase “most important election” at least once.
• You will see more campaign commercials that should be allowed by the surgeon general for a healthy life.

One thing that can be removed from the list this year, for me at least, is the old standard of going to the voting booth and holding your nose when pulling that proverbial lever. To a certain extent we all do it when we vote. There is no singular person out there that can represent everyone’s exact interests — it’s just not possible. And there are years where the Party Standard-bearer isn’t exactly your cup of tea, but you vote for them because you know, on some level, they’ll look out for at least some of your interests. And with the noxious levels of voter apathy as of late, the vote is, more often than not, a vote against the other guy.

I know I’m guilty of this. In 2004, Kerry wasn’t my first choice. (My first choice ended up porking his photographer while his wife’s cancer was determined to be in remission, so that’s probably a good thing. Fucking moron.) Kerry was the man that the Party picked, he seemed reasonably intelligent, but one couldn’t shake the feeling that he was just another Dem who’d spent too much time in Washington to affect real change. And to be perfectly honest, had Hillary won the ticket this time around I would’ve been in much the same boat. But she didn’t win — Barack did. And it hit me and my wife at roughly the same time. For the first time in what seems like an eternity, we’re voting for our candidate more than we’re voting against McCain.

I’ve been forming this post in my mind to attempt to explain why I feel this way. The simplest way to explain it is that Barack Obama inspires me to be a better person. And when I see the faces of other people who’ve heard him speak, I can see that he has inspired them, too. But there’s more to it than that. And when he chose “HOPE” as the central theme to his campaign, it almost seemed as though ‘hope’ wasn’t a strong enough word, even in all caps. Still, words failed me. But then I saw Colin Powell’s endorsement of Obama.

That is the greatest endorsement I’ve ever seen. And it explains not only my belief that Obama will make for a fantastic president, but also my total misgivings about McCain. It wasn’t inflammatory, it was honest and straightforward. And it spelled out why, for the first time in I don’t know how long, I’m voting FOR Barack Obama. I hope you do as well. It’s an incredibly liberating feeling.

Michelle Bachmann is not only defending her freshman seat as a Republican in the 6th Congressional District of Minnesota. She’s also apparently in contention to be the biggest national embarrassment of a member of congress. You folks from out of state may remember her; she’s the one nearly raped George Bush after his 2007 State of the Union, grabbing his shoulder and refusing to let go until she had a chance to kiss and grope him on national television. Now that Bush is radioactive as the biggest failure of a presidency in our nation’s history, Bachmann has been putting as much political ground between her campaign and him as she possibly can.

Not surprisingly, she’s now latched her lamprey-like jaws to the McCain train. With full cognizance of her lagging reputation as the congresswoman who draws jaw-dropping and eye-rolling moments, she let loose with a doozy of an accusation on Hardball with Chris Matthews. And really, it’s what most reasonable-minded Minnesotans have come to expect from this political harlot.

On Friday, Bachmann was asked by Matthews whether she believes that Obama may have anti-American views. She replied, “Absolutely. I’m very concerned that he may have anti-American views.”

Thankfully, there was a considerable backlash to this McCarthy-like commentary, and this has forced Ms. High-and-Mighty to do some serious damage control as her remarks spurred a surreal amount fundraising by her Democratic opponent, Elwyn Tinklenberg.

And why shouldn’t it? Bachmann has been spewing hateful and inflammatory remarks ever since she realized how effective negative campaigning was in lieu of being an actual human being. She’s the prototypical neoconservative who rode the post-9/11 wave into office. She has nothing to offer but moments of pure embarrassment for her district and I’m hoping they finally wake from this nightmare, oust the brainless creationist of division, and elect people who actually care about Minnesotans. We’ve had enough fearmongering for a generation.

Barack Obama and Democrats in general are getting a number lies told about them as of late. Here’s a quick post to help alleviate any confusion one may be getting from the recent uber-campaigning that’s going on.

Barack Obama: is a terrorist / is associated with terrorists / throw puppies over cliffs and laughs

If you or anyone else around you is thinking that Obama is a terrorist, it’s more than likely stemmed from this overblown association that Barack had with William Ayers. Ayers was, at one point in his youth, a member of a domestic terrorist operation that planned bombings of several governmental institutions. He turned himself in to the authorities in 1980 but was never convicted of a crime. Since that time he has reconstructed his life and become a highly respected professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Barack met him in 1995 as the two served on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge and Ayers hosted the first political event of Barack’s career as a statesman. So to say that this association somehow makes Obama a terrorist is a total fallacy.

Oh, and if you heard that puppy thing about Obama, that wasn’t him — it was American soldiers who were so obviously jaded to violence and death that they filmed the event.

Blame Barack Obama / Liberals in Congress / Bill Clinton for our financial crisis!

Okay, this one contains such tortured logic that it must be from Gitmo. But it also requires a bit of explanation as this situation is a bit complicated. To keep it simple, ask yourself what party, historically, has preached “free market principles” and “government out of your lives” and “deregulation”. If your answer is anything but the Republican Party, hit yourself in the temple with a ball-pin hammer. Hard. Repeat if necessary until you get the correct answer. Republicans have been crying foul over any type of government regulation until it is simply no longer politically tenable for them to do so. Keep in mind that the House Majority Leader from 2003-2005 was a man named Tom DeLay, who was also nicknamed the name Tom “DeReg”. That ought to give you a clue.

But as I said this situation we’re in is messy. Otherwise we wouldn’t be so fucked right now. To those that haven’t been keying into the details of the mess, I thought the piece on 60 Minutes last weekend summed it up very nicely, without having to resort to the usual “we need to talk to you like you’re an idiot” style employed by most of the cable news outlets.

The argument, as I see it, is about what exactly should be blamed: Sub-Prime mortgages or Credit Default Swaps. The former was a product of Democrats wanting to rid the industry of a practice known as “redlining”, the latter is a product of Republicans — more specifically John McCain’s economic advisor, former Senator Phil Gramm. Oddly enough, since Gramm stated that America was a “Nation of whiners” who was only experiencing a “mental recession”, Gramm has not been seen in public.

But those who wish to pin this particular debacle, much like every debacle we’ve faced since 1992, on Bill Clinton, I wish to direct you to the co-author of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and the co-sponsor of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, Phil Gramm. You see the Republicans want to cry “Bill Clinton signed it! He brought this foul curse upon our nation!!!” But that’s not necessarily the case, by which I mean it’s tantamount to a lie. While it is true that Clinton signed it on December 21, 2000, it was a bill that never saw the debate floor of either house of Congress that was attached to the omnibus spending bill for the Departments of Labor, Education and Health & Human Services for the fiscal year already in progress. Translation: Billy-boy couldn’t have vetoed this even if he had the political capital to do so.

But in case you missed it, I, along with a few economists who actually know a great deal about economics, am placing blame on Credit Default Swaps. When you’re selling insurance, for which you need not to have cash to actually back up for, and call it a swap because if you call it insurance you have oversight, you should at least be put in jail for raping the English language. Bare minimum. When you turn this activity in a $62 trillion industry and when it comes crashing down it takes the rest of the stock market with it, you should be anally raped with a chainsaw. It’s that simple. Thanks Phil Gramm.

I’ll get to more later…this is becoming a lot longer than I had hoped.