As We Begin The New Year...

"There have been a lot of changes in the polls lately. It's unbelievable. President Obama's ratings are up, Ron Paul is leading in the polls in Iowa, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are in a tie, and Rick Santorum is still two points behind Kim Jong-Il. He's got a way to go." –Jay Leno

"Rick Perry told reporters this week that he has a permit to carry a concealed handgun. He also has a concealed vocabulary, concealed knowledge of the issues, concealed tolerance..." –Jay Leno

"The independent Super PAC supporting Mitt Romney announced it would suspend anti- Newt Gingrich ads during Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. They said they're doing it out of respect to Gingrich, his family, and his mistresses." –Jay Leno

It's a new year, and I'm sobered by the fact that if I were a blogger in Vietnam, Syria, Bahrain, Egypt, or Iran, there's a good chance that I would be in jail for blogging, been abused and beaten for daring to express my own opinion. The bloggers who are in jail in these countries, and some have died while in prison, were charged with variations of making treasonous, or anti-Islamic behavior. In Egypt, a blogger was charged with spreading lies about the military, which ended up being true. He revealed that the military was performing virginity tests on the women they detained. This resulted in mass protests by Egyptian women, and the promise by the military to no longer probe them. We'll see how long that lasts... and the blogger remains in jail.

Each younger generation is going to be irreverent towards their elders, and this fight against the Internet is my generation's war against our children, trying to coax the genie back inside the bottle. Of course, there is always the danger like what is occurring in North Korea, where the 28 year-old leader now expects everyone older than he is to act as cannon fodder and throw themselves in front of any dangers to his life, but usually the younger generations are more moderate. Jung-un has to prove somehow that he is just as crazy as his father and grandfather were. But, what can you expect when the only advice you get is from old, old generals who have had their every whims catered to for the last 40 years.

Thankfully, the Pentagon is trying to get rid of most of these deadweight Generals with early retirements. If only other countries would follow suit, and as a special reward, we give them all medical marijuana cards so they can stay drunk and stoned until they die. It's just a little service that their wives and grandchildren will thank us for...


Speaking of drugs and alcohol, I miss them. I have given up my imbibing ways because of diabetes, it's difficult enough trying to keep sugar out of my diet, as its put into everything I buy at the store, even that loaf of organic wheat bread... The way that the political season has played out, I often wondered if I was finally having psychedelic flashbacks. Watching the Republican debates, I would blink my eyes and look for the Mad Hatter as the commentator running them. The cast of characters still don't seem real, which begs the question: how in the world did Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich ever get elected in the first place? We know that the southern industrialists like to finance some dumb pawn who will do whatever they say, but there are so many pawns in this race, that it looks more like a bad cartoon or animatronic figures making those gaffes.

Probably the most in-you-face and cynical choice of pawns, was the Koch brothers financing and choosing a black Uncle Tom figure in Herman Cain. Cain's speeches and platform seemed to have been written by a nerdy high school boy, with his economic plan taken from a Sims computer game, and his making references to Chris Tucker and the Pokemon movie when talking to the press. Herman was allowed to make some extra bucks from selling his books, but the brothers didn't do a very good job checking his background for anything that could be embarrassing, oh, say, a few sexual harassment charges and 13 year extra-marital affair...

This is what happens when elections are bought and too much money is floating around.  Unfortunately, it will get worse before it gets better. The system will change at the same time that Wall Street becomes honest and transparent, which means never. The GOP was supposed to change the ways it did politics, create a larger tent to include more fresh ideas. Instead, they fed the psychedelic kool-aid to the masses while just sending in more clowns. Happy New Year, suckers...