Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Putin's Puppets, Pining For That Old Time Conservatism...



"I understand why Barack Obama wants to send every kid to college, because of their indoctrination mills, absolutely ... The indoctrination that is going on at the university level is a harm to our country." - Rick Santorum
“I saw the worst reality show last night. Have you seen this one? It's called "the Republican Debate.’” – Jay Leno

“Rick Santorum is claiming that Mitt Romney and Ron Paul have teamed up against him. Which is kind of ironic — that Santorum can be brought down by two men forming a civil union.” – Jay Leno


All the world's a stage, and all of the men and women are merely puppets of Vladimir Putin, if I may paraphrase the Bard... Two elections of world-wide importance are coming up at the beginning of March, the Russian presidential election and the Iranian parliamentary elections, both which are being highly manipulated by right wing extremists... In Putin's case, he has arrested opponents, created rallies in favor of himself, and, to drum up flagging public support, Russian tv now reports on a foiled assassination attempt. The last assassination attempt on Putin came after the last election, you may notice a trend here. Putin's campaign manager recently was quoted as saying that "Liberals are the worst kind of filth in our country..." Despite this effort, the anti-Putin rallies continue to get larger each time. It just won't be enough to unseat Vlad and the forces of repression.

The scam in Iran is that they will be holding free elections again this year. The government has been rounding up and placing in jail cells everyone that they feel might protest the elections and subsequent manipulation of vote tallies. They have gone so far as to arrest one man for the content of his Facebook page, and have developed a cyber-security squad to monitor the Internet and cyber cafes. So, if these elections come and go without much interest from journalists, it will be their own fault... The nuclear issue is one that also divides the government of Iran, witnessed by the schizophrenic statement made weekly. The UN arms inspectors who recently visited, wanted to visit a military site that the US suspected was being used for test blasts, but because it wasn't previously listed as a nuclear development site, they were refused. The headlines afterwards wondered what the Iranians were hiding, sparking suspicion and paranoia. Hardliners in the government just didn't want to budge any more than they had to, it was embarrassing enough for them to let the inspectors into their country, let alone go wherever they pleased. So, this morning came the announcement that Iran wished to sponsor an amendment in the UN to eliminate all nuclear weapons on earth. It will be vetoed by the US, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea, for starters...




By the end of this evening we'll know how Michigan native Mitt Romney fared in the GOP primaries of Arizona and Michigan, or if upstart Rick Santorum had enough bad vibes to topple him. Of course, Michigan means little in the scheme of things, but 10 other states are also having primaries soon, and the results should give a good snapshot if Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich should drop out or not. Unfortunately for us, all 4 candidates act like fools without any common sense and basic decency or sense of compassion for their fellow Americans. Rick Santorum seems to want to bring back the Catholic Inquisition, with his sickly interpretation of famous speeches on tolerance by John F Kennedy, and calling Obama a snob for wanting everyone to experience some education outside of high school. Ironically, Rick has two college degrees and a law degree, so you know that his sudden populism is fake, and I'm sure that none of his kids will go to a trade school...

Mitt keeps on putting his foot in his mouth, then chewing further, in his awkward attempts to bond with the common man. At a rally, he showed up in colors supporting NASCAR, then said that he had friends who were NASCAR team owners... We ought to lock Mitt up in a shopping mall for a few days, force him to rub up against real middle-class people, not let his wife drive around in her two Cadillacs for awhile... Ever the hypocrite and flip-flopper, when asked about his failure to excite the GOP base, Mitt replied:
"It's very easy to excite the base with incendiary comments. We've seen throughout the campaign if you're willing to say really outrageous things that are accusative, attacking of President Obama, that you're going to jump up in the polls. I'm not willing to light my hair on fire to try and get support. I am who I am.

So, sure I could excite these people if I said a bunch of crazy stuff. But that's not how I roll."


John McCain lamented that watching the primary elections was like watching a Greek tragedy. Former Ronald Reagan staff members have been very critical of the candidates, with economist Bruce Bartlett calling them all "insane," while John Stockman has said that extremism is not true conservatism.

Old conservatives would be considered to be moderate or liberals now. As Bill Clinton once noted during a Cabinet meeting: "I hope you're all aware we're all Eisenhower Republicans. We stand for lower deficits, and free trade and the bond market." During his inauguration, Dwight Eisenhower summed up the old view of conservatism as:
"There is, in our affairs at home, a middle way between untrammeled freedom of the individual and the demands for the welfare of the whole nation. This way must avoid government by bureaucracy as carefully as it avoids neglect of the helpless."

Today's GOP lacks that kind of eloquence and compassion. This is what happens once you let the dogs out...



Saturday, February 25, 2012

Hamas Supports Syrian Opposition, Virginia Out Of My Vagina

"Today Newt Gingrich said we should use covert operations to assassinate Iran's nuclear scientists. Gingrich also said the key to covert operations is announcing them on the campaign trail." – Conan O'Brien

"Rick Santorum said today that during his 16 years in Congress, he was an outsider the whole time. You know what? After 16 years, you're not an outsider. You're just unpopular." – Jay Leno

"Santorum says that Satan has his sights set on the United States of America. And today Satan said he tries to avoid politics because it makes him feel dirty." - Jay Leno

"Rick Santorum said he believes that Satan has his sights on America. Apparently Satan is still upset about the time he went down to Georgia and lost that fiddle." – Jimmy Kimmel



It's shaping up to becoming one of the most interesting weekends in a long time, as world leaders play variations of the Great Game with their shifting allegiances and economies. A leader of Hamas, who once was based in Damascus, spoke out against the Syrian government and for the opposition, while speaking at a mosque in Cairo, Egypt. This was important because Iran has been supporting Hamas financially for years, and it might mean that the leaders of Hamas are finally getting serious about creating a unity government with the Palestinian Authority and holding elections of their own. After all, they no longer have anywhere else to go outside of Palestine... Israel may want to use its threat to bomb Iran as a bargaining chip, it will not bomb nuclear facilities if the Assad family steps down in Syria. Not only will it gain major face points throughout the Middle East, but it would transform all of the paranoia into something more positive, which translates into better economic trade for all. Otherwise, the US and Iran may become strange bedfellows, new BFF's, in their mutual desire to divert Israeli bombings. The US just made public a report saying that it doubts that Iran will actually make a nuclear bomb, and so far Iran has been more bluster than action, with the only war it has entered into was the one with Iraq, before we showed them the proper way to invade a foreign country and occupy it... One finger to the wind may be the results of the Iranian parliamentary elections next month, if all the candidates are puppets of the regime or if there are independent candidates offering voters a choice. Or will it become as big of a farce as the Russian elections, also next month, where they will anoint Vladimir Putin as Russia's answer to the Aryan race?...

I felt a bit hung over after the last Republican debate in Arizona, where the tea was liberally served. I had planned on a drinking game with some Kentucky bourbon, but I forgot that in Arizona, tequila is preferred.
Never mix the two, the outcome is never pretty... Unfortunately, the ugliest moments during the debate were the promo spots for Arizona, starring the ugliest woman in america, Jan Brewer. Talk about finding aliens in the desert... but, all four candidates did well, the only unruly aspect was the audience, who now seems to cheer and boo with abandon, especially when Ron Paul called Rick Santorum a fake. Instead of name calling, each candidate then dissed the voting record of the other, and made me wonder which rabbit-hole I fell down, and was John King the Mad Hatter? After 19 debates, there are no clear winners, and all of the remaining four are losers, because we are tired of their bluster, tired of their cliched ideas, and by now we can tell when they are lying or not... Mitt may be the front-runner, but he will say anything to get a vote...

The state of Virginia has a Republican dominated Senate and House of Representatives, which is perfectly suited to make laws for their side of the culture wars. Instead of dealing with the Virginia economy, its school system, or attracting private industry, they have been concentrating on opposing abortion, passing a new law stating that if any woman seeks to have an abortion, she must have an ultrasound, first. This is meant to dissuade the woman, but would probably backfire because it turns out that only a vaginal probe kind of device can be used, so the state would force these women to be probed like white trash by alien abductors... A member of the Virginia Senate who also was a doctor discovered this when he realized that most abortions happen within the first three months, and other ultrasounds methods won't work very well. He asked the man who was the medical consultant for the bill if he was aware of this fact, and the guy didn't have a clue... So, opposition to the bill went public, and made it to the Rachel Maddow show and the Daily Show, where Republicans and the governor were ridiculed for being so insensitive. It is great irony, that for a party obsessed with reducing the influence of government, they would mandate the vaginal probing of all daughters who sought to have an abortion, something that even the most repressive governments in the world don't have and won't do. They believe in Liberty, just not for you...

Public ridicule won out, the governor, who has wet-dreams about becoming the vice-presidential candidate, closed himself in the closet with the other GOP legislators, then came out with an apology: they didn't realize anything about the probing situation, and they would drop that part of the legislation. And, to sweeten the pot, the virginia legislature also dropped the "personhood" amendment that was currently before a committee. So far, this makes every state that has had a "personhood" amendment brought up by right wing extremists, it has been rejected... I had hoped that the ridicule and bluster in Virginia would continue for a few more weeks, as I wanted to score some points with my feminist friends and make some money with my new bumpersticker:

Virginia out of my Vagina

or

Who's afraid of Virginia's Wolves?

I'm always amazed at the power of satire to change our world, and lament that Mort Sahl is no longer on the scene, perennially standing on the stage, newspaper in hand. John Stewart is mugging too much for the camera these days, maybe what's needed is a rotating batch of comedians serving as hosts. I'd be happy if the writers for the show were all as clever as John Oliver...



Wednesday, February 22, 2012

American Taliban and Nazi Metaphors, Xanax for Iran...

"Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum are both against gay marriage. Really, against gay marriage? I tell you, the problem with this is they’d make such a cute couple.” – David letterman
“President Obama's approval rating is up to 50 percent. Only half the country dislikes him. Apparently his strategy of not being any of the Republican candidates is paying off.” – Jimmy Kimmel


It sure has been a busy week for the news, although much of it is rumor and innuendo, reported as something we should take seriously. For example, today it was reported that the Southern Baptists are thinking of changing their name to the Great Commission Baptists because they think it might attract more young people. Of course, they're absolutely wrong, the name will just ridicule them further into the mists and fog of obscurity... Now, if they'd consider changing some of their social beliefs, they might have a chance. And if they want to appeal to disenfranchised youth around the South, they might want to try a name change that rings more true, like the Klu Klux Baptists, Church of Jack Daniels,or Smith and Baptists...


It's been a busy week for Rick Santorum, too, and it looks like there will be a few questions in tonight's candidate's debate that he will be dodging, which could be a good basis for tonight's drinking game: every time a candidate evades answering a question, you must down a shot of Kentucky bourbon... To be fair, Rick Santorum got into the media mess all by himself, with his penchant for using Nazis metaphors and preaching like some huckster without an education, when he said this in 2008:
“Satan has his sights on the United States of America. This is a spiritual war. And the Father of Lies has his sights on what you would think the Father of Lies would have his sights on: a good, decent, powerful, influential country — the United States of America. If you were Satan, who would you attack in this day and age?”
This was engineered by the Drudge Report, which is anti-Santorum, and hoped to wee-wee up the media over it. If they really wanted to embarrass Rick, they'd have reported how much he got paid to out Satan himself... In trying to defend himself, he pulled a page from the Gingrich bombastic playbook, referring to himself as the second coming of Ronald Reagan:
“Ronald Reagan did it. He called the Soviet Union an evil empire and the media went wild,” he said. “How dare you, how dare you ascribe terms like good and evil to regimes? Because Ronald Reagan told the truth, he didn’t sugarcoat it. He went out and called it the way it was. He went out and promoted the values of our country.”
There's a difference between Ronald Reagan, who has been resurrected into an iconic status, despite his real beliefs and having contracted Alzheimer's while in office, with the more mundane opportunist that Rick Santorum is... Personally, I don't see why the Republican candidates have to spend all of their time sucking up to the right wing elements of their party, just to appease a few billionaires. The right wingers and their anachronistic beliefs are dying out, what we are hearing around the world is the trumpeting of their pain as they sink further beneath the tar pits. Whether they are calling for global jihad or calling the president a Nazi or a Kenyan, their time has passed, their children make fun of them, they are constantly being exposed to public ridicule...

I rarely have to look no farther than my back door and local newspaper any time I want to be depressed by right wing fervor. Every other letter to the editor denigrates liberals, whoever they are, as being mean, vicious, and adhering to some vaguely socialist agenda. They sound like they would fit right in with the current leaders of Israel or the conservative mullahs and imams that preach sharia law, which is why they are often labeled as the American Taliban... At least my representative in Congress doesn't waste our time introducing personhood amendments; he's too busy sponsoring bills that make English the official language of the US...


"Iran and its nukes. They’ve got the rods all ready to go into the reactor. They’re waiting on the installer. He’s supposed to come out Friday between 10 and 2." – David Letterman
Speaking of old, conservative leaders whose time has passed them by: Iran's Ayatollah Khomanei said this morning, shortly after the talks and visits to nuclear sites broke down, as they always have in the past:
"Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday that Iran’s nuclear course would not change regardless of international sanctions, assassinations or other pressures.


“With God’s help, and without paying attention to propaganda, Iran’s nuclear course should continue firmly and seriously ... Pressures, sanctions and assassinations will bear no fruit. No obstacles can stop Iran’s nuclear work.”
Sounds a bit like manifest destiny, I wonder if Iran has any bedouin tribes it has to kill in order to secure a nuclear future... And who has tied in having nuclear weapons with being a world player? Doesn't that seem to be a retarded vision of who's cool and who's not on the global playground? Instead of expecting Iran to mature all on their own, why don't we just let them skip a couple of grades??? I don't usually condone the use of neuroleptics, but wouldn't it be easier to get the leaders of Iran and other right wing reactionary countries hooked on Xanax? The last thing we need is them to start acting out their paranoid fantasies, the next thing you know, the Ayatollah Khamenei will be calling up the New York Times with his support for Rick Santorum and his similar religious beliefs...




Sunday, February 19, 2012

What Rough Beast Is Docking At Tartous?



" The naval deployment to the Mediterranean would carry a "message of peace" but also put on display "the might" of Iran's military.


"It will prove to the world that despite increasing enemy sanctions over the past 33 years, our manpower, obedient to the orders of the leader Imam Khamenei, continue to add to their academic and military abilities." - from al Jazeera


We begin, and probably end, in the Middle East, where everyone is acting all testosteronish, pretending to drag their balls across vast landscapes of desert. The Iranians, who want nothing less than to be considered a world player, has engaged in bluffs on three fields. First, they have cut off oil flow to France and England. This is symbolic, as these countries don't buy much oil from Iran, and they can easily make up the amount, buying from Saudi Arabia and Russia. Iran hopes to change the minds of other European countries who buy larger amounts, and have stated that an embargo against buying Iranian oil will begin in June. India and China are trying to buy the oil that would have gone to Europe, so there probably won't be much hurtin' put on Iran, other than symbolically.

The carrot being offered by Iran, is the continuance of nuclear talks, which stopped over a year ago, without any agreements or conclusions. Iran claims that the nuclear bombs they are trying to make are only for peaceful purposes, while the US and others claim that Iran is doing it for piecemeal reasons. The one universal bullshit reason is that it is doing it: to benefit the Iranian people... Whenever a government uses the phrase "benefit to our people," either run quickly the other way, or depose that government...

Finally, Iran has brought a warship and a supply ship from the Persian Gulf, across the Suez Canal, and landed at a Syrian port where their best friends, the Russians, also have a military base. In order to get across the Suez, it would have had to satisfy the authorities that the ships carried no heavy weapons, unless bribery was used... Iranian news is claiming that they want to impress the Mediterranean countries with the splendor of their warships, and how they are used for peaceful purposes, like furthering the education of the young crew members, but using them as fodder if this experiment blows up in their face like a magnetic bomb in Bangkok... Of course, the Iranian ship may just be picking up members of its Republican Guard, who have been on loan to the Syrian government as "observers" and "trainers"...

Egypt has rescinded its ambassador to Syria, but they still have a lot of problems, themselves, besides the constant stream of protesters in Tahrir Square, with no let-up in sight. An Egyptian judge is proceeding with mounting a trial against 19 Americans and 12 Europeans, who run several Non Governmental Organizations. She is claiming that these groups are trying to undermine the success of the Arab Spring, by seeking to make Egyptian goals the same as US and Israeli goals. The US replies, that, well, yes, that;s what we call democracy building. It would be irresponsible of us to let you make decisions on your own! The judge also wants to expose the NGO's for the scams they are, and would love to ignore the pressure being exerted behind the scenes by the US, not to link any of them to the CIA. We are about to send in our biggest whores from Congress to talk to her, Sen John McCain and Sen Lindsay Graham... Oh, yeah, I almost forgot: the US is also responding with the threat to cancel the $1.5 billion they give annually, not counting toys for the military, followed by Egypt saying, fine, then we will take another look at the agreements we have made with Israel, would you like us to cancel them?

Lots of game playing, and I'm not sure whose turn it is next to roll the dice. Rest assured the people losing out in all of this are young people who want to live quiet lives and the opportunity for a job in Palestine and Syria and Iraq and Iran and Egypt. Ironic that the small country of Tunisia may hold the solutions for all of these countries, as they continue to rebuild their country in more democratic terms that works well with their religious beliefs.

In the meantime, that rough beast is indeed slouching towards Bethlehem, by way of Damascus, and it looks like there is little we can do to stop it. Just like any dog tasked to guard the henhouse, once it tastes blood, then its no longer any good. It will begin hunting and killing the chickens until you put the damned thing down, I'm sorry to say...

Thursday, February 16, 2012

santorum, Israel and Iran


“Have you noticed Romney doesn't even blow dry his hair anymore? He dries naturally from Rick Santorum breathing down his neck.” – Jay Leno
“Poor Mitt Romney, he’s got the money, he’s got the organization, he’s got the name recognition. He has one weakness: an inability to get votes.” – Bill Maher

“The other weakness is an ability to find a candidate he can beat. If there was just some way he could run against Mitt Romney.” – Bill Maher
“Rick Santorum beat Mitt Romney in three states and got a huge amount of fundraising. That’s the good news for rick Santorum. The bad news: people are now Googling Santorum.” – Bill Maher
If you Google the word santorum, the first entry that comes up offers this definition:

DEFINITION: SANTORUM

Pronunciation: san-TOR-um
Function: noun
Etymology:
Savage Love - 05/29/03

1. The frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the by-product of anal sex.

2. Former Senator Rick Santorum

This was done to Rick by the group Savage Love, in response to Rick's constant anti-gay remarks he made in the press. They set up the web site, then made sure it got 10 bazillion visits, enough to put it in first in all of the search engines, especially Google. Was it a shitty thing to do? Rick has been trying to find a way to have the results nullified, taken off of Google, and have the web site destroyed ever since. Ironically, every time he protests, it send a new wave of curious people to the website by entering his last name on Google...



Contrary to what we are reading in all of the major newspapers, there is no definite proof linking all of the bombings in India, Georgia, and Bangkok back to Iran, according to senior Israeli intelligence officers. The bomb in India was attached to a car by magnets and placed there by a motorcyclist, using the same method that Israeli assassins used to kill an Iranian nuclear scientist. The copycat modus operandi suggests that Iran was involved.

What happened in Bangkok seems to have resembled a scene from The Keystone Cops than a well-trained terrorist cell. As reported in the Debkafiles: "... the Bangkok episode stands out as bizarre and aberrant: No terrorist attack actually took place there and there is no proof that the three persons who rented an apartment in the city were preparing to attack Israelis or anyone else, although they had bomb materials with them.


Something caused those materials to blow up and all three took to their heels. One of the trio, identified by his Iranian passport as Saeib Morabi, kept the explosives with him. He threw one at a local cab driver who refused to pick him up and another device at a policeman who came to arrest him. The second bomb bounced back and blew off one of his legs.


Senior intelligence experts find this conduct incredible. A terrorist on the run would above all keep his head down and avoid attracting attention. He would certainly not start throwing bombs on busy foreign streets..."


Israel is claiming that the bombs in all three countries are Iranian made, but so far, that, too, is mostly conjecture. These two countries have been covertly killing and spying on each other for quite a few years, ever since the Iranian government proclaimed that Israel should be wiped off the face of the earth... As the Iranian nuclear program progresses, the more paranoid among the Israelis want to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities, informing the Pentagon that it could happen as early as March or April. This morning, however, the Israeli Defense Minister gave in to US pressure to dial back the rhetoric, and said that the Iranian nuclear program was farther behind than anticipated, and they were in no rush to bomb them anytime soon...

Some of the covert activity had Israeli submarines following US aircraft carriers into the Persian Gulf, and unloading commandos to set off explosives in the southern oil fields, and to carry off the assassinations of nuclear scientists. Iran then acquired small mini-subs to patrol its waters, then the Israelis planted a computer virus in the network serving the nuclear program, having someone upload it from a thumbdrive. If the Iranians are indeed responding to sanctions and bad press, then it is letting the crazier, more rabid faction take control. I wonder if they've been hiring any lobbyists that also create Republican election strategy?








Monday, February 13, 2012

Monday Rant: Why I'm Reregistering


“Mitt Romney said today that he learned something. There are things that money can't buy — like Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri.” – Jay Leno

“But he is not quitting. Romney says he will keep fighting. And you can take that all the way to the Swiss bank.” – Jay Leno

"Tinfoil hats have become a common, if not mandatory, G.O.P. fashion accessory." - Paul Krugman


Lately, I have been burning out a lot, getting tired of looking for tidbits in the news to comment on. I spend a day watching Youtube videos, listening to music, and zoning out watching the television. I have watched more television during the past few years than any other time in my life, and I wonder if its because I'm getting bored with old age, or severely depressed. I joined the Republican Party after my mother died, in tribute to her, but the Republicans I see these days are just an insane bunch...

When I was a kid, it seemed the two parties were more polite towards each other. Sure, I was taunted in the fifth grade because my parents supported Richard Nixon, literally chased on the playground by older boys, though it might not all have been as a result of their political views... I learned to cuss at an early age and called many kids a stupid f**k to their faces, and got beat up a lot... As I got older, I was drawn towards philosophies that engaged in meditation, and tried to develop more sense of compassion towards my fellow human beings, and often took more delight in people on the fringe of society than the ones trying to make it in the mainstream world. spent 26 years in jobs where I dealt with the public, and it killed a lot of the compassion. Instead of meditating, I played poker and smoked cigars, tried to control people's anti-social behavior because riding on a bus called for everyone to be polite towards each other. I dealt with drunk people, stoned people, people coming down with Alzheimer's, people who were lost, depressed, having psychotic episodes, and people who forgot to take their medication. I've been in the middle of earthquakes, floods, gang fights, police actions, and many other dangerous situations, and had to focus on keeping other people calm enough to deal with the situation at hand.

 I retired with a disabled retirement, and have had to deal with constant pain and how it distorts how I look at things. It also has shown me many more people who are in more pain than I am, which has reawakened that sense of compassion... Out of a sense for self-preservation, I learned tai chi and the meditations that come with the practice, a renewed respect for my fellow man. Unfortunately, I moved to Colorado Springs, where the small mindedness of retired military has dominated the political life. I've always respected anyone who is willing to sacrifice his life for others, but the culture of obeying orders without asking questions is a bad form of operant conditioning, and creates people who seldom have curiosity or engage in self-introspection. You get a little crazy in your old age, but coupled with this type of culture, it produces outright insanity. The Libertarian Party started here, and my county is one of the most consistently conservative in the country. Now it's one of the consistently extreme right wing voting blocks in the state, and we tend towards the insane public outbursts that I used to confront and try to control for the public's safety when I worked for the bus company and school districts... At times I find this insane behavior entertaining, but deep down it scares me because it touches something dark and violent in our souls, showing no compassion at all for the human condition. The political stage is changing into a battlefield for cultural wars and I don't want this dark side to win, I find it appalling, the kinds of behavior that people like Mitch McConnell and Newt Gingrich engage in.

So, I try to make fun of it because I've always had a sardonic sense of humor, sometimes with some success, sometimes not. I dream at night of being able to affect world events even though I know I have no influence, and my blog is read by not so many people. But, as I hook myself up to my oxygen generator, stick the hose in my nose, I pray for the forces of good and light to prevail over this blanket of darkness. I pray that our next generations will not spawn crazy politicians and pundits like Michele Bachmann, Jan Brewer, Michelle Malkin, Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter, Sharron Angle, Christine O'Donnell, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Michael Medved, and Michael Savage... People don't like more moderate ones like Mit Romney because of the lies he constantly tells; he's not very good at it and people can easily tell when he's being insincere. Even if he wins all of the remaining primaries and becomes a candidate, he won't win because Barack Obama is smarter, more compassionate and sincere, tells jokes better and sings better. All Obama has to do to win, is get rid of Biden and replace him with Al Green, then they do a few duets at the debates and at campaign speeches. How cool would that be...

Since the GOP won't be changing within my lifetime, it looks like I'm going to have to reregister as an Independent. If I lived in another country, I know that their conservative extremists are more intractable and more violent than even the most rabid tea partyer, so cold Colorado is probably where I'll draw my last breath... I'll try not to rant for awhile, and keep this blog more amusing. Stay thirsty, my friends...


Friday, February 10, 2012

Griftopia

Yesterday, today, and tomorrow is the CPAC conference in Washington, DC, the Woodstock of conservative events. I haven't been this entertained since Sarah Palin was roaming the land, campaigning like a rabid cougar. I understand that some mucky-mucks took Mit Romney aside and told him to lay off the negative campaigning against Rick Santorum. They were concerned after the cat-fight Mit and Newt had in Florida. Its one thing to play dirty tricks on members of the opposite party, and disconcerting when those tricks are used on their own candidates by fellow Republicans. We are watching nothing less than the end of America as a country to admire and emulate.

In his book, Griftopia, writer Matt Taibbi explains: What has taken place over the last generation is a highly complicated merger of crime and policy, of stealing and government. Far from taking care of the rest of us, the financial leaders of America and their political servants have seemingly reached the cynical conclusion that our society is not worth saving and have taken on a new mission that involves not creating wealth for all, but simply absconding with whatever wealth remains in our hollowed out economy. They don't feed us, we feed them.

But our politics... is silent about this. Instead, it grounds our new and disturbing state of affairs in familiar, forty-year-old narratives. The right is eternally fighting against Lyndon Johnson; the left, George Wallace. When the Republicans win elections, their voters think they've struck a blow against big government. And when a Democratic hero like Barack Obama wins, his supporters think they've won a great victory for tolerance and diversity...

In the meantime, Ron Paul supporters are using sneaky tricks to get more than their fair share of delegates in the Caucus states. I hadn't realized that my vote in Colorado doesn't have any meaning, that the delegates will be appointed in April by a committee, and they don't have to pay attention to who got the most votes. So, although Rick Santorum got the most votes, Ron Paul could get the most delegates...

Nothing matters, since none of the Republican candidates will outlast their 15 minutes of fame beyond the conventions. Watch for someone like Jeb Bush to be brokered in at the last minute. Because Poppy Bush has Alzheimer's, and they would like Jeb to get the nomination while his dad can still recognize his face...

Monday, February 6, 2012

Can Komen Handel A Cure?, Tebowing As A Verb

‎"I will not be satisfied until super PAC means, 'a frothy mix of lube and campaign funding that is sometimes the byproduct of politics.'" – Stephen Colbert

‎"To all the worryworts out there who said super PACs were going to lead to a cabal of billionaires secretly buying democracy: wrong! They are publicly buying democracy." – Stephen Colbert

“Mitt Romney said he is not concerned with the very poor. That statement worked out well for Marie Antoinette, didn’t it?” – Jay Leno

This week's cruelest joke:
“I think I can prove that Mitt Romney is the whitest man ever because he won Florida, became the undisputed front runner and then the next day, the host of Soul Train killed himself.” – Bill Maher

Dueling economics:
"So here’s what needs to be said about the latest numbers: yes, we’re doing a bit better, but no, things are not O.K. — not remotely O.K. This is still a terrible economy, and policy makers should be doing much more than they are to make it better." - Paul Krugman

" This morning Gov. McDonnell (R) of Virginia -- a major rising star -- said the improving economy is due to Republican governors, not President Obama." - Josh Marshal



A lot of women got pissed off recently, at the KOMEN Foundation for the Cure, for pulling out of a grant to Planned Parenthood. It was a politically motivated gesture created by Karen Handel, that had nothing to do with the charity's policies. Right wing extremist and ex-Bush government spokesmodel Ari Fleisher somehow got the job of VP for the ex-lieutenant governor of Georgia at the Komen foundation, which is dedicated to eradicating breast cancer. She came up with the flimsy excuse in the by-laws, to deny funding to "any group that is under investigation." Planned Parenthood is under investigation from a right wing extremist attorney general in Florida, who wants to make really sure that they aren't funding any abortions with Federal money, which it never has... In response, thousands of women stopped donating to the charity, cutting up their pink ribbons and mailing them back, until the CEO reversed that policy, saying no, we meant any organization under "criminal" investigation will lose our support... Ms Handel still has her job, and is still plotting other ways to use the charity to front her extremist positions: "It became clear Thursday night that something had to give," the source said. "Nancy Brinker, Liz Thompson, the board, and leadership were saying, 'We're really worried about Komen's mission if we don't figure this out.' But Karen was still arguing against it as of Friday morning -- she was horrified that we were caving, she said. She's politically tone-deaf."

The Komen foundation is one of the more transparent charities, rated positively as a 66% by a charity tracking website. Out of every dollar given, $0.09 goes towards actual research on breast cancer. The other 91 cents goes towards administrative salaries and administrative projects, without elaborating what any of those projects are. As Susan Collins pointed out, a lot of those projects consisted of hunting down anyone using the color pink or the phrase "for the cure" and taking them to court... If this is one of the good charities, one cannot wonder about all the other charities, and how much less money they actually give towards their stated purposes? This is what I've meant that all charities are scams...

Egypt is going to put 19 of the 600 non-governmental groups and charities working inside their country on trial, for beings fronts for intelligence organizations and rip-off organizations designed to siphon off money from any economic recover, like some form of alien, bloated leech. Protests and whining is still coming from the State Dept, whose task it is to publicly clean up after these kinds of odious creatures...

To prove just how tough the State Department really is, they shut down our recently opened embassy in Syria and made everyone go home. So much for dedication to diplomacy, especially in tough times. And, to rub their faces in it, President Obama is announcing more sanctions against Iran. Glad to see that even Barak can get caught up in the madness of legislating crowds... Anyway, every other country that has had to let in an American or European "charity" will be watching to see what happens in Egypt. The Egyptian military is hoping that it will distract attention away from its own corrupt practices, and go back to a simpler time of just hating Americans... It's looking like the only solution to the Syrian problem will be to go in and root out those blood-crazed generals and members of the Assad family. No longer can we count on a Romanian solution. Even watchers from the Arab League turned tail and left, once they realized that real bullets were being used, and the possibility of death didn't mesh with their dreams of being Islamic heroes...

I dream almost every night of solving the world's problems and bringing about lasting peace, but don't have the courage to leave my comfy chair and go out the front door. None of my old friends or family bother to read my blog anymore, because they don't like my snarky take on politics. OK, nobody else I know has become as obsessed as I have to write about current events. I've asked several of my more liberal and literate friends if they'd like to write a few posts for this blog, and most of them didn't even bother to e-mail me back, which kind of hurt my feelings, or meant that I wrote to them as my Excelon patch wore off...


What is Tebowing?
(vb) to get down on a knee and start praying, even if everyone else around you is doing something completely different.


Tomorrow night is the Republican Caucus here in Colorado. Last Saturday, the Golf Channel, where I get all of my news, broadcast an interview with Tim Tebow, asking if he'd ever consider running for office. Politely, Tim said that it might be possible, just like it might be possible for him to learn how to work an offense within the pocket... and now this is being blown way out of proportion by the media.

That anyone would seriously consider Tim as a political candidate at his tender age, signifies the death of the tea parties as having any influence in politics. Ever since they first came on the scene here in Colorado, they have promoted a bunch of candidates who made sexist, racist, and just plain stupid gaffes in public, and were rejected by the voters. So, yeah, I could see Tim Tebow as a candidate, he is dumb enough to make a good Congressman, and no worse than the others that have been run for governor and the senate. Hopefully, by then he'll have learned how to pass, so the buck won't stop here... As for myself, all I have to say, is Amen, brother, Amen...





Saturday, February 4, 2012

Protesting Putin, Syria Solving Palestinian Problems

“Newt Gingrich is not conceding Florida. He said that Florida has made it clear that this is a two-person race. Yeah, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama.” – Jay Leno

“More problems for Newt Gingrich; he's now been told that he cannot legally use ‘Eye of the Tiger’ anymore, so he's switching back to Viagra.” – Jay Leno
“Not a great day for Mitt Romney. He put his foot in his mouth. He said in an interview, quote, ‘I'm not concerned about the very poor.’ Is anybody even trying to win this thing?” – Craig Ferguson


“The longer we freeze here, the longer they’ll freeze in Siberia.”  - Russian protester
I tell myself that I was just waiting for something to catch my attention in the news so I could post to the blog, but in reality I spent the last two days watching videos on youtube. A lot of badly filmed music videos to Fat Chance Bellydanse... Waking up to Bruce Cockburn's "Wondering Where the Lions Are" is such a treat, it goes well with a good cup of coffee. Youtube, and reading random blogs are two of my favorite ways to surf the internet.

My original idea in surfing around was to get some background on the death of Don Cornelius, who killed himself the other day, at age 75. They say he was never the same after his last divorce from a Russian hooker with large breast implants, proving that you just can't buy true happiness anymore. (today's homework: what does the phrase "Russian skunk" mean?) Would he have been happier with an Asian wife? For a long time, Soul Train was known as "that show with the Asian chick with the long hair..." Don always had that deer caught in the headlights look, he would have been happier being just the voice of the show, and hiring some young flunky to be the host (get down, get flunky, get loose...). The weird part is talking about his cultural legacy, but Soul Train was just a television show on Saturday mornings. Despite having some great musical groups lip sync to their favorite songs, it was on the same cultural level as the morning's children's cartoons... Soul Train was fun to watch until they hired part of the audience to be dancers, and they became caricatures of what real kids were like...

Then came this morning's headline, after two cups of coffee and the cat settling down in my lap: protests in Russia against election corruption. Over 100,000 people strong came out in sub-zero temperatures, both to protest Putin, and to support him. The pro-Putin ralliers were brought in by heated buses, and were composed primarily of teachers and state workers who were "asked" to participate. In a news conference, Putin said that he has resigned himself to a run-off election, but the results could be very bad for Russia, very destabilizing. Ol' Vlad resembles Newt Gingrich more and more these days, with the profitability of doom and gloom unless we let him save us. Only Vladimir will take his shirt off in public... or whatever photo op that might make us look past his dead eyes that say: "Cross me, and I will personally bury you..."

Russia hasn't gone along with all the other sheep at the UN, refusing to condemn Syria, which would clear the way for NATO troops to roll in with a few tanks and drones. This, after the Syrian government's forces have killed another 200 people. The protest is now one year old in Syria, if it keeps going at this rate, the government will have killed off all of the Syrian citizens within the year, and then it can be the new Palestinian homeland, and they can give up living in Israel... Maybe that's what the Hamas leader is actually doing, paving the way for their exodus to Damascus... In gratitude, Syrian computer hackers have been making entries on Russian websites and blogs, and invading the official government's website, and trying to hack some intelligence websites. Oh, those wacky Allawites...

Here at home, the Jewish pundits have been writing up a storm, trying to get us used to the thought of Israel bombing Iran. We have a treaty with Israel saying they are our allies, and we will support them if attacked. It doesn't say that we are supposed to support them if they are the attackers, so they want the US public warmed up to the idea that they must attack Iran to help them negotiate with the Palestinians. Good logic for a bunch of right wing extremists. My solution is to send all of our own right wing extremists over to Israel. Let them feed and cloth them for awhile, and listen to them bond with Avigdor and Bibi. That might cure the Israelis, if not the whole Middle East, of right wing beliefs and goofiness. Let them see that our extremists sound just like their right wing Islamists, that tea parties are a dumb idea, and thankfully, we can all learn to ignore them. Otherwise, we will get more totalitarian states that breeds ignorance and home-schooling... We will have changed that part of the world without firing one more shot, no need to thank me... Then, Israel and Iran can get back to being trading partners and don't have to keep the business deals they do now in the closet...