McCain Shocker
Arizona Senator and presidential candidate told a crowd of twos of supporters today in Asshole Township, Real Virginia, "my friends, you are in fact not my friends." He went on to say that he would never talk to any of them after the election and that he did not even like to touch or be near any of them because he did not want their poverty to rub off on him. McCain was heard saying that he did not like anyone that had to wipe their own ass because they are dirty and too lazy to find someone to do it for them.
At another rally in "I can't be racist because I have had a black friend", Pennsylvania, McCain explained his stances on issues like the bailout, stimulus packages, and use of the military. He said, "I have been for some things before I was against them and against some things before I was for them, but I have never been for or against anything I should have been against or for."
 McCain Shocker
The one thing I learned from the debate last night was that I am in the wrong business. If Joe the Plumber has to worry about higher taxes and redistribution of wealth because he makes more then $250K, then I want to also have to worry about paying higher taxes and the government redistributing my wealth.
I will go one better, if I went from what I make now to over $250K a year, I will give extra money to the country. That is country first.
Of course the odds of me making that much in my line of work is not good. I didn't know it was that good for plumbers and the only wealthy plumber I have known is Roto Rooter.
I imagine that Joe does not make that much though and would not really have to worry about a tax increase if Senator Obama sticks to his plan and what he states he wants to do. It is probably just more of a situation that happens a lot where Americans vote against their best interests because we all think we will be rich soon and don't want to pay higher taxes or "death taxes" or taxes on capital gains. Is anyone even making any gains right now to cut the taxes on?
Plumber Envy
I started off the day like I do every day, praying to Hindu, Buddha, and Lilly that they beat up the god of Senator McCain's followers, but then I learned out that they were on to us. The pastor that gave the invocation at one of McCain's rallies outed us to everyone. I obviously underestimated the theological intelligence of the evangelical wanker crowd.
It is unfortunate that Pastor Arnold Conrad knows so much about other religions. He knows things that even followers of those religions don't know. In my studies of Buddhism, I believe I have learned that the Buddha did not consider himself a god and even encouraged his followers to find their own path to enlightenment. Buddha provided a guide and showed it can be done, but he was not a god.
I also did not know that Hindu was a god. I knew it was a religion, but not a god. All those damn books I have read must have been written by liberal, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindus who hate America and freedom.
Luckily Pastor Conrad has corrected my ignorance and in the process set me free. Now, I can worship in the open and let everyone know that I think my gods can take your god.
But then I got to thinking, are there also different gods among the Christian branches. I grew up Catholic and have attended many Christian churches and they all seem to pray to a little bit different god. Some are more open and friendly. Others seem to believe in a god that fights in the MMA and likes to kill and punish. I am not sure that any of their gods actually follow the teachings of Jesus Christ that their beliefs are supposed to be based on.
I know, I have committed blasphemy and am going to hell. The thing is, I don't care. If heaven includes people like Pastor Conrad, I don't want to go there. Plus, I stopped believing in the Christian gods I grew up with a long time ago. The more I learned that many Christians are not anywhere near Christ-like as far as actions, the more I came to doubt that there was a god as described in churches and the Bible. I also figured that if there was a god, that entity knew that I was faking belief when I went to church or called myself Catholic and that would make god more angry then if I just said that I don't know if there is a god.
I do believe in some higher power, but I do not know what form it is in. It could be the human mind or spirit, a tree that provides oxygen and other resources, a rock, or a dog. Our dog Franki is very Zen and seems to have a lot figured out that I still do not know.
My dog is bigger then your god
I am not going to accuse Governor Sarah Palin or Senator John McCain of being Nazis, I am just going to say that their recent actions have been Nazi-ish. If someone else can come up with a better description, please share.
I wasn't around during the time of the Nazis, but I have read a little about the period and I think that the current McCain/ Palin campaign is trying to use similar tactics of fear and innuendo. The Nazis blamed the Jews for their economy and said they would destroy Germany. McCain/ Palin has been trying to insinuate that Senator Obama is a terrorist and therefore also out to destroy America.
The rhetoric isn't that bad, it is what it can inspire followers to do. Would the Holocaust have been possible if the Nazis hadn't sufficiently scared and incited the populace to action? I think that attempting to link Obama to domestic terrorists, accusing him of treason, and then using his middle name to attempt to link him to Islamic radicals is along the lines of Nazi propaganda to get the German citizenry to act against what the Nazis claimed were their enemies and were unpatriotic. Would it be any surprise if someone were to attempt violence against Obama and then claim that it was because he was a Muslim, America hating, terrorist?
I am not even sure if McCain/ Palin care if their words can be seen that way. It is obviously more important to win an election then to be moral.
Due to this, I am announcing my candidacy for president of the United States. I feel that I am qualified because I served a year as vice president of my high school band. I also have a map where I can see Russia, China, Iran, and all other countries formed before 2003. And one time while I was in the Army and at NTC, there were Chinese officers there to watch the exercises as part of am exchange program.
Good night and we're fucked.
Nazi-ish
I am not sure, but I am pretty sure that one of the Republicans I watched in a press conference last Friday said that he wasn't going to negotiate the bill at the press conference because "you don't have a vote." Was he talking about the press or the people because last time I checked, we have all the votes and their dumbasses are supposed to listen to us. Probably just a slip where he said what he really thought of the voters and American public.
I also find it curious that the Congressional Republicans are claiming to stand firm to their values and principles. Where were their values when spending was out of control the past 7 years and government has entered into more parts of our private lives like none of us have rights. Oh, I forgot, it is an election year and they are trying to act like they never liked President Bush. Are they really principles if you only follow them when you are losing elections? The democrats do it too, but it is more funny to watch the "morally superior" conservatives do it.
Is John McCain a Muslim terrorist that hates America and an angry black woman? I did not see a flag pin on his lapel at the debates. Maybe I missed it or maybe he was wearing it in place of the stud on his penis piercing.
Why does John McCain think that invading a sovereign nation like Iraq is alright even though they did nothing to us but Russia is evil for its actions in Georgia? I am not saying Russia was correct, but I am at least consistent and think that a sovereign nation is a sovereign nation and you can't pick and choose which ones are OK to invade and which ones aren't based on who is doing the invading. And none of us really know what happened because both sides of the Russia/ Georgia conflict are full of shit.
Enough of that. I was in Texas for Hurricane Ike and was able to drive around Galveston after it hit looking for people that hadn't contacted family to say they were alright. I also got just passed High Island on the Bolivar Peninsula before turning around because our little SUV might not make it through the sand and debris. If only I still had my license for military vehicles. We wouldn't have found who we were looking for in Port Bolivar anyway, but at least we could have told the families we tried.
Back from Ike
I did think of one thing. Although I do not have any plans to watch any of the Republican National Convention, I can imagine some things that will come up. One of them is 9/11.
A couple of things on this. First someone will say that world changed on 9/11. The world was no different on 9/12/01 then it was on 9/10/01. It just happened to be the first time that many Americans realized that we were a part of the world. And those people turned to leaders who were just as oblivious as they were about reality.
It will also be said that someone remembers the lessons of 9/11. The true lesson of 9/11 seems to be that if you use fear and attacks on patriotism to gain power, you can get away with a lot. You can misuse our troops and do little to capture those that actually attacked us and still be considered by many to be protecting us. What made this possible was the lesson that when Americans get scared they will do whatever you say makes them safe. They apparently don't even need results or justification, just hearing it is so is good enough.
Someone will also talk about the right to life and not get that there is more to life then just being born. While there are children and adults in poverty or homeless, what value is being put on life? When so many are left behind and attempts are made to trivialize their existence or blame them, what does that really say about what is important? Is it life, or is it you being able to push your morality on others? I am not pro-abortion, I just think that it is a decision best made by the individual and it is between them and their god or whatever matters to them.
I am also not sure there can be a fair decision on when life begins. I actually believe that there is no set point that life begins because life has no start or end point. It is a continual process of birth, death, and rebirth of spirit. The value of life is not just being alive, but also living. And many of the people alive today are not living, they are just existing waiting for the next bad thing to happen.
To me, you can't care about a human life if you also don't treat everything with that same respect. Whether it is an animal, a plant, a tree, or the sky, there is no human life without everything that surrounds us and so many who claim to respect life do not respect our environment. If you don't respect what makes it possible for us to live, how much respect do you really have for life?
Just one thought
I have been a blog slacker. It has been partly because work has been pretty busy and I have been watching low pressure areas, turn into tropical storms, and then into possibly hurricanes. We did deploy one of our volunteers to help at a shelter in Texas, but the rest of us are assigned to the RNC and can't deploy until we are released from it.
I also really haven't had a lot to say. I was happy with the pick of Joe Biden and still confused by the pick of Palin, but other then that, I still haven't gotten into the election yet. I don't want Senator McCain to win and would love it if Senator Obama became the type of leader we have been lacking, but the Bush administration and both parties have crushed my political spirit.
I am hoping that I will be able to deploy myself to a disaster so that I can get some experience. I do not hope for a disaster though.
Slacker
How could the man I love do this to me? I know some of you told me he would only break my heart and I probably knew it somewhere inside me, but the heart loves who the heart loves. Now my friends can't look at me without that look of pity and "I told you so."
I think that like President Bush started to believe he was the Messiah and here to lead the US to the "Promised Land," John Edwards began to believe that he was to lead us all to "One America." I guess he didn't also learn that uniting the "2 Americas" has nothing to do with sex. The one America has spent all of its time getting fucked anyway.
John, how could you do this to me?
There are a lot of things that I do not know, but I thought everyone knew that if you keep your tires properly inflated and get your car maintenance done regularly, you should use less gas. I guess though that I also drive and do not have a driver so I may know some things that others do not. Although it is a good laugh line to mock Senator Obama's comments on tires and tune-ups, it also shows a basic lack of respect for fact and the intelligence of the American electorate.
Although I cannot be sure and there is no way to prove it (unless we look at the economy and deficit), I am pretty sure that Al Gore was correct when he questioned President Bush's budget during the 2000 debates and Bush responded that Gore used "fuzzy math." Those two words somehow took the focus off the fact that Bush's budget was flawed all the way through and somehow put it on Gore and his math skills. For the average American, would you rather have Al Gore or George W Bush as a Mathlete on your kid's team?
The "aw shucks, I am just an average person" routine is a lie. Both President Bush and Senator McCain are elitists. You have to be to want to be president. What makes them worse then your average elitist though is that they think we are stupid enough to believe that they are regular guys. John McCain was not just any soldier, he came from a family of admirals and military academies. If you do not think that students at military academies are elitist, visit USAFA in Colorado Springs or serve with some West Pointers. They are not all arses, but they are almost all elitist.
And whether or not we admit it, we want someone who thinks they can do better then we can in charge. They need to be confident and self-assured. Where we have problems is when people are cocky or lack the basic leadership skills that I believe you either are or are not born with. I believe you can build and shape someone into a great leader, I do not believe you can create one from a person who does not have that natural ability anyway.
Just look at President Bush. If you can say he is a good leader, I would suggest you look beyond your partisan biases. His solution to get us going again after 9/11 was to shop and see plays. He publicly mocked not being able to find WMD while Americans were dying in a war that he sent them to based on Iraq have WMD. That is a wanker and not a leader.
I do not consider President Bill Clinton a good leader either. He is a good politician and he let politics shape many of his policies. I do not believe it was about conviction for him on many issues, just about playing the game to always look like he was on the side of whatever was popular. One thing I can say for President G Dub is that he does not care about popularity or right and wrong. For him, it is all about "I am more better then you and don't give a rat's ass what you thinks."
I think I started writing about tire pressure and wankers. To sum up, the more conviction a politician or radio/TV pundit says something with, the more you should question it. Plus, if McCain can spend money on tire gauges, maybe they should also try using them to see how they work and what effect low or high tire pressure may have on driving efficiency.
Wanker Politics
I criticize and make fun of the local newspaper, but I think I should also give credit when they run something I find interesting and is well written. Although it was not written by a local reporter, and that is probably why it is good, it is a local story. I also think it is worth reading for anyone interested in deployments of our military personnel.
This is the first part from yesterday. It is a week-long series and you can read other installments on the Times site.
Fair Play
I have not talked about Brett Favre yet, but I have been busy being upset that the Cubs seem to want to find a way not to win. If I were Rich Harden, I would ask if I could be traded to a team that could score like the Kansas City Royals so at least he could win a game when he pitches as well as he has.
Today though, this is not about the Cubs. At least not until after they play the Brewers tonight. Today is about how I have solved Brett Favre's and the Green Bay Packer's Problems. I think Brett Favre should start an Arena Football team in St Cloud, MN.
It is perfect. He gets to play football. He gets to make all the managerial calls. And I get to watch Arena Football live again like in Des Moines before the Barnstormers left. Plus, Arena Football is the perfect place for Favre's gunslinger mentality. His talents are wasted in the NFL where teams want to run the ball occasionally and scores often don't get into the 50s.
I Finally Talk About Favre
I keep seeing Senator John McCain saying that Senator Barack Obama was wrong about the surge then and is still wrong now. I agree that the surge has had a positive effect in some areas. When called upon and given a chance, our troops can do amazing things and have been doing so even with faulty leadership from their civilian leaders.
The trust is Senator McCain that you were wrong about invading Iraq and no matter what the surge does, you are still wrong. Our justifications for invading were faulty and sloppy at best, and dishonest and criminal at worst. No matter what the outcome, there is no justification for the invasion. No intelligent or compassionate person can justify the sloppy way we got into the war, the incompetent way the war was managed for so long, the arrogance that kept the strategy flawed, or the loss of life that cannot be ignored by saying, "well everyone else thought Saddam had WMD too."
We cannot say that it was a humanitarian mission of liberation because if you look around the world, there are millions who suffer daily worse then the Iraqis do that we do nothing about. Well, nothing except talk about how much we "feel" for those suffering and "wish" it would stop. To be fair, sometimes we do put someone on a plane to go wag their fingers at murderers and thieves.
I do hope the mission in Iraq eventually succeeds, but that will never make it a success. In the logic of Senator McCain and many others, success would also be someone's family being murdered but they inherited a lot of money so it all ended up working out.
Wrong Then, Wrong Now, How Now Brown Cow
Following closely on the heels of dealing with problems involving IndyMac and Freddie Mac, President Bush today announced that he was going to preemptively shore up Easy May too. Citing inconsistent cheese content and being too runny even after you let it set out, President Bush said that allowing Easy Mac to fall into crisis would be irresponsible and would allow the terrorists to win.
He summed up his statement by saying "I learned valuable lessons on 9/11 besides the terrorizers hate us for our freedom. I also learned that if you are out of Easy Mac in your bunker, it is almost as bad as being killed or losing a loved one. And I have intelligence from wiretaps that Congress authorized that suggests that Americans are also concerned about Easy Mac."
Analysts are not sure what President Bush plans to do, but Senator John McCain may have given a hint when he said that Barack Obama would appease Easy Mac and not send troops in, but would instead try to get them to give up the cheese peacefully.
VP Cheney was unavailable for comment, but his office said that he was out with Halliburton seeing if there is a potential to drill for cheese in Jellystone National Park.
Another Mac Problem
...even helicopter doors are going AWOL.
The National Guard is so tired...
My Representative is a Wanker.
I am not even sure what the following comment by Congressperson Bachmann means. "Also, it's important for people to know that there are no trees in ANWR. There couldn't be a more perfect area to drill." There are no trees in my back yard either, maybe they will pay me to look for oil there.
I know that I have been pretty hard on Congressperson Bachmann. But in my defense, if she wasn't a wanker, I wouldn't have to be so harsh.
If this is true, the military and government of Colombia are even bigger wankers then Bachmann is
I can't even say much about this other then, "what the fuck?" I don't have a role in the International side of the Red Cross, but I would like to one day. And if I do get there, I do not want to get shot because some wanker governments or militias weaken the trust that even many of the worst governments have for the Red Cross.
Stupid Fucker Update
Wankers are like cockroaches. They are ugly and they are everywhere.
One point that I am sure this particular wanker misses is that President Bush has had almost 8 years to capture or kill bin Laden and hasn't done it. There is also the fact that many believe we had him cornered in Afghanistan and let him go, but obviously, a lot of people are not very bright. They should put up a billboard of this wanker and a brain captioned, "This is your brain, this is your brain as a Republican" and show the Twin Towers and dollar signs as the only things is his brain.
Can we keep the immigrants and get rid of the wankers? Someone should sponsor that bill or maybe attach it to some version of FISA or the Patriot Act.
Wankers Make Scott Angry
I am not sure why I am so stupid, but maybe my friends can help me out. I cannot figure out why we should take it as a fact that Senator John McCain is a patriot and loves America because he was a POW, but Senator Max Cleland was an America hater who supported terrorists.
I still have not figured out how it was that President Bush managed to avoid getting within a hemisphere of combat and was a hero and patriot, but Senator John Kerry was a communist that sympathized with terrorists and French people. First, I didn't know we were at war with France. Second, I always thought that someone who was in a theater of combat had more experience then someone who's war experience is from John Wayne movies. Did seeing "Saving Private Ryan" make me a member of the "Greatest Generation?"
With a Little Help from My Friends
Last night we were watching "Beyond the Gates" and I was reminded how angry genocide makes me. Actually that is stupid to say because genocide should make everyone angry. What I really mean is the lack of support for those suffering through a genocide makes me angry. And no, I do not count praying for someone as support.
I think that from nor on, not only do we try the people and governments committing the crimes, but also the governments and groups that do nothing or let it happen while they watch. I like the idea of the UN, but there are just as many people responsible for what happened in Rwanda and is happening in Darfur now at the UN and in governments around the world as there are people responsible for committing the actual atrocities.
In the case of "Beyond the Gates," the UN pulled its troops out knowing that everyone inside would die. While back here in the US, our government was trying to determine how many acts of genocide actually create a genocide. Of course, we were still cowering from Mogadishu the year before and had decided that no amount of American lives were worth losing for any amount of African lives.
I think Somalia was when I first realized how messed up our priorities were. I also believe that pulling out of Somalia like we did, whimpering and cowering, has led to many of the problems in the world today. Especially in Africa, brutal and evil people decided that we would do very little to intervene as long as they did not do any harm to US economic or strategic interests. And if we did send anyone over, just kill a couple and we would evacuate a lot quicker then we deployed.
I would think that if the "Right to Life" people were as vocal about actual living and breathing people as they are about unborn children then something would happen to actually support "never again" and not just relegate the phrase to rhetoric. I am more inclined to believe that the "right to life" movement is less about actual life though then it is about their believing they have the right to tell everyone else how they should live their lives.
It is not just the religious right that fails, but also the "liberals." It was President Bill Clinton that ran out of Africa like his wife had caught him in bed with an intern. Although he had help from a opposing Congress who did not want us involved in the first place, the ultimate decision was his. It was also Democrats who helped President Bush go forward with his visions of invading Iraq when there were other places where leaders were as bad or worse then Saddam Hussein.
I know there are people who care. I just wish those people were in charge of things because I bet they would be more compassionate all around and would try to do everything a little more fairly.
Genocide Make Scott Angry
My Wisdom Apparently can be Rated
Flying a jet and getting shot down does not make you qualified to be president. Below are a list of a few other things that are also true:
Being a former POW also does not make you qualified to be president. - Being held that long and not giving up is no small accomplishment though.
Just being in the military does not make you more disciplined or a better leader then an ordinary citizen. - I knew plenty of shitbags in the military and there were many NCOs and officers I would not have let be shift managers at Long John Silvers.
Just being a cop, soldier, airmen, firemen,... does not make you a hero. - They are important and dangerous jobs, but then again, I have known a lot of shitbags in a lot of different jobs. People are flawed and calling people heroes just for their jobs is not only incorrect, but it is unfair to the people. How do you live up to being considered a hero?
Just because some blogger or "journalist" wrote something on the interwebnettubes, does not make it true. - Although I am always correct, there is a lot of bullshit out there.
The people now most fervently defending Senator McCain are many of the same people who attacked Senator Kerry's patriotism and military service. Many of them are also people who said Colin Powell's doubt about invading Iraq were because he was weak or had been "damaged" by his experiences in Vietnam. Of course, almost all of them have never served anyone except for themselves and have come nowhere near actual military service.
I do not question Senator McCain's military service or patriotism, I just do not think he is the right person to be president. I also do not know for sure that Senator Obama is, but given the two choices, I like Obama better because I think he is more intelligent.
And yes, I am an elitist. Not because I think I am superior to anyone, but because I want my president to be much more intelligent then the rest of us. If you do not think that the "Founding Fathers were elitists, then you do not think. And if you look at the list of successful and popular presidents, they are all elitists.
We have seen what happens when we get an "average George" or regular guy in office and it is not good. Intelligent presidents and leaders in general surround themselves with even more intelligent advisors and even people who may disagree because they are secure in themselves and want to make the best possible decisions. Non-intelligent presidents and leaders do what President Bush did and surround themselves with wankers who all think the same so that they can feel like they are intelligent or good leaders.
Wesley Clark is correct
I have decided that in July, I am going to ride my bike at least 200 miles. I should do 300 since riding my bike to and from work would go over 200 miles if I did it 3 out of 5 days, but being on-call makes it hard to get out for longer rides on the weekend because you can't plan for a fire or a family needing to get in touch with someone in the military regarding an emergency.
I have seen a lot more people riding bikes in the morning recently. When I first started riding to work, people acted like I was mentally ill and some wankers liked to yell at me while they drove by. Now that people are paying $4/gallon for gas, the media and other citizens act like they invented this biking to work idea to help battle high fuel costs. They are wankers.
St Cloud is still not the best city for bikes. It may actually be one of the worst, but it is still nice. There is a certain Zen in biking that can't be found in a car. Of course, if I get too Zen, some wanker will run me over, so there is a balance to "cycling meditation" and being alert for jackasses.
I wish I was doing RAGBRAI this year, but I am shooting for 2010. I would like to issue a challenge now to Lance Armstrong for RAGBRAI 2010. You may be able to climb mountains and beat the best cyclists in the world, but can you beat an overweight Iowa native across Iowa the last full week of July 2010? It is you against me. You can raise money to fight cancer and I will raise money for my Red Cross chapter. Unless I am fired before then. If that were to happen, I would raise money for the "Scott needs beer and wants to go to law school" fund.
July is Get Off Your Ass Month
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