As a Canadian, I am fucking disgusted and appalled at our recent No vote at the UN.
Bad enough it's a shitty decision, but worse yet, when lumped together with the other No voters, the list looks even more pathetic than "The Coalition Of The Willing" one did. I didn't even know that was possible.
I think my favourite thing about this whole Benghazi fake scandal is the apparent assumption by conservatives that the Diplomatic Corps should not be behaving in any kind of diplomatic fashion whatsoever.
Converting candidate responses from legalese to English, please wait...*
Question 1: Innovation and the Economy:
BO: I plan on dumping at least twice as much money into corporate pocketbooks via the continued fucking-up of the US intellectual property process. Oh, yea, and I plan on hiring a shitload of STEM teachers to prep future patent lawyers, er, "engineers" for this task.
MR: Less taxes and regulation for businesses, more H1B Visas and foreign "trade agreements" that take jobs away from Americans.
Question 2, Climate Change:
BO: Sure, it's a problem, but I've already dumped a shit-ton of your money into the "clean energy" companies my buddies own, as well as attempting to set up a "carbon credit exchange" scam, er, system, that would have funneled even more taxpayer dollars into the hands of my campaign contributors - what the fuck else do you expect me to do about it?
MR: Probably bullshit, but I won't let my disbelief in the concept prevent me from using this as an opportunity to badmouth my opponent and recommend further redistribution of wealth to my also-rich homies!
Furthermore, since China doesn't give a fuck about the environment, I don't think we should either.
Question 3: Research and the Future:
BO: Uh, like I said before - more of the public's money given to corporations so they can privately profit; seriously, what don't you guys get about that?
MR: Agreed, with the caveat of, you guessed it, less regulation for the same corporations. After all, corporations are people, and if you can't trust people with your money...
Question 4: Pandemics and Biosecurity:
BO:
MR: Less taxes and regulation on business... Oh, and more public surveillance. How are we supposed to know who's sick if we're not watching you all 24/7?
Question 5: Education:
BO: Earlier in my administration, I proposed adding 100,000 STEM (science, tech, engineering, and math) teachers... just don't ask how that's going...
MR: Education is a serious issue these days... which is why I recommend busting teachers' unions, defunding public schools in favor of private "charter" schools, and of course, blaming the current abysmal state of education solely on my opponent.
Question 6: Energy:
BO: Hey, I mentioned giving fuck-tons of taxpayer money to my buddies who run "clean energy" companies, right?
MR: I disagree with my opponent; I think we should be giving fuck-tons of taxpayer money to the oil companies my buddies run instead.
Can I getta 'Keystone Pipeline,' anyone?
Question 7: Food:
BO: Food safety was pretty fucked up when I came to office, so I made new rules that changes what qualifies as 'fucked up.'
MR: More government regulation and taxes. Hey, if those agri-business chumps want the same deal I give the oil and pharmaceutical companies, they need to pony up some campaign bucks, ya dig?
Question 8: Water:
BO: My administration has invested millions in fresh water conservation and restoration efforts. Granted, these programs would have existed anyway regardless of who held this office at the time, but hey - I do, so I get to take the credit. Suck it, Bush.
MR: Disband the EPA, less regulation on businesses, privatize the 'fresh water industry'.
What could possibly go wrong?
Question 9: The Internet:
BO: I promise to ensure online freedoms, granted they don't run afoul of all the new intellectual property and civilian surveillance we have/are coming up with.
Ha ha, remember when I told you I was going to veto CISPA? Suckers...
MR: The internet is for businesses to make money off of. Period. End of discussion. If you're somehow, some way preventing businesses from making as much money as possible from the internet, my administration will come down on you like fucking Mjölnir, you filthy fucking anti-capitalist pirates.
Question 10: The Ocean
BO: Funneling money into the Gulf to try and fix the problems caused by the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Also, I'll again take credit for several state-level programs I had nothing to do with.
MR: Government should handle this, never you mind. Seriously, we got this one, and unless you work for the government or the industrial fishery complex, it's really none of your concern. Now fuck off, peasant.
Question 11: Science in Public Policy:
BO: Science is, like, important, so I try to have my decisions guided by science. The decisions I let the media get wind of, anyway. Probably not a whole lot of science to, say, monitoring the communications of every American, so we just do it.
MR: Stupid nigger doesn't even know what 'science' is... If he did, he'd know the Earth is only about 6,000 years old, man rode dinosaurs, and Darwin was a Marxist.
Question 12: Space:
BO: Dude - Under my leadership, NASA put a fucking SUV equipped with some serious instrumentation on MARS. More in the works, stay tuned!
MR: Hey, so long as the military industrial complex and my campaign-funding buddies can make shitloads of money off of it, why not?
Question 13: Critical Natural Resources:
BO: Rare earth minerals are expensive, and the Chinese don't seem to keen on cutting us any deals, so my administration is looking into alternative materials that can be gathered domestically. We're also working on some electronics recycling programs that show real promise - stay tuned, more to come.
MR: Government regulation is the problem, not material scarcity; deregulate the mining companies, and the rare earth minerals will flow from the ground like water from a busted hydrant. Oh, also - Drill, baby, Drill!
Question 14: Vaccination and public health:
BO: Look, a lot of people don't get the proper vaccinations because they're just too damn expensive. So, I (and by I, I mean Congress) passed the Affordable Care Act, which... uh, which... OK, so it doesn't really do anything to get prices down, and in fact will likely increase the price of healthcare due to the compulsory insurance purchasing requirement... can't win 'em all!
MR: Less regulation for the pharmaceutical industry, and forced inoculation for the entire populace. Small government, you know?
--- END TRANSCRIPT ---
This is how bad it is now. At some point a couple months ago, either
Here's something interesting: According to a recent audit, I am part of the 1%. I'd been suspecting this for a while now, but to have some fussy accountant reveal your worth in 7 specific figures is another thing.
Mind you, that's all paper. Give me 30 days to liquidate, and I doubt I could break 50K. Still, nothing to sneer at, especially in these times.
Then again, contra Churchill, I've only gotten more liberal as I've aged, so I sleep well at night. There's never been, and never will be, any of that Galtian bullshit at any of my businesses. Oh noes, I'm only a paper millionaire because I believe in responsible work hours, comprehensive benefits, generous vacation time, and ridiculously competitive pay packages. Give me a friggin break.
Apologies for the shitty grammar. Apparently this new JE interface is even worse than I thought.
Dick Clark isn't dead, because Dick Clark can't die. They just ran into some temporary problems during a scheduled reboot.
Most men will spend years, sometimes even decades, convincing their ladies to perform outré sexual acts.
As for me, it was trying to convince my wife to watch a DVD...with the commentary turned on.
So, as of Thursday night, success! We both thoroughly enjoyed Aliens, with has a nice 'blended' commentary track, involving Jimmy Cameron himself, ex-wife and producer Gale Ann Hurd, the venerable Stan Winston, along with a couple of FX leads, and rounded off by a quartet of Colonial Marines.
Sadly, no Sigourney Weaver, but honestly, she wasn't missed. On a related note, someone needs to give Michael Biehn, Bill Paxton and Lance Henriksen their own podcast. Great energy from those three.
Am I still here?
After almost 7 long, painful years, my quest seems to be finally at an end.
In another couple weeks, I will finally be unemployed.
Sadly, that state of affiars won't last long, nor to my liking. I was hoping to find a nice boring regular job type job, or perhaps even consider staying home and be a domestic goddess, but it seems I've become far too valuable for that.
Which is a shame. I always took a certain amount of pride and happiness in being a regular working schlub, and well, I miss not having that, nor the future possibilty of it happening again.
Little Erick, in the throes of almost year-long deep depression, asks this question:
Have conservatives entered a suicide pact? Has the Republican Party, as a whole, done the same?
Yes, Erick, you have. This is what happens when you spend decades paying lip service to fundamentalism and oligarchy. This is what happens when you think labeling at least half your countrymen as traitors and subhumans is good strategy. This is what happens when you switch to the alternative fuels of hate and fear without doing any of that icky science beforehand to see if it was even a good idea in the first place.
And it's not like you haven't been warned, by no less than the people who originated some of these modern GOP tactics and strategies, that this would end up biting you in the ass. But since you've spent most of the last 40 years winning, you ignored it. But what you need to do, once you get your asses handed to you next year in an election that was only ever yours to lose, is sit the fuck down and do nothing else but some really hard thinking and soul searching, because shit like this
We do not have anyone on our side making the moral case for the free market.
The problem is that candidate, Jon Huntsman, decided to launch his campaign by giving conservatives a middle finger as he raced to get on The View.
we would be crazy not to reconsider Perry
It is hard to dislike a guy who can filet his opponent with a smile and a side of fava beans and a nice chianti.
Long time, no write. But I've been a good boy this year, kept my mouth shut and my ass out of trouble. So what I really, really, really want for Christmas this year is for Newt Gingrich to win the New Hampshire primary. The margin doesn't matter so long as he comes out on top after the voting.
Yours in Coca-Cola,
Captain Splendid
If someone is willing to wallow in the mud, calling names, and making fun of someone just because they're different, well... you just can't be friends with that kind of person. What are they saying about you behind your back? What are they going to say about you if you rub them the wrong way?
Better to just cut ties, and walk on by. Bullies will never be good friends, and if you stand up to them, you're just going to get in a yelling match, until you're both hoarse.
It reminds me of the feminists who go beyond equality and turn into man-hating bigots themselves. Trying to solving a problem by becoming the problem is not going to fix anything at all.
The world is no nursery. - Sigmund Freud
