I'd Like My 200 Apple Pies Instead Please

That was how CNN chose to try to explain how much money $700 billion is--it's 200 McDonald's apple pies for every single American. Okay, NOW I get it.

Before I get to my main point, I have to share the latest song to get stuck in my head. It's "You Don't Know Me" by Ben Folds, who's something of a hero for nerds like me, with Regina Spektor singing backup. Catchy as all hell.



I'm starting to smell a conspiracy. I don't usually go in for the more wacko theories about how the government took down the WTC or stuff like that, but I'm starting to feel like this whole Wall Street meltdown and bailout was planned from the start. I read an excellent article on the Daily Kos explaining how we got into this mess. If you're at all interested in understanding it, give it a shot--it's long and a bit confusing in parts, but if you stick with it, it actually starts to make sense. It just seems like it couldn't possibly have been just blind greed and optimism--they must have known it would blow up at some point, and I'm starting to think they had some backdoor deal with the administration that when that time came, the government would foot the bill. And the nerve of those CEOs who are saying they won't go along with the bailout plan if it means giving up their millions of dollars in golden parachute bonuses! I bet they get away with it.

I mean, this administration spends money like a drunken sailor. A trillion dollars for a pointless war? Sure! Another trillion dollars to bail out greedy investment banks preying on poor people trying to own a home? Why not!

I want my fucking money back. These idiots are less qualified than even I am to do the right thing with it. I'm going to go invest in apple pies. Mmmm pie.

OMG, Get Out of My Head!

This is mainly for Katia, since she's not fortunate enough to be able to watch Bill Maher's show. But it's a point worth hearing for everybody. It's something I've been thinking myself for some time, but Bill says it better than I've ever been able to. And Andrew Sullivan makes a great point about what the President's job is supposed to be and why ours has failed completely.



As tragic as the deaths of the 9/11 victims are, they are NO MORE tragic than those of the people who died in that train wreck or in that hurricane, or even the people who died this past weekend thanks to auto accidents. Every unnatural death is tragic in its own way. The fact that 3000 of them happened at once on a single day 7 years ago does not justify a war or the suspension of our liberties or the wasting of our country's money. It's an excuse used by this administration to seize unprecedented power by preying on the basest fears of common people, dying in some awful unexpected way. The fact is, any single one of us is no more in danger after 9/11 than we were before. The odds of us dying in a car accident or a natural disaster or from slipping in the shower are thousands and thousands of times greater than dying in a terrorist attack, and personally, it offends me for the country to spend a single dime trying to stop some attack that will probably never happen, and even if it did, can probably never be stopped. I'll take my chances, I've got to go some way.

And while I'm on the subject and potentially sounding a little dickish, my sympathy for those stuck in the hurricane is waning a bit. Here's the thing--the people in Galveston and thereabouts had ample warning to get the fuck out or face "certain death" (the words of the Weather Service). Those who chose to stay behind, in my eyes, have no right to whine and complain about FEMA's lack of response, and frankly, I don't want my tax dollars being spent rescuing people from flooded houses who knew they were going to be flooded but didn't leave. If you're told to evacuate and you live by the ocean when a big giant storm is coming, GET THE FUCK OUT. Period. I don't believe there was any lack of opportunity for people to evacuate or BE evacuated. Those that chose to stay behind because they refuse to abandon their home are just stupid and deserve what they got. It's like the idiots who keep building homes on the cliffs in Malibu even though the fires come and the mudslides wash them into the ocean. MOVE STUPID!

Okay, I'm good now.

Oh Poor You

When did everyone in this country become such (excuse my French) pussies? Isn't politics supposed to be a rough, dirty business? Why does everyone get so outraged every time someone says something honest about their opponent's shortcomings, and why does the media act like such shrieking little girls about it?

In particular, I'm incensed by this nonsense of how every criticism of Sarah Palin is somehow sexist. Someone says she's inexperienced--sexist! Someone says she's a Jesus-freak nutjob who thinks we're in Iraq because God whispered in Bush's ear--sexist! Someone says it's fucking ridiculous that she says she has foreign policy experience because you can see Russia from Alaska--fucking sexist pig!

Seriously, who in their right mind can label ANY of the criticisms of her as sexist? People are simply pointing out the fact that she is woefully unqualified to be Vice President, that she shows little to no grasp of any of the issues facing this country, that she shows a complete disregard for the rule of law and balance of power in her own backwater state, and that she seems like she'd be willing to eat a live puppy on national TV if she thought that it was God's will. I would say all those things about her if she had balls too. It has nothing to do with her gender, it has to do with the fact that she doesn't belong there.

She's a tool, being exploited and used by McCain's shadiest operatives to in turn exploit what they think to be the weak little lady-brains of America's women, who are supposed to look past her complete lack of qualifications and vote with their boobs. Please, please, please don't.

#41

One thing I like to do with my blog is share my favorite songs that you might not have heard before. This is "#41" by the Dave Matthews Band. They're not everyone's cup of tea (especially my wife's), but you'd be hard-pressed to tell me this isn't a gorgeous song. I heard it again tonight during our cooldown at the gym, and realized that poor Leroi Moore, the sax player in DMB, died last month in an accident. He was an amazing saxophonist, maybe the best in rock (sorry Clarence Clemons), and I always had a soft spot for him since I know how hard it is to play the sax well. Hope you enjoy it.

... Pants on Fire

I've been reading lots of good/disturbing stuff about how much of a big fat liar John McCain has become thanks to the Daily Kos RSS feed. Our dear friend Katia sent us some links to videos, one of which does a great job of highlighting all the lying and backpedaling. Enjoy this one.



Now some random thoughts for the day, since I love bullet lists.

• I love how certain songs have the ability to take you back to moments that you otherwise might have forgotten. I heard Young Turks by Rod Stewart in the car today and it immediately reminded me of playing with my Lego Main Street set. Good times.
  
• And I love how there are people who devote so much time to creating websites about random pointless stuff that I want to look up. The fact that there's a site devoted to cataloguing every single Lego set ever made is so awesome. My enjoyment of the internet is largely dependent on other people having nothing better to do.
  
• Message to parents: Your kids are not automatically cute or enjoyable, especially when they're running around screaming in public places. It just makes people dislike them, not to mention you for being lazy parents. And while we're at it, the world does not revolve around them--don't make me wait for an extra five minutes in line at Dunkin Donuts because you think it's cute to let your kid try to order his own donut. If he's not ready to come right out and say it, don't torture him or the rest of us by making us all wait for him to finally say it.
  
• Who the hell drives the speed limit, especially when it's 25 miles per hour??? If I get stuck behind another person going 25 on Pontiac Avenue, I'm going to scream. Seriously.
  
• The new 90210 kind of sucks. It's no Gossip Girl, not nearly as much fun.
  
• One good thing about Sarah Palin's selection is that it got Tina Fey on SNL this week. More Tina is always good.
  

The Shock of the Lightning

This title is totally unrelated to the post, but it's the kickass new song from Oasis, check it out.


Now on to more serious matters. Obviously, I would be remiss to not make note of the fact that today is September 11--seven years since everything changed on us. I certainly would never try to diminish the tragedy of that day and I still remember how shocked I felt sitting there watching the second plane hit (I was doped up on Vicodin after my wisdom tooth extraction). But for those who pay attention and keep an open mind, time has a way of adding perspective to EVERYTHING, even that which seems beyond perspective at the time.

2,999 people died on September 11th because a group of hateful fundamentalist wackjobs decided they needed to make America feel vulnerable.

In response to that attack, we invaded Afghanistan and have spent seven years tearing the country down and trying to make sure it doesn't become a haven for terrorists again.

900 coalition troops and at least 5000 Afghan civilians have died in that war.

In 2003, our retard President allowed his cronies to make us invade Iraq under the pretense of it being the next step in their ridiculous "war on terror". We are still there trying to figure out what the fuck we're supposed to be doing.

4500 coalition troops have died in Iraq. 1.2 million Iraqis have died as a result of our war.

My point here is, do the numbers hold up? How can one justify the staggering loss of life that we as a country have precipitated as "revenge" for those 3000 poor souls who died seven years ago today? Why is it okay for soldiers and marines to give up their lives, especially in a war that has nothing at all to do with what happened on 9/11? Aren't their lives just as important as those original 3000?

The more I've thought about this, the more I disagree with the concept of the "correct response". Even those in my party have said that Afghanistan was the right war, but I no longer agree. The military is not being used to address any imminent threat, they're being used to satisfy the bloodlust of a segment of the population who believes that there's some way to get payback for what happened. It's disgraceful and reflective of the stupidity and cowardice that's infested our government over these last eight years.

Believe me, I have a great deal of respect for our military and what those men and women do. It's one of my few regrets that I did not serve when I was younger and more able, but I am glad I'm not beholden to serve in wars I don't believe in. My dad instilled in me a great interest in the military (he was a Guardsman himself), and as a boy, I devoured books and movies on the subject. People who know me now as a staunch liberal assume I'm some peacenik and are surprised that I know the various configurations of the C-130 Hercules by heart (hello 13th hole at North Kingstown Golf Course). But to me, respecting what our military does means understanding when and how that tool should be used. And what's being done with them is simply wrong. They're being asked to kill and be killed in the name of stupid, ignorant revenge.

I realize my candidate could never be elected if he were to say this sort of thing, but I'd like to think he knows it deep down. I believe he knows the best way to honor the lives of those lost on 9/11/01 is to stop wasting the lives of others in their name, and do what we can to make sure people don't want to do something like that to us again. Unfortunately, for the last seven years, we've just been turning potential friends into probable enemies.

Sunday stuff

A few things that have been rattling around in my brain this weekend...

We made ourselves watch the speeches from the RNC Friday night and I'm sorry we made our Tivo hold such crap even for a couple days.

Sarah Palin's speech made me hate her even more--she was was bitchy and condescending and smug and entirely unlikable. I suppose I can see why Republicans think she did so well, but all she did was deliver a speech someone else wrote for her. Yes, she served the purpose they wanted, which is to appear as an ultra-conservative, Jesus-freak attack dog who barely concealed her racist disdain for Barack. Which is exactly why I now loathe her. I know it's somewhat awful, but I SO hope it turns out that the little baby Trig turns out to really be her daughter's (the one who is knocked up again). I mean, she took a 5-month leave from school last year right before the baby was born? Very curious.

Rudy Giuliani was even more reprehensible. Aside from the fact that he has absolutely no business being on the national scene, has zero qualifications for even having been IN the race before, and disagrees with the Republican Party on almost every major point of their platform, well, he was just a dick. Another smug, condescending asshat talking down on public service and dismissing us Democrats as pussies who wouldn't have responded to the terrorists the way he did (which pretty much amounted to walking in the street).

And John McCain. Did you know he was a POW in Vietnam? I had no idea until the 20-minute video that described it and then the entire second half of his tedious speech. I used to actually respect the guy, but he's clearly decided he's willing to compromise on every ideal he's ever stood up for, and is even willing to use his own worst experience to whore himself to the idiot flag-wavers just to get elected. His imprisonment is a reason to respect him as a man, but it's not a reason to elect him President, and certainly not some obligation we owe him like they would have you believe. Aside from that, I found him boring and uninspiring and completely Bush-y.

As a whole, their convention was a lot of blowhard dick-waving. They keep trying to fool us into thinking they're the party of the "common man", the "small-town" folks, when their main interest is keeping tax cuts for people who make more than half a million dollars a year and making sure corporations can keep giving the country the shaft. They hide behind the flag and pseudo-patriotic posturing, when in fact for the last eight years, they have shown a complete lack of respect for the military and what it should be used for.

Speaking of which, it pissed me off to hear that Sarah Palin's son is deploying to Iraq on September 11th. The fact that the Army and/or government is STILL trying to associate 9/11 with this completely unrelated and pointless war in Iraq is ridiculous. Do they think we've forgotten how many times it's been proven that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11? Is it now acceptable to use a true tragedy to try selling this boondoggle to us? I guess so, since they humped 9/11 everywhere they could during the convention. I guess they think our memories are so short that we'll now assume that if the troops deploy on 9/11, it must be somehow connected. I just wish Barack or Joe would call them out on that nonsense.

Can't wait for my Obama yard sign and car stickers to arrive this week. I'm ready to start arguing with people for the next two months till we win.

Why I Hate Sarah Palin

She hunts moose. 'Nuff said.

Pure Bliss

In these oft-frustrating days of Republican self-congratulation/masturbation, I look to my dear friends at The Daily Show to help me find the silver lining, the reason to keep laughing in the face of such detestable attitudes and ridiculous hypocrisy. Last night's show provided an epic, cathartic segment that one must see to believe. Watch and laugh with me.



Oh, and just now on Colbert, they pointed out that the RNC website promoted Fred Thompson's speech the other night as "The Courge and Service of John McCain". Few things make me as happy as smarmy people making typos. I guess proper spelling would be too "elite" for them.

FYI, arguing politics with your bosses is fun. I thoroughly enjoyed myself today and I feel like I stood my ground pretty well. I didn't change their minds, but I definitely made them realize there's more than their simple "wait till your taxes go up" aphorism to it. I think it actually just comes down to the fact that they're not ready to vote for a black dude yet.

Show Us You Really Care

You all suck. Not a single comment all week. Lame. But I blather on.

I'm a couple days late, but I still had to vent. The silly political posturing surrounding Hurricane Gustav ruffled my feathers a little. What was most annoying was how everyone, my guys Barack and Joe included, felt compelled to tell the media that they were taking a break from campaigning to "monitor the events in Louisiana". How fucking lame. None of those people can actually do anything to help, even the President if he wanted to, certainly not people who hold no actual power (yet). But because our media is so asinine and trivial and we as a people are so frivolous and judgmental, we can't just recognize that life goes on and that everyone is just going to go back to doing what they were doing after they feel they've wait an appropriate amount of time.

And it's not like they were actually waiting out of respect, they just wanted to make sure the city didn't drown again while they were out kissing babies. As soon as the coast is clear, they're right back out there humping their lame speeches. The Republicans only barely pretended to give a shit, cancelling the first day's speeches (which suck anyway) and doing a little telethon.

You didn't see Jerry Lewis cancelling his telethon because of a storm, did you? He knows his kids are going to have muscular dystrophy whether New Orleans is underwater or not, and the only thing waiting is going to do is screw them. I recall reading how a lot of charities were really pissed back when the big tsunami hit in Indonesia because all of a sudden people were donating money there while they'd been ignoring the poor and hungry right in their own backyard for years. We're such sheep, so easily swayed by what the news tells us we should care about.

Don't get me wrong, I feel for those people who had to evacuate Nawlins again, and what happened AFTER Katrina was a clusterfuck of epic proportions. It DID prove that a vast majority of the country wants to pretend that we don't have millions of poor people who are one bad storm away from being homeless and living in your Comfort Inns on your tax dollars. But to blatantly stand there and posture when the next big storm comes, to do everything but come right out and say "we don't want to look stupid like the last time", well, it just pisses me off. I guess I realize they can't be any other way but I wish they could.

I bet you're surprised I'm not railing about how ridiculous this Sarah Palin thing is, aren't you? Don't worry, I'm just preparing my thoughts, and after I see her speech tonight, I'll let loose with the white hot fury of a thousand suns. If even one woman votes for McCain simply because he's now got a pair of boobs on the ticket, it's too many.