Election 2008: I'm the Catcher!

Note from Fearless Leader: At the request of the Romney campaign, which is eager to show its youth appeal, today's post is by a "J. Smith,"* a college Freshman. Due to technical difficulties, the following is a combination of text messages, transcribed phone conversations, and emails from J.

* ahem.

The Romnster: Who is he?

idk who could not lk totally not vote for romney. he totally pwned the mass congress or sumthin. that's not easy, i mean lk mass was lk this effed up state and romney lk ruled...seriously.

(Ed.: Like the Bushes, the not entirely repugnant father didn't pass on those aspects to the offspring.)

Healthcare

dude, i lk totally dont think the govt knows what'll make u feel better and they totally will give you crap b/c it's like cheap. romney knows this. he roolz.

(Ed.: The Romney Healthcare plan = thinning the herd for more babies, ostensibly so family bands can have a rhythm section.)

Jihadists

idk who these ppl are but lk if they fuck with us, they get fucked under romney.

(Ed.: 1) I don't want to think about Romney doing anything sexual, 2) Jihadists are Muslim extremists who seek to turn the world to one totally governed by Sharia, or Islamic law. Kind of like Salt Lake City, when you think about it. 3) Romney gets a broken clock exception for wanting to support mainstream Muslims over Jihadists, even though it's mere common sense.)

China

they've got lk buckets of money these days and i'm jonesing for a position on wall street. romney is gonna lk keep it all cool b/w us and the chinese. i mean lk i'm not just taking mandarin 101 for nthing, man. we'll still be #1 no matter what!

(Ed.: Mattel. Lead Paint. No strategy from Mitt?)

Gay Marriage

dude, he's cool about that. i mean he ruled mass, man. rom's gots no probs with the gays.

(Ed.: Oh really? Then who was acting all bent out of shape because he couldn't overturn the MA Supreme Court ruling legalising marriage. He has no issue with "the gays" when it comes to votes, but as long as we accept our role as second class citizens. Even more morally bankrupt, he used Massachusetts's old bigoted law preventing out of state interracial marriages and applied to out-of-state gay couples. If he doesn't have a problem, he certainly has a noticeable issue.)

Immigration

secure the border, man. if you can't play by the rules, hasta la vista.

(Ed.: To expand on that point, Catcher wants to use technology to prove one's legal status via a system of biometric data. You don't have to be a Luddite to see the potential pitfalls there.)

Energy

dude, we've got oil! rom knows it and wants to use it.

(Ed.: And the wunderkind that "saved" the 2002 Winter Olympics can't find a way to solve our energy crisis without resorting to bleeding Alaska dry?)

Family Values

lk sarah's bf's roommate's bff/lab partner was lk totally ignored growing up and now she's lk a skank, but she wouldnt be a skank if lk she had decent parents. rom is gonna make it lk illegal to fuck up yr kidz.

(Ed.: Free lobotomies under a Catcher presidency. Okay, two things: 1) On a very shallow note: he's a Mormon!, 2) This is code for no abortions, no stem cells, no gay marriages (again!), and no differences...and I'm still waiting for a pro-lifer to say what he or she plans to do about the adoption system.)

Summary

romney rocks!

(Ed.: Romney is a duplicitous opportunist who through sheer dumb luck and circumstance won the governorship in a state that now nearly universally reviles him. He's the Protestant Giuliani.)

Election 2008: Coming Up Next

A man who believes that at some point in the 19th century some random man was picked by god to decipher some text that he wouldn't let anyone else see.

Which is why you totally should elect him for president.

Election 2008: Bozo for Prez

(A nod to Al Sharpton--and many others' quote about Rudy on September 11th.)

A man that is married multiple times claims to be the bearer of family values.

A man whose own children don't support his campaign claims to be the bearer of family values.

A man who chose a con man as his police comissioner claims to have integrity.

A man who was taken in (post-divorce) by a gay couple, doesn't support gay marriage.

He is universally hated in New York, and no matter what the national media made it out to appear like, he was hated on both September 10th and September 12th, 2001.

Rudy did clean up New York, but you have to think about what cost:

• The malling of 6th Avenue.
• The Disneyfication of Times Square
• The eradication of affordable middle class housing
• The obsessive policing of "quality of life" crimes.

It's very interesting how few people wax romantically about how great New York was in the late Nineties.

Election 2008: The Miserly Pothead's Choice

One would think that the fact that strippers supporting Ron Paul would be a good thing, except you have to stop and think as to the reason why:

The adult entertainment industry is a multibillion dollar business (just look at your junk email folder), and the two things it needs most is a business climate for it to operate without restriction or regulation as well as (and this is the most important portion) the ability to hold onto those profits come hell or high water, because not that much separates the Heffners from the Murdochs when you get down to it.

The answer: Texas's Ron Paul.

Ron's big thing is a "free America," and he talks a very good game.

On NAFTA and other "Free Trade" agreements: "NAFTA’s superhighway is just one part of a plan to erase the borders between the U.S. and Mexico, called the North American Union. This spawn of powerful special interests, would create a single nation out of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, with a new unelected bureaucracy and money system. Forget about controlling immigration under this scheme."

Tinhatty, but he has a point, however in that same section of his website (entitled "American Independence and Sovereignty") he opines: "So called free trade deals and world governmental organizations like the International Criminal Court (ICC), NAFTA, GATT, WTO, and CAFTA are a threat to our independence as a nation. They transfer power from our government to unelected foreign elites.
The ICC wants to try our soldiers as war criminals. Both the WTO and CAFTA could force Americans to get a doctor’s prescription to take herbs and vitamins. Alternative treatments could be banned.
The WTO has forced Congress to change our laws, yet we still face trade wars. Today, France is threatening to have U.S. goods taxed throughout Europe. If anything, the WTO makes trade relations worse by giving foreign competitors a new way to attack U.S. jobs."

I've got a problem with that. Y'see, Ronny thinks that independence means believing a la Tupac Shakur that "only God can judge me." (By the way, Reichen Lehmkuhl is now sporting that tattoo, so draw your own conclusions on that one.) Unfortunately, this belief tends to get you into even deeper trouble down the line, because if anything the US has acted and stated time and time again that troublemaking countries (Iraq, Grenada, Panama, North Korea, Cuba, and many more) get a beat down if they don't toe the line. A Paul presidency would likely lead to a dose of our own medicine and quite frankly, I don't want to live in that parallel universe.

Paul also doesn't buy his own rhetoric, since when he talks about war and foreign policy he says the following: "...we must not isolate ourselves. The generosity of the American people has been felt around the globe. Many have thanked God for it, in many languages. Let us have a strong America, conducting open trade, travel, communication, and diplomacy with other nations."

Oh really?

Ronny's big thing, however, is "privacy and personal liberty," or what I term the greedy pothead issue, greedy because any talk about liberty coming from a member of the GOP is based in one thing: laissez-faire economics, and pothead because they are only ones who seem to be blind to that aspect...plus there's a fair amount of pot-induced paranoia in seeing government conspiracies everywhere.

Now give Ronny some credit in that he said no against the Patriot Act (Ronny's Broken Clock exception), but his reasons why stem from some 1984-like fear, not the fact that it was unnecessary, but just because Ronny is afraid of big government.

I'm not.

I'm in favour of big government if it functions correctly. I'm not a fan of centralisation, but big government--one of which works with and for the people and not against them in some sort of hot-potato/pass-the-blame exercise--is fine with me. I pay my taxes and seeing positive results from them makes it worthwhile.

Paul (either consciously or subconsciously) wants us have a Jennifer Government-esque scenario, despite being anti-FTA, because that is where Libertarian-Republican style government leads towards. They all see taxes as these evil things, and the private sector as the saviour, but let's think about it: In the end, all they are saying is pay Peter.com instead of Paul.gov (pun intended) for the same services.

ROT. IN. HELL. JIMMY.

My idiot representative isn't just an ignorant bigot...he's a rich ignorant bigot.

And I can't believe the DC Lottery paid him $250K!

The DC Lottery, people!

Election 2008: Meet Insanity for Prez!

Two years ago, the manga series Nana was turned into a live action movie to great success. It yielded two major hits for singer/actresses Mika Nakashima and Yuna Ito.

Logically, the producers decided to do a sequel last year with both Mika & Yuna reprising their roles and again providing two songs for the movie as well.

While not exactly a bomb, NANA 2 definitely underperformed compared to the first movie.

I mention this because the same sort of partly misguided logic that went into NANA 2 is the same thing that Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is trying to foist upon the American public in his bid for president.

Y'see, since one of the most well-liked presidents in recent years was a former governor of Arkansas, then surely another one would be good...right? Right?

Wrong.

(And not just because the phrase "President Huckabee" sounds stupid.)

Mike wants you to know that:

• He really wants to protect your 2nd Amendment (the right to carry killing machines in order to cover up one's sense of inadequacy) rights.
• He has a strong vested interest in keeping government subsidies for farmers (apparently Mike is under the delusion that it's still Mammy & Pappy Yokum running most farms in the US.)
• He'll be calm in a crisis, remove FEMA from Homeland Security and make them report directly to him. (His broken clock exception, in my view.)
• He'll support music and the arts in schools (Broken Clock #2), but you can school your kids at home without fear.
• He'll make us energy independent (but doesn't say exactly how).
• He takes the middle ground when it comes to faith and politics (which is to say, the status quo and quite a pointless statement when you get down to it, if Romney wasn't in the race).
• He loves Israel. (So?)
• The health care system is broken, but we don't need no stinkin' universal health care.
• He's as scurred of funny dark people crossing into the country as you are.
• No gays getting married on his watch. Only covenant marriages for heterosexuals, whatever they may be.
• No abortions either.

Mike, we know Bill Clinton, and you are no Bill Clinton.

Then there's Sam Brownback, who--I'm sorry--sounds like a specialised sexual act, and since he defines himself as "Principled. Conservative. Republican." it is likely that he may like this act practised upon him...often.

Brownback is really concerned about the dark people running across the border. It's his top priority. Now why are all these politicians from non-border states (Brownback is a senator from Kansas) all hopping mad about people crossing the border? Never mind the fact that illegal immigrants--especially in non-border states--are doing work for less money than legal citizens would be offered. Never mind that as senator he could've nipped this in the bud and told companies to start paying people a decent wage (even if that means curtailing their conglomerate dreams). Sam nonetheless is very concerned about keeping that border airtight.

Mr. Fetish ultimately says nothing new, but he's also all ripped up and hellfire about "culture and values." I have a problem with that. I absolutely think that young kids shouldn't be exposed to films, television shows, and computer games that they can't comprehend. That's why long before the V-chip and parental advisory guidelines on albums, my parents actually took time to watch and listen to things with me. Radical thought, spend time with your children and then you wouldn't need to have government regulation over the arts.

Another radical thought, spend time with your children and maybe there wouldn't be such a violent society for the entertainment industry to point out and/or exploit! (Fetish is on Myspace, by the way, so he can't have that much of a problem with those evil internet social networks.)

Fetish doesn't quite grasp either of those concepts, since his answer is regulation, regulation, and regulation...and keep having those babies whether they're wanted or not because he wants to protect life, but mentions nothing about improving the adoption and foster care systems.

I'd say stick a fork in him, but he probably would like that...kinky one that he is.

Next time: The biggies, starting out with the cover boy for pot-smoking, I-got-Mine, Republicans everywhere: Ron Paul.

Until then, let's leave with a "happy" thought: Mika Nakashima's All Hands Together, her (really belated, as it was released in June 2006) Hurricane Katrina tribute single...although it comes across as a tad bit unintentionally patronising in my view (there's a lot of things in those cotton fields, love isn't one of them).

Election 2008: Teasing the Elephants

Coming up within the next two days: Sam "I'm not in any way, shape, or form a reference to a sexual activity" Brownback (Oh yes, I went there...especially after his recent encounter), and Mike "I'm Governor of Arkansas and you elected one in the past so...voila" Huckabee.

Election 2008: Not Your Father's Cuddly Californian Republican

Today on my way to Union Square to do some grocery shopping, I saw a huge police prescence on 6th Avenue ostensibly to catch someone--seemingly out of view--who was dangling from one of the skyscrapers, since these things never end interestingly (at least in my view), I continued on with my merry stroll.

I mention this because Duncan Hunter reminds me of that unseen person dangling from a building causing all this fuss without actually making any impact save for splattering his guts on the ground.

Californian Republicans are a strange lot. The state has yielded Nixon (who I actually quite like, believe it or not, because he did make life better for everyone else...Watergate was his own cockiness getting him back), as well as (debatably) Reagan and Schwartznegger. Since Nixon is the only one of this lot who was a Californian native, one would assume that a native Californian Republican would be in the Nixon mold.

Nope.

Meet Duncan Hunter, product of Riverside, California.

Mr. Hunter believes (abridged, because brevity is not this man's strong point) :

• Life begins at the moment of conception and therefore all fertilised eggs, zygotes, or whatever they are called are considered "unborn children." (Quite honestly, how anyone would willingly procreate with Mr. Hunter is beyond my level of comprehension, but I suspect that wasn't the case anyway. Irrespective, he is graphically obsessed with conception.)
• CLONING is a serious problem and must be nipped in the bud NOW.
• The Federal Government shouldn't give money to any organisation which would had out condoms to kids...because if they have them, they might just *GASP* have safe sex!?
• Government should cut back on spending on everything save for defense. (I'll let this slide, because he's saving his own bum.)
• Religious icons on government memorials do NOT violate the separation of church and state because the founding fathers were all Christian. (Ummm...no.)
• Gays make poor parents, ergo they shouldn't be allowed to marry. (Mr. & Mrs. Manson were just darling parents, I bet.)
• If you have a gun in your house, then you should feel secure. (Despite the fact that most people get injured by their own gun.)
• Hate crime legislation creates an inequality and should be striken because all crime is equal (?)
• NEA = Pornographers

And finally after all this long-windedness, Mr. Hunter says " [his] basic philosophy is to teach and train and inspire rather than simply give government 'hand outs.'"

I know, Dick, and I'm turning along with you.

Election 2008: Meet Some Fool from Colorado

So there's about 17 people running for president and the election is more than a year away.



Unfortunately, Labour Day (and summer) is now over so I guess I have to now pay attention to them since all these states are now getting in pissing contests over who can have the earliest primaries.*



* By the way, how stupid is it that primaries are spread over several months when the winners are effectively crowned by February? We're a regionalist country, have the Northeast go one week, the Southeast the next, the Midwest afterwards, etc. Primaries would be finished in no time at all. And in addition, doesn't it also bite that there is no longer any intrigue at the party conventions over who will get the nod?



Ok, rant over, because now I have to talk about Tom Tancredo, who is some fool from Colorado with the half-cocked notion that he can be president, and the even more delirious notion that he can do so as a Republican.



Tancredo's main (public) beliefs appear to be the following:

• Dark people who don't speak English are scary.


• Assault rifles and semi-automatics are A-OK!
  
• I can tell a woman what to do with her body.
• The government shouldn't be involved in education (Tancredo served as the Department of Education's regional rep in Denver, so really he's kind of saying that he dropped the ball.)

And the most ludicrous one of them all (printed verbatim here):

"Federalism concerns make a constitutional amendment protecting traditional marriage an avenue of last resort, Unfortunately, intellectually dishonest activist judges have left us no choice. Activist courts have ignored the principal legal argument that the state's interest in marriage is procreation. Population is power. Society needs a young generation to defend the country in battle, to support its programs with taxes and to carry on its culture and traditions. The mere fact that two people are in a loving relationship does not matter to the state. Society supports traditional marriage because it is the only union which, in the ordinary course, leads to children, without the intervention of a third party. "

That's right, gay marriage should be banned because we need young people as cannon fodder and benefactors. The same man also says that the government spends too much and that we're letting too many new people in.

No need to point out the historical parallels there, I reckon.

Verdict: Further evidence that the US is going to split up into various regions by the end of the century.

Free Siberia!

Not only because this part of the internet believes that Siberia would be much better off as an independent entity, but also because would you really want to be associated with a nation that considers him a gay sex symbol?

I can see (if not agree with) why Putin could be considered handsome WITH CLOTHES ON!

Bare-chested, however?

Some people need to get their end over more often.

Fire up the Time Machine

...because I don't want this lot leading us into the future.

Beloit College--in its annual effort to make itself relevant (but pfft! it's in Beloit)--published yet another list of what this year's Freshmen class grew up with.

Personally, I find these snapshots of a generation disturbing enough:

"'I actually visited the Berlin Wall with my parents when I was in fifth grade,' said Jacob Williams, 18, of Louisville Ky., who is going through freshmen orientation at Beloit this week. 'I didn’t know a lot about the history, but I think it was a great piece of architecture.'"

"'You feel that you can joke about it now,' said freshman Jenny Posh, 18, of Menomonee Falls, Wis., who said her only knowledge of the Cold War came from studying it during high school."

"These students witnessed an age of triumphant capitalism when stadiums were named for companies, product placement became ubiquitous in movies and Wal-Mart has always been a bigger retailer than Sears."

"And then there’s technology: They use the online encyclopedia Wikipedia for research, grew up telling the world about themselves on MySpace and Facebook and are constantly talking (or texting) on their cell phones."

Honestly, it's enough to make you want to get a knitting needle, or at least tell Al Gore to fly kite instead of inventing the internet.*

*Not that I think this lot would get that joke, or even know who Al Gore is beyond that 'old guy talks about the environment."

Coming Soon: The 2008 Presidental Race on Hikaruland

(sigh)

Because quite frankly it is important to cover it, but let me just get the following off my chest:

1. Is it me, or are they rushing this thing too early, like Christmas sales in October? I do know the importance, and I am quite aware of why this is a special race, but good god, PATIENCE!
2. No Gore, No Clark, no candidate I care about at the moment.
3. SP-USA hasn't even had its convention yet, so could we at least let us all get to October? (I'm leaning towards Dwight Welch, and not just because he has good aesthetic taste in his blog template.)
4. Wouldn't it be fun if US elections were like those in parliamentary countries wherein the whole shebang is over in a few months? (Although between you and me, I find the lack of term limits a little bit unnerving.)

Tommy Wakes Up in the Real World

...and realises that nobody wants him--even in Iowa.

Vodaphone Presents the United Kingdom by HSBC

During the sabbatical from this corner of the internet, I went on vacation, of which I stopped off in the UK for the first time in 3 years.

Like most places, things have changed in the intervening years. The most peculiar change being that the rampant commercialism which seemed to just be held back in 2004, is now flowing freely. Nearly everything is up for grabs, as the "New" Labour "greed-is-good" disciples continue their reign.

(Lest you think I'm approaching this from the stance that the US is better...believe me, we aren't, we really... really aren't, I mean when was the last time you heard something referred to as just the "X Bowl at Y City Field" without 500 different companies cramming their names in between.)

It just makes you wonder if things a running towards a Jennifer Government situation.

Of course, there is a nice darkly comical aspect to having your name plastered all over the place: when you balls it up, everybody does know your name.

Monday Jukebox Wonders What Was Norway Like in 1975?

Judging by the entries from that year's MGP (held in February), it must've been a fun place.

First off Hastverk (Hurry), first performed by that Ja(h)n Teigen:



And secondly by his one-time other half Anita Skorgan (her performance compared to Teigen's makes you wonder if they were kind of a Norwegian precursor to Whitney & Bobby)



And then there's Voodoo, first "performed" by (the loud and not-necessarily on key--at least to my ears) Gudny Aspaas* & Il Teigen:

*Listen to Gudny's version of Mata Hari, the eventual winning song, as performed by Anne Karine Strøm, who must've passed on the drugs to her costumer.



Later in the show Il Teigen dropped his band (who were playing backup for the first round performances) and performed the song with uber-innocent Inger-Lise Rypdal, exchanging psychedelic rock for campy progressive symphonic rock.




By the way, wouldn't be fun if NRK brought back this format of small band versus full orchestra versions of each entry? (I know we live in a backing track world, but we also live in a remix silly one.)

Many thanks to Euroencyclopedia on Youtube.

Is it because of the beer?

Not to be flip about terrorism, but apparently there may have been several terrorist dry runs at US airports...including (brace yourselves) Milwaukee.

San Diego, I understand. (Navy)

Houston, I understand. (Oil)

Baltimore, I understand. (Close to Washington)

Milwaukee, quite frankly, ain't got jack except for TV nostalgia...and it's not that close to Chicago the way Baltimore is to Washington.

Monday Jukebox Does One for The Road

What better send off than with Big Mama?

(Somebody give these women the international career they deserve!)

First off Sister:




And because we must always end upbeat: Nevermind



See you later this month!

From The "Modern Politics Are Absurd" Department

("Broken Clock" division.)

Most people believe Cheney needs to go...that's the good news.

Several of the Right-winger reasons why are seemingly straight from Lewis Carroll.

That's the bad (as in "head-smacking, what dimension am I living in?") news.

Ah for the days of "Fuddle Duddle!"

A Half-Hour in New-Age Pseudo-Christian Happiness

A half-hour because that is all I could take.

Upon entering a hall full of Benetton ads come to life sitting in the chairs, 4 people in business casual sang some rousing song that I'm surprised The Polyphonic Spree hasn't done yet.

The Benettons clap along wide-eyed, and few of them claim to get the spirit. My fellow undercover agent said that the sincerity of everyone clapping must be taken with a grain of salt, as this is a popular place of worship for actors (in Chelsea? Chorus Boys! Both young and old.)

A woman then gets onstage and relates some long-winded spiel about membership and commitment (somehow involving her leaving her marriage), which is the sign for all new members to embrass themselves publicly, and for everyone else to turn to everyone nearby and say "welcome."

I did not stand up, nor did my undercover agent. It's better not to get close to people who so eagerly fake sincerity.

The Polyphonic 4 get onstage again and sing some daft ditty that gets more people stirred, or at least wanting to appear that they are stirred. It's The PTL in the middle of Chelsea.

The Polyphonic 4 then lead the congregation in a "Meditation" as the lights go down.

It got all too Saint Germain (the kooky mystical religion that took over my father after he went crazy in the early 1990s) for me, so the two of us promptly left to go get drunk and have a cigarette.

Lucky Saturday Jukebox Pays Twice

Combining the two obsessions of this corner of the internet: here is LaGaylia Frazier's It's In The Stars, which competed in Melodifestivalen 2004 (aka the year when Miss Ph kicked everybody else's ass) :




The song was subsquently "covered" by squeaking-their-way through puberty w-inds.

W-inds - It's in the stars

LaGaylia has a slight edge on the tweens in my opinion, but they have more flash (and no 3 minute limit).