Rants!

My spirit is really low.

I purposely don't watch much TV, mostly because I think it is the root cause of most of the problems that our country faces. However, I watched a good chunk of news tonight, and it was hard for me to take it.

My whole perception of right and wrong has been completely turned upside down by the Bush presidency. Before Bush, I always thought that when you got caught committing a crime, there would be consequences for that crime; that people, especially people holding high office, would face consequences for their wrong-doings. Bush changed all that. I've learned that it's OK to ignore the law, and it's just fine to make up your own rules so that you don't have to pay for your crimes. I've also learned that nobody really cares that Bush isn't going to be held accountable for any of the things on the long, long list of heinous crimes committed by his administration. That's what really gets to me. No one cares. We might as well go back to a monarchy, because it wouldn't be much different than what we have now.

I have all but given up on this country. The federal government is a fucking joke, and no one gives a shit. A good chunk of my income gets taxed so that some lobbyist's buddy can get a fat-ass government contract or more bullets can be shipped off to Operation Infinite Money Pit. Meanwhile, the infrastructure of this country is crumbling to ruin; people can't afford to go see a doctor when they have health concerns; and I have to spend $120 to fill up my truck (because some idiot decided it would be a good idea to de-regulate the oil futures market).

A skilled worker such as myself is in high demand elsewhere in the world, and that fact is most certainly not lost on me.

I highly encourage stealing and spreading of my newest userpic.

Here is a picture of a billboard on display in Orange Country, Florida:



Where do I start?

Let's begin with a little history lesson. George W. Bush, a Republican, was in the White House on Sept. 11th, 2001. While on vacation for the entire month of August, he received a memo titled "Bin Laden determined to strike in U.S." on August 6th. Bush took absolutely no action whatsoever.

Next, let's look at Congress. Both the House and the Senate were controlled by Republicans, and they were busy tackling two issues that mattered most to America: making sure that stem cell research didn't get federal funding, and getting rid of that pesky budget surplus that Clinton left.

We can go even further. Rudy Giuliani, a Republican, was mayor of New York City when the attacks occurred. There are endless mistakes he made and errors that went uncorrected prior to 9/11. The best way I found of summing this up is a statement from Jerome Hauer, who was Giuliani's emergency management chief between 1996 and 2000: "We never talked about Islamic terrorism. We talked about chemical terrorism, biological terrorism. We did talk about car bombs every now and then. [But] I don't think there was much interest on his part [in Islam terrorism]." Enough said.

Looking at all the failures that led to the Sept. 11 attacks, you will be hard pressed to find a single Democrat who was associated with them.

If I were a Republican, I would be pissed that the party leadership was always talking down to me, like I was a simpleton. I would be pissed that they have the fucking balls to proclaim themselves as the party that will protect us, when the biggest terrorist attack in our history occurred on their watch. I would be angry that the party of so-called "fiscal responsibility", when given complete control of the budget, managed to pile up the biggest debt in our nation's history.

I truly, sincerely, and completely don't understand Republicans.

The American two-party government is fucked.

What can one do? Well, you can wait a couple of years, vote for the non-incumbent, and hope against hope that the guy you voted for is one of the 10% of candidates who end up defeating the incumbent. It doesn't really matter who you vote for, because there really isn't a difference between the two parties anyway. When that person turns out to be almost exactly like the last guy, you can wait a few more years and vote for the non-incumbent again. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

I wonder what it's going to take for the American public to realize that the majority of their so-called representatives are in fact not representing them at all, but are instead selling their vote to the lobbyist willing to fork over the most money.

Notice how many Democratic representatives voted FOR the FISA bill, which granted the telecommunication companies immunity for all the unconstitutional things they did? Now, why would the party that proclaims to be the guardian of the little guy roll over and let the little guy essentially lose his Fourth Amendment rights? Because some fucking telecom lobbyist called in a favor and persueded your representative to vote against what is best for the American people. The people who founded this country were willing to DIE to get that right, and you just lost it. How does that make you feel?

Do people even give a shit what the Fourth Amendment says? It says:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

That statement no longer means anything when it comes to your telephone. The government can listen in to ANYONE in this country, even without a warrant, and that's now perfectly OK. George W. Bush himself can tap your phone and listen to every word you say. There's nothing to stop him. Are you pissed off yet?

I wonder if acts of self immolation on the White House lawn would get people's attention? I don't think anything short of that is going to make people realize what's happening.

The Democratic "leadership" in Congress is pathetic. They're fucking pathetic.

Maybe California should have one of those fancy recall elections, so they can reconsider having Nancy Pelosi as their rep. Maybe they could elect Natalie Portman instead. Fuckin' California, screwing everything up again.

First, in 2006, the Democratic party is washed into Congress on wave of hope for change. People were so fed up with Republican bullshit that it resulted in one of the biggest shifts of power in Congress in the last 30 years. They won because people are sick of Operation Infinite Money Pit (the Iraq war), and the Democratic party promised to put an end to it. Yet, almost two years later, they have yet to cease spending on the war, and they have yet to call for any type of pull-out or draw down of our forces there.

Next, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to even consider impeachment for Bush, a president who has overseen one of the most criminal and unconstitutional administrations in the history of this fucking country. This sets a precident for future shitty presidents, allowing them to do pretty much whatever the fuck they want to do without worrying about getting impeached. Then, she rolls over and allows every shitty, right-wing piece of legislation to pass unopposed. These bills, which serve to protect corporations from the public (instead of vice-versa), are wildly unpopular and are at direct odds with logic and reason.

The way I see it, we basically have two different versions of the Republican party; one that doesn't give a flying fuck about anyone who isn't a millionaire (Republicans), and one that cares a tiiiiiiny bit about regular people - but not enough to actually stand up for them when it really counts (Democrats).

At least George's Supreme Court decided to allow fireams in Washington, D.C. It would be pretty hard for angry citizens to overthrow the government if they were unarmed.

Awhile back, I visited my friend Chris in Salt Lake City. For some reason (probably because we had chicks with us) we were compelled to go to the SLC Gateway walking mall. Holy hell.

For me, it was way more entertaining than going to the zoo. I'm told that this place is a pretty uppity shopping center, so I got to see the super wealthy in their own natural habitat. It was still winter, and there were grown women wearing what appeared to be fur lined moon boots. Fucking moon boots!! Oh, the fashion was simply to die for. It was soooo hard to hold a straight face in there... seriously, I could have been strutting around wearing 70's shortie basketball shorts with a flannel shirt, a sombrero, and boots like Gene Simmons from KISS used to wear, and I would not have stood out one bit. There was also a young man of Mexican decent whose entire existance appeared to revolve around driving slow laps around the mall in his Mustang while listening to some atrocious rap music through blown speakers. All. Day. Long.

Anyway, this whole exostential experience climaxed when I walked into the Brookstone store. Holy fucking shit. Remember in the movie Fight Club when there was the monologue about people working jobs that they hate so they could buy shit that they don't need? All the shit that they don't need can be found in Brookstone.

There was a wine chiller, a hands-free soap dispenser (you know, in case you're too fucking weak to PUSH DOWN ON THE FUCKING SOAP DISPENSER!!!), and some watch that does something while you sleep. My stars, how can I live without a watch that monitors my sleep patterns?

Sweet baby Jesus. Seeing what rich people spend their money on makes me long for the days when the top income bracket paid a 90% income tax. What was wrong with that, seriously?

Barack Obama has done something to cause me to question the integrity of his calls for change. The guy he recently brought on board as his economic advisor, Jason Furman, is a choice that disturbs me deeply.

Jason Furman was on Bill Clinton's economic advisory council (you know, back when America was shipping tons of good paying jobs overseas), and man, does he loooooooooove Wal-mart. Here, read for yourself. He seems to think that the greatest thing to ever happen to American consumers is Wal-mart. Which I suppose is true, if you don't mind occasionally getting salmonella or poisoning your own dog. Also, you'd have to look past all the lead tainted toys from China that Wal-mart sold. Yeah, those low Wal-mart prices are TOTALLY worth all that.

Wal-mart treats their employees like complete shit. People working full time at Wal-mart don't make enough money to live any kind of fulfilling life; it's just baaaarely enough to get by.

See, Wal-mart cares about one thing... lowering prices. If those lower prices have to come at the expense of safety or employee benefits, so be it. I submit that Wal-mart is in fact the WORST thing that has happened to the American consumer.

This is the guy who is going to be guiding Obama's economic decisions? Really?

Montana is a sparsely populated state, and despite being the fourth largest state, we have one - only one - representative in the United States House of Representatives. That man is Denny Rehberg, a man described by a former co-worker of mine as "the dumbest person I've ever met - EVER."

As with all my elected representatives, I signed up to Rehberg's newsletter. While his website looks pretty harmless, Rehberg's newsletters are nothing more than partisan, Republican propaganda. They seem to serve more to further divide people politically, rather than to update or inform his constituents. Picture a newsletter edited by Rush Limbaugh, and you wouldn't be far from the actual newsletter.

I'll post the next one I get, so you can see what I mean. The last one had all sorts of articles... not so much about Rehberg's accomplishments, but more about the evil Democrats and their unwillingness to pass more Neo-conservative horse-shit legislation. Of course, there was the obligitory rant about Nancy Pelosi, too. The part that caught my eye was the online poll... it was a totally loaded question that went, "Do you feel that you pay too much in taxes, just enough in taxes, or too little in taxes." There was also a box to leave a comment in, so I filled it with something like this:

As a fiscal conservative, I feel that we don't pay enough in taxes. Given the fact that the past six years of Republican-dominated government has led to nearly doubling the national debt, it seems obvious to me that we aren't paying enough to cover the government's expenses. I fully expect to pay what is owed by me as a taxpayer. The idea that you can keep spending more than you're taking in is ludicrous.

I received no response. It's hard to believe that this is the best we can come up with to represent our state.

You want government out of people's personal lives, but you appear to desire some continued government control over people's economic activities. There is no political party that represents your views. (My emphasis) The Green Party does run many candidates with similar views, but the overall Green Party platform is much more socialistic than you are. You would need a mix of Democratic, Green, and Libertarian politicians in office to get the balance of freedom and social justice you desire. The ratio between these depends on how high up your dot is on the chart.

There is no political party that represents your views. Fucking perfect.

"I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting. I have long advocated its complete abolishment, as its very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a method of settling international disputes." - Douglas MacArthur

I'm going to come out and say it...

We spend waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much money on defense. It is absolutely RIDICULOUS to spend as much as we do, especially when our biggest alleged thread is a bunch of clowns who hide out in mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan. If we had spent every single dime of our GDP on defense, the attacks of 9/11/01 still would have happened.

I like to have fun with numbers, so here's a thought: let's go to the extreme end of the realm of possibilities, and say that there are one million people who can be classified as terrorists who intend to do America harm. Now, the fact is that America spent $630 billion dollars on defense last year. Thus, if America is diverting all of its defense efforts to preventing terrorism (honestly, who else is a threat right now?), that means that we are spending $630,000 for EACH TERRORIST. More than half a million bucks, for ONE DUDE. It's probably way higher than that, because I highly doubt there are a million terrorists.

In defense spending, the US spends almost as much as all other nation do, combined. Doesn't that seem a bit obscenely excessive?

Here's another thought... let's keep developing technologies that will keep us safe, but hold back on the constant pouring of money into pet projects and unneeded equipment. Is that asking too much? Does this make me "with the terrorists"? Instead, how about we work on balancing the fucking budget and getting rid of our collossal debt? How about we spend money on things that will actually pay dividends in the future, like renewable energy and an improved transportation system?

God, I'm such an islamofascistunistocratovik.

Well, I did my civic duty and voted yesterday. The process was agonizing... I went to my assigned polling place, but I was not on their little list. They sent me uptown to the courthouse, where I had to re-register to vote. After waiting for a fucking HOUR to get the form, I got my ballot. I was at the courthouse for approximately an hour and twenty minutes.

When I wasn't napping, I could hear the election officials talking about how they've never seen so many people voting. It certainly is exciting to be a part of this election; it's bound to be one for the history books.

One thing that kind of disgusts me is how many women voted for Hillary simply because she's a she. To me, those people are in the same category as the people who voted for Bush simply because they thought he was a good Christian. There's more that should be considered when choosing the leader of the free world than whether or not the candidate has ovaries.

With so many racist dumb-fucks around here, I'm actually pretty surprised Obama won Montana. Maybe even Montana has made some progress.

So, Barack Obama, you won Montana, and, it appears, the Democratic nomination. I spent a good chunk of my day waiting in line so I could vote for you. Please go forth and prove yourself worthy of all the hope that has been placed in you.

You probably heard about the tornadoes that struck northern Colorado and Wyoming the other day. Who do you suppose drove right through that mess without knowing anything was going on?

As Kim and I left Boulder, CO, it began to rain. I noticed that the wind was blowing strongly from the east, and I mentioned to Kim that where I grew up, an east wind like that always meant a bad storm was coming. Sure enough, the rain fell harder and harder, and eventually turned to hail - then the hail got bigger and bigger.

By this time, we're northbound on I-25, and cars are stopped under every overpass we came by. People with SUVs even drove up the concrete slab under the bridge, placing themselves RIGHT under the bridge. They probably had their radios on, and heard warnings about tornadoes in the area. Not us! We thought it was just another lousy thunderstorm.

Traffic was moving at about 25-30 mph, because there was a genuine fear - at least in our car - that the hail was going to break through the windshield. The wind didn't bother me, because growing up on Montana's high-line had already prepared me for driving through cross winds exceeding 60 mph. Driving through golfball-sized hail was another story, however.

Turns out that we missed one of the tornadoes by about five miles. Visibility was only about 500 feet, so we didn't even know it was there.

The wind roared from the east from Longmont, CO all the way through Wyoming. The rain didn't stop the entire trip, and there was so much water on the road that hydroplaning became a constant adventure. We saw one car in the ditch, and tire tracks of many others that had gone off the road but managed to get back on their way. Idoits.

All in all, it was pretty cool. It's good to let mother nature help you to realize your own mortality once in awhile, you know?

The next few years should be interesting...

This fall, many republicans' worst nightmare may be realized when we have a president who is either black or a woman with the last name "Clinton". There is also a very real possibility that both houses of congress will be held by democrats with a filibuster-proof majority.

A significant event in American politics happened this week, and it barely made the news. A special election was held in Mississippi to fill the seat of former Republican Rep. Roger Wicker, who was appointed to serve out the remainder of Sen. Trent Lott’s term last December. In the election, Democrat Travis Childers defeated Republican Greg Davis by 8%. Who cares, you say? Well, this wouldn't be that big of a deal, except for one thing... this district in Mississippi has been one of the strongest areas for republicans, nationwide. For them to elect a democrat would be like a republican winning in New York City. If a republican can't win in one of their deepest strongholds, their future must be very grim elsewhere.

Personally, I hope the current platform that the republican party stands on is reduced to ashes. They have strayed so far from what their party used to stand for; a republican from 40 years ago wouldn't even recognize the party. While I'm on it, it wouldn't hurt the democratic party to take a good hard look at their historical values, either.

I think the next administration is either going to make or break this country. I seldom get my hopes up for things like this, but I can't help but have great hopes for the coming years. There is no alternative. I think we're teetering on the brink of utter catastrophe, and that the course we set now will have profound consequences in the years to come.

Let me preface this by saying that I'm not trying to be an arrogant ass. Nor am I suggesting that I consider anyone on my friends list to be less than highly intelligent (you wouldn't be on my friends list if I thought you were average). Now to the fun part...

Awhile back, I took an online IQ test just for the hell of it. Now, I don't put a whole lot of stock in an online test, but it was fairly thorough - it took me a good half hour to finish it, and it had to be at least 12 pages long. I scored a 141, which is apparently 4 points shy of 'genius'. In all honesty, that didn't surprise me that much.

The other day, I came across the fact that people who score a 70 or below on the IQ test are considered to be mentally retarded. Another fact is that the average intelligence is an even 100. Let's have a little fun with these numbers, shall we?

If the average person has an IQ of 100, and mentally retarded people are thirty points lower at 70, that means that relative to me, average people (who are 41 points lower than I) are well into the realm of retardation.

This explains so much! I've known since I was young that I was smarter than average... however, in the past few years, it has felt like I've been surrounded by morons everywhere I went. Now that I have numbers explaining this phenomenon to me, it makes perfect sense! I have seen the proverbial light!

I'm not imagining things... I really AM surrounded by fucking idiots!

Well, I had George's $600 welfare check in my account for about 2 minutes before I blew it on an extra truck payment. Easy come, easy go.

I sure as hell hope Barack has a plan to get us out of this fucking catastrophe known as the Bush presidency.

I found a fun little map. You can go to my profile and enter your username. Give me the illusion that I'm well travelled and worldly!

Kim and I had the tv on this morning, and on one show it sounded like they said that "Barack" was 36 today. Then, Kim heard one of the female hosts of the show say that she had a huge crush on "Barack". Here's the conversation that followed:

KIM: She has a huge crush on Barack??

ME: Why not? I imagine that quite a few women find him attractive.

KIM: Yeah, I suppose I can see that.

ME: I mean, he's gotta be more do-able than McCain.

KIM: Shit, HILLARY is more do-able than McCain!

The funny thing is that the gal on tv was actually talking about the actor "The Rock". Not Barack.

Have you gotten George's $600 welfare check yet? If not, here's how you might want to think about spending it:

- a down payment on a $300,000 mortgage (hey, they'll lend to anybody!)
- six tanks of gas for your truck or SUV
- $600 worth of Chinese-made, lead tainted garbage at Wal-mart

In all of these scenarios, the people who get your money are people of ill repute and disingenuous intentions. You want the $600 to do some good? Pay yourself first.

Pay down debt. Make an extra car or house payment, or pay off a credit card. I've made it this far in life with a house, a new truck, and a college education, yet I owe less than $80,000 total. So maybe I know a little about managing money, eh Steve?

This whole thing is financial insanity. I'm going to bed.