Desperate Barack Obama begs Democrats: Help me finish Hillary | News | This is London

Barack Obama made an impassioned appeal to voters last night to end Hillary Clinton's dreams of another comeback in the race for the White House.

The Illinois senator told Democrat voters heading to the polls today in Indiana and North Carolina: "I need help."

...Mr Obama has also been endorsed by Oprah Winfrey, Bruce Springsteen and Scarlett Johansson.

Despite receiving her own support from celebrities including Barbra Streisand, Jerry Springer and Martha Stewart, Mrs Clinton was being written off just a month ago.

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It's like a fuckin' comic book.

Superman: "Batman and Robin, Catwoman and Nightwing, I need your help to defeat the greatest threat mankind has ever faced!"

But look who's contending!: Oprah could unleash the might of the uneasily-slumbering horde of middle-aged house-crones. We could invade Russia with that kind of power. Blacks everywhere and middle-aged housewives-- what more does the man need? and I'm sure any hot-blooded American male would listen to the persuasive, erm, voice of Scarlett Johansson.

Fitting that Clinton has in her corner Barbara Streisand and Martha Stewart. though I think Jerry Springer just might be taking the piss...

Yes, It was at the top of digg

it still sucks.

From Freepress.org:

Contrary to two centuries of American election law, the Court has ruled 6-3 that it is legal for a state to require official photo ID in order to vote. The lead decision in this case, written by liberal Justice John Paul Stevens, acknowledges that there is no evidence of voter fraud to make this requirement vital to the security of the election process. Indeed, it is clearly stated in the minority opinion that requiring photo ID to vote discriminates heavily against citizens who are young, poor, elderly and of color.

The Indiana primary will now be the first in US history with a Supreme Court-certified requirement for photo ID...

There is simply no doubt this requirement will eliminate hundreds of thousands of Democratic voters in November. It is in place not only in Indiana, but in Florida, Michigan, Louisiana, Georgia, Hawaii and North Dakota. Other Republican-controlled legislatures will hasten to duplicate the requirement, though it's unclear how many can pull it off before this November.

Awesome.

Mildred Loving, Jack Johnson, Love Pioneers.

RICHMOND, Va. - Mildred Loving, a black woman whose challenge to Virginia's ban on interracial marriage led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling striking down such laws nationwide, has died, her daughter said Monday.

Old heroes die everyday around us and we must remember them. I never heard of the wonderfully appropriately named Loving before today but after reading about her and her husband I felt the need to mention her. They stood up for the right to love anyone and marry anybody, regardless of what black and white society said. Something as fundamental as that was denied people in America a scant 41 years ago. Just imagine the amount of pressure these two must have felt to bend to the will of society. Their fight helped end and heal a chapter of American history in the most dignified possible way. That fight continues today for our gay brothers and sisters who face much the same form of repression that the Lovings did.

But to go back to interracial marriage, or miscegenation as it was cruelly designated - take the case of the champion heavy weight champion of the world from 1908 - 1915, Jack Johnson. They searched long and wide for a 'Great White Hope' to beat Johnson. When the appointed fighter, former champion James J Jeffries failed to beat him, it triggered race riots across America, a 4Th of July by the way. But the reason for the extent of the hatred felt against Jackson was not just his physical and athletic prowess or his flamboyant personality that embraced fast cars (this guy was caught speeding in 1910 and paid the officer 100 dollars instead of 50 so that he could speed on his way out of town). Jack defied society's deepest taboos in dating and marrying white women, openly and without apology.

In 1920 he was arrested for violating the Mann act - a law meant to combat trafficking of women for immoral purposes across state lines. He had sent a railroad ticket to his white girlfriend Belle Schreiber for her to travel from Chicago to Pittsburgh. A little snivelling rat trap of a law to fell a giant of a man. This guy basically wrote the textbook on the celebrity African American athlete - he was the quintessential bad boy who drank, danced, caroused and defiantly lived out his life in front of a disapproving and puritanical public. Before Muhammed Ali and Mike Tyson and OJ, he stood - the mold for the men they would be. He was no saint either, he was as human and fallible as any of us but he was ahead of his time and paid the price for it.

If you want to see a sensational portrayal of his life be sure to rent or torrent- "The Great White Hope" starring James Earl Jones in an unforgettable and eerily life like portrayal of Jack. Compare 'Darth Vader's' histrionics to the real Jack Johnson from Ken Burns' brilliant documentary - 'Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson'. James Earl gets the mixture of pride, amiability and sheer bullheadedness of this peerless showman just right. This country and the world needs fighters and lovers both, both types mingled under the same skin, regardless of the skin type. Jack and Mildred were both, the women and man who loved them were too.

The perception of mixed race couples and marriage is still far from enlightened. Take the case of Bob Jones university that lifted a ban on interracial dating as late as 2000, after a George W Bush visit prompted a media storm. As an international student I observed an overwhelming desire of people to stick to communities of similar ethnic background. It never made sense to me to come to a whole different country and to college - a place for openness and learning - and stick to your own safe umbrella community. Why do people feel the desire to disappear into the anonymity of a crowd of similar looking people anyway? The desire to go out and mingle with different people is a very individualistic one, a very American one. Its strange that it has taken so long to realise this fact in the United States.

This whole presidential campaign is another example of racial narrow mindedness. Why is the media promoting the idea that somehow your race or sex will decide your allegiance? True, they are just regurgitating poll data, but, don't you think their incessant interpretation of data through the prism of race and demographic somehow affects the way we align ourselves. I promote a more personal vote, a more individualistic vote, but also a vote for the good of the community. What I mean by this is - stop thinking of yourself as a member of a demographic but rather as a member of the community at large. In other words, think for yourself by ignoring the media's race/class obsession and start thinking of how your vote will affect all of us. A vote is a civic duty after all is it not?

Communesque.

The recent executive elections in Russia have caused a great level of speculation to arise on account of the authoritative infrastructure now imposed. Former president of the country, Vladmir Putin, has not fully conceded his administrative powers; even though a new figure has been elected, Dimitri Medvedev.

“Mr Putin spent the eight years since he was first elected president building up the powers of the office. He neutered the once-combative legislature and appointed prime ministers distinguished only by their loyalty.”

Putin, during his recent terms, has seemingly orchestrated an administrative body that has complete control over all aspects of the government. The United Russian Party (the ruling party of the Duma by two-thirds majority) has enabled Putin to continually protract his already extensive stint of power, by offering him not only the position of party leader, but also as prime minister of the country. The newly elected Dimitri Medvedev would seemingly bring focus upon rebalancing the somewhat out-of-sync legislative and administrative bodies, but the recent transfer of powers (widely in favor of Putin), have motioned to the contrary.

“Certainly Mr Medvedev shows no sign of complaining about his lot. Indeed, he added his voice to calls for Mr Putin to accept the party leadership, saying this was “logical and timely”.”

It seems as if Putin is attempting to officially concede his presidency, but at the same time retain enough power to call himself a ruling figure. Although this is obviously authoritarian of him and of the occupying ruling party, the country faces change in a possible positive way. Clearly an authoritarian form of government seems regressive, especially when the country will have not one, but two ruling figures with similar power. But perhaps this is what the struggling nation that is Russia needs. It may not be a fresh or even unfamiliar reform, but it is a reform that will be widely nationalist, and help focus more so on Russia’s domestic and social struggles before returning to the International platform.

Russia, mainly after its reform of the Communist infrastructure, has seen incredibly drastic declines in its socio-political growth. Honestly, regional efforts to bolster the Russian demographic go as far as a holiday for procreation. Perhaps the authoritative like government now in place will sanction a more isolationist’s philosophy when dealing internationally; at the same time becoming widely nationalists in dealing with attempts to reconcile social regression.

police state goes broke; mustache-grooming budget slashed in half

those of us who were born any time from the end of world war II until the 90's grew up assuming that america was good at everything. we had the best weapons, the best democracy, the best music, and the best movie special effects.

the 21st century sucks. it seems like every day we lose our footing in one field or another: scientific progress, human rights, olympic basketball, and now, our crown jewel is being threatened. we're in danger of losing our status as the world leader in incarcerations (both raw numbers and per capita, 2.3 million and 1 out of every 99.1, respectively).

thanks to a budget crisis, some state governments are being forced to release non-violent inmates early and end parole systems.

Between 1987 and last year, states increased their higher education spending by 21 percent, in inflation-adjusted dollars, according to the Pew Center on the States. During the same period, spending on corrections jumped by 127 percent.

In the Northeastern states, according to the Pew report, prison spending over the past 20 years has risen 61 percent, while higher education spending has declined by 5.5 percent.

California -- which has the country's worst fiscal crisis, with a potential shortfall of $20 billion -- has seen its prison-related spending swell to $10.4 billion for the 2008-2009 fiscal year. About 170,000 inmates are packed into California's 33 prisons, which were designed to hold 100,000. About 15,000 prisoners are being housed in emergency beds, in converted classrooms and gymnasiums.

fuck it, why bother spending money on both education and corrections, or converting classrooms into prison cells? why continue to justify stripping high school kids of their constitutional rights? let's just merge schools and prisons!

law enforcement officials: wondering how you can still bust some heads and kick some asses when your state governments are clearly being run by terror-loving commies? here's a few simple ways that you can still meet quota:

1) racial profiling - just beat up the next raghead that looks at you funny. they don't have rights in gitmo, so why should they here?
2) "accidental" fatalities - seriously...they're gonna get tortured in prison anyways, and it's not like tyree was gonna make anything of himself.
3) find people who look like they got let out early due to budget cuts (see item 1), and taser them on sight, just to "keep them honest".
4) suburban cops: make up new victimless crimes just to pester poor naive middle-class folk. im sure you can convince a few people that picking your butt in public is illegal.
5) lay off busting people for possession charges. seriously.

with the us broke as shit and democracy falling apart everywhere, it's only a matter of time until we get outdone on prison numbers by the chinese. if we lose our perch there, there's only one man left we can depend on to keep amurka at #1: joey chestnut.


keep fighting the good fight, joey! if america's fat ass falls off the top of the competitive eating circuit, all is lost.

Pie charts and political psychology, Race and demographic

I was reading an article in the Sunday edition of the Noo York Times today called - 'Race and the Race - A Fault Line That Haunts the Democrats''. This article interested me because I have been interested in the historical shift in loyalties of Southern voters since the civil rights era. However, apart from the basics, there was little detail regarding the gruelling Democrat Primary seasons of 68 and 72 and the aftermath of civil rights era.

I saw a documentary once on the 68 DNC convention that was fascinating in that it showed the sense of desperation that surrounded the political scene in that era. People got down in the streets back then and the voting and violence that surrounded it seemed to come from closer in the heart. Maybe the difference was that the Vietnam war had dragged on for 9 years at that point, 9 years that elapsed concurrently with unparalled social change. There has been a siesmic shift in political activity and thinking since those heady days of optimism mingled with bitterness. Back then, people watched the news together. If the revolution were televised today, half of us would be watching CSI or Southpark, separated from the action by 20 or 50 channels.

When I watch the news, I am struck by the remarkable Americanness of it all. The closest thing to the method and the commentary used by the pundits are the sports channels that precede the news channels on the dial. One sees an abundance of pie charts with an emphasis on percentages and technical terms. When these methods are used in sports they help to create an aura of professionalism and rigorousness that separates the pros from the amateurs. When they are used in the realm of politics they serve to provide the news casters with a distance from the news they read. It helps to create an air of impartiality and they derive their divinity from this cool distance. However, the more I hear them talk about how white voters vote or black voters feel, the more I feel like nothing substantial is being said, that somehow our actions are being dictated to us, our psychology exposed to us in a shallow and superficial way.

Maybe its just the duhumanising effect of being reduced to a racial or economic statistic. Toward the end of the article a stratergist says about Obama - “He’s been pulled into a demographic corner, not a racial corner,”. I thought to myself, race is just a demographic, isn't that the point of all we have learnt from history, isn't that the logical end point of our attempts at enlightenment. At this point, race should be just a talking point, a historical accident. Unfortunately I guess I am more naive than I thought. Besides, a 24 hour news cycle is like a gossipy sewing circle or a mic'ed water cooler. Sheer boredom drives the whole enterprise and there is no worse crime than not having something to say. I guess we are lucky that we can flip away from the news.

Delaware Homeland Security Charter School

Also known as Brainwash U.

Hillz accidentally pwnd by Guam Voter

The Huffington Post ran some article pretending that the Guam primaries matter.

This would be completely forgettable, if not for this gem from a Guam voter:

"She's had the experience," [Guam voter] said. "She's got her husband to help her."

I want that on a poster...

Hillary Clinton: She's Got Her Husband to Help Her

stewart grills dean; daily show now more legit than cnn

thursday night's episode of the daily show featured '04 netroots kook candidate and current democratic party chair howard dean. dean had a few interesting things to say, including the previously unreported fact that he will find a way for florida and michigan to have delegates at the national convention in denver:



note: thedailyshow.com has every segment from every single stewart-era daily show. it's pretty sweet.

all the belligerent zealots and braindead talking heads in the news media should pay close attention to what jon stewart does here - he conducts a friendly yet tough interview, calling out problems with the current primary campaign process and dismissing all the bullshit gossip that passes for legitimate media in this country. rev. wright and the bosnia sniper thing were only referenced as footnotes to bring up the point that the entire process is fubar.

say what you will about stewart's bias to the left - it's out in the open, and not swept under the table in the name of 'objective' reporting. whether we like to admit it or not, every single piece of information communicated from another source is going to be biased in some way shape or form.

i've had this conversation with several people, and nobody seems to disagree - it's safe to say that the daily show has become one of the more legitimate sources of political commentary and discourse on network television, and often contains more factual information about the news. congratulations to the big cable and broadcast news programs - you're being outdone by comedy central.

we all know that fox news is a complete joke, and future generations will rightfully dismiss it as yellow journalism at best and far-right nationalist propaganda at worst. while there are likely still some legitimate journalists left everywhere in the media machine (former sportscenter god keith olbermann has been possessed by the ghost of edward r murrow for about 10 years), these news organizations are quickly getting lost in the explosion of media options we've seen in the last couple decades, and now have resorted to getting our attention by using the lowest common denominator: hot girls and explosions.

maybe this is what tv's all about. maybe grandma was right - it does rot your brain. it's no coincidence that the development of writing and its subsequent replacement of visual culture made us way smarter. i guess it makes sense that the court jester is king in a land full of fools.

A short lesson in energy economics

Refinery strike 'risks supplies'

Gee, why would a strike do that?

"Planned strike action at the Grangemouth oil refinery which unions say could disrupt fuel supplies poses a threat to safety, it has been warned."

Recently there has been massive turmoil in the northwestern quadrant of this continent over a single refinery -- the Grangemouth refinery in central Scotland.

Ineos decided to axe pensions in an effort to "remain a competitive long-term business".

Being an unabashedly blood-red socialist, I have no qualms whatsoever over the working man organising to protect his own from class assault. I wish I was a refinery worker, actually.

Let's put this in proper historical context, however. Many have mentioned the great coal miners' strike of the 80's, which was a watershed in modern British history. On one hand, it proved that the people have officially less say than their elected government: it ended with military force on civilian resistance strongholds --the army actually assaulted the mines the miners were blockading and arrested mass amounts of people. On the other hand, it showed just what unions can do if they really wanted to: the coal mining industry was nationalised at the time, the vast majority of power in the UK was from coal, and the resulting monopoly meant that the coal workers in effect held the country's energy supply hostage over closure disputes. To put a long story short, the government decided that the country could not be shut down, but they would not give in to the demands of effective "economic terrorists". That it was Thatcher's administration who did so was no coincidence.

(Former) union workers are bitter towards non-union workers; non-union workers are bitter towards (former) union workers. In finality, what was the gradual closure of a slowing industry was catalysed a thousandfold by the very industrial action to protect the industry. The miners ultimately speeded their own doom.

Why this is brought up now is because (a) energy prices are already stupidly-high around the world and especially the UK, causing everyone other than refinery workers and their closest relations to hate anything and anyone who makes them higher and b) "it is Scotland's only oil refinery, one of eight in the UK".

For a country which at least used to be one of the world's top oil producers, this is ridiculous. In Russia, refineries seem to pop up more often than homeless people.

In fact, with the oil-production capacity of the UK, they have had to ship oil thousands of miles from their own North Sea to have it refined, only to have it shipped back for usage. Apparently the most expensive fuel in the UK is in the Shetland Islands--ironically or not the place closest to the North Sea reserves themselves. This country is already a repeat offender of globalisation glutton, probably highlighted by the "food miles" controversy: the fact that even "environmentalists" like the idea of organic foods shipped from New Zealand makes as much sense as building a giant air-conditioner to combat global warming.

The point is that the logistics of energy, especially in this country, are fucked. With the threat of a single refinery going off-line for 48 hours, prices for everything -- not just filling up your tank at Shell -- will go up... and even if the workers end up benefiting in the short-term, it actually lines the pockets of the energy companies more. If you were a real conspiracy-lover, you might say that Ineos removed the pay package knowing that the workers would threaten with a strike, causing oil prices to go nuts and then allowing them to retain the pension scheme and make even more profit at the same time. or they'll probably ultimately remove the pensions anyway.

To keep everything running smoothly, supplies have been re-routed all the way from Rotterdam to Gothenburg... but haven't we forgotten that the UK gov't now stockpiles energy resources for this very occasion?

No matter what economic/political environment exists, non-renewable resources are, by their very essense, a dying industry. Eventually, no matter how well worked-out the balance of everyone's rights combined with production and demand is, coal will run out. oil will run out. It has long been understood by realists that the North Sea is drying up. BP, StatoilHyrdo and the like have their tentacles all over the world, so that's not a problem for them. The problem is for workers-- like those who are striking just now. They cannot move to Saudi Arabia to retain their livelihoods: there are Saudis already there with the jobs and already being paid 1/20 of what British/Norwegian/whoever workers do. A few expert engineers and project managers have the worth to be that mobile, but most don't.

The actual environmental impacts aside, this is a general lesson in modern economics: the modern world must be able to adapt to changing and dying industries. Strangely enough, as redundancy is ultimately inevitable, redundancy must be handled well. The dole isn't enough by itself-- even though it at least keeps people from starving.

Not only must individuals be able to handle the changes of the tides, but nations and the world in themselves must be able to. Nigeria, a country overlooked by so many in the light of Sudan, Iraq, North Korea, etc, has an unbelievable amount of money flowing through it in the form of oil and gas. However, it is terribly poor, rife with corruption, organised crime and outright civil strife. This country used military force to massacre its own people to allow corporate workers access to their lands, but it seems a world "lost cause": "The country's fucked, but the economy is still growing and companies still operate and make shitloads of petrodollars, so that's the best we can do"... even though McCain will happily work on Iraq for 100 years.

My point with this is that once Nigeria's oil and gas runs out, the companies will all move on and Nigeria will be a broken, rotting shell of a country: the government now is most certainly not concerned with the long-term survival of its countrymen, so why on Earth would we expect them to have a plan for when unemployment reaches 99% and mass starvation breaks out? There will probably be another civil war after Nigeria reaches the apex of its energy output.

Back to Britain, the 1970's were a boon like no other with the discovery of oil in the North Sea. However, no long-term benefits came from it. There is a chip on the collective Scottish shoulder that "it's our oil" that caused Britain/England (London) to be so successful: all the revenues didn't go to the workers, wasn't put into infrastructure or expansion; it went to corporate offices in London. Scotland as a nation has the highest unemployment and has the worst regions for unemployment in the UK. What is not said is what sorts of jobs people have in Scotland: in the UK, industry in general is gone. What largely remains is service-based jobs and management. Even those are far and few between in Scotland compared to England. The Scottish oil industry despite its moribund status is still the country's most impressive economic asset.

Iain from Southwest Scotland is just finishing his dissertation for a Bachelor of Engineering at Napier University. His father is an engineer, working long-term seasonally in Azerbaijan: "No one wants to work in the North Sea: it's fucking cold and you're paid shit like-- but in five years you won't even be able to get a post there anyway".

Once the North Sea dries up, Scotland's benefits-army will increase tenfold: refineries will shut down, petrochemical industries, transport and shipping, surveying companies... and there seems to be no one willing to invest in new business in Scotland. BP is thriving, but what does that mean even to the UK as a whole? BP pays corporate taxes, but most of its profits and operations are overseas now anyway. You might say BP took the UK's wealth and ran. They outsourced jobs and pay relatively few taxes anyway. The people who do work for BP in the UK contribute a small percentage of the entire economy... just because a lot of them are stupidly rich doesn't mean that that money really helps. Ask anyone about trickle-down economics for a heated debate possibly followed by a fistfight or stabbing.

Let's take a look at the other side of the North Sea, at a different history. Norway has also benefited from the oil boom, and with the surge of prices the country's wealth continues to explode. In the 1960's the country was poorer than most every other state in western Europe, and when compared to its close neighbour Sweden looked like a third-world country at the time.

Now Norway enjoys Swedish migrant workers to fill menial jobs. The country consistently ranks as having the highest (or one of the highest) standard(s) of living in the world, with one of the highest home-ownership rates, excellent figures for public health, extensive and high-quality public servics, and also has no national debt, some of the greatest personal purchasing power, and the lowest unemployment in Europe, at 2.5% in 2006.

Why is this? Lefties and righties will both find the same piece of information: The government owns the majority of the shares of StatoilHydro. Put into technical terms, everyone owns stock in it. The profits have been used to invest in everything from hospitals and health-maintenance programmes to education, infrastructure and even research and development.

But what happens when the oil and gas runs out? Profits from the company itself are never actually used: they're put into the Government Pension Fund, the second-largest state-owned wealth fund in the world (the largest being the one in Abu Dhabi, and we probably can deduce how many people that benefits). Even now, the fund is used to invest in new industries-- including new energy technologies (perhaps to mitigate the guilt of enabling world destruction through supplying carbon fuels?). In fact, the country has already long been virtually independent of oil itself-- almost all of its own needs are met by locally-produced hydroelectric power.

While the majority of the country's economy still piggy-backs off of the oil and gas ones, technological and knowledge/laboratory-based exports are benefiting as well.

You can call it all a pinko commie way of redistributing the wealth, but Alaska uses a similar idea. Why is Alaska not the most prosperous part of the USA-- despite being the most lucrative in terms of resource production and even having its own public investment fund?

Well, how are dividends from the Alaska Permanent Fund spent? Every Alaskan resident gets, once a year... a cheque. Where does that cheque go? I know what I'd spend it on-- and it wouldn't be a pension or a CD. I'd pay off some of my loans and probably buy a new computer or pair of skis. This is an All-American variant of the same idea: prosperity through consumption. They expect the cheques to stimulate the Alaskan economy by encouraging people to buy more shit. Just like our tax-rebate gift from Fearless Leader.

Considering what Alaska is like these days, I can really see the benefit. I don't care about a 40% tax rate if my most-likely salary is $70k/annum in a country that in all reality isn't much more expensive than the UK-- where it would be more like 40% and $40. I'm not sure where all the taxes go because it's certainly not to public services. Most likely to the military.

Of course, Norways' success story has its failings. Apparently people there are pissed off about why, with all their stored wealth, they can't be even more affluent. Apparently a big topic is that the conservative party/-ies want(s) to start spending shitloads of money and reduce taxes at the same time, while the Labour party still stick to their guns of "prepare for hard times today".

If my ex-flatmate who also is daughter of a regional MP is accurate, apparently the "old folk" want to keep doing it the old way. The younguns are divided: some think that things shouldn't change, risking losing what they have--while the upstart, confident, the-future-is-ours want to liberalise, thinking it will give greater (personal) freedoms and thus greater prosperity-- "I shouldn't be forced to invest through taxes" etc. However, if she's telling the truth, the main supporters of the FRPseem to be the baby boomer generation.

I wonder where we've seen this trend before?

On a final note, the wealth of the Russian government is mind-boggling, and it can all be thanked to two words-- Lukoil and Gazprom. They've got an oil fund too, but with how fucked up the country is, it's neither spent on national investment nor personal welfare. I don't know what they're using it for, but having lived in St Petersburg myself, I think I can guess.

What can this teach us about economics? There are ways of mitigating the ebb and flow of the economy through smart collective investment, one which can only be controlled by the (educated) people to benefit the people. It would even be possible for the USA to, say, create a state fund from general personal/corporate taxation. That could please even some right-wingers: using income taxes to effectively purchase shares for the benefit of the person. (Of course, it would probably for them be "individual accounts" where those who pay more taxes also invest more and so reap more long-term benefits).

Finally, such investment must also be in the sense of investment in people: when people lose their livelihood, they've become obsolete, they should not have to fear it. Extensive opportunities for re-training and education would allow people to resume their lives: refinery work is not so unique that such workers are completely helpless and inexperienced at everything else. A proper system of unemployment benefits and lifelong education combined with regular, intelligent investment in (local) industry will make industrial actions history-- and no one will bemoan it. In fact, apparently Denmark has done something like that, and has blown the protectionist European dinosaurs out of the water.

As the USA really doesn't have any material resources of abundance in relation to its size, and people have a very strong individualistic streak, Denmark's model may be the more comparable. I see a huge resistance for either a corporate public fund or unemployment-retraining programmes, but the latter would definitely meld better with traditional pro-labour Democrats and maybe a few progressive capital owners.

Who Will Save the Dems from this Primary Madness?

Why, the motherfucking Republicans of course.

The New York Times is running a piece about middle-ground Republicans who find themselves defecting from their party during this primary season. With the red nom already in the bag for John McCain, apparently some of the more independent thinkers of the Republican party have started looking around and saying, "Wait a minute. I think John McCain may be a demented lunatic!"

As such, they have begun looking into their other options.

From the article:

Since the start of the primary and caucus season in January, Republican voters have been crossing over in increasing numbers to vote in Democratic contests — supplying up to 10 percent of the vote in states that allow such crossover voting — and they are expected to play a pivotal role in the fiercely contested primary here.

Also:

Initially, Mr. Obama seemed to be getting the bulk of the vote, attracting moderate Republicans who quickly came to be known as Obamacans and lacing his stump speech with references to them. But more recently, Mrs. Clinton’s share of the crossover vote has grown.

So while everyone continues to put a different spin on the running primary narrative, he's a great one from the good people over at the NYT, complete with a fun buzzword: Obamacans. Could someone just shank me now, prison style? Seriously, just put me out of my misery already, because I can't take this bullshit any longer.

According to the so-called report, if the Democrats are looking for a group to fix this whole primary mess and help them decide the best candidate win out in November, they need look no further than across the battlefield, into the eyes of their enemies. For you see, it is their foes who will become their allies, helping the liberals to overcome this insurmountable obstacle of the long and hard-contested war for the title of Democratic Presidential Nominee.

All of this may make for a fun narrative, and it might even sell a few extra newspapers. However, at the end of the day it's just another running of the same pedantic tripe the media seems hellbent on parading in an endless stream of fecal infogoo they dare to call "the news."

What's most hilarious to me is how incredibly obvious it is that the hypercommercialization of anything and everything that turns even the most exiguous of profits in America is eating all of us alive. Here we stand, a nation whose back is breaking under the weight of a failing war, economic paranoia and a crisis of energy and resources never before seen by the citizens of America.

And we're fucking worried about finding the new angle for the next story so we can sell some goddamn newspapers, even if it means we lose out on our last real chance to right this ship in the process.

So fuck you, New York Times, for continuing to run this shit and not having the balls to call the this race already. And shame on us, America, for putting up with it and not demanding better.

Death of a Paperboy

Give the paper back to the trees and destroy our eyes with the blinding light of the truth on the glowscreen in real time.

aka print newspapers are dying a slow death in America.

From the Economist:

Much of this decline is being blamed on the rise of the internet, which offers free, round-the-clock coverage, and which has provided a new, better home for classified advertising, once the bedrock of most newspapers’ revenue.

Oops.

Later in the article:

Mr Murdoch’s enthusiasm is a reminder that not all newspapers are suffering. He bought the Wall Street Journal last year, and is investing in a vigorous expansion of its political coverage and international news. This foray on to the traditional turf of the Times seems to be working: the Journal’s circulation is rising.

Hmmm... I wonder why....













Could it be.... SATAN??!!

hay sexy

the wit and wisdom of ron paul

"We need more production, we need sound money, we need less taxes, we need a sensible foreign policy and [a new system] emphasizing personal liberty where creative energy would be released not suppressed."

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"All empires end for financial reasons," he said. "The Soviet Union… bankrupted themselves and one place where they really bankrupted themselves was their fruitless efforts in Afghanistan - you'd think we'd learn a lesson or two."

---

"The sad part is… if you don't support it - vote against the PATRIOT Act, you're unpatriotic. You vote against the war, you vote against the troops," he said. "They turn it and twist it around. I have come to the firm conclusion that you can be conservative, libertarian, institutionalist - a good American and vote against the war and still be a patriot."

all of this from one college newspaper article about one appearance.

oh yeah, and he called the election for obama too.

update: check him out endorsing his book, and wolf blitzer trying to compare him to marx:

A few unnamed persons here might feel good about this one.

To be fair, I'm still thinking I should've studied computer engineering.

I think, therefore I earn | higher news | EducationGuardian.co.uk

tinfoil hat time: dc madam murdered?

this is the first in a continuing segment dedicated to all types of conspiracy theories. i don't (always) believe them, but come on, everyone loves a good crackpot theory. in this segment, we maintain our love for free speech, but throw rationality and common sense out the window. ladies and gentlemen, it's tinfoil hat time:

ok so dig this. does anybody remember that dc madam? of course you don't. basically, this lady was the pimpette who scored hookers for all those powerful washington types, including this guy. coincidentally, this guy is an advocate of abstinence-only education. seriously, guys. i won't tell you where to put your dick if you don't tell us where to put ours...cool? some of the cranks out on the internet even suspected it could go as far up as vice president vader himself.

anywho, a couple weeks ago, her trial ended with a guilty verdict on federal charges. the maximum sentence on this was a hefty 55 years...long enough to start up a successful dyke-pimping empire in a women's minimum security prison, i'm sure.

unfortunately, that's not in the cards. she's gone up to the big brothel in the sky. the poor old broad hanged herself in her home.

Police earlier said "handwritten notes were found on scene that describes the victim's intention to take her life, and foul play does not appear to be involved."

...OR WAS IT? a blogger working for alex jones, belligerent king of the wingnuts, says otherwise:

"If taken into custody, my physical safety and most probably my very life would be jeopardized," she wrote in August 1991 following an attempt to bring her to trial, "Rape, beating, maiming, disfigurement and more than likely murder disguised in the form of just another jailhouse accident or suicide would await me," said Palfrey in a handwritten letter to the judge accusing the San Diego police vice squad of having a vendetta against her.

During several recent appearances on The Alex Jones Show, Palfrey also said that she was at risk of being killed and that authorities would make it look like suicide. She made it clear that she was not suicidal and if she was found dead it would be murder.

ok this may still fall under the realm of 'conspiracy theory,' but seriously guys...it's not like nobody's killed a hooker who got them in trouble before. dick cheney fucking shot somebody in the face last year. so many of these guys face so much pressure to come off as moral leaders so that dumb housewives from the sticks will vote for them over the baby killer. getting caught with their dicks wet can get them in serious career trouble...it makes sense that someone would grand theft auto the ho (the game, not the felony).

at least, that's what i hear through the fillings in my teeth.

Only the Coolest Thing Ever

first baseball, now couch-surfing

we've now entered the second phase of the foreclosure crisis. first, it was normal folks like you and me. now, it's attacking past-their-prime athletes.

ladies and gentlemen, jose canseco is homeless.

"All us guys, we've been doing this for years," Canseco claims. "The only thing anybody seems to want is bigger and better these days. So we just kept getting bigger, and our numbers got artificially high. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but we're all starting pay the price."

While he refused to elaborate further, Canseco plans to name several other baseball players in a new book, tentatively scheduled for release in July. "I can't tell you who, but the names could surprise you."

ok, i totally made that up...but i'd bet something like that might get congress a little more motivated to sort this thing out.

There and back again: A student's tale

Strangely enough, unlike most stereotypical images of blogging, I have joined this project out of a sense of duty rather than a need for emotional ranting. To make myself sound more cool and mysterious, I am an untamed knight errant who fought for his freedom and then gave up his sword... but reluctantly was dragged back into the struggle-- or something pretentious like that. As a pretentious git, I should then introduce myself.

I, like not a few American students, have just yesterday discovered that my student lenders stopped issuing any more loans. I confirmed it over the phone with my broker-- they said that they could not help me any more and wish me the best of luck in finding another lender.

This in itself is not unusual. What is unusual is that I am studying in the United Kingdom, at the University of Edinburgh.*

Despite that I am currently $70,000+ in debt and only a year away from graduating (with top honours it would have been...), at this point I am facing having to drop out and return home with no degree, as I have no resources for aid here.

What does a person do in the USA these days, with only a high school diploma, a lifetime of debt, and a work history of dead-end jobs? I think (hope) we Yanks know the truth: it's better to never go to uni than to drop out: "I was getting 1st-class honours-- but I ran out of money so I couldn't finish". Very sexy at a job interview. Anyway, I may soon find out the hard way. I've not been home in a long time, so I can only say what filters across the pond-- and I'm pretty worried. From what I gather, there's no room for top-level economists and engineers, let alone people without any official value.

"Why don't you just stay in the UK?" Well, to be fair, I may have to... even though I'm not allowed to. If I don't have any money and drop out, I have to leave... but I don't have any money... to leave. yeah. I've actually already met a few people who've been rung out and hung to dry. Sudanese bioinformatics experts who work in security companies for two years on a working holiday, trying to get a job... and in the end don't even have enough money for a plane ticket home, so they have to overstay their visas. As someone who grew up in San Diego (more or less), I am terrified of this possibility in so many different ways.

I, like a smaller number of people, was shafted by FAFSA. I was financially-dependent and ineligible for any support but didn't get any family support like Führer Bush's family values-speeches proclaim-- until the age of 20. I was very, very tired of struggling for three years-- can't get a full-time job without a degree, but you can't afford to go to uni without a full-time job.

For over four years I've screamed with boiling fury, worse than any crazy Imam in Pakistan you hear about, about decadent Southern Californians bringing the end of the world-- how "everyone is in debt", how "no one has a real job" (i.e. anything outwith retail), how "you've got to be poor, black, a genius or have a loving family to make it"... and it's going to all fail-- and I knew I had to escape if I ever wanted to make it. So I did-- for a while. You say to yourself: "why didn't you go to uni in America and then leave?"

After being put $5,000+ in debt for medical-related instances, and paying about $200/mo for car insurance (being 20, male, and having one accident) I realised very quickly that my life was going down unless I did something drastic. I was uninsured, being at 3 part-time jobs working about 60 hours per week (which would randomly rotate and churn as I quit/was sacked from one due to "stress-related performance issues"-- gee, I wonder...) and still barely affording to live in sunny SoCal. In fact, only when my timetables clashed and I was simultaneously sacked from all three jobs, making me have a nervous breakdown and being taken in by a friend's family did I all at once get a dependency override and my income dipped low enough to render me any sort of aid. I'm not even sure if those income criteria matched living-cost inflation in the 1970's, let alone today). Of course, I also now had medical bills to take care of.

Political, socio-economic and even any simple Eurotrash-idealising views aside, I knew that I would do well somewhere else. My first year was extremely difficultlt, with almost no money and still trying to get a lender to even look at me seriously. I think I'm the first American to ever stay in a Scottish homeless hostel for a night. I'm very, very surprised I got a B and two C's for my courses that year.

The UK is an extremely liberal country-- that is, not as in left-wing, but more like libertarian. In fact, people in the UK and from just about every other country as well seem to say the UK is the country "closest to the USA"-- whatever you want to interpret that as. Most of them say it in anything but a positive light, though.

However, even as a foreigner here (and trust me, we are thoroughly treated like er... non-citizens by the system in many different aspects), I do not have to jump through hoops to go through health-insurance underwriting, to get quotes ranging from $50-500/mo depending on God's will. People say the NHS is shit, but it's free at cost of usage. People don't have heart attacks here and deal with it without calling an ambulance. People don't pull teeth out with pliers. I was in nearly the same situation. People say: "oh, but don't you wait 6 months to see a doctor?" Err, you see 6 months to see a dermatologist for acne. If you have a broken bone you wait about 6 hours... and that's a specialist. I've never had to wait more than 1 week to see a general practitioner (who really only seem useful for referring to a specialist or prescribing cure-alls like codeine [mmm]).

I don't have to submit myself to the fates for car insurance, batshit-insane Californian drivers, or rising petrol prices. The bus works. It just went up to £1.10 per trip. They generally come pretty often, and even when they don't, most people take the bus so the boss isn't really miffed if you're 5 minutes late as long as you phone.

I have held the same job for 3 years and am very successful at it-- as shit as the job is. Even with the load**, I have managed to improve my grades dramatically. I was a happy, healthy person. I don't even need health insurance any more if I really didn't want it.

But this wasn't without cost-- the UK is still one of the most expensive countries in the world. The UK is currently suffering the same bug as America-- a housing bubble saddled with a credit crisis-- and guess what? now domino-style foreclosures-- but layered on top is a currency that is stupidly strong. If you think an Amsterdam holiday is expensive as an American, live here and a weekend in Amsterdam feels like partying in Mexico-- only with architecture, drugs and really hot chicks of course, dudemanbro. And actually, the quality of life here is pretty fucking shit considering what it costs. I make more working a shit job here than I would being a doctor in Poland-- but in Poland, at least the houses are made to handle the seasons, the medical service is better, the trains run (relatively) on-time, the crime is lower, you get four real seasons instead of "wet" and "wetter", the food isn't picked early, freeze-dried and shipped all the way from New Zealand because it costs less than the stuff grown next door. And of course everyone knows that Polish women are the shit, and British women are, well...

Ultimately though, I've really only traded individually-weighted costs of speculative insurance underwriting with regularised, societally-weighted costs. Everyone goes through the same tax-bracketing system-- and it makes for a very stable lifestyle. You can plan. You can save. I never knew what "budgeting" was until I came to the UK: The idea that you can actually predict how much a single year will cost is something I still can't really believe is true-- I must have been dreaming. I could've easily been $70,000+ in debt for studying in America, but instead I knew I would have an okay life here for the same price.

I thought I could forget about these past troubles-- but they've come back. I now must face the realities of what will happen to me in 4 months' time-- when the tuition bill comes-- and I may not be able to finish the investment I made. It will probably be my ruin. I might have been able to prove my usefulness to the UK gov't over the course of a maximum of a ridiculous 15 years of a multitude of "temporary" migration/work-permit/skills programmes bullshit... if I'd got a degree.

Apparently I've never escaped the Californian lifestyle. Those big houses, those quadruple mortgages... the fact that the retail sector makes the majority of the US economy. The most dangerous bubble was one I couldn't get away from-- student loans. I'd have a mortgage and a degree over a house and no degree any day-- is a degree not the safest investment in terms of profit? I suppose that's not true anymore. I'll have to pay back my debts, whether or not I got the degree or even if I can pay them back. I'll be honest and say that suicide has crossed my mind more than once as a possible exit route -- and I'm not even in that actual situation yet. I can't imagine what people who are already out of the frying pan and into the fire think about.

At this point I have no idea what lender would ever touch an American living overseas, with no cosigner and $30,000+ of credit-based unsecured debt but only four years of credit history in these times -- as even three years ago, of all the dozens of lenders I tried, all required a cosigner at the very least. I know that come August, my 750 FICO will mean jack shit. I'm not even sure if an 850 FICO would work, considering "debt-to-income" ratio.***

I can't even transfer to an American uni because a) I don't have ANY general ed courses (they're done in school here, not at uni) and b) the grading system is so different that if I transfer now, my grades look lackluster at best-- but if I could finish this year and next year with A's, I would in translation have a 4.0+ degree with distinction.

it gets a bit old when you write in your undergraduate letter of motivation basically: "I don't have good marks because I have to work", and you find that now you'd be writing in your (post)graduate letter: "I don't have good marks because I have to work". Eventually people stop caring. No wonder I never got a scholarship. Whoever came up with this "A for effort" idea should be shot to destroy their schizophrenic delusions.




To shorten this long, blathering introduction, I've come to this blog for my craziness and trying to escape, and now that I realised I really can't ever escape, I may as well transmit signals of reason and contemplation until the ship is saved, or sinks to the bottom.

The nice thing about the UK is you meet people from all walks of life and the world suddenly seems very... diverse once again. Hopefully my pretentious worldly European wisdom can be of benefit to this blog. At the very least, I get the BBC and British comedy is way better than American.

Gladly ask me any and all sorts of questions about life as an expatriate, an international student, an American abroad, a US student, an independent student, intercultural relations, comparative politics/economics, which country has the best beer; I am your fount of knowledge. Drink your fill, bitches.



*Please excuse any extra u's or inverted word-final er's-- I've been here long enough that I can't be bothered to keep up my proficiency in proper American. The upside is that it apparently increases my IQ by 10 points and I imagine when I go back to the States I can get as much American fanny as I want.
**British uni is VERY time-intensive. Don't think that they gave you one book to read per week for shits and giggles. If we numerous foreign cash cows pay this much for uni, and there are so few lectures per week, why are lecturers paid shit?
***I've always found it brilliant how student loans are tied to your income: that's really, really beneficial to students-- that in order to get a loan for studies, they have to work during their studies and fuck up their GPA. How does one work full-time and write a 15,000 word dissertation on theoretical linguistics at the same time that they have four courses to attend? by failing at them. that's a great way to make someone successful enough to be able to pay back their $1,000/mo. burden.

Right-Wing Rant: Gas Prices Part 2

I'm Joeverkill... Right-Wing Rant, yada yada.

On my previous post regarding oil prices, Minotauromachy voiced the opinion that current gas prices are not entirely the result of a free market economy. This point is very valid: gas production is up more than 5% from last year, while consumption is down 4% [stats can be found here ].

Minotauromachy asked if I had a plan to prevent price-gouging and provide some short-term relief to consumers while a long-term solution is derived (thanks for asking, Minotauro!).

So, here's my plan: levy a progressive profit margins tax on oil companies and refineries. The higher your profit margins, the higher your tax rate. The tax should kick in at 0% profit margin and go exponentially upward from there, pushing up to 90% or so if profit margins go past, say, 40% (these are all ballpark figures, of course).

There are problems with hard, mandated price controls. Companies can get seriously burned if costs skyrocket, which is definitely a possibility in the world of oil production right now. Additionally, consumers can suffer from massive shortages if price controls are set too far below what the market would dictate. But my plan is not an outright, mandated price control. Instead it is a more flexible system, one that prevents price gouging and curtails corporate greed, while safeguarding against the dangers of hard price controls.

I'm Joeverkill, and this has been a Right-Wing Rant. Sort of.

happy may day, y'all!

for the uninitiated, may day is a celebration of the labor movement, and the fact that i'm allowed to write this blog while on the clock.

i dare one of you neocon nouveau-riche idiots to question labor unions to my face. i come from several generations of teamsters.

congress continues funding destruction, stops funding construction

so according to the san francisco chronicle, the house is putting together "$108 billion that the White House has requested for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Lawmakers who are drafting it say it also will include a so-called bridge fund of $70 billion to give the new president several months of breathing room before having to ask Congress for more money."

i'm not sure where i stand on withdrawal timetables, etc. on one hand, quick and immediate withdrawal would create a power vacuum, allowing petty warlords to take the country peacemeal, tearing it asunder. on the other hand, that's ALREADY FUCKING HAPPENED.

the city of san francisco is, as we all know, one of the biggest havens for progressives in the united states. one thing you may not know, however, is that it's nancy pelosi's constituency. those nuts have been talking about immediate withdrawal for years. pelosi, you dumbass, you're committing political suicide. good luck making it through the '08 election after you have failed in every possible way to challenge the worst chief executive in the history of the united states. her excuse (from the same article): "we had hoped that the president would listen to the will of the people and at least be willing to compromise on ... how the war is conducted and some timetable for redeployment of our troops." come on, idiot. you became speaker in november of '06. by then we all knew bush didn't listen to anyone.

so in the face of a vast budget deficit, rising commodities prices, and an obese peasantry having trouble affording its bread and circuses, what is an inept, out-of-touch congress to do? why, make iraq pay to rebuild the shit we blow up, of course! apparently "Democrats and many Republicans say it is unfair that Iraq is looking at pulling in as much as $70 billion in oil revenues this year while Americans grapple with soaring fuel prices at the pump."

of course it's not fair! how dare they make money off of their oil? WE were supposed to make money off of it. iraq, i used to think you were cool, but you've changed, man.

update: wait, why does the war still cost so much? wasn't our mission accomplished five years ago?

george bush doesn't care about black people

NELSON MANDELA IS ON THE TERROR WATCH LIST.

that is all.

Right-Wing Rant: Gun Control

I'm Joeverkill, and this is another Right-Wing Rant.

In light of the recent anti-gun posts by colleagues, I feel that I, as the blog's resident right-winger, have a responsibility to respond.

Guns control is not the answer to violent crime.

The arguments that gun bans decrease violent crime have been showed to be back by inconclusive data at best, and completely incorrect at worst. States with "shall-issue" concealed carry laws invariably saw a decrease in violent crime in the years immediately following the passage of these laws. Since Florida adopted shall-issue right-to-carry in 1987, its murder rate has decreased 51%.

The most recent first-world country to adopt gun bans was Australia. Following the passage of these bans, gun owners in Australia were forced by to surrender 640,381 personal firearms to be destroyed by their own government, a program costing Australia taxpayers more than
$500 million dollars. The results from the first 12 months after the bans:

Homicides increased 3.2%.
Assaults increase 8.6%.
Armed robberies increased 44%.

Liberals mock the argument that guns play a positive role in preventing oppression from the government. Let's take a quick look back at the 20th century, shall we?

- In 1929, the Soviet Union established gun control. From 1929 to 1953,
about 20 million dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded
up and exterminated.

- In 1911, Turkey established gun bans. From 1915 to 1917, 1.5
million Armenians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and
exterminated.
- Germany established gun bans in 1938 and from 1939 to 1945, a
total of 13 million Jews and others who were unable to defend
themselves were rounded up and exterminated.
- China established gun bans in 1935. From 1948 to 1952, 20 million
political dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and
exterminated.
- Guatemala established gun bans in 1964. From 1964 to 1981, 100,000
Mayan Indians, unable to defend them selves , were rounded up and
exterminated.
- Uganda established gun bans in 1970. From 1971 to 1979, 300,000
Christians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and
exterminated.
- Cambodia established gun bans in 1956. From 1975 to 1977, one
million educated' people, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up
and exterminated.
- Defenseless people rounded up and exterminated in the 20th Century
because of gun control: 56 million.

So what's the deal, America? Have the soccer moms won? Has Rosie O'Donnell gotten into your heads so much that you can't think straight and read the statistics?

My fellow bloggers make reasonable arguments against concealed-carry on campus. In my opinion, this issue should be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. However, I will say this: Seung-Hui Cho did not have a concealed carry permit. But I bet there are a lot of Virginia Tech students out there who wish someone was around on that day, who did. Steven Phillip Kazmeirczak did not have a concealed carry permit. But I bet there are plenty of Northern Illinois students who wish that there was someone around on that day, who did.

I'm Joeverkill, and this has been the Right-Wing Rant.

Gawwwwwwd Bless Amuuuuurrrrrrrrka! Laaaaannd Full of Guuunnnnnns!

Courtesy of The Economist.

Just remember - Guns don't kill people. An innate distrust of your own government and neighbors to the point that you feel the need to own a firearm to protect yourself from the establishment and your fellow citizens kills people.

However, I do love that France is second. What a bunch of hypocritical sycophantic pussies.

clinton, mccain propose gas tax holiday, fail econ 101

gas is officially reaching $4/gal here in san diego, traditionally one of the more expensive gasoline markets in the us. the rest of america will soon follow suit. so how do gi john and little miss cry-for-votes propose we fix the problem?

let's artificially slash gas prices by getting rid of all the federal revenue we get from gas taxes! cheap gas this summer! we can all afford to take road trips get to work!

jesus christ. i think the straight talk express is actually a short bus, if you catch my drift.

unfortunately, neither clinton with her wellesley and yale degrees nor mccain with his five year study abroad course in 'enhanced interrogation methods' seems to understand the fundamentals of supply and demand. the free marketeers in the gop have a point - the 'invisible hand' has to move the market by itself. if gas gets unnaturally cheaper, more people will fill their tanks. maybe i haven't spent enough time in dc, but shouldn't we start discouraging oil and gas consumption? sadly, the people who run the show don't seem to agree. from the nyt:

Few Americans know it, but for almost a year now, Congress has been bickering over whether and how to renew the investment tax credit to stimulate investment in solar energy and the production tax credit to encourage investment in wind energy. The bickering has been so poisonous that when Congress passed the 2007 energy bill last December, it failed to extend any stimulus for wind and solar energy production. Oil and gas kept all their credits, but those for wind and solar have been left to expire this December. I am not making this up. At a time when we should be throwing everything into clean power innovation, we are squabbling over pennies.

barack says know your role, and shut your mouth:

"It would last for three months and it would save you on average half a tank of gas, $25 to $30. That's what Senator Clinton and Senator McCain are proposing to deal with the gas crisis," he said on Tuesday in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

"This isn't an idea designed to get you through the summer, it's an idea designed to get them through an election."

yep. honestly, i don't think anybody's donors over at exxon-mobil would be down with any real petroleum industry reform.

on another level, it's very telling that the ap headline for this article refers to it as the "clinton-mccain gas tax holiday." we're figuring you out, you dirty republicrats. you're all one party, running on the "fuck iran '08" ticket.

update: in my enthusiasm to talk mad shit (what else is new), i totally forgot that joeverkill already addressed this issue. oops.

Nonpolitical Interludes: American Idol Recap

Preface: One of my roommates is a real live girl. I get to watch all the sports I want if she gets to watch American Idol.

So yeah, so anyway, this happened on American Idol.

Awesome.

VTU and Univ of Illinois Gun Dealer offers guns at cost for the benefit of the public

In life, one does not often come across charitable gun salesmen - surely this new phenomenon is an oxymoron to end all oxymorons, preferably with hollow points to the head. Eric Thompson, the owner of TGSCOM Inc, the company that runs the websites that sold guns to Cho and Kazmierczak is now offering to give guns away for cost -
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/04/24/va.tech.niu/index.html

He is doing this, he says because - "I want to help people save lives," . Just like he did on the two prior occasions. This is the kind of news the Onion could not make up if it tried. Only in America can a gun salesman who acknowldges that he has no way of even determining whether the people who buy guns from him are college students (he initially proposed to offer the discount to students but realised it was not possible to do this) claim that he is doing the community a favor by making it easier (economically in this case) to buy guns. This is a sure fire way to secure the safety of the community, pun intended. In his words - "But there's no real way to determine whether someone is a college student ... so we opened it up to any legal American." Atleast he is keeping Jose from getting his hands on the trigger. That makes it so much safer for us to rest at night. He even acknowledges that some of the guns he sells may end up in the wrong hands. He is one self aware mensch he is.

He demands that we distance him from the actions of the men who pulled the trigger, that he only supplied some metal and plastic. Lovingly crafted metal and plastic that he now wants to give away to assuage his guilt. He says - "This isn't fun, and this isn't easy , I could have easily stuck my head in the sand and ignored all of this, but sometimes the easy way to go is not the right thing to do." What a sense of ethical responsibility this man has? A true citizen. He could be goose stepping to Wagner in an NRA recruitment video. At the end of the interview he whines about potentially losing thousands of dollars from his pioneering 'flood the streets with cheap handguns'' campaign. It might break the back of his family, reduce him to penury, but his cold dead hands just have to give away handguns.

Remember the last scene in 'Throne of Blood' where the Toshiro Mifune's evil wife tries desperately to wash blood off her hands. Even a character as depraved as her feels a pang of conscience at the end. Not our friend Thompson who sees himself as the Red Cross of handguns, distributing them to the bullet-wound-and-colostomy-bag-deprived young urbans. Let us bring back the crossfire dodging charm of the old west he is saying, a true conservationist.

It is funny how people like him see society strictly in terms of good guys who feel a heart rendering and beautiful need to protect themselves and bad guys who shoot up the place and kill innocents. A good person does not turn bad until he commits a deed. We are all potential murderers and thieves and school shooters. That piece of metal or plastic is not just a neutral product like an automobile or a can of juice. It is designed to and makes it easier to kill. Arming people is not the solution. I will leave the last word to our buddy Eric - "I do not feel I have extreme views," he said. "I think I have open eyes." Well then remove the blinders you have in front of them so you can see clearly.

Guy who sold guns to school shooters wants concealed weapons on campus

Ok dig this. The guy who sold guns to both Sueng Hui Cho and Steven Kazmierczak - the shooters at VTU and Univ of Illinois spoke on the VTUcampus at an event sponsored by a student organisation favoring carrying concealed weapons on campus -
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/04/25/vatech.guns/index.html

This guy is the classic shameless salesman. First he sold guns to the guys who shot up the university, creating an atmosphere of fear and now he wants to sell more guns to the people who were traumatised by violence. How low is that? Whatever his beliefs may be, however much he values the second ammendment, does he not have atleast a sense of decency and respect for the victims of the shootings? Why doesnt Bill O Riley protest this speech. He had his typical leaden words for Nas when he performed at the same campus, claiming that his violent lyrics and violent crime convictions made him an insensitive choice as campus entertainment. What about this guy who has blood on his hands?

How many of you readers want to go to a school where the ambitious nut next to you packs heat? Hell would you want to be in a classroom with me if I had a gun on me? I have come to class in some really messed up emotional situations - severly hung over and depressed etc. I have had words with people in class that could have escalated into serious violence if it was in a bar. The great thing about a college classroom is the freedom to speak your mind without fear of repercussions - intellectual or physical. Do you really want to discuss peaceful solutions to world problems in an IR class with a glock sticking into your crotch? Or declaim the poetry of TS Eliot while someone next to you falls asleep on his gun.

What about some of the insane professors you have had? Do you really want to be late on that assignment you owe to that creepy stutterer who stares at the girls in the front row and now packs a 9. I would rather have guns in my rap lyrics than in the hands of the guy whose points I eviscerate with my logic in philosophy class. In fact I want my rap lyrics drowned in buckets of blood so that when I step into class I can focus on reality - which does not imply gun ownership to feel safe.

Nonpolitical Interludes: We Have Confirmed Possible Statuatory, Roger, Over.

It's so hard for me to pick my favorite thing about this story that says that apparently Roger Clemens has been banging country singer Mindy McCready for the better part of the last decade or something. I honestly don't know, I just skimmed this article for the juicy bits.

Among my favorite tidbits?

1) Roger Clemens allegedly sent McCready money through an intermediary, some checks in excess of 20k, to help her with legal troubles (the Mc has a bit of a pill issue... there was this whole thing where she was accused of "prescription fraud" or something).

Everyone who has ever given a ton of money to a woman with problems who WASN'T doing fun things to your penis, raise your hand. yeeeeeeahhhhh....

2) Roger Clemens was married the whole time this was (allegedly) going on. The whole time. To a woman who likes to compare her fake tots to other ballplayer wives' fake tots who likes to do HGH. That's like the RC's dream woman, right? Apparently not.

3) He met her at a bar called "The Hired Hand" in Florida.

4) He took her home that night.

5) She was FIF-FUCKING-TEEN YEARS OLD.

6) According to ol' RC, they didn't do anything back at the hotel. Yeah. Because every man who ever took a hot, underage, aspiring country singer back to his top-floor first-class master-suite in Florida just wanted to have a sleepover. She paint your toenails, Rog? Did you guys give each other makeovers? (there's a facial joke in there I'm staying away from)

And yet, with all of this... that's not my favorite subplot of this story.

My favorite subplot of this story is... *drumroll*

7) During a portion of this alleged affair, Mindy McCready was engaged to Dean Cain.

To those of you out there who are on welfare and don't have TV, Dean Cain played Superman on a show once. This is my favorite part of the story because it means I get to type this next sentence with impunity.

Roger Clemens is a lying, cheating minorfucker who hates Superman, his own family and the entire game of baseball (allegedly).

NonPolitical Interludes: Drunk Teacher Slutz 9: Facial Book

I know this one girl in Teach for America who gives really great domeskeets.

srsly.

united states secret service, uniformed division

which is creepier: the president's guards in matching, non-descript black suits, or the same guys in uniform? turns out they got those guys in uniform, alright. the united states secret service, uniformed division. what do they do, you ask? from their website:

"While protection of the White House Complex remains its primary mission, the Uniformed Division's responsibilities have expanded greatly over the years.

They now protect the following:

* the White House Complex, the Main Treasury Building and Annex, and other Presidential offices;
* the President and members of the immediate family;
* the temporary official residence of the Vice President in the District of Columbia;
* the Vice President and members of the immediate family; and
* foreign diplomatic missions in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area and throughout the United States, and its territories and possessions, as prescribed by statute."

pretty innocuous, right? basically these guys are the kings of american rent-a-cops, making sure nobody starts any shenanigans in the white house. "don't shit in the lincoln bedroom," "please call it 'enhanced interrogation,' not torture," "we know he sucks too but please don't punch the president," etc, etc.

turns out these guys have been given a couple extra responsibilities in bush's Global War on Everything. here's a little excerpt from the 2005 patriot act renewal:

(b)(1) Under the direction of the Director of the Secret Service, members of the United States Secret Service Uniformed Division are authorized to--

`(A) carry firearms;

`(B) make arrests without warrant for any offense against the United States committed in their presence, or for any felony cognizable under the laws of the United States if they have reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing such felony;

i'm no constitutional scholar, but something about that ain't quite right. so these glorified traffic cops work for the president, can arrest anyone on sight if they have 'reasonable grounds' (apparently different from the more constitutional 'probable cause'), and don't need a warrant?

oh patriot act, what will you fuck up next?

we're doubly fucked: ap

this picture came through on yahoo news, attached to the "stimulus packages are coming" headline. click the pic, however, and you'll see a headline "food prices spark protest."

to ms. anonymous gas-tank-filler:
you'll get a lot more sympathy from the ichf staff when you're filling something other than that audi suv. in fact, bicycles don't even need gas! idiot.

update: a group in san francisco has organized a PRAY-IN to lower gas prices. normally, asking god for price controls is the domain of the president alone, but he has been too busy asking for nachos, a gun that lights poor people on fire, and a rangers world series victory.

update 2: i totally forgot about yesterday's canary in the coal mine...i was at costco buying the supercheap stuff from the food court. you wouldn't imagine the kind of line i saw yesterday...bigger than i've ever seen in my years of getting cheap food there. screw rice, i'm stocking up on hot dogs and soft serve. the line at the costco gas station was equally gnarly.

ron paul: still alive!

well, we can account for 100,000+ votes from the 'bitter' gun nuts, internet geeks, pot smokers, and other miscellaneous cranks in pennsylvania: ron paul took 15.9%. even though he knows he can't statistically win, he's running just to give those all those big-money, big-state, big-war republicans an ideological asswhuppin', libertarian style.

seriously, you gotta show the guy a little love. in those crazy early days of the primaries, when debate topics were yes/no questions answered by raising a hand, he was able to call out rudy "9/11" giuliani's sheer cartoonish hawk bullshit. rudy's campaign was never really the same, thank god. sure, some of old man paul's political stumps don't really work (yeah, leaving the un is a GREAT idea), but we all know that he built his support off of being a contrarian shit-talker rather than somebody your parents would vote for.

politico just ran an article about his continuing campaign, and the people that still support him:

But while keeping to the same mantra — “I have no plan, no intention to do so” — Paul is also not completely slamming the door shut on a third-party run. And, perhaps more worrisome for Republicans should they have a tight race with the eventual Democratic nominee, he’s also not ruling out supporting a third-party candidate.

Asked what he would do if his supporters approached him this fall and asked him whom to support, Paul replied, “I’ll respond when I think I should — when we know where the ducks are lining up.”

when it's all said and done, the story of ron paul very well could be the story of a new grassroots-based ideological bloc in america, and maybe even a third party. good timing for it, too. we can talk all we like about the great candidates that are running for the presidency, but the two-party system has never failed america like it has right now. voters hate the president, but they only hate his opposition in congress slightly less. pelosi's a chickenshit that won't even consider impeaching a guy guilty of several crimes that we know about.

one can only hope he drops the ralph nader effect on john mccain in november.