Eight years later than the first time I took this... And almost the identical score.

You are a Social Moderate (55% permissive) and an... Economic Conservative (71% permissive) You are best described as a: Capitalist Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

Some quick post-Golden Globes thoughts:

You KNOW I hate the Golden Globes, so I couldn’t let the most recent abomination pass without some commentary. OTOH, Wifey lurves the Globes, so this made for an interesting night in front of the new HDTV.

- Hollywood (liberal) + Foreign (liberal) + Press (liberal) = painfully, predictably LIBERAL

- Anytime “30 Rock” was up for an award, it would win. Not because it’s any better than any other show, but because the Hollywood Foreign Press wants people to watch it. Seriously, if it was really good, it wouldn’t be the 7634th rated show.

- And, Tina Fey, try to get it through your overrated, scarred Tootsie Pop of a head; with the slavish adulation of your peers and the liberal media, comes unwanted, unwelcome attention from people who don’t think you deserve it. If you can’t hack it, go back to Weekend Update, and the anonymity that came with it.

- Ricky Gervais was just what was needed. A person who didn’t take himself or the entire bloated extravaganza seriously. “Kate… didn’t I tell you that if you do a Holocaust film, the awards would come?” Priceless.

- Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie really need to take their posse of Cambodian slaves refugees, and go away. We know you think you’re very important. We know you think you’re changing the world. We get it. Now go away.

- Tight buns in dresses = good. Tight buns in hair = not so good. Maybe some of the older women are using the hair buns to pull wrinkles tight, but it looks like they’re all ready to split their facial skin like Vincent d’Onofrio in Men in Black.

- Is Shirley MacLaine still alive? After seeing her in the audience, I’d have to say “No”.

- Heath Ledger’s victory was as predictable as “30 Rock”. Uh, he WAS excellent in “The Dark Knight”, and probably deserved the award. But to claim he had a “legacy” or an “incredible place in the history of cinema” was overstating his accomplishments by, I dunno, a ZILLION-FOLD. Unless, of course, you consider stupid, irresponsible use of prescription drugs and alcohol to be “incredible”. Most actors consider that “Saturday”. Hell, Mickey Rourke calls that “lunch”.

Odd that nobody seems to be talking about this latest fiasco from our completely corrupt and financially incompetent friends in Congress led by the botox-riddled corpse of Nancy Pelosi.

Another bailout. Except this isn’t for an important part of the financial infrastructure, nor is it for an industry that has been over-regulated by Congressional acts and presidential ineptitude. NO, this is purely as a political favor for the U.S. automakers; a group that has long resisted modernization, demanded protection from better managed foreign companies, and continually pumped out inferior products.

This will be an interesting test of the nascent Obama presidency. Clearly, the Pelosi-led Democrats are floating this bailout balloon to see how Obama reacts. If he’s going to be a presidential ATM for Congress, he’ll approve it without a second look. If he’s going to start out to be a slave to the polls, he’ll bide his time and make non-committal public statements about “looking into the issue”. Or if he might say “Enough is enough” and squelch this obvious political kickback.

I find it difficult to believe that anyone outside of Michigan or Capitol Hill actually thinks this bailout proposal is a good idea. Obama is around my age, so he surely remembers when the Japanese car manufacturers squeezed into the US market and quickly proved how archaic and antiquated American car manufacturers really were. Toyota, Datsun/Nissan, and Honda cars were better, more reliable, and more economical than the dinosaurs produced in Detroit.

Rather than actually IMPROVING their cars, the US automakers have long argued for protection from the Japanese in the form of tariffs. Consumers can see through this and have been willing to pay a premium for the better cars. But now Congress is not considering tariffs, they’re actually considering just a straight, no-strings-attached, taxpayer-funded DONATION to these corporate troglodytes.

Kind of a nice perk, don’t you think?. Run an entire industry into the ground with decades of incompetence and get a big check from the taxpayers.

Listen, I can understand propping up the banking industry. We don’t want a run on the banks to expose the fact that our currency is essentially an illusion. We don’t want the world economy to come to a screeching halt because the dollar collapses. I got that when I took Macroeconomics in my freshman year. Plus, a lot of the problems can be attributed to some government programs that failed. Fine, I GET IT.

But Ford, GM, and Chrysler? Those are businesses that could disappear TODAY and have no effect on the worldwide economy. People would just buy Toyotas and Nissans and Hyundais and Hondas and Mercedes and Volvos and Saabs and BMWs . Pretty much like we’ve been doing for the last 30 years.

Nancy Pelosi must be stopped! And Obama will hopefully be the guy who stops her.

OK, now that the dust is settling on the election and the media is already cooling on their anointed one, I’m ready to give the President-elect a chance to prove that he won’t be a socialist lapdog for Nancy Pelosi. But other matters are more pressing than even our faltering economy.

The Russians are already posturing with new weapons.

Israel and Palestine have already abandoned the cease-fire.

Kim Jong-Il might be dying. And dying insane dictators with nuclear ambitions tend to want to go out with a bang.

All you Americans that thought the economy was going to be the biggest problem for Obama were wrong. It’s international relationships, whether the “war on terror” or the new Cold War or the perpetual unrest in the Middle East or the rapidly deteriorating situation in China and Korea.

These are life and death.

The economy is just fucking money. Comparatively, no big deal.

There are already rumors that John Kerry is politicking to become Secretary of State. Oh, good lord, don’t let it happen. I would rather see Bill Clinton get the job. Granted, he might take huge bribes speaking fees for each appearance, but at least he wouldn’t be laughed at for being a complete douche. Do even Democrats consider Kerry to be a suitable representative of the country at this point?

Put Colin Powell in. Now. Gain whatever international cred we lost during the Bush years.

The economy can wait. Seriously.

Welcome to Day One of the Welfare States of America!

Now that the American people have overwhelmingly shouted their love of government financing for everything and handouts to the ineffectual and useless, it’s time to put down our cardboard signs asking for food and/or money… and celebrate!

Once again, my fundamental faith in the stupidity of the American voter has been proven to be gospel as the media-worshipping sheep successfully voted in a Senator who has accomplished absolutely nothing in his two years of active Senate service, except for publishing two autobiographies.

Congratulations to the Obama machine, CNN, CBS, CNBC, ABC, and all of Europe. The media’s unprecedented adoration of your candidate resulted in the most lopsided media coverage since… well, ever. And we all learned another fundamental truth about the American people: they will believe what they see on television. And this might ultimately be the lesson that the world takes from this debacle.

"When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic." – Ben Franklin


Other thoughts on this post-election day:

o Sun came up… check. I’m relatively healthy… check. Wife and kids are healthy… check. Work sucks… check. Life goes on.

o OK, like I said before, I really don’t care if gays get married, but the law is the law. Gay marriage has been voted down TWICE in California, of all states! Take a hint, people.

o The amazing thing is that Proposition 8 lost in a state where Obama completely obliterated McCain 61%-37%. Even if one assumes that every single McCain vote = a “Yes” vote, that means about a quarter of the Obama supporters joined them in voting against gay marriage. Think about that. Oh, and I know at least one person who voted for McCain and against Prop 8.

o Equally amazing is the overwhelming success of Prop 2, what I call the Chicken Liberation Act. Apparently, chickens and pigs in California felt neglected and cramped in their cages before they were slaughtered to make delicious KFC buckets and yummy bacon slabs. So, in an appeal to the bleeding hearts, pictures of chickens in itty-bitty cages were shown as evidence of the cruelty towards our future meals, and it worked.

Now, here’s where it becomes pretty clear that these liberal whiners don’t think things through. What do you think will happen to those chickens now? Do you think that the chicken and livestock farmers will suddenly spring for chicken condos and pig apartments to follow the law? Or do you think they’ll just pack up their undersized coops and pigsties and mosey on over to a less humane state? One thing for sure, the price of those whole fryers just got a whole lot higher. And not one single chicken was spared. Imagine that.

o Last night on HBO, I watched a documentary about the US Olympic Hockey team’s transcendent Gold Medal victory in 1980. They pointed out just how far down America was during the financially disastrous Carter administration with double-digit unemployment, double-digit inflation, the Iranian hostage crisis, the Cold War, and a nationwide malaise. And they pointed out how this scrappy band of hockey unknowns was needed to raise the spirits of an entire nation by beating our mortal enemy of the time, and the best hockey team in the world, the USSR.

So, watch out for the US Diving Team against the Chinese in 2012!!

o Nancy Pelosi won her seat in the House of Representatives. Considering she oversaw the biggest financial collapse in 80 years, her re-election shouldn’t have been so easy, but San Francisco liberals are funny that way.

o Al Franken is neck-and-neck in Minnesota to be elected to the Senate. HHH, Mondale, Jesse the Body, and now Al Franken? What…, was Joe Piscopo busy?

o Just so you know, I received at least two write-in votes for Vice-President.

One last plea for sanity...

OK, I'm just going to say this one more time.

George W. Bush has not been a very good president and probably deserves most of his bad press and dismal approval ratings.

Congress has also been abysmal and deserves their bad press and dismal approval ratings.

Why would people re-elect their liberal (and conservative) Congresspeople then? Shouldn't the House flip over completely?

And why in God's name would people want to elect a rubber-stamp Presidential/Congressional pairing when nobody likes Congress to begin with?

Whatever happened to checks and balances?

Anyone who votes for an incumbent Congressperson and Barack Obama is an idiot. If you think the economy was FUBAR under Bush (and it was), it'll be 1,000 worse with a spend-happy Congress and a liberal rubber-stamp President.

If all of the rhetoric about "change" was legitimate, there's no way in hell you should be re-electing the Pelosi's and Frank's of the world. In other words, anyone who votes for Obama in the name of change, and still votes to re-elect their incumbent (whether liberal or conservative) is a hypocrite and/or an idiot.

Here’s something that’s been bugging me (among other things)…

OK, we all agree that GW isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, and that the War in Iraq was ill-conceived and mostly mismanaged….

And, we all agree that this whole financial cluster fuck is a bad thing, with the banks collapsing and the stock market tanking…

But why is everyone putting the economy on Bush’s back, when it’s CONGRESS that screwed up the banking regulations and put the Community Reinvestment Act on the books? If Bush is to blame for the War in Iraq, isn’t Congress equally culpable in the financial collapse and subsequent bailout?

So… we know Bush is out of a job in January… Shouldn’t we boot EVERYONE out of Congress, including the Democratic majority? After all, the financial collapse occurred under THEIR watch. Just as much as 9/11 occurred under Bush’s watch.

Am I the only person who notices the discrepancy in how the media handles these situations?
Am I the only person who notices that the liberals are horribly inconsistent in how they place blame in the case of a crisis?

Am I the only person who asks himself rhetorical political questions?

Here’s a question that bears asking half the electorate:

Is the United States of America the greatest country in the world, full of freedoms and liberties and technologies and opportunities that the rest of the world envies?

If the answer is “Yes” (and it should be), why would we vote for “Change”?

What’s worse?

a) Chief Executive of a state paying for sex from a prostitute who is earning a living…

Or

b) Chief Executive of a country sexually harassing an intern ostensibly working for him?

Or

c) Chief Executive of a state sexually harassing a state employee ostensibly working for him?

The guy in (a) is resigning. The guy in (b) and (c) is running for his third term in the White House.

God Bless the Democrats.

Only they could take the most easily won election in recent memory... and screw the pooch.

For those incapable of connecting the dots, this little peccadillo will re-invigorate discussions of sexual escapades from lecherous public servants. Which will lead to more discussions of how completely immoral the Clintons are...

How many democrats does it take to screw up a slamdunk election?

Ahahahahahaha!

I’m pleased to say that the Democratic party is every bit as stupid and shortsighted as I thought they were. After Super Tuesday Redux tilted the board back over to Hillary’s side, the Democrats assured themselves of a colossal cluster fuck of a fight for the nomination. With Hillary just slightly behind Obama, all they gained for their time and money was an increasingly negative campaign, which gladdens Republican hearts everywhere.

And the Democrats only have themselves to blame for the entire mess. Here you have a desperately ambitious political tiger (Hillary) chasing down a free range gazelle (Obama) in the open field. Now, with the delegate momentum behind her, you’ve basically tied a raw steak to the gazelle’s tail. She smells blood and will come out trying to rip out Obama’s heart. Expect increasingly vitriolic rhetoric from the tiger, possibly attacking the gazelle’s soft underbelly, AKA his wife.

For her part, Michelle Obama continues to say the wrong things to the wrong people espousing the wrong ideas. This is a NATIONAL campaign and she is promulgating rhetoric targeted to her husband’s base. THEY ALREADY LIKE HIM! All she’s doing is alienating the moderates and the possible crossover voters with her "America is mean" pablum.

Even so, the Democrats have exacerbated this infighting by playing semantic games with delegate rules and primary dates. Michigan and Florida delegates aren’t being counted by the Democrats because of some arcane scheduling issue. Super Delegates are the 2008 buzzwords, with most of the power in their hands. Given Clintonian history, most of those will end up in Hillary’s column, which can only hurt the party.

When Hillary wins the nomination, the Republicans will have a field day with the entire nomination process, pointing to the machinations of a power-hungry shrew who began pulling strings for her own presidency as soon as her horndog of a husband took office. It stinks of cronyism and manipulation, from a party that purports to be of the people.

When Obama wins the nomination, the Republicans will have a field day simply by using Hillary’s ads leading up to the primary. She’s been the Republican’s most effective campaigner, resorting to slash-and-burn politics to gouge at the pristine Obama image. Two weeks ago, people were speculating about her (hoped for) graceful exit from the race. Now, with the scent of blood in her pinched little nostrils, she is clawing and scratching at the Obama exterior and voters will remember all these scars come November.

In 2004, Bush was re-elected because the Democrats were stupid enough to put an empty suit up as their standard bearer. "I’m not him" proved to be an ineffective campaign slogan for Kerry. I really can’t remember anything else he said.

In 2008, McCain will be elected because the Democrats will be stupid enough to allow their two standard bearers to rip each other to shreds just to get the nomination. Rather than an empty suit, the Democrats will nominate a bloody mess. And they’ll curse the American public for not electing their candidate, when it’s really their fault for not choosing their poison months earlier.

I’m trying to wrap my head around the possibility that the Democrats would be stupid enough to put Hillary Clinton on the ticket as their Presidential candidate. I honestly can’t fathom that any group would be so shortsighted and idiotic to present such a divisive, unelectable person as their standard-bearer. But here they are.

On some level, I can excuse their hatred of George W. Bush and his various questionable policies and actions. This hatred has mobilized and energized the left who now have two putative candidates, both of whom represent a stark contrast to the likely Republican candidate. So, if both Clinton and Obama are the front-runners and both seem to poll reasonably closely to McCain, what motivates the various camps?

Well, the Obama-ites are focusing on the message of hope, the positive feelings that the candidate seems to engender among all races. It’s almost as if Obama is tapping into all of the negative feelings towards Bush and telling the voters what they want to hear; the world is a good place and we need to emphasize what’s good.

The simple fact about Obama is that he isn’t qualified to run a country… yet. We have no track record on this guy. He’s made a lot of really energetic, positive speeches, and accomplished very little on a national scale. This is like a company taking their top salesman and making him CEO of the entire operation. This is almost a vote for change… for change’s sake.

On the other side, you have Hillary Clinton. She IS qualified (or so her supporters would have you believe) because of her “years in public service”. I guess First Ladies are now considered public servants. I find it interesting that Hillary-ites want it both ways: they are trying to separate Hillary from Bill’s administration so they don’t get any of the blame for things that went wrong, but they want to count her work on the (failed) Universal Health Plan and her spousal influence as positives for her public experience.

So, while she has more experience in national politics than Obama, she also has much more negative baggage. At this nascent point in his career, Obama has no really big political red flags, while Hillary has her health plan, Whitewater, her carpetbagging to New York, Vince Foster, her law practice in general, her newfound riches (where does a First Lady get $5M of her own money to plow into her campaign?), all kinds of little “details” the Republicans are surely stockpiling for an October advertising blitz.

But the Clinton machine keeps chugging along, steamrolling through the big states, piling up the electoral votes. This is like a company taking their corporate attorney who has skeletons (and knows where everyone else’s skeletons are) and making her CEO of the entire operation. This is almost a vote for the villain… just so they don’t piss her off.

So, when choosing between the known (Clinton) and the unknown (Obama), half of the liberals are hanging their hats on the known evil, the other half are betting on the new guy who has never done anything. Which side is right? Or are they both wrong?

http://www.wqad.com/Global/link.asp?L=259460

I love stuff like this. By answering a series of fourteen questions on political hot topics and weighing them, you'll get your top candidate spit out for you.

Not surprisingly, my top six selections were Republicans with the moderates up top.
Giuliani
McCain
Hunter
Thompson
Huckabee
Romney

On the opposite end, my political Luthor is Chris Dodd. Out of the democratic frontrunners, Obama edges Hillary, but it's not like either of them will ever get my vote.

Politics, Democrat style...

To my loving wife,

Fear not, my love. I won’t let your debilitating cancer diagnosis deter me in my quest for personal glory and power.

Your loving husband,
John Edwards

---------------------------------


Dear Barack,

I have a great idea. Why not attack Hilary before the primary? No need to hit her with a pipe, a simple internet video will do. I know some guys that will do it for cheap.

Signed,
Tonya Harding

It’s interesting that even the most liberal bloggers are ignoring the major non-news story of the weekend, specifically that Hilary Clinton has announced her presidential exploratory committee. It’s non-news because, well, we expected it. The funny thing is that her hand was forced by the early entry of Barack Obama. Now the two announced Democratic candidates share the dubious distinction of simultaneously being the two frontrunners and the two least-likely-to-be-elected people in the country.

This is partially a commentary on the lack of social progress of the American voting public, partially a commentary on the lack of political acumen of the Democratic leadership, partially a commentary on the lack of likeability of both Obama and Clinton.

1. This country will not elect a black Democrat to be President. Period. It’s too easy to play on the fears of the prejudiced American public to marginalize the candidate as an anti-white crusader or a pro-black activist. A black Republican (Colin Powell, Condi Rice, maybe even JC Watts wayyyyy far down the line) has a much better chance at being considered as a centrist, especially one that’s already held a prominent national cabinet position.

2. This country will not elect a woman Democrat to be President. Period. It’s too easy to play on the fears of the misogynistic American public to marginalize the candidate as a man-hating, mood-swinging, menopausal harpy (like Hilary is already considered by more than half the country). A woman Republican (Condi Rice) has a much better chance at being considered as a centrist.

3. For now, Obama is the golden child of the media. His pre-emptive strike on the presumptive Clinton candidacy was slick and savvy… for a candidate. But it’s gonna hurt him in the long run, because it put him out front too early. He effectively is giving the muckrakers a six-month head start on creating a negative image for him, something that can only hurt as he attempts to create a national persona. It was premature and rash to announce so early, but he needed to start the fundraising asap to counter the Hilary machine.

Shit will start leaking out from the Obama camp; wait and see. You’ll still be hard-pressed to find many people who know what this guy stands for. It’s only a matter of time before someone finds a skeleton. And since he doesn’t have a historical image to fall back on, the skeleton will become his persona.

We all know Hilary. And many hate her. The single most polarizing figure in American politics today. Is she qualified? Oddly, I would say "yes". Is she electable? Hell no.

So I see that al-Qaeda has designated the “replacement” for Zarqawi, some guy named Hamza al-Muhajer. Wouldn’t you like to be a fly on the wall for that selection process?

HR rep: I see here that you’ve been a lieutenant in the fight against the non-believers. How do you feel that prepared you for this position?

Hamza: Well, I had extensive experience torturing kidnapped civilians, as well as some work organizing roadside bombings against the American occupation forces. In my last position, I also developed a system for connecting spider holes for easy access and easy escape.

HR rep: I see. I notice that there is a gap on your resume of a few months last year. Can you explain that?

Hamza: Well, I was detained by the American aggressors briefly. Once I was released, I immediately sought out new work as an explosives distributor. I felt it was important to add to my sales and finance skills to better run a large terrorist organization.

HR rep: That sounds great. Can you tell me about a time where you faced some resistance to one of your ideas, and how you handled it?

Hamza: Oh, I ran into that all the time in smaller terrorist cells. Everyone was trying to suggest good targets for suicide bombings, and even though I had more strategic locations in mind, I let them go ahead with their targets. After all, after their ideas were accepted and they got to attack their targets, they were dead anyway and couldn’t argue with me anymore. I’ve always found that leading a terrorist organization often means allowing internal opposition to blow themselves up. Eventually, you’ll be in charge. It’s all about patience, really.

HR rep: Would you mind if we contacted some of your previous organizations?

Hamza: Most are dead. I suppose you could, if you could find their spider holes. Like I said, I designed a pretty elaborate network.

HR rep: Before we finish, do you have any questions for me about the position?

Hamza: Well, I heard about what happened to Zarqawi… what changes are you expecting to make internally? I mean, I don’t want to take the job just before you decide to have layoffs, or, excuse me, “downsizing”. [chuckle]

HR rep: As you can imagine, I can’t discuss our future plans. Suffice to say, we will have a need for a manager as long as the imperialist dogs from America soil our land.

Hamza: [rising from seat] I’m glad to hear that. I’m still very interested in the position, and I’m anxious to hear back from you soon.

HR rep: Thanks for coming in on such short notice, and I’ll be back in touch with you in a couple of days. [standing and extending hand]. Oh, and death to America.

Hamza: [shaking hands with HR rep] Thank you for the opportunity. And death to America.

Choose your own adventure...

We’re gonna play a little hypothetical game now… You’ve just been elected the leader of a country; let’s call it “Capitalistia” Now, Capitalistia is a nice country filled with good people who mind their own business and, for the most part, just want to be left alone. As a country, Capitalistiacs tend to think that their way of doing things is the best way, and strive to teach other countries the Capitalistiac ways.

After some threats from a much smaller country of religious fanatics; let’s call it “Terroristia”, a group of Terroristiacs blow up some big buildings in Capitalistia, killing thousands.

What do you do?

A. Immediately declare war on all Terroristiacs, whether or not they participated in the bombing. After all, it’s their fault for allowing Terroristiacs to flourish in their country.
B. Immediately call for an international peace conference, at which the Terroristiacs control the agenda by threatening other countries with similar violence, all the while trying to build more bombs to blow up more Capitalistiac buildings and people.
C. Immediately target ONE loudmouthed Terroristiac leader, who may or may not have had any prior knowledge of the bombing plans. After all, it’ll show the Terroristiacs that we mean business when we depose the biggest bully on the block, especially if he’s the same bully who threatened your dad.
D. Immediately call for an international military action, ignoring the fact that the Terroristiacs will scare the other countries by threatening them with similar violence, and it won’t stop the Terroristiacs from doing it again to you.
E. Immediately target the PRECISE Terroristiac leader who ordered the bombing and warn other Terroristiacs that they’ll be targeted if they don’t help.

If there are other options, I’m not sure what they are. If you chose A, C, and D, congratulations, you’re George W. Bush and you’re stuck in a no-win, military quagmire in a remote land and no allies. If you chose B and D, congratulations, you’re John Kerry and the international coalition you hoped to build never materialized due to the spinelessness of most of Europe, Israel is basically blown to oblivion, and Iraq/Iran have nuclear weapons.

If you said E, congratulations, you’re a reasonably logical person with 20/20 hindsight, and we have NFI whether that would have been the best solution. All we know is that Bush made the wrong choice, Kerry advocated the wrong choice, and Congress/Europe is too partisan and pissy to help.

In other words, what would you have done? Bonus points for using the terms “bomb them back to the Stone Age” and/or “middle eastern nuclear winter”

Off with their heads!

After living in California for over forty years, I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me when an activist judge imposes himself upon a voter-mandated penalty. And I have to give this judge props for his ingenuity in at least figuring out a NEW loophole for the bleeding hearts to prolong a pointless life against the public’s wishes and mandates. After all, the whole “cruel and unusual punishment” argument doesn’t hold much pathos when the murderer in question tortured and raped a young girl repeatedly before killing her.

And guess who appointed him to the federal court…? That’s right, Bill Clinton. Is anyone surprised? Considering a judge is supposed to be non-partisan, it seems a bit odd that EVERY single appeal by a death row inmate is heard and actioned by a Clinton appointee. Gee, do you think they deliberately do that? Essentially, it’s a numbers game. If you file enough appeals on various spurious grounds, at least ONE of them will make it to a liberal bench, and you can pretty much firm up those reservations for the rest of your life on the taxpayer’s dime.

OK, so my arena idea is sorta barbaric. Here’s one. Since we’re so fucking concerned about humanely ending this inhumane life, why don’t we make it as fast as possible? Gas chambers are inhumane (boo hoo), electric chairs are inhumane (boo boo hoo), lethal injections are inhumane (boo boo boo hoo)… And to a small extent (very very small), I can see some of the point. We’re not sure how much gas someone needs to inhale to die, we’re not sure how much electricity it takes to kill the whole body, we’re not sure how much pain they might feel from the lethal overdose.

So bring out the guillotine! I can pretty well guarantee that if the guy’s head is rolling around a couple of yards away from his body that he’s dead. Not only that, but a nice sharp heavy blade, and the fucker won’t know what hit him. Problem solved. Quick.

The Great One?

Who is worse, Gretzky or Rose?

If you had asked me this three days ago, I would’ve stared blankly at you, like Tara Reid deciphering a slide rule. Gretzky was the most prolific scorer in hockey history, and widely considered to be one of the nicest guys around, cleaner than AC Green’s bedsheets. Rose was the most prolific hitter in baseball history, and widely considered to be one of the most arrogant pricks around, dirtier than Wilt Chamberlain’s bedsheets.

My, my, how times have changed.

So I ask you now, who is worse, a compulsive gambler or a bookie? Certainly, Pete Rose’s personality hurts him here. He’s not just a compulsive (and bad) gambler. He’s an ass and a greedy one at that, so he can hardly be painted as a wronged victim. He felt his gambling addiction (by the way, apparently still in full bloom) was above the rules of the game, certainly he felt that he was above Bowie Kuhn. The funny thing is that I think people would have gotten past the gambling-on-baseball issue long ago if Rose hadn’t been so pugnacious and obstinate about his “innocence”.

But a bookie is essentially a parasite, feeding off of the addictions of others. So who is the bad guy, the organized crime boss who controls the media and runs the numbers game, or the asshole scumbag who gambles away his money and his career? While Gretzky may not have actually booked the bets, he certainly seems to have known about the bookmaking activity and tacitly condoned it. And then lied about it. Multiple times. Hell, his wife was the biggest customer. Wouldn’t it be ironic if we found out that Pete Rose booked bets through Rick Tocchet? Whose side would you be on then?

And enough about Janet Jones being “hot”. That train left the station years ago. In fact, check out “A Chorus Line” again. (Yeah, I own it. Charlie “I can do that” McGowan lived around the corner from me when I was a kid. I’m not gay. Honest.) She had a nice body, but her face was heavily lined twenty-five years ago. And she was a terrible actress. Apparently, she’s just as good at gambling.

Gretzky’s fall will be much more precipitous because he HAD our trust. We believed him. It’ll be interesting to see how long it takes Tocchet to roll over on him and tag “The Great One” as the Puckfather, the great and powerful Gretz. Pay no attention to the 99 behind the curtain. All those Lady Byng trophies for sportsmanship and gentlemanly behavior (or behaviour)? On Ebay.

And Pete Rose still doesn’t belong in the Hall of Fame. Just because some other guy proves to be a scumbag too doesn’t diminish the dirt on Pete.

The needs of the many

“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few…”

“Or the one.”

Yeah, I’m a geek, so what?

Anyway, we’re already starting to hear the bleats of the lambs lamenting the death of Rigoberto Alpizar.  His wife is saying that he was bipolar and hadn’t taken his meds.  The press is harping on the fact that he didn’t actually have a bomb like he claimed.  It’s only a matter of time before the knee-jerk bleeding hearts start calling for the disarming of the air marshals.

The air marshals did their job.  If the intelligence teams in the Middle East did their job as well, we probably wouldn’t be stuck in the quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan.  As a matter of fact, I feel more confident in our national security (as least as it relates to air travel) than I have in four years since 9/11.  

Let’s check the facts here.

• It’s a flight from Colombia (Yellow flag!)


• A clearly agitated man has a backpack (Red flag alert!)


• He runs up and down the aisle claiming to have a bomb (Double Red Flag!!)


• Air marshals identify themselves and pursue the man


• They tell the man to drop the backpack


• The man reaches into the backpack where he claims to have a bomb


• The air marshals drill the guy between five and six times, killing him

So, what’s the problem with the behavior of the marshals?  I don’t see any.  In fact, these guys should be rewarded for bravery and heroism.  After all, IF the guy really had a bomb like he claimed, surely they were risking their lives by confronting him.  Even something as small as a hand grenade could have taken them out at that distance.  They easily could have shrunk into the corner and pretended to be regular passengers and taken cover behind a really fat dude or hidden in the lavatory.  Instead, they confronted the threat, and diffused it with no harm to innocent passengers, civilians, or even property.

Good, good, good.

And this will surely end all of that airport banter about bombs and guns and weapons.  Remember how people used to joke about carrying weapons onto planes, just to piss off the 70-year old Filipino “security” guard?  Um, that’ll stop now that people know that deadly force will be used to ELIMINATE any threat to public security.

Of course, it’s only a matter of time before the ACLU will leap aboard this and try to claim that the man somehow had the right to threaten the lives of the other passengers without being shot multiple times.  The allegation that he was mentally ill should have absolutely no bearing on anything, but somehow he’ll be portrayed as a tragic figure.  Well, as long as bipolar people don’t run around with backpacks and claim to have a bomb, they probably won’t be shot.  

Sigh.

Let me be one of the first to say this, THANK YOU TO ALL OF THE AIR MARSHALS EVERYWHERE!  YOU GUYS ARE ALL HEROES IN MY BOOK!

1000!

Sometime within the next 30 days, it’s likely that we will have the 1000th execution in the United States since the capital punishment law was passed in 1977.

Good.

But not good enough.

We still have thousands and thousands of murderers and rapists awaiting their legally resolved penalties, getting three square meals, free cable TV, and free access to weights and gym equipment for which most of us pay $40/month.

Why?

Because the legal system allows dozens of appeals?  Partially.  But  not inmates have appeals still in process…

Because liberal judges keep issuing dubious stays of execution for primarily ideological reasons?  Partially.  But those are usually desperation stays reserved for the last couple of days prior to the scheduled date…

So why?

Because the Death Penalty shows a side that Americans hate to reveal about themselves, that vindication and retribution is something that we believe in, but are uncomfortable about.  Because when it comes down to it, we’re just a bunch of hypocrites, voting for a system of punishment, but unwilling to see it through.

Yeah, that’s it.

Well, I ain’t a hypocrite.  The people on Death Row are murderers.  Every single one of them.  The 999 prisoners that were executed have never killed again.  Since they were executed;

• They haven’t stabbed anyone during a prison riot


• They haven’t kidnapped or raped innocent children


• They haven’t beaten or shot their spouses

In fact, I feel confident that they will never commit another crime.  Now that they’re DEAD.

And after all, that is the goal.  Law-abiding citizens (and non-violent criminals, for that matter) just want to be safe and not have to worry about the predators that may lurk among us.  If a zoo animal goes nuts and kills a patron, do we hospitalize it?  No, we euthanize it.  Why?  Because it might kill someone else…  

Now, if a person goes nuts and kills a neighbor, do we euthanize him/her?  Remember, this is a thinking beast, certainly capable of killing again.  Possibly more dangerous than the zoo animal, given the wide variety of tools and weapons that are in the arsenal.  But instead, we give the murderer legal chances to obscure the circumstances surrounding the murder.  Most appeals aren’t based on innocence or guilt, that ship sailed long ago.  Instead, the appeals are based on court procedures or legal interpretations.  Most aren’t even claiming innocence.  Some have admitted guilt long ago.

Yet I still pay taxes to incarcerate these people.  Why?  If I choose not to keep them alive, why not just tax the liberals who insist on letting them live?

Simple solution #1 – Offer $250K to each Death Row inmate to renounce his appeals and step into the gas chamber (or electric chair or lethal injection) voluntarily.  Some are probably sick of the prison life anyway.  In exchange, we will give $250K to whomever they choose.  Some of these people have family that they would want to have the money, some might want to pay off some debt.  Even if only a few dozen take the offer, taxpayers are saving money AND we’re giving the inmates a way out.

Simple solution #2 – Two prisoners per cell.  One meal.  The problem will work itself out.

Simple solution #3 – Arena.  I’ve talked about his earlier.

Simple solution #4 – During the appeal process, the inmate should be on house arrest…  at his attorney’s house.  We’ll see how many of these camera-hungry ambulance chasers really think their client is rehabilitated…

Simple solution #5 – If a judge issues a stay, the inmate should be on house arrest…  at the judge’s house.  We’ll see how many of these bleeding heart, politically motivated judges really think the inmate was mistreated.

Simple solution #6 – Did you ever see the Dirty Dozen?  Surely there are some missions in the Middle East that could be well handled by a few select murderers….

Simple solution #7 – Organlegging.  If you don’t know what that is, you need to read more.