flashback 2004

Here's what I wrote this week back in 2004, one indication that the WOT
is going ok is I don't feel this negative anymore:

Kerry and the Dems will have to put up or shut up. They'll have to deal with reality in the present tense instead of using that weird verb tense that begins with "if bush hadn't stolen the election"... . Since Spanish has so many more verb tenses than english, we'll try it in spanish, "el indicativo anteganancia del ladron Bush".

Changing events from the past isn't possible in reality. We can look at the past to see what happened and what that might teach us about the future, but the past is past and is unchangeable. Any possible action starts at where we are now, like joining a game of Risk in the middle of an ongoing game. You don't get to reshuffle the cards and move the little plastic armies to where you wish them to be. Our armies are where they are, and the enemy is where he is. In Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, North Korea...some safe house in New York, wherever.

The newly elected democrats won't be able to say: "Bushstoletheelectionpipelineafganistan bloodforoilhaliburtonbushliedpeoplediedairnationalguarddaddysaudiinfluencecarlylegroup
bushisanidiotsuperevilgeniuscontrolledbycheneycontrolledbybigoil blaaaaaaaaaaaarghhh"
(I've never actually heard anyone say blaaaaaaaaarghhh, so maybe that should be outside the quotes) Maybe when they actually have to do something instead of just name-calling and criticizing there will actually be some cold assesment of reality and what needs to be done. Maybe they'll do everything right, and then we'll sing we are the world with the French and Germans in a perfectly democratic Irag. I can hope anyway, even though I think they'll pull out of Iraq and create a malaise in the United States that makes Jimmy Carter's presidency look like the happy happy fun times of yesteryear. Who knows though.

I would like to be a fly on the wall at the transition briefing where the Bush people have to explain reality to the Kerry people. Kerry guy: "So you're saying there's a group of people out there that don't care about discussion of gay marriage, in fact their first action after the establishment of the caliphate will be to cut the heads off of every gay person. Why that's appalling."

So I think a Kerry victory might provide me with some sweet sweet moments of I told you so. Few things better than that. Too bad about New York and Washington though, I really liked those places.

Both literally and figuratively

Political Spam

One of my sister's sent me a bunch of links showing why veterans should
support obama and not mccain. One of them is the IAVA congressional report
card that give's McCain a D and Obama a B+. The mudville gazette helpfully
edit's the list to include the candidate's party. To me the correlation is perfect,
demo's get b or a, republicans get c or below.




Here's the Ranking from the IAVA with the senator's Party included:

http://www.mudvillegazette.com/milblogs/archives/2008/10/09/#030938

The same group attacks McCain voting against the gi bill.
here's what McCain said about the gi bill:

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/06/mccain-now-supp.html

"When the Senate had considered its version of the war supplemental, McCain had argued, along with the White House and the Pentagon, that the new GI Bill, which got support from a veto-proof majority of Senators, would encourage service members to leave the military. He had offered a less generous counterproposal that would have given service members a much smaller credit for college and given better benefits to people who served longer. "
.......
"With the addition of the transferability provisions sought by Senators Graham, Burr, myself and others to give service members the right to transfer earned G.I. Bill benefits to spouses and children, we will have achieved in offering vastly improved educational benefit while also offering incentives for continued service by the most capable, experienced NCO

Disenfranchised

The deadline to send in my absentee ballot was last week and I
missed it. That was really stupid because I was thinking since
February that i need to get it done so I can vote against Hillary. It
turns out though that I would prefer Hillary to Obama, at least
I think I understand her blackened cruel soulthat would beam
down from washington with an unblinking red eye. But I could live
with that.










I can accept voting for Sauron if all she wants is some power so that
she can demonstrate that she was the smarter member of the clinton
royal family. Voting for Obama would be like voting for Gollum before
we get that brief glimpse at Smeagel's life at the beginning of the 3rd movie.
He's just some guy that will say or do anything to get the ring of power, and
we don't even know what kind of animal he is.

As much more clearly said by Mark Steyn:

But Obama is defined by his indefinability. When I pointed out to my Vermont gals that he lives in a swank pad that was part of some shady real estate deal with a convicted fraudster (Tony Rezko), that he entrusted his daughters' entire religious education to a neo-segregationist anti-American nut who preaches that the government created the AIDS virus to kill black people (Jeremiah Wright), that he attended fundraisers with a political patron who's an unrepentant terrorist proud of plotting to blow up young ladies just like them at a dance at the Fort Dix military base (William Ayers), when I pointed all this out, they looked at me as if I'd brought a baseball bat to a croquet match. Mere earthbound politicians are defined by their real estate deals and sleazy buddies, but Obama is defined only by his vibe. As his many admirers in France would say, he has a certain je ne sais quoi. And, if you try to pin down quo precisely, then they don't want to sais.

By disenfranchising myself I might be helping to elect Obama, which might have
some disastrous consequences down the road. Help me out please. Go cast a vote
for McCain next month, or if you are going to vote for Obama stay home and watch
the lord of the rings dvd's all in a row until the polls close. I think we'll be glad you
did.

Where's David Palmer when we need him.

Here in italy it apparently takes a note from the pope to get telephone
and cable tv setup. We've been trying for a month, but we're mostly just
going around in a circle, first we need a codice fiscale, then a copy of
the apartment contract that we can't seem to get from the owner, then the world's
slowest electrician has to come and hook everything up. I thought south america
was bad, but this place gives new meaning to 'manana'.

Luckily one of our dvd players has a dual power supply so that it works with
120 or 240 v, surprisingly it was the $40 dvd player from walmart that is very
flexible, my $500 sony dream machine system will need a transformer to work.
I do have some dvd's to watch now, I fired up the walmart player and I'm watching
"24" season 1 that I never saw on fox. The first one I saw was the 3rd season
and that was pretty good. I've been saving the first season for a rainy day.
It's raining.

On the show David Palmer was just told by his chief of staff that he's the most important
presidential candidate in generations. I wish someone like David Palmer was really
running for president, I'd vote for him. I really don't want Obama to win, and any
time I have expressed that at work the clear assumption is that I'm a racist hick.

It's not the color of Obama's skin that bothers me, it's that I don't agree with
anything he says or anything that he plans to do. I also tend to think that he
was sent by someone in the chicago machine, or sent by a diabolical marxist organization
that is bent on undermining a free and capitalist america or sent as a product of
an extremely liberal education that was then baked in an oven of an anti-american
preacher. All those ideas might be believable or laudable in some situations, but
I don't want them as part of the makeup of the president of the united states.

I'll try and stay hopeful even though I think Obama will win. Maybe it'll be
like 1992 when Clinton won even after I spent a good bit of time trying to convince
my coworkers to vote for Ross Perot, but in the end Clinton turned out to be not
as bad as expected. Except for the long term economy and the war against terror.
Oh well. I'll stay hopeful, and hope that David Palmer runs for election next time.

Future company mergers

From Atlas Shrugs, a list of future company mergers:

Watch for these consolidations later this year:

1. Hale Business Systems, Mary Kay Cosmetics, Fuller Brush, and W. R. Grace Co. will merge and become: Hale, Mary, Fuller, Grace.

2. Polygram Records, Warner Bros., and Zesta Crackers join forces and become: Poly, Warner Cracker.

3. 3M will merge with Goodyear and become: MMMGood.

4. Zippo Manufacturing, Audi Motors, Dofasco, and Dakota Mining will merge and become: ZipAudiDoDa.

5. FedEx is expected to join its competitor, UPS, and become: FedUP.

6. Fairchild Electronics and Honeywell Computers will become: Fairwell Honeychild.

7. Grey Poupon and Docker Pants are expected to become: PouponPants.

8. Knotts Berry Farm and the National Organization of Women will become: Knott NOW!

And finally, ...

9. Victoria's Secret and Smith & Wesson will merge under the new name: TittyTittyBangBang.