President Obama, bestest writer ever

A good article at American Thinker showing that
the President's earlier writing at the law review
that is as grammatically impaired as mine, miraculously
changes to become the best memoir eva'.

The comments are even funnier, one comment suggesting
that the grammatically impaired are an oppressed minority.
(Sing it brother)

I don't think it's so terrible to be a writer of turgid
prose, my writing varies from turgid to incomprehensible if
I stray off the technical writing dry bones footpath.
I do think the press should have done it's job a couple
of years ago, and written articles like this before the election.

The election is coming up, the mainstream press is already in
full attack mode on the rethuglicans (I've been called worse, I'd
wear tea-bagger as a badge of honor if I ever get the chance).
It would be interesting to see some unbiased strait reporting
of the realities of the presidential candidates. I like Rick Perry
because when I lived in Texas I never heard his name, which is exactly
what I want from the government But maybe he was just playing possum.
Who is he really? Is the only way to find out who a politician is to
elect them to a higher office? To find out what's in a bill, pass it?
Is this a christmas present or a bomb? I don't know, let's crowd in
close and open it. Not the best technique.

President Carter redux

I'm watching CNN as the worst case scenario seems to be
unfolding in Japan. Once again the question is edging towards
"why isn't the US Navy there yet?", and the CNN announcer doesn't
seem to understand that the Pacific is freaking big, anything not
there in Japan won't be there for a few days.

The next story blinks up; Qkadafy is taking the city of Ras Lanuf,
and I really don't see how the rebels can win without outside help.
One side has more modern weapons and air support, the other side has
15 year old boys and 30 year old weapons. I'd ask again, where is the
US Navy?

Two big problems doom the rebellion in Libya by preventing outside
assistance (meaning help from the USA). The intervention clock has
been reset to 1990, it's a bipolar or tripolar world again and we need
the consent of Russia and China to work through the UN. (not happening)
We also have the 1990 post-vietnam(Iraq) perspective of we don't want
to get involved in something that probably would become a quagmire.

The other problem is Arab fatigue. We really don't know the language,
culture or beliefs of anyone there, and my give a fuck level is very
low with anything that happens south or east of Italy. Neptunus Lex
says it better:

It would be the profoundest irony if, after having broken our hearts and the bodies of our youth for nearly 10 years now in the Middle East we have come to the conclusion that “these people” cannot be saved at precisely the same moment when they finally became ready for salvation.

Because that’s what just happened, if you weren’t paying attention: We’ve gotten tired of them. We’re tired of their ululations, their savagery and their conspiracy theories. We’re tired of their backwardness, sloth, dependency and fatalism. We’ve gotten tired of trying to accommodate a modern day, pluralistic and tolerant society to the religious dictates of a military adventurer dead some 1400 years.

The same people that called me a facist motherfucker in 2003 are the same
dickheads saying we should intervene in Libya. My GAF level is low enough that President Carter's dithering over the problem doesn't send me writing emails
hither and yon to various congressmen that could be representing me. More of
a sense of a missed opportunity, we've recreated an enemy in Libya by Carter's calling for him to go, but didn't do anything to make him go. I don't think the current President Carter included "The Prince" in his extensive, elite education.

[just to translate from Joe to english: I'd support support the current
President Carter if he'd do his job and swat khadafy duck, and I think that
is a consistent position. Hussein was a dick and he made war on us, we made
war on him and now he's gone. Khadafy is a dick, and has made war on us off
and on for 30 years, he should be made to go, not told to go. Don't do a
powerful enemy a small hurt]

All your factories are belong to us

Over at the Belmont Club, wretchard points out the chinese
professor ad.
It's a pretty effective ad for me, it brings to mind the book "The Good Earth",
one generation builds, the next generation squanders.

This was all predicted before. The politician I most agreed with
was Ross Perot. He often sounded crazy to average people because
he presented things in a way that required a knowledge about how business,
systems and history work. His craziness has proved prescient. That
great sucking sound of jobs leaving happened, the jobs first went to
Mexico, then to China.

Other countries are playing mercantilism chess
while the USA is playing hope and change checkers, and we're
most likely fucked. I doubt the outcome will be like the chinese ad because
even though we owe more than we can ever repay the idea of
strategic default is slowly percolating up from the worst deadbeats,
to not so deadbeats, to middle class people caught in the housing
bubble and in 5 years it will be national policy.

If we default against a weaker rival that is powerless it won't be
a big deal. If we default against the most populous and powerful country
in the world it will be more a pimp/ho situation of "where's my money
bitch?" Probably better to strategically default now and start over
while we've got the military strength to stop angry collection agents.
Sort of a My Bodyguard technique. I don't have your money now, but if you'd like to complain please
speak to my friend the US Navy.

Thankfully here in Mexico we're able to watch some usa channels,
but we don't have to watch any political adds. it's all too depressing
for me.

I told you so too.

Mike at Cold Fury links to an article from IBD:

Before the election of 2008, few Americans described Obama as liberal, let alone socialist. Polls typically reflect media opinion, and the media by and large portrayed Obama as a moderate. Now his far-left views are obvious, and for the first time most Americans see Obama as governing from the left.

What we warned of then is now governance, though we take no pleasure in the validation. The pending government takeover of the medical system (one-sixth of the economy), as well as the ownership stakes taken in autos and banking, not to mention the demonization and planned destruction of the private insurance industry, were foretold by us, along with the accumulation of power to the federal government in the name of “crisis” upon “crisis.”

I share some of the blame for this too, I didn't vote, I didn't get my ballot and mail it in, figuring

that my ballot would go to Texasn anyway, a sure win for Mcain.

Here's what I wrote before the election:

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.

sorry America.

Palin goin' rogue

On Sarah Palin's facebook page she's supporting the conservative
candidate in a new york congressional election over the RINO
republican:

Doug Hoffman stands for the principles that all Republicans should share: smaller government, lower taxes, strong national defense, and a commitment to individual liberty.

Political parties must stand for something. When Republicans were in the wilderness in the late 1970s, Ronald Reagan knew that the doctrine of "blurring the lines" between parties was not an appropriate way to win elections. Unfortunately, the Republican Party today has decided to choose a candidate who more than blurs the lines, and there is no real difference between the Democrat and the Republican in this race. This is why Doug Hoffman is running on the Conservative Party's ticket.

If she'll lead I'll follow. Here in Europe she's been painted as an idiot by only showing
the heavily edited interviews she did in the campaign last year. I've seen enough speeches
she's given to prove otherwise, and she gives a quick summary of my main political beliefs:

smaller government, lower taxes, strong national defense, and a commitment to individual liberty

This should be the republican political platform, but most republicans can't lift their snout
out of the trough long enough to stand for anything. That is similar to the libertarian platform,
but the libertarian party seems to be more against strong national defense. I guess I'm a libertarian-conservative, and the candidates I want to support would wantt:

smaller government - all government is bad, some is necessary
lower taxes - taxes should be lower, simpler and more transparent
strong national defense - best navy, air force and space force in the world, beware of
entangling alliances
commitment to individual liberty - I don't care what any adult smokes, drinks etc or does
in the privacy of their homes.

and remember

Change in strategy

Neptunus Lex links to an article about a briefing where our old
"two war strategy" becomes a "one war strategy".

Chambliss asked Cartwright "what is the military requirement for the number of F–22s?" The senator got much more than he may have bargained for in the general's reply.

"The military requirement right now is associated with the strategy that we are laying out in the QDR," Cartwright said. "And it is a departure from the two major theater war construct that we have adhered to in the past and in which this aircraft grew up. I mean, it grew up in that construct of two major theater wars, and both of them being of a peer competitor quality..

Gee, I hope no evildoers around the world read tom clancy novels. If two countries
that want to do the USA harm own something as complex as a telephone, they could
coordinate their ne'er do well activities and the outcome won't be as pretty as it normally
is in Clancy's novels if we don't have enough planes to get the job done.

I'm just a student of history and a tom clancy fan. If there is some 3 star general that
disagrees with this plan, now is the time to speak up publicly. Don't wait until you're a
cnn commentator in 10 years and say "I was against that policy". For me, if we're going
to waste stimulus money borrowed from the chinese, at least spend that money on something
useful like a bright shiney new F-22 Wing or 2.

In Brackets

{One thing that bothers me about this multi-culti world is when people say things that
make my blood boil like "jews are in control of the united states" usually uttered by someone
that lives either in in arabia, iran or north africa. How do you contest such a statement?

Then the next statement is that Iraq was invaded so the USA could have oil. Uttered by someone in the oil industry that should know that oil is sold on the spot market in an auction that gives the highest price that day. Assuming the money from the iraqi oil is going to the iraqi government...what was the big benefit of invading iraq for oil, when we could have just taken the several hundred billion dollars spent there and buy oil? ...but then the answer is that of course
the iraqi oil money is going to the usa. The number that I was too drunk to grope for was that
the iraqi oil production is only 2 or 3 million barrels per day. Even if the USA stole all of that it would only be 3000000*60*365= 60 billion per year. (sounds right but i'm too drunk to tell).
Versus the Trillion or so we've spent taking Iraq.

Note to overlords, next time steal a country with more production. Please.

close brackets]

Dick Cheney is Carrie Prejean

So much of what is said by people on the left is pure B.S. to get elected,
to get power over someone else, and they never get called on it. Mark
Steyn expresses it like this:

MS: Well, I would say that they would look on it this way, that if you were to make the comparison with the Miss USA gay marriage flap, that in this instance, not to get too lurid, Dick Cheney is Carrie Prejean, and Nancy Pelosi is Barack Obama. In other words, Carrie Prejean and Barack Obama both have exactly the same position on gay marriage, but the left knows that Barack Obama doesn’t mean it, so they don’t mind. He’s just doing what was politically necessary, politically expedient.

That explains so much of what the people on the left say and do. There is just a thin
film of true nutjobs that really believe all the leftist positions (AGW, political correctness,
feminism, socialism/communism, etc), then there are those people that just pick and choose
those positions to be used as clubs to beat up opponents. So you have someone like
Andrew Sullivan who is all about gay rights and feminism, yet is relentless in his attacks
on governor Palin

Or here he is trying to rationalize Obama's positions over the past month:

With Gates and Huntsman and Petraeus and McChrystal, Obama is coopting the best of the Bush legacy, while separating it from the callow cynicism of the Cheney-Rove-Kristol axis.

One thing I like about Dick Cheney is that if he is a dark sith lord of evil, he is
a very consistent sith lord of evil. He may be right or wrong, but his actions and words
agree with his beliefs and he's always acted for the best interest of the US. Whether those
actions resulted in the best outcome we'll never know without sending Obama back in time
like the terminator movies ("I'm Barry Obama, and I've been sent from the future to
stop the evil bush-cheney from being elected, come with me if you want to win the election"
and "yes we can stop the evil robot monster")

Several times in the past I've tried to explain how the leftosphere looks to me, and I'm
never very good at it because I don't have the time or the writing ability I had when I
was younger, but here goes one more time:

Most people on the left can be sorted into serious and non-serious people and true believers
and non true believers. (a 2x2 matrix) Non-serious true believers are easily picked out by wanting to nullify events that happened in the past, so that they demonstrated trying to get bush out of office because they said he didn't legally win the election.

Thankfully, we didn't see many serious true believers, because there was no armed revolt during the bush years, if they really believed bush-cheney were evil mass murderers, the only moral option would have been clear, and it wouldn't have been writing plays fantasizing about murdering the president or moving to Canada.

Non-serious non true-believers are exemplified by filmmakers such as Micheal Moore,
who will say and do anything to make money. If you are an anti-capitalist then you should
make a movie and give it away for free, not try and make millions.

The last square on the grid is filled by most politicians, and if Obama continues on his current
path he'll be a serious, non-true believer that will let him continue policies that will keep
the USA safe. If he flops to a serious true believer then we're truly screwed (think Jimmy
Carter)

Back to bucharest

I'm on my way to romania this week and I'm on wifi in prague
waiting patiently for my czech airlines flight. It's a pretty nice airport here, with
wifi for 12 euros for 3 hours and most importantly abundant power points, nearly
one on every column. I'm busily catching up on all the news I missed last week
when we went to morocco for several days in rabat and a day in marrakech.
[some girls on roller blades just passed down the concorse, the only way to get
around in this massive airport]

The news is the same, obama is a twit, swine flu is everywhere but nowhere
(they are still counting cases in 10s and 20s and deaths in ones or twos
thank goodness) if it was going to get really bad I'd expect cases to be nearly
uncountable by this point, maybe we dodged a bullet. The press is still crowing
what a fantastic job obama is doing, one idiot in the times herald is saying that
obama's mellow foreign policy is working. I guess someone never paid attention
to the way the islamofacists think; strong horse or weak horse. there is no mellow
horse option.

I was reading the voice in my head (very circular blog name, tvimh says
"weatherstripping!") and one jerkwad commenter complained about insults
to the one's basketball skillz and presidential skillz by commenter chicago:

you do the fucking job then chicago. how about everyone who didn't run for president and get elected shut the fuck up. if you can do it better or have any tips that won't make you look like a sore asshole, please feel free to run for government office or at least post your ideas - america is waiting.

here are my ideas:
- lower taxes especially on businesses that hire people in the usa
- make it easier to start businesses, less regulation
- fasttrack the construction of100 nuclear power plants
- import tax on oil to keep the price above $50/bbl
- import tax on natural gas to keep the price above $3/MM ft3


back to travel blogging...
It's kind of sucky that I'll probably have to go to the rig for a few days. I've gained
enough weight this year eating pizza, gnocchi and piadina that the one pair of coveralls
i could find barely fit, they fit more like a 5 pounds of shit in a 3 pound bag kind of fit

Another historic day, like 43 other times

I made it home from the office in time to watch obama take the
oath and make his speech. I thought it was a good speech, I could support
every thing he says up to a point.

He did say we're a young country and I take issue with that. The USA has
the oldest continuous government in the world. [You might say, but what about
England? England's government in 1787 looked more like ours does now,
with a king and a bicameral congress. No king now.] The really amazing
thing is how the USA has passed power from president to president without
violence for 220 years.

An even more amazing thing is even with idiots squaking to arrest george
bush, he gave up power. That says a lot to me about the kind of person GWB
is, he's taken the insults and problems, and even with threats to his person
he became a private citizen again. When Julius Ceaser faced the same problem,
he marched on Rome.

Good Job Mr. Bush. Good luck Mr. President.

TANSTAFL

Obama's Plumbing problem:

(linked from mostly cajun)

Barack Obama discovers a leak under his sink, so he calls Joe the Plumber to come and fix it. Joe drives to Obama’s house, which is located in a very nice neighborhood where it’s obvious that all the residents make well over $250,000 per year. Joe arrives and takes his tools into the house. Joe is led to the room that contains the leaky pipe under a sink. Joe assesses the problem and tells Obama, who is standing near the door, that it’s an easy repair that will take less than 10 minutes.

Obama asks Joe how much it will cost. Joe immediately says, “$9,500.”

“$9,500?” Obama asks, stunned. “But you said it’s an easy repair!”

“Yes, but what I do is charge a lot more to my clients who make more than $250,000 per year so I can fix the plumbing of everybody who makes less than that for free,” explains Joe. “It’s always been my philosophy. As a matter of fact, I lobbied government to pass this philosophy as law, and it did pass earlier this year, so now all plumbers have to do business this way. It’s known as ‘Joe’s Fair Plumbing Act of 2008.’ Surprised you haven’t heard of it, senator.”

In spite of that, Obama tells Joe there’s no way he’s paying that much for a small plumbing repair, so Joe leaves. Obama spends the next hour flipping through the phone book looking for another plumber, but he finds that all other plumbing businesses listed have gone out of business. Not wanting to pay Joe’s price, Obama does nothing. The
leak under Obama’s sink goes without repair for the next several days. A week later the leak is so bad that Obama has had to put a bucket under the sink. The bucket fills up quickly and has to be emptied every hour, and there’s a risk that the room will flood, so Obama calls Joe and pleads with him to return. Joe goes back to Obama’s house, looks at the leaky pipe, and says “Let’s see – this will cost you about $21,000.”

“A few days ago you told me it would cost $9,500!” Obama quickly fires back.

Joe explains the reason for the dramatic increase. “Well, because of the ‘Joe’s Fair Plumbing Act,’ a lot of rich people are learning how to fix their own plumbing, so there are fewer of you paying for all the free plumbing I’m doing for the people who make less than $250,000. As a result, the rate I have to charge my wealthy paying customers rises every day. “Not only that, but for some reason the demand for plumbing work from the group of people who get it for free has skyrocketed, and there’s a long waiting list of those who need repairs. This has put a lot of my fellow plumbers out of business, and they’re not being replaced – nobody is going into the plumbing business because they know they won’t make any money. I’m hurting now too – all thanks to greedy rich people like you who won’t pay their fair share.”

Obama tries to straighten out the plumber: “Of course you’re hurting, Joe! Don’t you get it? If all the rich people learn how to fix their own plumbing and you refuse to charge the poorer people for your services, you’ll be broke, and then what will you do?”

Joe immediately replies, “Run for president, I guess.”

From Robert Heinlein:

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded -- here and there, now and then -- are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

This is known as "bad luck."

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.

I tried to be a community organizer

Back in 1992 during the time I was laid off from the oilfield I reached a point
where I couldn't find an engineering job, and I had to go out and seek as Simon
and Garfunkel said "only workman's wages". One of the few jobs I applied for that
I actually got was working for ACORN. I responded to a classified ad and went
down to a storefront office off of tulane avenue (not a great part of the city). Since
I was the only white face in the place the lady interviewing me gave me the "he's
a crazy white boy" look, but offered me a job and told me to come back for a day's
training. Then I'd be going door to door registering voters.

My father heard what I had done and insisted I call them back and not take the
job. He was probably correct in assuming that the life expectancy of a white guy
going door to door in New Orleans' projects would be pretty low. Luckily the next
week after that my Air Nat'l Guard unit hired me as a temporary worker, and I
turned wrenches instead of trying to organize the community.

Kind of worried

If I put the candidates in terms of who they look like from the entertainment
industry, I'm kind of worried. We've got an old guy with a younger hottie.
They've got will smith and an old guy, but with laser guns. It might be kind of
hard to win this battle, because tj hooker doesn't have laser guns. Maybe Mccain
does though. hmmm.

Swiftboating for windpower

T. Bones Pickens has an interview in the Ny times about his plan
to secure energy independance for the country using windpower. I don't
know if his plan could work or not, but it's good to start heading in a direction
instead of just arm flailing towards increasing imported oil and peak oil.

The best passage of the interview comes during a political question, Pickens
helped finance the Swiftboat Veterans, and the reporter doesn't even know what
the swiftboat veterans said, and that they just said the truth!
[times questions in bold]

You helped re-elect Bush in ’04 when you gave $3 million to the Swift Boat campaign to discredit John Kerry’s Vietnam service. Do you regret your involvement? Why would I?

Because it’s such an ugly chapter in American political history. Oh, I see. Well, it was true. Everything that went into those ads was the truth.

Really? I thought it was all invented. I never did anything dishonest.

A good contrast on leadership is to compare John McCain versus John Kerry.
Kerry got 3 purple heats for Frank Burns type wounds, then left his men that he
was leading and went home to stab those men in the back. John McCain stayed in
hell for more torture even though the North Vietnamese would have released him for
the propaganda benefit. Lucky for Obama he hasn't faced any decisions like those, but
judging by how quickly he throws people under the bus that make him look bad I can't
image the Hanoi Hilton's door would have hit him on the ass on his way out.

[of course if I had been in Vietnam, I'd probably have used whatever rules possible to get
out, but then I'd never run for president either]