Hypocrites

We all hate 'em, they preach about sins before they commit them, they tell you the company is in great shape while selling off their own stocks, but how about abortion clinic protesters? Yup, it happens.

I had to go up and ask her if her daughter’s situation had caused her to change her mind. ‘I don’t expect you to understand my daughter’s situation!’ she angrily replied. The following Saturday, she was back, pleading with women entering the clinic not to ‘murder their babies.’”

The thoughts in my head are probably already raging around in yours so I won't even state the obvious, so it goes.

The Good, The Bad, and The Stupid

So as you probably know theres about a 50/50 chance that for the first time in recorded history the arctic may be without ice this summer. Alarm bells should be going off. The biggest concern is the fact that this is happening far faster than predicted. Scientists are fairly conservative when they make announcements to the public, they don't want to seem like fools if they give dire warnings only to have them be wrong. So this give conservative estimates, and throw in that it might be worse. If I remember right they predicted this could happen by 2050 in Al's movie, and here it is two years latter happening. What scares me the most is the comments afterwards, those who say that this is just a normal part of the cycle and that nothing we do has any affect on it, and hey there might be oil under that ice! The stupid refers to those who get confused when their drink doesn't over flow when the ice melts. If the ice melts then all the coastal cities should be underwater, and they are so this is a lie.... No offense to anyone with legitimate mental handicaps but are these folks retarded? Listen up, its pretty simple, ice floating on water doesn't affect the sea level when it melts. The Arctic OCEAN is water so when that ice melts the sea level stays the same. Ice on land that melts obviously affects the sea level. Places like Antarctica and Greenland are the most critical land based ice. So no one who pays attention should have any confusion about how the ice can melt and the cities don't drown. Ok I'm outta time, I'll talk more shit later.

Books and Bad Astronomers

I opened the flood gates on this one. I guess thats what I get for asking a group of friendly scientists (and other science enthusiasts) to recommend a good book. I'm rereading The Daemon Haunted World by Carl Sagan. Sagan talks about the joy it brings to a person to suddenly understand what had always been a mystery, once meaningless terms taking grasp. It is a profound feeling. I can't say I felt that way reading the last book, more "ok... I think I got it... maybe sorta." But I recall it distinctly when I first read about self replicators in the primordial ooze, those that replicated the best won the day due to simple numerical advantage because they replicated the best. Suddenly it clicked, the rest fell into place instantly in my mind, it was always the one thing I didn't understand about evolution. I know there are various theories on abiogenesis and this might not be right, but it at least gave me an option of how it could have happened, at that was profound.

The flip side of this is the joy many scientists feel when they get to share their knowledge with others. Sagan called his life a love affair with science, and who doesn't want to shout it from the hills when they are madly in love? When a person says they don't get why something is the way it is, they're standing in the dark not even sure which direction to turn, you can toss them a flashlight and point them in the right direction. Their eyes light up and say "Wow, I've wondered about that for years and now it seems so simply, why couldn't anyone explain it like that before?" Admittedly we were talking about easier subject matter like what causes terrorism.

Also answers like this impress me, I don't know if the math is right but someone put some thought into this reply (not that they were replying to me...)

So here is the list I've been told to check out.

Non Fiction:
Fear of Physics
Stardust by Neil Gaiman
Quantum Computer Science by David Mermin
Schrödinger's Kittens
The Code Book by Simon Singh

Fiction:
Odyssey by Jack McDevitt
Einstein’s Bridge, by John Cramer

I'm not sure I need to say it but thanks again to everybody over at Bad Astronomy, especially The Chemist, Humanist Dad, and Jake Doyle for stopping by, and for Phil.

Water Powered Car

Ok I've seen spam e-mails about this and they're easy enough to delete but when Reuters does a piece about a Japanese company claiming they can drive a car for an hour at 50mph on a liter of WATER it makes me confused. Yeah my first reaction isn't OMG! all our problems are solved! It's much more WTF than OMG. All it says is that,

"Once the water is poured into the tank at the back of the car, the a generator breaks it down and uses it to create electrical power, TV Tokyo said."

You can break water down into Hydrogen and Oxygen and make power from those, unfortunately I recall quite vividly from my chemistry classes in high school that it takes considerably more energy to break the water down than you can get from the separated elements. Did they invent a catalyst that breaks down water? is it a total sham? I really don't know, but I won't say I'm not curious.

People I'm in Awe of

Anyone who can talk about, "pretty basic quantum mechanics." Damn you Phil, er actually guy who wrote to Phil.

Actually I shouldn't insult myself that much, there is a fair amount of the basics of Quantum Mechanics that I understood just fine. I just don't have even close to enough skill in math to be able to fuck with the numbers they're talking about.

C&H

I need to send this a my psych friend...


Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

UPDATE: Ok that one didn't fit on my screen but I think you can just click on it. Anyway heres some more that I'll just leave a links to.
Osama
Cops
Genie
Insurance
It's Ok

Changed my views on God

Yeah I said it. I just finished "In Search of Schrödinger's Cat" and it has completely transformed my views on god.

Sorta.

I still don't think he exists, I need some evidence of the guy for that. But my opinion of the guy has changed if he/she/it does turn out to exist. I grew up christian so that has fundamentally tainted my views on a higher power, I went to a pretty damn liberal church but I still came to the conclusion that god is a prick. He's made up by people but they made him in the image of a brutal dictator. Just like Saddam Hussein he starts off a real ass hole but by the second half of the book he softens up a bit, still willing to send you to be tortured for eternity but at least he stopped with the earthly genocides.

But now that I have a very vague understanding of quantum mechanics I am fully convinced that if there is a god, he is fucking hilarious. God is of course not really a testable hypothesis, I guess we just have to wait till we die to find out and I'm not in any rush for that. But if he is real then I think I fully understand quantum physics - god is fucking with us. He's gotten bored messing with his followers, theres no challenge, no fun at all. So he found himself a new plaything, physicists. I'm not saying that he sits around messing with the spin of every electron and photon in the universe that would be immensely dull even for an omnipotent critter. No I'm saying that he just messes with the science experiments. He's chilling with Gabrielle (he was an angel right?) Mark Twain, Albert Einstein and a few other layabouts, saying, "Yo check this out, now ya see a wave function, now ya don't! Bwahaha!!!.... oh oh that shit gets me every time."
"Twain, I gotta thank you for this one, I haven't had this much fun since the flood"
"No prob god. Hey, does this make us even for the shit I talked about you? To be fair I really only talked shit about your followers."
"Umm.... sure"
"Wanna mess with a Bell test?"
"Nah, today were going after those french know-it-alls over at CERN, I got your Higgs Boson right here!"
"You guys are jerks"
"Still haven't learned how to have fun Al?"
"Arschgesicht"

Yup, so now when I die, if I see I light before me I'm running up to them gates, "Yo Pete! Let me in, come on... "

Reverend Trout?

Hehe... Yeah I'm going to get ordained. Kilgore Trout isn't my real name but you get the idea.

I'll back up real quick, my friend finally decided to marry his girlfriend of the last 10 years, they have two amazing kids already and I'm really not sure why he didn't do it years ago. He took me and another friend to ask us a question, he asked the other guy if he would be his best man, that was how he told us he's getting married, then he asked if I would be another groomsman or whatever they call the other guys. I said of course, then he said oh and we're thinking about having the bridesmaids wear suits and the guys wear dresses, actually tootoo's (I've never written too-too before, how is it spelled?) at which point I said can I be the priest dude? Oh and fittingly we were a little drunk at this point. So I looked into it and I think I'm going to get legally ordained, yeah I know I'm an atheist but I do love irony. Plus I'm going to get ordained from the Spiritual Humanist's. I'm not spiritual but I'm ok with the Humanist title, speaking of title's if I pay extra I get to pick my own. I kinda like the sounds of The Very Esteemed Kilgore Trout. As much as this is going to be a very laid back wedding, I still want to do a good job and make it nice. Yeah we've talked about calling the groomsmen pall bearers and having them carry the groom in a coffin to the "alter" while a punk band plays the imperial march from star wars but I'd like to do my part seriously. It is a wedding after all and I'm pretty sure that it will be the only wedding either of them will have, unless the renew the vows stuff, but unlike some weddings I've been to I really think this one can last, I mean shit they've survived each other for 10 years already, thats gotta be the toughest part.

Ugh, still means that I gave myself the hardest part of the wedding, they just say I do, some short vows then kiss, they can do that drunk, I've gotta talk for like ten minutes and I probably will be drunk. I know what I need...

"My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met." - Rodney Dangerfield.

Everything is better with a little Dangerfield on top. Oh and I heard that George Carlin died. That sucks, he was good, I'll miss him.

Oh wow, here's an unexpected voice, “The total amount of undesired sex endured by women is probably greater in marriage than in prostitution.” -Bertrand Russell. I wouldn't have expected that outta Bertrand.

“I love being married. It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.” -Rita Rudner
“The secret of a happy marriage remains a secret.” -Henny Youngman
"The man who says his wife can't take a joke, forgets that she took him." -Oscar Wilde
"Some people ask the secret of our long marriage. We take time to go to a restaurant two times a week. A little candlelight, dinner, soft music and dancing. She goes Tuesdays, I go Fridays."
-Henry Youngman

This should be a fun wedding.

FISA

Man I'm outta the loop these days, I didn't even realize this was going on again, I'm slipping in my old age (26). Anyway Bush is happy therefore the standard drill of folks who like freedom and think that lawbreakers should be held accountable are unhappy.

I don't really know much about this but from what I've read from the various sources, and I do like to check several biases, conservative = yippy corporate immunity, liberal = boo no mo liberties and corps get off after breaking the law, and then objective, which just says it happened bush is happy and Pelosi is not, thanks for the insight.

So from the tiny bit I've gathered the spooks can now tap your phones for a week before getting a warrant compared to the 72 hours it used to be, three days isn't enough time to talk to a judge? come on you're the CIA I think you get to budge in line. And the court then has 30 days to decide so they can tap a phone for 5 weeks without a warrant if I'm reading this right. Awesome. It does provide several levels of oversight, all by the executive branch instead of the judicial where it would be considered oversight.

The other huge part of this is the fact that it give immunity to the telecoms that broke the law by listening to bush. I know its an awkward spot for those companies at the time, do you listen to the president or the law? Seriously back in 2002 I wouldn't have wanted to be the one to tell bush to go fuck himself. Er wait, yes I would, but thats why I'm not a corporate exec. If I was I would have had a tough time telling bush to go fuck himself because I know that if I do I'll be called un-american because I refuse to break the law to sorta kinda maybe help stop the terrorists. Seriously I understand why they did it. But it was still illegal and they should still be held accountable.

Oh and of course it lasts until 2012 so that Obama can't fix it, at least not easily.

Plus the house just spent another $160 billion in order to let more of my friends and the Iraqi people suffer.
Thanks assholes.

Damn you Bohr!

Ok his work was actually really important but it still means I have an almost entirely incorrect theory still in my head because thats what they teach children despite the fact that is wrong. Why do we do that? Oh right cause the Bohr model is fairly easy to understand while the truth... no so much.See that picture makes sense, unfortunately it's not what an atom looks like.

So I just started reading the book "The Search for Schrödinger's Cat" and so far its essentially a history lesson, but its building up to how the ideas evolved into the present (ok 1984) theories. I've known a tiny bit about quantum mechanics, just enough to know that I have no idea whats really going on, so when I was walking through the used book store and spotted this I figured it was worth a shot. BTW I've said it before but man I love used book stores, you can't go in saying I want to buy X which is half the fun, you wander until something sounds good and you head home only a few bucks lighter.

So yeah I'm learning a little quantum physics, just for fun, and I know I'm just at the start because so far it still makes sense.

It's Friday I can't be entirely serious

So heres a quick list of the 10 oldest women I'd still bang. Classy. I would disagree with them on Goldie Hawn because she's kinda scary looking these days, except they won me over by saying, "Just, like, pretend its Kate Hudson." Again, classy.

a little confused / got it - GObama

I probably shouldn't write this yet cause I don't fully understand whats going on, which is what I'm writing about. Ok so our next president has decided that he's not going to take public campaign money. I'm actually all for fully public campaign financing to really keep the lobbyists out, but thats a separate matter. I think. So after a little more reading it makes sense, if he took the money (84.1 million dollars of tax payer money - or roughly 6 hours in Iraq) then he would be limited on his spending. He has already raised freaking 272 million dollars and its thought that he still has at least 200 million MORE than McCain. Why would he want to limit himself? If he was then going to turn around and accept 100 million from Exxon then I would be pissed. Assuming he doesn't do that then yes he still went back on his work to negotiate a deal with McCain on public finance. He's still a politician and he's more to the point he's human, when he made that comment it would have made sense to strike a deal, now when he is massively in the lead monetarily it would be silly to take the money and keep himself from having far far more. McCain will try to make a big deal out of it, hopefully when people then point out that his own campaign has had some questionably legal finances they will shut the fuck up. Or better yet Obama will give him enough rope to hang himself (seems odd to use that phrase here given the racial make up of the parties involved but I don't know another one, plus suicide and lynching are pretty different, anyway...) by letting McCain go after Obama's finances, let him bring them up in a debate, stay on the defensive for just a little while as the talking heads go ape-shit, then chop the legs out from their argument by pointing out that at least his finances were legal, and saved the taxpayers money. AKA- go fuck yourself old man.

I'm happy to see that Obama hasn't attacked McCain's age, old people vote too much for that, and it gives him a big ol' arrow to keep in the back of his quiver, a quiver that must be getting pretty heavy these days. Actually these days what most politicians do is let the groups like MoveOn for the Dems or Swiftboat for the Repubs do the dirty nasty stuff. I don't really want to compare MoveOn with swiftboat but you get the idea.

Cults

Ok cults are generally a bad thing, this one takes things to another level. I'm rarely at a loss for words but right now I'm having trouble putting together any sort of cognitive thought. Good luck to the children, I'm not sure you can recover from this, then again some people are pretty damn resilient, I hope this kid is. Read the article, but its not pleasant....

No i'm not going to blame religious indoctrination on this one, this is just some very very fucked up people, no matter what happens with the world there will always be the sick ones, but damn, thats really sick.

....I can't even imagine......

Spent a little time with a vet last night, and I cannot go on without saying something about it. How he goes on with his life is the title of this piece.

He didn't really talk about what he's seen much, he didn't have to. It was written all over his face, in the figurative sense of looking into the eyes of a man who has seen thinks worse than any nightmare. But also in the literal sense as you see the scar above his eye, or the way he can't move his hands as well as he should from nerve damage due to the shrapnel in one hand and the other that was crushed. He's not a close friend of mine, I went to high school with him we may have had a class or two together. He couldn't recall if we had either but he had the excuse of having taken a round to the face and has forgotten half of his childhood as a result. Then theres the PTSD, which must be exasperated not only by the chaos in the streets, but also by the only vaguely organized chaos that is our own military. Plus the fighting within our own soldiers, he says that they don't even have each others backs anymore, then backtracked and said when shit really hits the fan they are there, but thats it. It's amazing how resilient people are, I would expect them to break long before this point. This war cannot continue, it simply cannot. No one should be asked to live like this, no one.

He is a very good friend of a good friend of mine and she filled in some of the things he didn't say to me. He's a good soldier and he keeps going back, hes done 4 or 5 tours, because its his job, but he suffers no delusions that there is anything to accomplish, that might be the only thing left he isn't suffering from. Good luck my friend

(he'll be back in Iraq in a few weeks, if you think thats as fucked up as I do then do something about it, don't pray for him, write to congress, do something, and most of all be there for the troops, just be there for them)

More Angst: SCOTUS edition

I've got another little rant about how fucked up parts of this country are, and the media's culpability in it all. I'd like to start by saying that Stephen Colbert pretty much summed up this whole situation in one line, (roughly) "Where does the Constitution get off thinking it can tell the government what it can do?" Amazing, but I'll be a little more longwinded than that.

Ok so in spite of all that Bush has done to load the court with ideologues, and the fact that the supreme court usually rules with the administration during times of war the Supreme Court has ruled that the Constitution isn't to be used as a coaster. Habeas Corpus is not some crazy rule invented by leftist commies to help spring terrorists from jail as some asshats would like you to think. So first a quick bit of history on what we're talking about here. It was first used in 1305 but was part of the Magna Carta of 1215 and was common law even before that. Here's what the Magna Carta says about it.

Article 39: "No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned or disseised or exiled or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him nor will we send upon him except upon the lawful judgement of his peers or the law of the land."

I can see why people would be scared to have a law like that around. Who would want a law that stops people from being detained without cause?

I also find it interesting that when the UK suspended Habeas Corpus so they could go after the IRA they latter realized that it actually increased the strength of the IRA, but I'm sure that's not the case when the US does it...

Essentially the Supreme Court has said that you cannot simply create a loophole where a person has no standing in any court of law. Conservatives will press that this decision will mean that terrorists will now be tried in civilian court instead of military court where the belong, this is true, what they fail to mention time and time again is that if the administration had allowed these people to be tried by military courts years ago then we wouldn't be in this situation. The Administration said these people can't be tried as enemy soldiers not the court, the court simply said they have the right to a trial and to know what they have been accused of. The most basic of right a prisoner can hope for. There are times when Habeas Corpus can be lifted and those times are outlined in the Constitution.

What concerns me isn't that the administration has held people without trial or even being accused of a crime for 7 years, ok that does concern me but sadly I've essential come to accept that the country I live in is not the country that I was taught about as a child. Our fantastic ideals about how bad countries would torture people and put up walls around their countries while ours was a nation devoted to peace and would never do such things. Those delusions are a part of my history as well as our nations.

No my real concern is that there are people in this country who think this ruling was wrong. The ignorant masses who watch Bill O'Reilly would annoy me but there are some serious players in the US who think this ruling was wrong including 4 supreme court judges, a presidential candidate (guess which) along with a whole shit load of talking heads that think their opinions matter (and sadly they do). I really wanted to get into how fucked up the four supreme court judges are but it's suddenly occured to me the horrible irony of McCain thinking this ruling was wrong. Here we have a man who was once a POW, who now thinks that its ok to capture people and hold them indefinitely without trial. I wonder what 1972 McCain would think of this? 2008 McCain is essentially saying that his captors had the right to hold him for five and a half years, because how can you say its wrong of them if its acceptable for us? But really its worse than that. See McCain was a POW, meaning wither or not the Viet-Cong acknowledged his rights he did have legal rights in the eyes of the world. What this administration has tried to do, and McCain plans to continue, is that somehow the fighters in this war are different and should have no human rights at all. I'm not even going to get into the fact that many of these people were not soldiers and how the vast majority were not fighters, although I wouldn't blame them if they were feeling a little Jihadish these days. I'm very concerned about the morals of this country, there are the "values voters" which is such a stupid term, who votes based on anything but their values? But the ones labels values voters because they think that banning abortion, keeping they guns, and hatin some queers are the only morals a country needs, oh and ya gots ta love some baby jesus too, can't leave that out. What about my morals? Treat people with respect, violence is wrong (exceptions granted on a case by case basis), equality, protecting the innocent, protecting the environment, and generally protecting those who can't defend themselves, avoiding tyranny. Obviously I have no sense of right and wrong. How can indefinite detention of people without a day in court not be considered a moral issue?

Anyway I gotta run, I hope this is ranttastic enough.

Lara Logan

That last post makes for a good lead in to this one. Last night I saw an incredible interview, and it made me incredibly angry. Lara Logan was on The Daily Show, shes a journalist who's been in Iraq since the start, she's also hot. More importantly she says what needs to be said in no uncertain terms. She's been there, shes lived it and she's not going to take any shit from anybody. I think I'm in love.... anyway watch the vid.




Told you didn't I? Now this makes me sad for a number of reasons. First because she is right. We've become bored with the war and we've become numb to the pain and suffering that we've inflicted. That is a horrible situation. Korea has been called the forgotten war, at least that war wasn't forgotten about until after it was over.

The other thing that makes me sad is the fact that this incredible interview had to be on a comedy show. Yes she works for CBS and has been on O'Reilly and other places but this is the kind of candor we need on a regular basis if we want to have any clue whats going on with the wars that we started.

I'm not really sure what else to say....

Where to start.....

I point out that I've been slacking every time I write nowadays, mostly cause it's true. But today I've got some words that need to get out there. Some of this is old news but I want to say it anyway. I'll start with something old and trivial.

I was at the gym where I don't have control of the TV and Pravda... er Fox News was on, it was a few weeks ago and the devastation in China was still being talked about, well sorta. Instead of focusing on this massive catastrophe they focused on a remark by a celebrity , Sharon Stone I think, who said something rude while on the red carpet. She said that maybe the earthquake was Karma for China's treatment of Tibet. Yeah not a comment I would make while they are still sifting through the rubble, but I don't see how they are any different then Falwell and Robertson blaming 9/11 on liberals and gays. One says god punished us for our "immoral" actions, the other said some other god punished other people for legitimately immoral actions. But really none of that matters. The real question is, who gives a shit what Sharon Stone's opinion is of a natural disaster? Sure the Chinese have every right to be pissed but why does this warrant any more than a 15 second blip on a national news program? Were in the middle of two wars, China had just been rocked by the massive earthquake that was the cause of this incident, Burma was and is in a humanitarian crisis following the cyclone, food riots in Mexico and other places, the never ending horrors in Africa, global climate change, AIDS, the looming TB epidemic, Israel-Palestine, tensions with Iran, tension between Afghanistan and Pakistan, theres also a fairly important election coming up, and I could continue with issues more important than the opinions of a has-been hollywood actress but whats the point? The media cares more about entertainment than well than anything else, ratings over content. Of course we the people are to blame for the fact that content doesn't lead to ratings, entertainment does.

Renewable Oil???

This is why science is important.Yeah you can blame science for our current problems with the environment and what not and it's true, technology has created problems and without science you won't have technology. But the only way out is with a change in technology, so that means more science. This time it just might mean biology. We've already figured out that we can create huge amounts of biodiesel by way of algae. Now some clever fellas have figured out how to make another microbe that eats agricultural waste and shits out petroleum. Makes the old phrase "Slick as shit" suddenly make sense.

I don't know if this is a solution or maybe just a really good band aid or maybe it won't be effective on a large scale, but it's promising. Oh and being a bit of an environmentalist its cool that they point out that the microbe is carbon negative, the amount of CO2 used by the microbe to produce the oil is more than the CO2 created by burning the oil. So thats a good thing.

McCain is fucked

Partially because he is running against an amazing candidate who truly wants to make this country and the world a better place, also because McCain is going to bury himself. How about this one for proving he isn't running for bush's third term, would you want Cheney on your cabinet? Hell yeah! Great line in the comments about this one, "Really, if you knew nothing else about John McCain’s judgment but this line, wouldn’t this be enough?" good call Kathy. How about his foreign policy expertise? Such as when he talked about Vladimir Putin a very important world leader who has been talked about quite a bit in the US press, you would think that a presidential candidate would at least know what country Putin is the leader of. BTW it's not Germany. He doesn't have the evangelical vote on lock down like bush did, although this defense by a supporter was amazing, I'm not sure that Obama has 40% of the evangelical vote, McCain is currently polling at 60-65%....
And finally the guy thinks that taxing the rich will ruin the economy. What an ass.

But this shit is just funny. The Fathers Day McCain Golf Special.

A Simple Question for McCain

While sucking up to the religious right Senator McCain made this simple statement. "the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation." My rather simple retort is where? Where exactly in the Constitution of the United States does it claim this nation is a christian one? I know that in Article 6 it says that there can be no religious test to hold office. I also know that the first amendment says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" I also know that if I do a little search with that text the words God, Jesus, even creator come up with nothing, searching for religion will only lead you to find out that it is expressly forbidden from being a part of the government, but it's freedom is guaranteed in your home. So I ask again where exactly in the constitution does it say this country is a christian one, if he does not know then it makes me awfully wary as to if he knows the document, I wonder if he's read it recently? Do we really want a president to swear to uphold a document he doesn't have a grasp on? I don't.

He also said some shit that should piss off every muslim in the country, and there are a few million of them. He said,

"But, no, I just have to say in all candor that since this nation was founded primarily on Christian principles.... personally, I prefer someone who I know who has a solid grounding in my faith. But that doesn't mean that I'm sure that someone who is Muslim would not make a good president. I don't say that we would rule out under any circumstances someone of a different faith. I just would--I just feel that that's an important part of our qualifications to lead.*

Apparently someone on the campaign pointed out that muslims are allowed to vote in this country, and that they will consider that comment highly offensive, so this is at the end.

*McCain contacted Beliefnet after the interview to clarify his remarks: “I would vote for a Muslim if he or she was the candidate best able to lead the country and defend our political values.”

It's gotta be tough to kiss ass to such an egotistical group as the religious right without pissing off a whole lot of other people. Ha, here's another simple question, has religion helped any candidate during this election? Ok yeah the only reason Huckabee made a blip was his godliness, but obviously his god wasn't powerful enough to get him elected. Oh and I heard he did the Heimlich and saved a guy over the weekend, well done huck. Back to my point, it seems like religion has been a bit of a third rail for everyone (of the contenders) this time around. Maybe thats a sign of things to come, maybe politicians will go back to keeping their faith personal and not feel the need to prove how much they love mr. jesus. Maybe its wishful thinking.

Not much to say

I've been slacking. Sorry. I might have found a direction for my life, Policy. I was asked to write up a little policy statement by a campaign, and I really enjoyed doing it. So thats something. I guess getting a job at a think tank or a campaign is where you would do this work. It at least gives me an idea of something I might like to do for an education, because the more I think about it the more I realize I don't want to be a history teacher, not that I had actually gone about doing anything towards that goal either.

Obama finally has the nomination, about time. As I (and many many others) called Clinton held out till the end of the primaries and now that its over she being a team player again. Whats odd to me is the amount of speculation that she might be his VP pick. I said before this will never happen and I still don't think it will happen. I've heard people point out that he should pick a woman as his running mate so the rabid Hillary lovers might fall in line. Not a bad idea but I find it a little sad that democrats who support Hillary can't just support Obama cause he's a great candidate, don't hate just cause he has a cock. Doesn't that go against all the equality sentiments of the feminist movement? I can't wait to see who they are going to choose, and given the likelihood of Obama getting assassinated by some redneck it's a very important decision. And McCain also needs to think about that same issue, actually he's said that he has, not because of a prius drive by shooting but because that old fuck might just keel over at anytime.

I'm probably going to do some amount of work for two local campaigns, the one I mentioned doing the paper for and the Massa campaign again, I might even do a little for Obama, that will probably mean helping out in PA vs NY because NY always votes Dem.

So thats all I got at the moment.

Camping, Ladies and Politics

I've been slacking on the blog lately. My life has been fairly predictable as has the political world, so I haven't had that much to talk about. I did a little project for a political campaign. Wrote up a policy statement, had never done that before but I really enjoyed it. I could see myself doing that.... hmmm......

Met a lady a little bit ago. I'm not really sure whats going on with that. I didn't want to mention it on here because I was introduced to her by her sister who I know reads this occasionally. I gave her a reason to be mad at me, cause I'm an idiot, and now I just don't know where things stand. Too bad, she seemed pretty chill.

Had a pretty good weekend, went camping, kicked a keg, ate way way too much and generally had a good time. We were expecting rain but the Flying Spaghetti Monster showed his noodley goodness and kept us mostly dry.