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None Of The Above

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I have a crazy idea. I know what you’re thinking; Bitchy, most of your ideas are crazy! You would be correct, but at least I’m consistent!

I was listening to last night’s episode of Maddow and she said something that sparked a crazy thought in my mind. She said that in Nevada, voters have the option of voting for “none of the above”. I looked up the statue and it’s real! It’s been in place since 1976. But it has a major flaw. Here’s how it works; Nevada voters can vote for one of the candidates or for “none of the above”. The candidate with the most votes wins. That last part is problematic.

This would be a great (and useful) law with a little tweaking. This law could combat the Citizen’s United ruling by the Supreme Court, which opened the floodgates for unlimited corporate spending on elections.

Here’s what I think should happen. We should collectively get state by state ballot initiatives together to include “none of the above” as an option. But instead of the candidate with the most votes winning, the option with the most votes should win. So if “none of the above” gets the most votes, none of the candidates wins. If it’s a primary, any party that gets a majority of “none of the above” votes, must run a new set of candidates. If it’s a general election, then both parties need to go back and do better. Oh, and a candidate that lost to “none of the above”, couldn’t run for that seat again until the next election cycle.

If you think about it for a minute, you’ll realize that I’m not entirely batshit crazy. My idea solves a myriad of problems.

“None of the above” would spare each of us the pain of having to choose the least shitty candidate ever again! Look, the republican party have nominated the village idiot to be in the white house three times in a row now (Quayle, W, and Palin). I refuse to believe that there weren’t a significant number of republicans that didn’t hold their nose to cast a vote for the idiot, despite knowing they were an idiot. I know that when the presidential election came around in 2004, I held my nose a little. I knew I was voting for the best option, but I wasn’t voting for the best candidate. So this solves the problem of feeling dirty after casting your vote.

I mentioned Citizen’s United. Imagine how much fucking money corporations would flush down the toilet, having to finance campaigns over and over again, for candidates that keep getting shot down by voters. The cost of a winning senate seat used to be (pre-Fiorina) 6.5 million dollars. Citizens United and rich, entitled asshat candidates will bring that number way up fairly soon. Imagine what would happen if we had the power to say, “Not having it. Try again.” Corporations and rich fuckers would have to spend double what they’re spending now, if we forced them to do just one do-over. If corporations are going to buy the elections, we should do what we can to make it as costly for them as possible! If we keep rejecting the bullshit candidates that are obviously in the back pocket  of the corporation that financed the run, maybe corporations will be forced to rethink their strategy. If nothing else, they will have to budget significantly more for the “buying politicians” allocation of their petty cash reserves.

And if we can get congress to pass the bill they’ve been talking about; the one that would force corporations to get shareholder approval for political spending, voila! Problem solved! Or at least mitigated.

As it stands now, both candidates running in any given race is a corporate shill. We should have the option of voting for neither candidate and forcing a more palatable option.

What do you think? Am I coo coo for cocoa puffs?

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Steven Slater

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No, I’m not going all pop culture on you. Don’t worry, Lindsay Lohan posts will not be forthcoming.

I’m fascinated with how quickly Mr. Slater has become a national hero.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, let me give you the background. Mr. Slater was a flight attendant with JetBlue. He snapped a few days ago when a passenger was abusive toward him, after he asked her to follow FAA rules and remain in her seat until the plane stopped moving. The passenger refused to apologize for her rude behavior, so Mr. Slater did what none of us would do – he took to the PA system on the plane to curse her out, bid farewell to a 28 year long career in the airline industry, grabbed a couple of beers from the galley, deployed the emergency exit slide, and slid off the plane.

I say that none of us would do this because it wouldn’t occur to most of us. If it did occur to us, it would probably end at being a lovely, reoccurring revenge fantasy.

But what he did isn’t the interesting part to me. The interesting part is that he’s become a national hero. I’ve seen at least three Facebook groups dedicated to lionizing him. Every news story I’ve seen is full of praise for Mr. Slater. Everyone seems to be on his side. This is particularly interesting to me since, the rude public that he pushed back on is us! Let’s be honest here, we’ve all taken out a little aggression on a flight attendant or TSA officer for making us abide by some stupid arbitrary rule, haven’t we? So why are we all jumping on the “Steve Slater is a hero” bandwagon when we’re essentially the public that put him over the edge?

He’s a hero because he’s one of “us” in the battle of “us versus them”. He’s every working man, standing up against a shitty job that doesn’t pay enough to compensate for the grief that comes with that job. We’re collectively angry at corporate America for the situation that we find ourselves in. We viscerally know that our precarious job security, plummeting home value, and diminishing 401ks lay squarely on the shoulder of big business.

We’re all pro-Steve Slater because we’re as anti-corporate as we’ve ever been.

It’s just interesting to me that when politics is taken out of the equation, Americans generally agree on most issues. To be pro-Steve Slater is to be pro-labor and yet, we’ve been led to believe that Americans aren’t pro-labor because unions are evil.

Let me go off on a union tangent for a moment. 8% of American workers today are union members. Unions get their “strength” from union dues. They’re what fuel union lobbying efforts. Let’s think about this for a minute. 8% of blue collar Americans are union members. So 8% of Americans are paying some percentage of their salaries in union dues which, in turn pay for union activities (of which lobbying is a small part). Are we to believe that unions have more power than corporate interests? Really? HOW? I have yet to hear someone explain how that math creates an equation in which unions are the big, powerful interest group that has ruined everything.

But I digress. Back to Steve. He’s our hero because he stood up to “the man” in a way that most of us want to. And he doesn’t (didn’t) even work for a a company that is generally regarded as evil! He works (worked) for a company that is generally well regarded and yet, we’re elated that he stood up for himself. We’re elated because we’re vicariously standing up for ourselves through him.

Maybe we need to stop framing our issues in political terms, and start talking about what we want to change and how we want to change it.

This artificial right/left divide that has been created is designed to keep us fighting amongst ourselves so that we don’t pay attention to who is doing evil unto us. We’re told to hate the Mexicans, the gays, Obama, black racists, and everyone that isn’t like us. And a certain segment of America is happy to jump on board because they’re angry about the situation they find themselves in, and are happy to hate whomever they’re told to hate. Figuring out who’s responsible takes more work than following Glenn Beck’s chalk board scribblings.

But those people aren’t really angry at the gays, the Mexicans, the blacks, or Obama. They’re angry at the same people that those of us that pay attention are angry at.

The lionization of Steve Slater proves that.

We need to learn from this and reframe the debate and close the false divide that has been created to divert us from the real issues.

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Fuck You, Ben Stein

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No really, I mean that from the bottom of my heart. In case you missed it, Ben Stein wrote this piece for the American Spectator, in which he imparted his pearls of wisdom regarding the current unemployment crisis. They weren’t so much pearls, as they were shit droppings.

But before I get to why Ben Stein needs to go fuck himself, I have to address something profoundly stupid that he said in the article. Here’s the offending quote:

But the current recession, which really started with some very tense days in late 2007 and began in deadly earnest when…

Really Ben? The economy was humming along swimmingly, with no signs of trouble when all of a sudden, woooooo, everything imploded? We started 2007 off strong, with the trillion dollars in tax cuts for the really, really stinking rich “trickling down”. And the unbudgeted war, occupation, and medicare prescription benefits were all strengthening our economy even further. And then all of a sudden, the economy inexplicably imploded for no reason whatsoever? Wow Ben, that’s a fascinating and idiotic assessment of how the financial collapse happened, but one that you must cling onto in order to perpetuate your ass backward political ideology.

Let’s move on from the dipshitty stuff he said, to the assholey portion of the pile of shit he created;

The people who have been laid off and cannot find work are generally people with poor work habits and poor personalities. I say “generally” because there are exceptions. But in general, as I survey the ranks of those who are unemployed, I see people who have overbearing and unpleasant personalities and/or who do not know how to do a day’s work. They are people who create either little utility or negative utility on the job. Again, there are powerful exceptions and I know some, but when employers are looking to lay off, they lay off the least productive or the most negative. To assure that a worker is not one of them, he should learn how to work and how to get along — not always easy.

(This brings to mind an idea I have long had: that high schools and colleges should have a course on “how to get along” and “how to do a day’s work.” This would include showing up in clean clothes, smelling well, having had a good breakfast, dressed in a businesslike way, calling the other employees “sir” or “ma’am” and not talking back. This would include a teaching of the fact that the employee is not there for amusement, but to help the employer make money and to get a job done. It would include the idea that once you are at work, you are not at play. It is an idea whose time has come.)

I will give Ben this; if anyone would be an authority on how to get the stink off themselves, it would be him, what with being a former Nixon speechwriter and all. And while I’m personally attacking Ben Stein, let me point out that as far as I can see, his contribution to society has consisted of writing lies for Nixon to spew, Bueller…Bueller…Bueller…, and his latest role as a pitch man for a pyramid scheme aimed at stealing money from unsuspecting people. Wow Ben, your parents must be so proud of your fine work ethic.

Now that I’m done debasing myself by hurling personal attacks on Ben Stein, I’m going to move on. Not that my attacks weren’t fun or well deserved, but I have more important things to say.

First, I have to share a little bit about my background with you. I’m a human resources professional. My specialties are benefits and staffing. When the market is on an upswing, I hire people. When it’s on a downswing, I figure out a way to shave off exorbitant benefit costs for small business that can’t afford them. I’ve been in this field for about fifteen years.

Despite the craptastic economy we’re in, I’m currently hiring people. My role is to find the best candidate that I can, for any given position. “Best” candidate is defined in two components; the first being that a candidate must have the skills required for the job. The second component is that a candidate must fit the culture of the company. That’s the piece that most job seekers don’t understand. “Culture” means more than what you think it means. Part of it is untangible and therefore, impossible to describe. Part of culture centers around a person’s personality, and whether it would fit well with the other personalities in the group and in the company as a whole. Another piece of “cultural fit” ties into the person’s employment history and the types of companies they have worked in before. For example, someone that has worked for very large companies  would not work out well in a startup environment because large companies tend to have very focused job duties. A desktop support technician in a large company would strictly provide support to a pool of users that they’re responsible for supporting, after that user has called the help desk to try and get the issue solved. If the issue is bigger than the user’s computer, the problem escalates to someone else. A desktop support technician in a startup would be the only person that any user in the company goes to, and often has to deal with server issues that may be the cause of the problem. A large company will have a separate server team. Startups are a much more dynamic environment, which is why the cultural fit wouldn’t work.

I understand how absurd this must sound to a job seeker, but it’s absolutely true. And it’s more complicated than that example. I would never consider someone from a non-profit background to work in a corporate position; it would be a bad cultural fit. I generally don’t consider people with a strictly military background for just about anything. It’s not that I don’t want to hire a veteran (I really do), it’s just that they haven’t experienced anything other than a rigid command structure. They don’t have the experience to understand the balance between autonomy and management that they would need to be successful.

I’ve shared all of this information with you because I hope that it will help you through the frustration of your job search, but also because I had to in order to give you some context on what I’m seeing in the job market.

My phone rings with prospective candidates calling me two to five times a day. This is very much out of the norm, as I go to great pains to not make my phone number public. This will sound harsh, but I don’t want to talk to applicants. I call applicants that look like they may be a fit for the position, but I have no desire whatsoever to talk to an unqualified applicant. Not in this market, not in a good market, not ever. I don’t want to talk to them because if I didn’t call, there isn’t a snowball’s chance that they have a shot at the job. I need to make it clear that when you apply for a position online, your resume is reviewed 100% of the time. I know that the perception out there is that your resume fell into a black hole, where no human will ever see it. That’s patently untrue. We review every single resume that comes in. Think about it, getting you to apply for a job costs the company money. Job ads aren’t free, and neither is the labor that creates and posts them. We don’t spend the time and the money because we get some maniacal pleasure from the idea that people are out there futilely applying for jobs. So when you apply for a job, and don’t hear anything within a week, it’s because someone like me assessed your resume and concluded that you’re not what the company is looking for.

That’s not to say that you’re a bad candidate (but let’s be honest, some of you are!). You’re just not the candidate for that job. Don’t take it personally, seriously. In most normal economies, people don’t take it personally.

Let me digress for a moment to let you know how to tell if you’re a bad candidate. In a normal economy, when unemployment is at 4% – 5% you can expect to get at least one call for every five to seven positions that you apply for. If you’re not getting a call, then you’re a bad candidate. Being a bad candidate means that either you’re not qualified for the job you applied for, or your employment history is full of 1 – 1 1/2 year stints of employment. You’re a job hopper, and no one likes a job hopper.

In this economy, as a good candidate, you can expect to get one call for every thirty applications you’ve submitted. That’s because there are a lot of “good” candidates on the market. When I have five good ones in process, I’m done looking. So a lot of “good” candidates don’t get calls. Now remember, “good” involves cultural fit and all of the other intangible criteria that job seekers don’t understand.

My phone rings two to five times a day with “bad” candidates calling. They’re “bad” candidates, only because of the cultural component of my criteria. They’re people that have the skills for the job, and that have a stable employment history. I hate talking to them because I have absolutely no desire to tell someone that they can’t get the job that I’m hiring for because the fifteen years they spent working for Citibank makes them a “bad” candidate. My logic can’t make any kind of sense to someone that has worked hard their entire lives to build a good career for themselves. And to make matters worse, most of those calls are from people that have been out of work for a year or more, which isn’t helping them in the current job market. Being unemployed and desperate isn’t any more helpful in getting a job, as it is in getting a mate. Employers don’t like the smell of desperation.

The people that are calling me are perfectly good candidates with the perseverance and ingenuity to get my ungetable phone number. They’re not lazy, smelly, or unpleasant. They’re just desperately trying to make sense of this economy, and working very hard to get a job.

As someone who is unable to give them a job, I’d like to say FUCK YOU, Ben Stein. Your resume, which consists largely of helping crooked people lie, cheat, and steal makes you the most undesirable of candidates. When one throws your acrid personality onto your shitty resume, the conclusion is obvious; you’re an unemployable asshat.


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A Rising Star In The GOP?

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I’m referring to the emergence of the latest self entitled, petulant, underhanded and  egomaniacal, fucking child. I’m speaking, of course, about Stanley McChrystal.

Mark my words, he’s going to be yet another example of how America has embraced the concept of failing upwards, more than he already has. I say more than he already has because he should have been finished years ago. His active participation in the Pat Tillman cover up should have, at the very least, prevented McChrystal from rising any further in his career. If that didn’t do it, the prisoner abuse at Camp Nama in Iraq should have done it. But no, neither of those incidents were career killers. McChrystal was inexplicably appointed by Obama to lead the war in Afghanistan.

I was concerned that Obama had chosen a man that was obviously devoid of honor to lead a marching band, let alone a war. So when McChrystal “leaked” his counterinsurgency plan to the press in order to pressure Obama to give him everything he wanted, I wasn’t surprised at all. It was a maneuver that was consistent with his history of underhanded and honorless behavior. This man is the antithesis of the courage and honor we think of when we conjure images of our military . Think about it, if McChrystal had any courage, he would have had faith in his ability to make an effective case to the white house. Since he didn’t have any confidence that he had done that, he had to do something as sleazy as leaking his wish list to the press to increase his chances of getting the resources he was asking for. It was such a slimy move, that I can hardly believe it was made by a four star General.

Obama should have fired him then since the ending to this story should have been clear at that point. But instead of firing him, Obama gave McChrystal every single resource that he wanted to “win” Afghanistan. He got all of the troops and all of the money that he wanted but that wasn’t enough for him. According to the now infamous Rolling Stone piece, McChrystal also wanted Obama to hold his hand and shower him with admiration. He wanted Obama to be more “engaged”. I have a newsflash for McChrystal; Obama inherited more problems than just your war. He inherited literally, a country in ruins. A financial collapse, ten percent of the country unemployed and losing their homes, a failed occupation in Iraq, a thoroughly broken justice department, corruption in every regulatory agency imaginable, and an unprecedented national debt. He doesn’t have time to shower you with attention and praise, you fucking child. Plus, he never claimed to be a military strategist so he did exactly the right thing; he delegated. He deferred to the judgment of people with vast experience in this area. That would be you, McWhiney.

Most military officials would be thrilled with a situation wherein they got everything they asked for without being micromanaged. But not our egomaniacal Stanley McChrystal. I suppose he would have been happier with a no-nothing Rumsfeld barking inane orders based upon unproven and ill conceived theories?

And then there was all the shit he talked about people that disagreed with his admittedly iffy plan. He’s one of those assholes that believes he’s surrounded by idiots, regardless of the qualifications of the people he’s talking shit about. I’m not going to go into every salacious quote since you’ve probably already read the Rolling Stone piece but man, did he come off as a total dick.

I love the part of the article that talks about the fact that McChrystal walks around carrying nunchucks with his name and four stars on them. For most insecure and yet egomaniacal men, driving a hummer seems to do the trick, but our Stanley needs more compensatory symbols than the average asshole to help him get through the day. In the end, he was in over his head, and had to lash out at everyone else because he isn’t capable of self awareness. I think he may need bigger nunchucks.

Stanley McChrystal has managed to live down to every expectation I had of him.

Can you tell that I won’t miss him?

My prediction is that this asshole is going to become the new Sarah Palin for the GOP. They need a more effective “hit man” than she’s proven to be. But don’t worry because like Sarah Barracuda, McChrystal has entirely too many character deficiencies to actually pull off running for high office. No, his future is as a professional mouth piece for the GOP.

I’m going to need to start buying earplugs at Costco! Lord help us all.

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Immigration Fun Facts

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I hate to hammer away at Arizona, but I’ve been hearing many Arizonans defend this new immigration law for the past week. Most of the comments are along the lines of, “If you had to deal with the huge immigration problem we’re dealing with, you’d agree with this law”.

No I wouldn’t. And let me share some facts with you, for why I wouldn’t.

Let’s start with the fact that Arizona has the 6th largest illegal immigrant population in the country. California has seven times the number of illegal immigrants that Arizona has, putting it on top of the list. Texas comes in next with three times Arizona’s illegal immigrant population. New York is next with double Arizona’s number. Illinois has 30% more illegal immigrants than Arizona. And just above Arizona is Florida, with roughly 25% more illegal immigrants than Arizona.

Four out of the five states that have more immigrants than Arizona are donor states meaning that, they get less money back from the federal government than they pay in. CA and NY get back 79 cents for every dollar they pay in federal taxes. IL gets back 73 cents for every dollar it pays. TX gets back 94 cents for every dollar it pays in federal taxes.

Arizona is a recipient state. It gets $1.30 for every dollar it pays in federal taxes.

Illegal immigrants are not destroying your economy. If they were, California would be fucked. The fact of the matter is, that California has the 8th largest economy in the world. Not in the country, but in the world.

In fact if you look at GDP by state, you’ll notice that the states that top the list are familiar. The top five (in order) are CA, NY, TX, FL, and IL.

I want to be very clear in what I’m saying here. I am not suggesting that the high number of illegal immigrants is the reason why the top producing states are on top. There are obviously a number of factors involved, not the least of which is resources.

But I am saying that illegal immigrants definitely are not destroying your economy. There is absolutely no empirical evidence to suggest otherwise.

All of that crap that you hear about what illegal immigrants are costing each state are completely unsubstantiated. There’s no way to look at the data that I just gave you, while still holding onto that myth. Again, California would be fucked if that were the case. If those assertions were even remotely true, then the illegal immigrant population would be draining the states with the top GDP in the country. They’re not.

As an aside, Arizona’s illegal immigration population has dropped by 7% in the past two years. Why? It’s the economy, stupid! When the economy tanked, jobs dried up for everyone. When the jobs went away, so did the illegal immigrants.

This supports my earlier post about how to deal with illegal immigration if you’re really serious about ending it. If we didn’t have eager employers, we wouldn’t have hungry illegals.

So please Arizonans, don’t hate the playa, hate the game.

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Small Government, My Ass!

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I’m sure everyone is familiar with the new Arizona immigration law by now. You know, the law that requires roughly three million US citizens of Hispanic decent living in Arizona to keep their proof of residency or citizenship with them at all times. I’m sure that everyone is aware that this law was passed by republicans in the Arizona legislature and signed into law by the republican Governor of Arizona.

What you may not know, is that ten other states with republican legislatures are considering passing very similar “show your papers” laws.

Republican legislatures in Oklahoma just passed a charming abortion law. It’s charming in that, a doctor can no longer be held liable for NOT telling a pregnant woman that her fetus has debilitating birth defects. You read that correctly, a doctor in Oklahoma is not required to tell an expectant woman that her fetus will be born with a condition that ensures that the child will never live a life without constant care. So when a doctor tells a woman that everything is perfect with her pregnancy, she really has no reason NOT to spend the next 8 months wondering if her baby is going to be healthy. But don’t worry, there’s no reason to believe that stress is detrimental to a pregnant woman or her fetus.

I haven’t gotten to the disgusting part of this new law yet so brace yourselves. A woman that wants to get an abortion in Oklahoma is now required to have a vaginal ultrasound, during which the doctor is required to describe the heart, limbs, and organs of the fetus to the woman. And if you’re wondering NO, there are no provisions to exempt victims of rape or incest from this requirement. As Randi Rhodes put it, why stop there? Why not require that giant balloons that read “it’s a boy!” be in the room? Why not have the baby shower during the procedure? The nurse can read from a book of baby names, it will be fabulous!

I guess that the reasoning here is that if a woman wants an abortion, it’s obvious that she hasn’t thought it through. A vaginal ultrasound wherein the doctor describes the fetus to the pregnant woman will help her to make a sound, intellectual decision, based on what would be in the best interest of her and the child.

I have to wonder what’s next? Will we restrict freedom of religion? You can choose to be Jewish or Muslim, but only after having spent a year at a Catholic seminary.

All of this is brought to you by the party of small government. Why do we still buy into this charade that republicans stand for small government? The party that brought us warrantless wiretapping and electronic surveillance on anyone they choose, stands for small government?

Let me ask you a question. Which of these scenarios feels like big government to you;

Government regulators preventing big banks from trading derivatives with money they don’t have

OR

A camera forced into your vagina?

How about having to produce a birth certificate to a police officer while going to get money out of an ATM? Does that feel like big government?

The paradox that keeps being thrown at us about what our political parties are must stop! It’s complete bullshit, and we need to stop letting people get away with it.

Republicans aren’t against big government in any way that serves the American people well.

I don’t know what the fuck democrats are for anymore, but I do know that they have never advocated for shoving a camera in my vagina, while creating a scene that should be in a Freddy Kreuger movie. And they’ve never insisted that I produce my passport, just because an illegal immigrant is working for pennies in order to increase the profits of their contributors.

When you join a party that habitually takes rights away from its citizens based on their morality, it won’t be long before they come for you.

Marco Rubio is starting to figure this out. He recently came out (meekly, but still) against the Arizona immigration bill. Why? Because his parents are Cuban immigrants. In Rubio’s defense, he did the right thing on this issue. He could have gone the Michelle Malkin route. Little background on Michelle – her name isn’t Michelle. It’s nee Maglalang. She was born as what she would affectionately refer to, as an anchor baby. Her parents came her on work training Visas while her mother was pregnant. So while she is a natural born citizen, her parents were not. This means that Duncan Hunter would have her deported if he had his way. She has spent her entire career railing against immigrants. She obviously hates herself, and her parents for doing what they had to do to give her a better life. I suppose we should take comfort in knowing that Marco Rubio could be much more loathsome than he is. He does manage to do the right thing when it hits close enough to home. Now he’s being attacked by some, for not being hateful and ignorant enough.

I refuse to ever let anyone tell me that republicans are the party of small government again. We need to stop letting them frame themselves this way.

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YOU Are The Problem With Our Crappy Government

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I was reading this story over the weekend.

I have to tell you, I wasn’t really up in arms over the story. The guy was in a hot tub with a naked 15 year old a QUARTER OF A CENTURY AGO. There’s no evidence of rape and there doesn’t seem to be a repeated pattern of sexually harassing minors (or anyone else for that matter). The payoff is definitely an issue that needs to be investigated, but that’s not what most of the comments to this story were talking about.

Many of the comments to this article were just gratuitous attacks against mormons and Utah. Poignant commentary like, “An old guy in a hot tub with an under-aged girl… isn’t that called a honeymoon in Utah?” dominated the discussion. BRILLIANT! I think we’ve stumbled upon a modern day Soren Kierkegaard.

This kind of antiintellectual nonsense needs to stop. It exists on both sides, and it’s the reason why our government sucks. It’s amazing that “liberals” can spew off this bullshit while at the same time being offended by “San Francisco values” coming from the right.

You are all morons and you need to stop and think before you type (or vote).

Maybe we should all step back for a second before we claim outrage over these things. Stop and ask yourself if you would be as offended if it were a legislator from your own party. When your “outrage” is based solely on attacking the other party, you eventually lose sight of issues that are worthy of outrage. And it becomes impossible for anyone to actually communicate with you because you’ve become nothing more than a party hack.

We all need to stop gratuitously attacking the opposing party. We need to stop vigorously defending the indefensible actions of our own party.

Where was the democratic outrage when Bill Clinton dropped depleted uranium on Bosnia? Where was the outrage when he allowed the repeal of Glass Steagall?

Where was the republican outrage when W failed to get Bin Laden because all of our troops were busy losing a fabricated war in Iraq? Where was the outrage when the administration outed a covert intelligence agent? Where was the outrage over the fact that his entire presidency was an 8 year long period of deficit spending?

Our politicians will continue to abuse their power and lie to the American people as long as they still have the support of their party. Democrats attacking republicans isn’t going to stop corrupt republican politicians. Losing republican support will. The same is obviously true for democrats.

Pull your head out of your party’s ass and focus on what is good for your country!

Good lord, when this idiot Garn admitted what had happened, his fellow lawmakers “gave him thunderous applause for his honesty and embraced him,” according to the AP. Republicans did this with David Vitter, the senator that was a well known “John” in at least 2 states. This has to stop! We can’t go along with this crap because of a sense of loyalty to our parties.

I’ve said it before, and I will say it until I can’t say it anymore; we need to stop this from within our own respective parties. Attacks across party lines are futile. Our government serves us less and less every single day.

It’s time to stop being part of the problem. The only side we should be taking should be in the best interest of our country.

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Democrats Suck!

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And that’s possibly the biggest understatement I’ve ever made!

Nancy Pelosi came out a few days ago and announced that there will definitively be no public option in the final health insurance reform bill. I can’t say that I’m surprised. I haven’t thought that we would get a public option for several months now. Nancy Pelosi’s reason for not including the public option is that there aren’t enough votes in the senate. Meanwhile at last count, 51 senators have publicly announced that they would support a public option if it was in the bill. And on the day before Pelosi announced that there would be no public option, Dick Durbin announced that he would whip the votes needed in the senate to get a public option through if the house passed it. And then there’s the white house that would support a public option if…

It seems like most democrats would support the public option, if only… Seriously, what the fuck? Do you realize how stupid you all look standing in a circle pointing to the person on your right, and proclaiming that you will do something if that person does something first?

While all of this nonsense is going on, the American people have been completely ignored in this process. We all hate this bill. Republicans and democrats alike know that this bill blows. The media is happy to remind us of how unpopular this bill is. But they’re leaving out a big part of the equation; most of us want a public option. Here, see for yourself.

But ignoring the American people isn’t why democrats suck. Not directly, anyway. Republicans ignore the will of their constituents just as much as democrats do. Democrats suck because they lack the courage of their convictions, which makes them weak. When democrats are all claiming that they can’t get a public option done because they’re waiting for someone else to take the lead, they’re telling you that they’re weak. Americans hate weakness.

George W Bush showed us that Americans want a leader. We don’t even care if that leader is smart, honest, or even qualified. Dick Cheney got every half baked, ill conceived bill that he wanted through congress with nothing resembling a 59 vote majority. And he never whined about having a hard time getting something through. They pushed through a war, an occupation, and a trillion dollars in tax cuts for really fucking rich people with the greatest of ease. And you know what? They never even had to demonstrate that they had any intentions of paying for these things in order to get them through. That was some serious leadership, and it demonstrated strength. And because they seemed so strong, they got less scrutiny. You see when you’re weak it tends to make people want to pick on you more. But more than that, it makes people trust you less.

Democrats become more and more untrustworthy every time they claim to want to do something for the American people, but can’t get it done because of some insurmountable obstacle. We don’t trust you because you seem as if you’re either lying or weak. More accurately, you seem like you’re lying meekly. Americans don’t mind being lied to as long as it’s done with conviction. But no one likes someone that lies like a pussy.

All of this is fantastic news for republicans! They don’t have to do a damned thing to rehab their image. All they have to do is sit around and wait for Americans to hate democrats more than they hate republicans. I hate to say it, but this seems to be working. The public doesn’t like republicans any more than they have for the past 2 election cycles. But they do hate democrats more than they did 4 years ago.

Stand up and demonstrate that you believe in something, for the love of god! If you don’t, you’re going to see an ass kicking of epic proportions in November.

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The Internets Is Proof That Science Works

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I run across a LOT of science denying on the internets. Climate change denying, evolution denying, stem cell research denying. You name the science, I’ll find you thousands of deniers on the internets.

Each time I run across one of these I laugh my ass off over the stupidity and the hypocrisy of the author.

Don’t these people understand that the internets that they’re using is proof that science is a valid method of figuring out how the world works? Seriously, if you believe that people are reading your lunatic rantings, then you MUST believe in science. Using the internet to spread your denial of science is like running from an avalanche while denying gravity. It’s inane and you need to stop.

If you really don’t believe in science, my recommendation is that you get the “creation” word out by using carrier pigeons. Stop cluttering up my internet with your stupid bullshit. And by the way, let me point out that the thumb you use to hit the space bar is proof of EVOLUTION!

Here’s the thing about science; the bad kind doesn’t last very long. That’s why we don’t clutch onto our belongings for fear that they may fall off the edge of the earth if we don’t. Good science is proven repeatedly, and then evolves to the point that you have the internet in your living room!

But unlike bad science, stupidity is forever. It can’t be disproved because it’s not interested in facts.

It’s fine if you want to be an ignorant science denier, but do you have to do by using a medium that proves that you don’t even believe your own stupidity?

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