Politics as usual
Russia v Georgia and the Beginning of WWIII?
From the lack of media attention, it appears that no one really seems to be concerned about the potential disaster headed our way thanks to the Bush administration's mishandling of relations with Russia. Not only has there been all sorts of harsh, vitriolic rhetoric about how Russian actions in Georgia "must not go unanswered," but yesterday there was a final agreement about putting a missile defense system in Poland. The Russians have long objected to this system and the timing of the agreement could not be worse. Unless, of course, you are a believer in our misguided president. From the way they talk, no one in the White House seems to have taken Diplomacy 101 in college. I would think that class would have, on the first day, read the chapter about not pissing off the crazy Russian pseudo-dictator itching to flex his military's might. Instead, Dubya is poking the bear in his usual fashion. Except this bear still has thousands of real, verified nuclear missiles aimed at our country. Just in case anyone forgot.
Why is no one worried that a man who believes in the end of the world and God's judgment day not only has the power to make it happen, but is also antagonizing one of the only other countries aside from China who could actually bring it about. And it wouldn't be the first time that the world gets caught up in a mindless battle over a small country. Anyone remember WWI?
Obama v McCain
On election night this year, I plan to ensconce myself as far from a news source as I can. I don't think I can bear it if John McCain were to win. And I certainly don't want to be around the endless media speculation on the night of the election. It's been so wrong in the past that if they get it wrong this time and get my hopes up, I just don't know what I'll do.
This is not to say that I'm a firm believer in Obama. Frankly, to be honest, I don't know a thing about Obama or his positions. Yes, I admit I am that uniformed. I'm glad that he is nominee and not Hillary Clinton because the things I did know about her I wasn't too fond of. But if McCain were to win, it would simply validate so many things that I think are wrong with this country. If Dubya's "re"-election in 2004 didn't drive me to leave (though it came close), I'm almost certin that McCain winning would. What would make me so sad is that there are people believing the stupidist things about Obama. News reports have circulated that a significant movement has begun on the far right to paint him as the Anti-christ. This is based largely on a few similarities found between his campaign and a character in a FICTION novel called Left Behind. Then there are the repeated claims that his Muslim or that his name is Osama or Hussein. If he loses because of this kind of thing, then this country is going to get exactly what it deserves: 1000 year occupation of Iraq.
Shelly Silver
I've lived in the district of NYS Assembly Speaker SHELDON Silver for several years. For all that time SHELDON Silver has sent out lots of election or policy related materials as well as appearing on TV at press conferences. It wasn't until recently that I though much about him one way or the other. He seemed no worse than anyone else in Albany. But there are three reasons I won't be voting for him come this November:
1. SHELLY - Posters and direct mail ads have begun trumpeting his name as Shelly Silver. The abrupt name shift seems calculated to make him appear like he's one of our neighbors, like one of our friends. And it's the calculation of it that pisses me off. All of a sudden at election time he's become good ole Shelly from down the block. Horseshit.
2. Vaccines - no matter what your stance on this issue, I would think that more people would be against the governemnt forcing children to undergo vaccinations that may or may not be against their parents' wishes. But not ole Shelly. No. He wants to see it illegal for people not to be vaccinated and has pushed legislation to see that it all Federally recommended vaccines become mandatory. So much for a democracy where people can't even make their own medical decisions, much less the state or community they live.
3. The caller ID from what I guess is his campaign headquaters comes up as Harry S. Truman. This is just completely misleading. For a while I thought it was some kind of phone scam. I happened to answer the phone the other night just to see what it was and sure enough, it was someone trying to get me to vote for him. No chance Shelly. You are what I think the kids are calling a gigantic douchebag.
From the lack of media attention, it appears that no one really seems to be concerned about the potential disaster headed our way thanks to the Bush administration's mishandling of relations with Russia. Not only has there been all sorts of harsh, vitriolic rhetoric about how Russian actions in Georgia "must not go unanswered," but yesterday there was a final agreement about putting a missile defense system in Poland. The Russians have long objected to this system and the timing of the agreement could not be worse. Unless, of course, you are a believer in our misguided president. From the way they talk, no one in the White House seems to have taken Diplomacy 101 in college. I would think that class would have, on the first day, read the chapter about not pissing off the crazy Russian pseudo-dictator itching to flex his military's might. Instead, Dubya is poking the bear in his usual fashion. Except this bear still has thousands of real, verified nuclear missiles aimed at our country. Just in case anyone forgot.
Why is no one worried that a man who believes in the end of the world and God's judgment day not only has the power to make it happen, but is also antagonizing one of the only other countries aside from China who could actually bring it about. And it wouldn't be the first time that the world gets caught up in a mindless battle over a small country. Anyone remember WWI?
Obama v McCain
On election night this year, I plan to ensconce myself as far from a news source as I can. I don't think I can bear it if John McCain were to win. And I certainly don't want to be around the endless media speculation on the night of the election. It's been so wrong in the past that if they get it wrong this time and get my hopes up, I just don't know what I'll do.
This is not to say that I'm a firm believer in Obama. Frankly, to be honest, I don't know a thing about Obama or his positions. Yes, I admit I am that uniformed. I'm glad that he is nominee and not Hillary Clinton because the things I did know about her I wasn't too fond of. But if McCain were to win, it would simply validate so many things that I think are wrong with this country. If Dubya's "re"-election in 2004 didn't drive me to leave (though it came close), I'm almost certin that McCain winning would. What would make me so sad is that there are people believing the stupidist things about Obama. News reports have circulated that a significant movement has begun on the far right to paint him as the Anti-christ. This is based largely on a few similarities found between his campaign and a character in a FICTION novel called Left Behind. Then there are the repeated claims that his Muslim or that his name is Osama or Hussein. If he loses because of this kind of thing, then this country is going to get exactly what it deserves: 1000 year occupation of Iraq.
Shelly Silver
I've lived in the district of NYS Assembly Speaker SHELDON Silver for several years. For all that time SHELDON Silver has sent out lots of election or policy related materials as well as appearing on TV at press conferences. It wasn't until recently that I though much about him one way or the other. He seemed no worse than anyone else in Albany. But there are three reasons I won't be voting for him come this November:
1. SHELLY - Posters and direct mail ads have begun trumpeting his name as Shelly Silver. The abrupt name shift seems calculated to make him appear like he's one of our neighbors, like one of our friends. And it's the calculation of it that pisses me off. All of a sudden at election time he's become good ole Shelly from down the block. Horseshit.
2. Vaccines - no matter what your stance on this issue, I would think that more people would be against the governemnt forcing children to undergo vaccinations that may or may not be against their parents' wishes. But not ole Shelly. No. He wants to see it illegal for people not to be vaccinated and has pushed legislation to see that it all Federally recommended vaccines become mandatory. So much for a democracy where people can't even make their own medical decisions, much less the state or community they live.
3. The caller ID from what I guess is his campaign headquaters comes up as Harry S. Truman. This is just completely misleading. For a while I thought it was some kind of phone scam. I happened to answer the phone the other night just to see what it was and sure enough, it was someone trying to get me to vote for him. No chance Shelly. You are what I think the kids are calling a gigantic douchebag.
Yeah, giving an "or else" ultimatum to a major nuclear power when we have no "or else" up our sleeve is pretty stupid. Aren't you on a "don't call" list of some sort? The LA Times necessitated that move for us. Stalkers.
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A "do not call list." There's a novel idea. I recently heard about a "do not call list" that was rendered unconstitutional by a court in the midwest. So what was done with all the names and numbers that had been collected for the list? Why, it was sold to the telemarketers that had sued in the first place.
As much as a do not call list would make sense, do you want your tax dollars going to some government agency to monitor it? Besides, it would be harming business interests if they weren't allowed to harass potential customers via the phone. Thank god I get two or three calls a day from some 1-800 recorded voice over telling me car insurance is going to expire soon. Funny how they know that, especially since I've never owned a car or car insurance in my life.
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It exists, we have used it, and it works. And yes, I do want tax dollars to track this, it actually helps me pursue happiness in the evenings at home.
https://www.donotcall.gov/
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I was actually pretending to speak in another voice when I wrote the thing about taxes going to fund this kind of thing. I would love to have my tax dollars going towards all kinds of quality of life issues, but it so rarely happens. And certainly there are lots of special interests out there that make sure they get to keep annoying the public at large so they can keep doing whatever it is they do.
Anyway, I've registered for it now. We'll see how well it works. Does it work for political calls too or only telemarketers?
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From the registry website "*Reminder: Even if your number is registered, companies with which you do business may continue to call you. So may charities, political organizations, and telephone surveyors. Click Here for more information about the companies that may continue to call the numbers on the registry."
So it won't help with the political calls and won't help my fellow o-negative blood types who get absolutely harassed by the Red Cross (my mother gets 5 calls a week if she is past 60 days from last donation, I've been house sitting there and got righteously angry and won't ever give them personal information when I give blood because of it)
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I do think you're misreading the Poland missile deal, though. We've been trying to put those in there for a while, all of a sudden the Pols think it's a GREAT idea now that Russia has renewed empire goals.
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We've also been trying to a missile shield installed in Turkey too, but so far that's not gone through. Actually, it's just radar in that cast. But the Bush administrations claims that we want to put the shield in Poland to protect against countries like Iran firing missiles at it just absurd. Yeah, because the Iranians just hate Poland with such a passion.
As for empire building by Russia, it's true that they seem to be on the move in that guise again, which is sad in itself. Can't they just accept that they already have more land mass than anyone else on Earth already? But more to the point, the US isn't exactly an innocent party to this. Our continued push to have the nations on Russia's western border become part of NATO is just one more aspect of our antagonizing them. But by having nations like Georgia do the actual bear poking, Dubya and like get to pretend to the American public like we're going to come to the rescue for this poor little country who through no fault of its own got stomped on by big evil Russia.
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