Change and hope should be prepositional

I have bad news for all of us. Barack Obama is going to be sworn in as president one week from today (that's not the bad news), and guess what - there's a good chance he won't change the world. Even with a Democratic congress and a victory in November current presidents would most likely call a "mandate," there's a good chance we're so far fucked that to extricate our country from all the issues facing us might not take only four, or eight, years.

Here's my main concern: for all the excitement Obama garnered, for all the amazing speeches, for all the policy he and his team have been leaking over the past few weeks (I don't know that any president-elect has gone this far in revealing plans prior to inaguration, but not the point), Obama still ran on the rather vague dual platform of "hope" and "change."

Why does this bother me? Because "hope" and "change" are not complete thoughts. This minor disobedience in grammar functions doesn't necessarily bother me from a syntax standpoint, but more so in the lack of actual content. We have to have hope in or for something, and we need change to be from one thing to another. Hope in. Hope for. Change to. As much as we all love and are happy with Obama, I need the blanks filled in a little better than we got during the campaign.

So, over the next week, as nearly-president Obama keeps on trucking, keeps on appointing Clintons to Positions of Influence, keeps on tempering previously made statements, I'll keep on waiting to know exactly how Obama actually is going to unfuck us. Of course, he does have four years. Which is a long time. My exact words when Bush was sworn in in 2001: "It's only four years. How bad could it be?"

I have higher hopes for Barack Obama.

See what I did there?

Oh, Illinois politics, you are awesome

Oh, look, I didn't write at all in December. It was a long month. No time for much of anything. So, let's jump back into it, shall we?

Being in Illinois while Rod Blagojevich is still governor of the state is kind of the most fun thing ever. Every single thing he does seems 112% calculated to be a huge "fuck off" to everyone, ever. Oh, I'm under investigation by the FBI and I know my phones are tapped? Watch me try and auction off a Senate seat. Oh, everyone wants me to cede all power and resign? Watch me actually appoint someone to the Senate seat I was just trying to sell. Oh, I just got impeached by a 114-1 vote? Watch me hold a press conference and deny any wrongdoing, and state that I'm going to fight this. Yeah, that's right. Me and my awesome hair will make it through this just fine.

You'd have to think that at some point Blagojevich would have looked at the track record of the governers in this state, and then realized you can't get away with being a corrupt politician out here anymore unless your last name is Daley. Those guys, by the way, can still get away with murder. But, no, Blagojevich decided that he'd tempt all sorts of fate and go ahead and outcorrupt even the previous governer, George Ryan, who's sitting in prison right now for...let's see...sale of government licenses. That shit's JV compared to selling a Senate seat. I'm pretty impressed.

I can't wait to see what Blagojevich does next. Eats a baby at a presser just to see if he can get away with it? Appoint himself president? I actually half-expect him to appoint me to something, because why not at this point? I'm about as qualified as Burris, except I don't yet have a mausoleum built for myself. I'm donating my body to science anyway. At least let some med students have some fun.

How the Democrats will lose this election, which is theirs to win

I've been trying to figure out, for a while, how the Democrats were going to lose this election. I mean, it's been handed to them. Just to prove my point - I was about to write a list here of all the reasons Obama ought to crush McCain, but then realized it would be useless, as 1) there are too many reasons to enumerate and 2) everybody knows them all already anyway. So I've just been waiting to figure out how, by being such awful campaigners, the Democratic party would start seeing the easy win slip away.

And now we have two answers. One external, one internal. Externally, McCain's camp has gone on the attack with the new round of ads and talking points, and explicitly inserting racial fears into the campaign. Now, this ought not to be an issue, if only the Democrats weren't so braindead as to let these attacks slide off them like water off a duck. The problem is, these attacks aren't made of water, and they stick to Obama. Wait, huh? That analogy worked prior to a few beers, and now I'm just not going to worry about it.

Remember the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth? You know, the group that somehow managed to challenge Kerry's decorated Vietnam record while not mentioning Bush's complete failure to serve during the war? That would have gone away, if Kerry's camp hadn't waited three days - which in media cycles go by even quicker than dog years - to respond. By that time, the attacks were out there, and the damage done. Can't recork that shit. And Obama's doing the same now. Not rebutting the ads that compare him to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. Not rebutting the Republican talking points that state - explicitly - that Obama is playing the race card the exact same way O.J. Simpson did. Democrats take these issues and think, "No right-minded person would actually believe this!" And then they turn to talking about baby seals in the uninhabited Arctic. While the rest of America, which is full of not right-minded people, couldn't care less than seals they'll never meet, and instead are focused on the pseudo-issues the Republicans (very masterfully) told them to care about. It's the Democratic pretension mixed with deviously adept Republican campaigning that equals ruin.

And then there's the internal issue - the pandering to the center. The reason Obama's so popular, the reason he got the nod over the clear front-runner, is that he had new, fresh, exciting ideas. Things that leftist Democrats have been waiting to hear for years. The base was not this emphatic for Kerry - in fact, there barely even was a base for Kerry. So Obama gets all these people amped for politics, gets people excited to be a part of the system, because he's bringing change to the system.

And then Obama says he's willing to tap our petroleum reserves, and maybe he'll be okay with offshore drilling.

And now, all the leftists that voted for Nader in 2000 stay home, because what's the fucking point. Obama's business as usual.

And so we get idiots that are sucked in by Republican strategy coming out in droves to vote against Obama, and idiots that think Obama's no different than McCain staying home, and lo and behold, all of a sudden McCain has won the election that was literally Obama's to lose.

Good work, Democrats. I am hard-pressed, at this moment, to think of a party that is better at being worse for itself than you have been for the past, oh...fifteen years?

80k seems like a lot of money for poon

So we all know about (now former) New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's resignation for (allegedly!) spending eighty thousand dollars on hookers. Awesome. Totally awesome. Wonkette has a link to show you what eighty g's will get you in (I'm assuming golden) vagina. Also the specific girl from the specific rendezvous that broke the whole story. To be honest, after studying and studying and studying the pictures, as well as all the research into the sex trade I must undertake to truly call myself a semi-monthly blogger, I'm just not sure it's worth the money. Of course, I have never visited a prostitute, so maybe there's some big secret I don't know about how paying for sex is totally a good idea. And I certainly have never visited a $4,300 prostitute, so I can only imagine what luxury awaits inside those assumed-majestic halls, to use a vaguely sexual metaphor (assumed-majestic = expensive; halls = pootietang). I feel like, to someone like me, a really really expensive hooker holds a lot of the mystery and intrigue that the women's restroom has. Seriously, ladies. We imagine gold toilets, paper made of the finest silk linens, big-screen televisions, the works. At least less urine on the floor than we have. I'm sorry. We were talking about hookers.

But I was wondering what I might spend $80,000 on, if I weren't inclined to sample the finest whores the East Coast has to offer. I made a list. I also had help from a friend.

• 3,750 copies of Fugazi’s Instrument DVD with 2,000 copies of the soundtrack online
• 65,128 boxes of Annie’s mac and cheese at Target, not on sale
• A MacBook Air, 50 of the 160GB iPods (enough to store 2 million songs), 50 dock stations that plug each iPod into a speaker/alarm clock setup, a Louis Vuitton luggage set to carry it all in, and enough money to buy 67,129 songs off of iTunes to fill up all that stuff
• 400 autographed “Bo Knows” posters
• A subscription to Newsweek for the next 4,102 and a half years
• Just a whole bunch of blow
• Full season ticket package (all games) for a field level seat for the Oakland A’s for the next 33 year
• A 3 bedroom, 1 bath, 1088 Sq. Ft. home in Shelby, Indiana
• 150,000 Oh Boy! Oberto spicy beef jerky sticks
• A hit out on Bono
• 3200 hair cuts
• A hysterectomy
• 533,333 "American Idol" votes (standard text messaging rates apply)
• 8000 hand jobs at Penn Station
• 53 Miada M’s from 1994 in Valencia off craigslist
• 612,000 gallons of Tang (the drink, perverts)

Join in on the fun! What else would you spend $80,000 on instead of getting your knob polished?

Kucinich!

So it's Super Tuesday. Huzzah! In honor of that, I'm going to post something I wrote almost TWO months ago! Lucky you. I originally wrote this for HuffPo, but they seemed to decide it was irrelevant or something, which is why it is now being posted on a blog that no one reads.

I mentioned before that I had planned to vote for Kucinich. I wrote a full article on that. Now that I can't vote for him, and will be voting for someone else, as well as whether or not we should be better funding Native American alcohol addictions. Among other things.

My, have I gone link crazy today! Probably to make up for the lack of content. Anyway, here it is, my essay on supporting Kucinich. I called it: In Which I Give Money to a Candidate Who Very Well May Never Win a National Election, Ever. Enjoy. Or, don't.

Former good movie maker and current good author Steve Martin is also, we should recall, a former amazing stand-up comedian. On one track of his how-can-it-be-so-funny Let’s Get Small, Martin mentions a few of the things he’s purchased since he started raking in the money. “I got me a $300 pair of socks. I got a fur sink. Oh…let’s see…electric dog polisher, that was a good one. Gasoline-powered turtleneck sweater. And, of course, I’ve bought some dumb stuff, too.”

I, aside from also being genius in many formats (start looking forward to my lite rock album), have bought some stuff that others might be inclined to call “dumb”. Usually, I’m aware that I’m spending more money than I ought to in order to purchase something I ought not to. There’s the couple hundred I dropped on a button maker – buttons that you might wear to tout bands or presidential candidates – so that I can cut and paste words out of the New York Times and The Economist to say dirty things. There’s the two full Puma tracksuits I own, one larger than the other, so that I may wear one for lounging and one for formal occasions. People tend to think the fact that I still pay for the music I listen to, and buy all my albums in actual CD format, is not so bright in the age of The Napster and The Limewire and whatever the kids are using these days (darn kids with their rocking and rolling), especially considering I own near 500 CDs now. I own, and I am not exaggerating, four (count ‘em 1-2-3-4) copies of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension. Yes, the one starring Peter Weller. One copy on DVD, two (count ‘em 1-2) VHS copies, and, naturally, a copy on BetaMax. The shipping cost more than the actual tape on that one.

And, yesterday, I added to that list of “dumb stuff” by dropping another fifty bucks down a black hole.

I donated to Dennis Kucinich’s campaign.

Yes. That Dennis Kucinich. Yes, yes, he has an attractive wife. I know. Yes, yes, he’s a vegan. I know this, too. Yes, yes, I feel like I could put him in my pocket and feed him M&Ms all day (oops…vegan) or bring him to work in my jacket a la Indian in the Cupboard. Well, I don’t know if I actually could do that last one—that’s more speculative on my part. Anyway, none of these things played into my decision to donate, for the first time in my life, to a political campaign. If I had wanted any of those things specifically, I could have supported Fred Thompson, Weird Al Yankovich, or an Oompa Loompa, respectively. Although, a point for Kucinich: with a British First Lady we could have the import tax lowered on Daniel Craig. I mean, Casino Royale was pretty rad. And I hear Golden Compass has talking bears in it and stuff.

So, why, then, have I decided to spend my hard-earned (okay, maybe not so hard-earned. To be fair, I am writing this while at work.) money on this exercise in futility? Well, first of all, I don’t subscribe to this I-Don’t-Recycle-Because-One-Can-Doesn’t-Make-A-Difference-Because-Other-People-Don’t-Recycle mentality. Kucinich most likely won’t win the election because we have been told he can’t win the election. He doesn’t win because you all (yes, YOU, Dear Reader) don’t want to “waste” your vote. However, I tend to think I’m only wasting my vote if I spend it on someone I don’t truly want to win, only because they’re the most “electable”. Let’s not do the whole cart-horse thing. You know. Putting one in front of the other or whatever.

Okay, that’s definitely enough preaching. I’m not Mike Huckabee (Zing! (But really. Talk about sneakily crazy with that guy.)).

More important, though, is that the longer Kucinich can stay in the race, the longer he gets a platform from which to voice his incredibly cogent views. And that means the other candidates might, just might, have to address those issues themselves. The more pointed, the more candid, the more direct Kucinich is in his criticisms and solutions, the less other candidates can respond to everything in glib sound bites. Also, every single sentence Kucinich says doesn’t start with, “My daddy worked in a mill.” We get it, John. We really, really get it. We got it four years ago; we get it now.

And that’s the story of Why I Decided to Give Money to Kucinich.

Besides, what else was I gonna spend the money on? Inflatable mittens?

I know, right? How could that have not been published? Another scathing mill insult to a candidate that's not even in the race anymore in a column about a candidate that never even really was in the race! A travesty, indeed.

Oh, the Democrats are awful at politics!

I mentioned in my last little post there that the Democrats (I'm putting the "d" in caps because the fourth member of the Axis of Evil, the New York Times, does it) have probably found a way to lose the presidential election. That, of course, assumes it was theirs to lose. Which it very, very, very much was. House and Senate swung that way (and you know how the Democrats love to swing that way!) last time around, and I don't know if you've been paying attention, but it turns out a shitload of people aren't too thrilled about the war-lies-death whatnot. It was pretty much at the point where the Democrats could have run a Nazi eggplant and it would have beaten any Republican candidate (I didn't check if the New York Times put the "r" in caps; I assume not, because I'm pretty sure that newspaper is printed with ink made from the blood of the Vietnamese that were killed after we cut and ran).

And then Hillary Clinton started winning primaries. Now, a few things on that, first. I like Hillary Clinton. I have no problem with her, mostly because she seems intelligent and, you know, is a Democrat. So I'm not someone who is saying ANYONE BUT. Turns out I didn't even get to vote for my guy. I so wish we could have a President Kucinich. We could probably annex Narnia if that happened.

Also, two of Hillary's primary wins, Michigan and Florida, don't even have delegates. They don't count. But people are sheep (no offense, people), and will vote for whomever everyone else is voting for because, hell, they seem to be doing okay for themselves. So even though they literally mean nothing to the nomination, (very) convincing wins in Michigan and Florida can snowball into more victories on Super-Duper-Tuesday. I almost called it Super-Duper-Pooper-Scooper Tuesday, but then I realized I didn't write Meet the Spartans.

And so we've come down to this: Mittens and John and Hillary and Barry. And, to some extent, the Other John, but he's a populist, and there hasn't been one of those popular since Frank Baum wrote Wizard of Oz and no one realized it was propaganda anyway. It turns out, with Barry's rhetorical style (rhetorical like, way of speaking, and not "Why do you make me hurt you?"), he can beat any Republican that is running right now. He can elevate, he can get those Independents and retards that don't write in Ron Paul after Paul concedes and returns back to the moon of Endor where he belongs. Hillary can beat Mittens, because he's a retard, and if God actually blesses the Huckabee campaign with the nomination as He should because Huckabee hates the gays, Hillary can beat him (and Him), too.

But Hillary can't beat McCain. She's running on "experience" (total bullshit, FYI), and he's like 112 years old and has been in the Senate since before Henry Clay. She's running on Washington know-how, he's sponsored EVERY bill you've liked, EVER. She's running on It's Tough To Be In a Campaign Day In And Day Out, he's running on I Was Gang-Raped In The Hanoi Hilton. McCain wins every time.

And then we're in Iraq until Huckabee's God gives the earth back to Israel. Good work America. Because McCain hates hates hates the ay-rahbs, you've made certain for another 9/11, and then Rudy can try and be president again. This is your fault.

UPDATE: The Other John is dropping out because no one likes him, and is immediately returning to the mill whence he came. You do know he invented mills, right?

Dear American Express

To Whom it May Concern,

I was looking over my billing statement, and in the fine print, you tell me that if I am unhappy with a purchase made, and have tried "in good faith" to rectify the problem, you can take it off my bill. Well, it just so happens that I made a purchase in the last billing cycle that I am very dissatisfied with, and I would like it to be taken off my statement.

I am kindly requesting that you remove the $50 contribution I made to Dennis Kucinich's campaign.

I have seen nothing result from my purchase. The war in Iraq has not ended. Congress has not dislodged its head from its ass long enough to pass a FISA bill. New housing starts are down 3.7% last month. Mike Huckabee still exists. Hell, my house is still dirty and my wang isn't any longer. And my $50 seems not to have changed any of this.

Now, you may quibble with whether or not I have, "in good faith," tried to rectify the problem. To my mind, the contribution itself was supposed to rectify the problem. It has not. Kucinich is no closer to the White House than he was prior to my purchase of $50 worth of campaign units. So, I suppose you, good people at Amex, have a choice. Either ensure me a Kucinich victory, or please refund my $50. Or, at least, stop Dick Cheney from being.

All the best,
[redacted]

We get it, Russia. You're fucking nuts.

I've mentioned a few times how this (American) administration loves to give its populace "Are you fucking kidding me?" moments every so often (okay, every very often), in which the only reasonable response to what they've done is say, you guessed it, "Are you fucking kidding me?" It's down to a science, almost, and I have to admit I was afraid that, geopolitically speaking, we were the best (worst?) at this "Gotcha again!" mentality.

But then I remembered Russia exists. Now, to be fair, Russia's had it's share of problems throughout the last century. And my fair share of problems. And your fair share of problems. And Canada's fair share of problems. And all of Oceania. Basically, the history of 20th Century Russia went a little like this (I'm paraphrasing from my 20th Century Russian History class I took in college): Famine, Civil War, famine, World War, famine, World War, Stalin/famine/gulags/Great Purges, economic collapse, famine, Perestroika, economic collapse. They're not really building on a tremendous track record.

So they elect Putin a few years back, and it appears that the Russians have managed to get past Yeltsin, and elect someone who might actually have his shit together enough to run a country. Except they didn't count on the crazy. Putin's, you know, totalitarianist tendency to not want to abdicate once his second (and final) term as President expires next year. But the Russians, and the global community, are having none of this "Fuck the constitution" mentality Putin seems to champion. Ironic the United States is against that. But I digress.

So what does Putin do? If you've been reading the news, you see he held elections last week (I think) that his party swept. Surprisingly, there have been claims of Russia's favorite "F" word, fraud. Not the point. Two days ago, Putin said, "Okay, well, if I can't be president again next year, and I can't keel moose and squirrel, I want this guy you've never heard of to be president." This guy we've never heard of, Dmitri Medvedev, aside from being one M or V away from being a palindrome, has almost no record of high-level service. It kinda seems like, I dunno, Putin is telling Russia to elect someone that he could have total control over. But would he really be so brazen as to do something that obvious?

The New York Times, a publication that most certainly believes that abortion should not only be legal, but mandatory, printed the story today that, OMG, Medvedev thinks that maybe when he's president, would it be all right if Putin comes over and is Prime Minister? One day after someone Russians haven't even heard of is recommended as the next president by the current one, said potential successor mentions casually, "Oh, and the guy that wants me in might, you know, stay in power." There's even the possibility Medvedev could step down, and Putin could regain the presidency.

You know, for a country that's criticized for lack of transparency in governmental operations, this one's pretty obvious. Well played, Russia. Well played.

We don't believe you, Iran

So now, today, the president is telling Iran they MUST come clean concerning their nuclear programs and ambitions.

Ummm...didn't our own NIE do that? Like, just yesterday? Welp, see ya later!

Can I has my Iran boom plz?

Good news! I mentioned yesterday that the NIE (National Intelligence Estimate) said that maybe Iran isn't quite so deadly and maybe they're not plotting to rape you in your sleep tonight. Bush? He stills worries for your cherry. The New York Times, well-known for it's desire to see Jesus re-crucified, has Bush saying this:

"[T]he N.I.E. doesn’t do anything to change my opinion about the danger Iran poses to the world — quite the contrary.”

And from the tea-sniffers at the BBC (notice the addition of the word "me" to the word "program". Fucking selfish wrong-side-driving-lift-riding fops.):

"I view this report as a warning signal that they had the programme, they halted the programme," Mr Bush told a news conference. "The reason why it's a warning signal is they could restart it."

So. Let's see. The report that Iran isn't very dangerous makes Bush think Iran is more dangerous. The fact that Iran stopped its attempt to make nuclear weapons is a warning that they are trying to make nuclear weapons.

This administration, I truly believe, isn't going to quit until it has every American saying every day, at least once, "Are you fucking kidding me?" Or until our collective heads explode simultaneously when we are unable to comprehend what the administration just did. Hopefully, we'll all be vacationing in Tehran when that happens. Take that, Islam!

Whoopsy!

Iran with the nuclear weapons? Not so much. Sorry...no hard feelings? BFF Iran? Kthxbye!

Where have all the good racists gone?

Well, Trent Lott up and resigned. I haven't actually read any coverage of said resignation, but I'm sure his speech went something like, "I have decided to leave the Senate to concentrate all my efforts on hanging me some more negros." And like that (or, over the course of a few years), the gang of 100 has lost Strom Thurmond, George Allen, Rick Santorum, and Trent Lott. All dedicated, strong-willed racists. Thurmond obviously wins in the group; he ran for president in 1948 (!) on a segregationist platform, filibustered to stop a civil rights law vote, and had a mulatto child out of wedlock. George Allen lost his incumbency after referring to an indian man as "macaca", loves him some n-word, and became irate when "accused" of being Jewish, only to announce the next day his mother was, in fact, Jewish. Trent Lott said, in public, that the country would have been much better off if Thurmond has won the presidency because of what "they" had done to society, "they" being the darkies. And Rick Santorum? Well, he's just a huge, huge douchebag. And, to be honest, not really out-and-out a racist as much as a major gay-basher that dabbles in minority-hating on the side.

So where does that leave us, the American People? Where can we find us some good, old-fashioned, black hating? I'm pretty sure David Duke is dead or in prison or already in office in the South, and even though South Carolina would vote him back in, I'm almost positive the law does not allow for Strom Thurmond to be re-elected. So, that leaves us with a very big void.

Though, if I had to guess, I'd bet Joe Leiberman HATES black people.

Ahoy ahoy

So. Blogging and all that. Wave of the future and whatnot. Rad.

I took my url, keepwalkingblue, from one of my favorite drinks, Johnnie Walker Blue Label (don't go thinking I'm too elitist - I'll drink fucking Pine-Sol if the proof is high enough). Though, I suppose if I were authentic, it would be one of my favourite drinks. Luckily, I'm not a filthy, filthy Brit. Along with Scotch, I quite enjoy music, politics, other forms of fermentation, sleep, and other unrelated things. This post comes from one of those specifically aforementioned realms; namely, politics.

If you didn't know, our Fearless Leader in Pottsylvania has nominated a certain Judge Mukasey to replace former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez (A.G.A.G. to his posse), and Mukasey's nomination has stalled due to his refusal to definitively say whether or not waterboarding, a method where we (America - fuck yeah!) torture people, is torture. Read from the esteemed pinko hack zine the New York Times:

Mr. Mukasey, 66, a retired federal judge from New York, referred to the criminal liability issue several times in nearly 180 pages of written answers delivered to the Senate on Tuesday. He said that while he personally found waterboarding and similar interrogation methods “repugnant,” he could not call them illegal. One reason, he said, was to avoid any implication that intelligence officers and their bosses had broken the law.

So. There we have it. The nominee for the top law enforcement position in the land refuses to aver a position as to whether or not something might be illegal because it might be illegal. Tremendous. This, I believe, only further provides evidence to my theory that this entire administration is based solely on making people say, "Are you fucking serious?" as many times as possible. Sure, sure, it started with going to war under false pretenses, and shooting hunting buddies in the face, and so forth and so on same old song and dance, but it's gotten to the point where Cheney will actually say, "Oh, no, the Veep office isn't part of the executive branch!" He's got to have balls bigger than EPCOT, man.

It's almost - almost- impressive how much bullshit is flung at the wall by these guys. Even more impressive is how much it sticks. To paraphrase David Byrne: We all say we want the truth. What we really want is better fiction.