Cerebus #69 still makes me LOL. I love the insult the one guy says before doing a sailor dive off the building: "The President sucks wet farts out of dead pigeons!"

If I said that aloud, I'd likely to be attacked by MAGA loyalists, if they're not doubled over in laughter.

Life sure is boring down here on earth
It's all full of work and no thanks
The rich folks get richer and the poor still are poor
And the middle class work for the banks

-Terry McGovern, "Beam Me Up Scotty"


OK. So President Obama made a deal with the devil Congressional Republicans. Caving in to those political bullies and their demands for continued tax cuts for the wealthy -- the 1% who make 23% of the GDP, according to independent Vermont senator Bernie Sanders.

( I really hope Obama knows what he's doing. )

....until the day the politial ads stop airing. For now.

I've just about had enough of the mud-slinging and poo-flinging from both sides that constitutes most of today's political advertising. "400,000 jobs lost under [Ohio governor] Ted Strickland." "[Ohio gubernatorial candidate] John Kasich took money from Wall Street." "[Ohio senatorial candidate] Lee Fisher said 'hold me accountable' three years ago." [Ohio senatorial candidate] Rob Portman touts his plan which will allegedly save everyone and everything, but doesn't go into detail about what it contains -- he might as well just say RTFPP (Read The F'ing Portman Plan).

I used to think that the Democrats were the Good Guys and the Republicans were the Bad Guys. Now I'm not so sure about the first part.

Where does the money come from to pay for these ads? Some allege that it comes from foreign investors. But according to this article from factcheck.org, it's illegal for foreign entities to purchase American political ads. And that "foreign money" claim? Total hooey.

There are times I wish political advertising was free, so that the third parties out there, from the Libertarians on down, would at least have a fighting chance at getting their word out to people. But then what would happen to our airwaves?

For the time being, I think I'll stick to channels that don't air poltical ads: PBS and the Weather Channel.

mseuphrates posted a great cartoon on her LJ today: The 24 Types of Libertarians. Too funny not to share.

I thought about writing a long essay here about why I'm neither Republican nor conservative. But I think I'll reduce it to a few bullet points.

* I grew up in a union household. Dad was a member of the UAW.
* I have friends and allies of many faiths -- Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Sikh, pagan, atheist.
* I married (and divorced) a Wiccan.
* I value diversity over conformity.

In the end, I don't think I need to defend or justify my political position or opinion to anyone. If they don't like it, screw 'em. Real friends accept me as I am.

I recently moved cubicles at work, so that my teammates would be more close together. In my new cubicle was a magnet from the conservative think-tank The Heritage Foundation, on which were printed these six conservative principles. Presumably this was left behind by the previous tenant.

( Read the list of principles and my comments. )

Some somewhat random thoughts, in the form of bullet points:

( Read more... )

Liberals tend to use emotion to sway people to their side. Conservatives tend to use logic to sway people to their side.

Agree or disagree?

As previously promised, here is last night's special comment by MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, in which he addresses the 9/11 "tribute" video shown at last week's Republican National Convention. A transcript is also available under a cut tag on the page.

.....and I wasn't moved by it. I was too busy playing "Spot the Person of Color in the Audience". It took the camera crews at C-SPAN about 30 minutes to find one.

Yes, McCain delivers a good speech, and there were some good ideas presented, but I still was making comments back at the screen a la MST3K. Did he say that Roosevelt was a Republican? I don't remember Teddy's party affiliation, but FDR was a Democrat.

Thankfully, I missed the 9/11 highlight reel which was shown before his speech. filkertom has a link to a copy posted on YouTube, with some choice commentary. I'm told that the Keith apologized to his audience for that clip. Yes, we should Never Forget, and say Never Again, but is there a need to bring up past hurts, other than to further the advance of American fascism?

My take: If there is to be change in America, people are going to have to want it bad enough in order for it to happen. If it's curbing our addiction to petroleum, or changing the regime, it has to come from We The People. I remember the Metric System and the Susan B. Anthony dollar coin. These were changes foisted upon us by the Government. Where are they now?