just me

If you haven’t already, get off your butt and go vote! The sneaky side of me would like to discourage those that aren’t voting for Obama, but I believe in America, I believe in The Constitution, and I believe that we’re all in this together. To steal a line from The American President,

“America isn’t easy. America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, ’cause it’s gonna put up a fight. It’s gonna say “You want free speech? Let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who’s standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country can’t just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then, you can stand up and sing about the “land of the free”.

That said, here are two videos that do a good job of illustrating why I voted for Barack Obama today.

Go vote now. Vote for a sensible science policy. Vote for restoring America’s credibility in the world. Vote for opportunity for all American’s. Vote for restoring America’s respect for her own Constitution. Vote for hope over fear. Vote for change.

The $700 billion bailout bill failed to pass the House today, and I for one am happier for it. McCain can go suck rotten eggs for blaming Obama. If Obama was the reason it failed to pass, then he must be more powerful than our current President who couldn’t push it through. For an excellent article explaining why this is a Good Thing, read this.

So Sen. McCain has said that he won’t debate Sen. Obama until Congress has reached a deal on “saving the economy.” Now Dems are whinging that it’s a ploy because they sey that McCain doesn’t want to or is afraid to debate Obama. I agree with Republican sympathizers that this is not the case, that John McCain is more than capable of debating Barack Obama. Here’s my 2¢:

It’s a ploy to either give Palin more time to prepare for her debate against Biden or to continually postpone the VP debates until it’s too late. Palin may be a decent governor, but at best she’ll look like a fool on national TV, and the McCain camp knows it. Anyone remember the televised VP debates from 1992 with Ross Perot’s VP, Vice Adm. Stockdale?

I can understand why some people choose to be vegetarians. I’ve even considered becoming a vegetarian from time to time, but I just like hamburgers too much. And I’ve always felt a connection to nature and to animals. And while I’m quick to agree that Homo Sapien Sapien are intellectually superior to animals, animals aren’t stupid creatures. They can communicate with one another. They can communicate with humans if the human is really willing to pay attention. And they have feelings. They care for their young. They care for their elders. There are endless stories of one species caring for the young of another.

So when I hear stories of animal cruelty, whether by an adult or a child, it makes my blood boil. This story, though, is truly heinous. I genuinely felt physically ill when I first read this article. If it was my call these perps would suffer the same punishment that they doled out to these pigs. It’s mind boggling that a species that is capable of incredibly selfless acts is also capable of such disgusting and appalling crimes. Now where did I put that veggie burger…

PETA video shows pigs abused at Iowa farm

I just don’t get why so many people think that Obama is too much of a risk to be our next President. For fuck’s sake, most of these people voted George W. Bush to TWO terms. The first time Dubya was elected, I was bitterly disappointed, but I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Here was a guy that spent two terms as governor of Texas, was a failed oilman, owned a stake in the Texas Rangers, a previous coke-head, dodged Vietnam, earned himself a DUI, and never left the USA until after he was elected President. He’s slightly less incompetent than his younger brother Neil, who was “a player” in the Savings and Loan fiasco that We the People bailed out from 1986-1996 at a cost of $160.1 BILLION (funny note — John McCain, part of the “Keating Five”, had a hand in the S&L mess as well). Google “Silverado Savings and Loan” and “Neil Bush” and see what you find. While you’re at it, try “Keating Five”, “Lincoln Savings and Loan” and “John McCain”. But I digress.

In my mind, Barack Obama is no less of a risk than anyone else who has run in the last quarter century. Sure, you never know until they’re in office, just like any other job in the world. Nixon had plenty of experience and look how he turned out. And now the GOP has the gall to pick Gov. Palin of Alaska for their VP? Two term mayor of a town of 9,000 and 20 months in office as governor, and they think she’s more qualified than someone who worked as a community organizer/activist, civil rights attorney, law professor, member of the Illinois Senate for 8 years, and 4 years as the Junior Senator from Illinois.

In my honest opinion, the real reason many people consider Obama a risk is because he’s not white. That’s right, I said it. A lot of this country is still bigoted and racist, especially older generations.

I imagine because of my continual rants of people emailing crap without verifying if it’s true or not, my mom has gotten into the habit of asking me if it’s true/hoax/cause for concern. I honestly am happy that she does this. So a few weeks ago she forwarded one on to me from my aunt and uncle (her brother and sister-in-law) about how “the liberals care more for flowers than they do for America.” Basically, it was about why we should drill in ANWR and why it really won’t harm the environment. Below is my response to them. I haven’t heard back from them since.

Let me start off by saying I’m neither a Democrat nor a Republican. Both parties care nothing for fixing anything, unless it helps them retain power…

I can’t vouch for the validity of the photographs, but the maps and the size of ANWR are accurate. Spills will happen (in 2006 there was a spill of between 134,000 and 268,000 gallons of oil near Prudhoe Bay) and roads will need to be built, as there are zero roads within or leading into ANWR. But even though there are no roads, there are thousands (at least 5,000) native Inupiat peoples that live in ANWR and depend on the flora and fauna of the area.

Sure, jobs will be created and there will be oil pumped out, but it’s a tiny amount of oil and a relatively small number of jobs. According to the Department of Energy’s EIA (Energy Information Administration:

“The opening of the ANWR 1002 Area to oil and natural gas development is projected to increase domestic crude oil production starting in 2018. In the mean ANWR oil resource case, additional oil production resulting from the opening of ANWR reaches 780,000 barrels per day in 2027 and then declines to 710,000 barrels per day in 2030. In the low and high ANWR oil resource cases, additional oil production resulting from the opening of ANWR peaks in 2028 at 510,000 and 1.45 million barrels per day, respectively. Between 2018 and 2030, cumulative additional oil production is 2.6 billion barrels for the mean oil resource case, while the low and high resource cases project a cumulative additional oil production of 1.9 and 4.3 billion barrels, respectively.”

“Additional oil production resulting from the opening of ANWR would be only a small portion of total world oil production, and would likely be offset in part by somewhat lower production outside the United States. The opening of ANWR is projected to have its largest oil price reduction impacts as follows: a reduction in low-sulfur, light crude oil prices of $0.41 per barrel (2006 dollars) in 2026 for the low oil resource case, $0.75 per barrel in 2025 for the mean oil resource case, and $1.44 per barrel in 2027 for the high oil resource case, relative to the reference case.”

For the average case, drilling in ANWR would reduce crude oil by 75 cents, in 2025. The total production from ANWR would be between 0.4 and 1.2 percent of total world oil consumption in 2030. So, we won’t see any oil for at least 10 years, and at best the price per barrel of oil (not per gallon of gasoline) will drop by $1.44 in 19 years. To me, that sounds like a huge waste of time and money. Instead, we should be investing our time and money on weaning our country off of oil, not just “foreign oil.” The more we invest in alternative energy sources for the production of electricity the less oil and natural gas we’ll need to import, which will bring the price of oil, and therefore gasoline, down.

Furthermore, the U.S. consumes 20,687,000 barrels of oil per day (as of 2006). At best, and only at it’s peak, we would be able to extract 1,450,000 barrels of oil per day. Since the entire world consumes a total of 83,607,000 barrels of oil per day (as of 2005), we Americans use nearly 25% of the worlds oil but account for less than 0.5% of the total population of the planet (300 million out of over 6 billion). The real kicker is that the total world production of oil is 82,532,000 barrels of oil per day (as of 2005). So, not only are we using much more than our fair share of oil, but we’re using it faster than we’re finding it. Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. If I spend more money than I make it’ll eventually catch up to me, and then I’ll really have problems.

There is no magic bullet to save us from this energy crisis. People want simple solutions, but there are never simple solutions to complex problems. And this is a problem that has been decades in the making. I don’t profess to speak for God (or Jehovah or Allah or…), but I’d imagine he’s extremely disappointed at how humanity has run (ruined?) this beautiful planet. Aren’t we supposed to be stewards of the Earth?

Mike
—
“A free America, democratic in the sense that our forefathers
intended it to be, means just this: individual freedom for all,
rich or poor, or else this system of government we call
democracy is only an expedient to enslave man to the
machine and make him like it.”
- Frank Lloyd Wright

I’m definitely behind a timetable for pulling our troops out of Iraq (I won’t even get into discussing why we should’ve never been there in the first place). But I can’t help but think that Bush’s impending reversal is a clever GOP (i.e., Karl Rove) strategy to take away a key point from the Obama campaign. Not that the only thing Obama has is being against the war in Iraq, but it was a major talking point, and now he’ll have to put more emphasis on other areas and ideas. And Rove is probably betting that it’ll take some wind out of his sails. And McCain can say, “See, we know what we’re doing in Iraq.” Rotten bastards.

Or maybe I’m just a little too jaded and cranky.

Go read this article now: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/21/begala.ticket/

Mr. Begala hit the nail on the head. And Mr. Pickens should be named Energy Czar of the next Administration.

Try to tell me I’m wrong, I dare you.

The world was a better place because of him.

George Carlin Mourned as Counterculture Hero - AP

The indescent, not obscene, Carlin dies - CNN

…and a nice bio from Wikipedia.