WE'RE SCREWED!

The House has voted against the bailout bill.

And yet during this crisis, all I heard were spin doctors trying to blame House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the failure of the bill because of a speech she gave. Well, this voter is not that stupid. What I got out of this was that certain Congressional members--the vast majority being Republicans--decided to do against what is best for the country because their little feelings were hurt? Are you kidding me? And to add insult to injury, John McCain, whose unwelcomed presence on the Hill set the stage for this disaster, blames Barack Obama for the failure...but it's his party that voted overwhelming against it. Sure, there were Democrats that betrayed the American people by voting against it, but the vast majority of them did and the vast majority of Republicans did not. I think that is a show of just how great a leader he can be. He can't even rally his own party, how the hell is he supposed to run a country?

I realize that Joe Blow Voter doesn't get the bill, but the members of Congress do! You swore an allegiance to your constituents, but your allegiance to your country comes first! If that was too great of a leap for you, then stay out of national politics and run for a state office!

Legendary Paul Newman Dies at 83

1925-2008

Link to Article

PETA Suggests New Source for Ice Cream Milk...Humans

AP Article

I tried to give PETA the benefit of the doubt and went to their site to read the letter myself and see how serious they were about this suggestion. This is what I found:

The Breast Is Best! PETA Asks Ben & Jerry's to Dump Dairy and Go With Human Milk Instead

For Immediate Release:
September 23, 2008

Contact:
Ashley Byrne (phone number deleted)

Burlington, Vt. - This morning, PETA dispatched a letter to Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, cofounders of ice cream icon Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc., urging them to replace the cow's milk in their products with human breast milk. PETA's request comes in the wake of news reports that a Swiss restaurant owner will begin purchasing breast milk from nursing mothers and substituting breast milk for 75 percent of the cow's milk in the food he serves. PETA points out to Cohen and Greenfield that such a move on their part would lessen the suffering of dairy cows and their babies on factory farms and benefit human health at the same time.

"The fact that human adults consume huge quantities of dairy products made from milk that was meant for a baby cow just doesn't make sense," says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. "Everyone knows that 'the breast is best,' so Ben & Jerry's could do consumers and cows a big favor by making the switch to breast milk."

For more information, please visit PETA's Web site Blog.PETA.org or click here.

PETA's letter to Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield follows.

September 23, 2008

Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, Cofounders
Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc.

Dear Mr. Cohen and Mr. Greenfield,

On behalf of PETA and our more than 2 million members and supporters, I'd like to bring your attention to an innovative new idea from Switzerland that would bring a unique twist to Ben and Jerry's. Storchen restaurant is set to unveil a menu that includes soups, stews, and sauces made with at least 75 percent breast milk procured from human donors who are paid in exchange for their milk. If Ben and Jerry's replaced the cow's milk in its ice cream with breast milk, your customers--and cows--would reap the benefits.

Using cow's milk for your ice cream is a hazard to your customer's health. Dairy products have been linked to juvenile diabetes, allergies, constipation, obesity, and prostate and ovarian cancer. The late Dr. Benjamin Spock, America's leading authority on child care, spoke out against feeding cow's milk to children, saying it may play a role in anemia, allergies, and juvenile diabetes and in the long term, will set kids up for obesity and heart disease--America's number one cause of death.

Animals will also benefit from the switch to breast milk. Like all mammals, cows only produce milk during and after pregnancy, so to be able to constantly milk them, cows are forcefully impregnated every nine months. After several years of living in filthy conditions and being forced to produce 10 times more milk than they would naturally, their exhausted bodies are turned into hamburgers or ground up for soup.

And of course, the veal industry could not survive without the dairy industry. Because male calves can't produce milk, dairy farmers take them from their mothers immediately after birth and sell them to veal farms, where they endure 14 to 17 weeks of torment chained inside a crate so small that they can't even turn around.

The breast is best! Won't you give cows and their babies a break and our health a boost by switching from cow's milk to breast milk in Ben and Jerry's ice cream? Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Tracy Reiman
Executive Vice President

Further investigation on the site suggests that apparently this is a publicity attempt along the lines of Jonathan's Swift's A Modest Proposal. Still, I think it would have been more sensible and less sensational to just ask Ben and Jerry's to offer soy milk ice cream or some other plant-based alternative, given that this suggestion would still involve animals being used as a product since human beings are animals, too.

Bailout Stalled

Just In Case You Missed It...

Rove At Work?

McCain has announced that he is suspending his campaign to deal with the debt crisis, and that he wants to postpone the presidential debate. I cannot help but to believe that Karl Rove suggested this. It is far to clever a move to be done by anyone in McCain's camp. Panic a country and it will rally behind the panicker...classic political strategy, and Joe Blow Voter is probably naive enough to fall for it.

My hat goes off to you again, Mr. Rove. You never cease to impress me.

Speed-Dating Foreign Policy: Palin Goes to the UN

The media finally got its wish to be present in a capacity other than just snapping pics of Palin sitting with foreign leaders that she will hopefully never meet again after CNN threatened to withdraw its entire crew and several other media outlets--including the AP--protested. Apparently, however, 40 seconds after Palin began chatting with Afghan president President Hamid Karzai they were escorted out of the room.

I am not worried. I have faith that their perceptions of her will be made known to the media outlets in their respective states.

Moby Dick Discovered

The Lies Will Finally Pay Off!

Angler by Barton Gellman

After I found out about this book, I wanted it so badly that I used my entire monthly "going out" fund (which isn't that much to begin with) to get it. VP Cheney is an interesting subject to me because my sentiments of him have been 1/3 curiosity and 2/3 scared ******** of him. I am only on p. 50 yet there is a sense of foreboding that I carry to this book in regards to his ascent and current role in the White House that I think I was more relaxed while reading The Exorcist. I keep expecting him to pop out of the book with a meat cleaver or something.

The Next Banks to Fall?

This article predicts which banks should be on the diving board soon...which is not comforting because this brings the economic crisis even closer to home.

John McCain and the Blackberry

I was going to just leave that one alone because John McCain didn't say he invented the Blackberry, his genius of a staffer did, and just like Barack Obama shouldn't have to pay for the sins of the people that surround him, in this case, McCain should be given the benefit of the doubt.

Seriously, people, this campaign is full of enough gaffes from the candidates themselves without putting words in their mouths.

I'm Just Putting This Here So It Will Be Easier to Find Later

Palin Not to Cooperate in Troopergate

This was announced yesterday while the world was going nuts as the stock market was getting historically worse.

First of all, that makes her look MORE guilty, and secondly, why is it that all of her major announcments take place during a disaster (Bristol Palin's pregnancy during Hurricane Fay, her interview debuted while everyone was freaking out about Hurricane Ike and now this one taking place at the end of what Greenspan referred to as the worst economic disaster of his career).

We are not stupid! The light will eventually fall back on you!

Economic Apocalypse!

Even Greenspan said yesterday that this is the worst he has seen in his entire career and that the crises being faced are a "once-in-a-century" event. Yet somehow, while economists are freaking out worldwide, presidential candidate Senator McCain still believes that the economy is still "fundamentally sound." What is he taking and where can I get some?

The One-Issue Voter

I have met many people that are voting for a candidate based solely on one issue--usually taxes or abortion--and I have mixed feelings about them because they are probably the most played voter group. They are voting on an issue that is near and dear to them but there is one important factor that candidates for office neglect to tell them: voting for that person won't end that issue. I am a little disgusted with candidates that pander to the feelings of voters in this respect because they are counting on the idea that the voter does not know that they have no or little power over the subject.

In the case of taxes, the president can only suggest a tax plan...Congress has to approve it. So unless you have been actively campaigning for Congressional candidates in enough states to back the tax plan, there is still a significant chance that said tax plan will never see the light of day, especially in the original form proposed by the candidate-elect.

The abortion issue is a bit more straight forward: having a pro-choice or pro-life president, vice-president, Senator, etc., doesn't mean a hill of beans because the only group that can overturn Roe v. Wade is the Supreme Court. Sure, the president can nominate a Supreme Court justice, but the nominee would still have to go under the magnifying glass of Congress and even then there is no guarantee that said nominee will uphold the beliefs of that president. Nothing can remove a justice except death so there is no incentive to cater to any issue. Case in point: President Eisenhower nominated Earl Warren in 1952 to be Chief Justice of SCOTUS. Chief Justice Warren played a very significant history-changing role in the case of Brown v. Board of Education, and Eisenhower was quoted as saying that the worst mistake he made in office was appointing Warren as Chief Justice. George W. Bush nominated two SCOTUS justices (John G. Roberts, Jr. in 2005 and Samuel Anthony Alito, Jr. in 2006) and even though SCOTUS upheld the partial-abortion ban law, it hardly made a dent in Roe v. Wade and the odds of Roe v. Wade being completely overturned are not very likely.

So there is your Government 101 for the day. The point I am trying to make is that when you vote for someone, the focus should be on things they can actually change--not slightly influence, CHANGE. What can the president change? Our status in the Iraq War (well, technically Congress can too but they don't have the cahones to do so) and foreign policy in general are the primary things that the president has the power to change.

So make your vote based on what they can do for us.

I Weep for the Future of Our Country...

She doesn't even have knowledge of the current administration's policies...she could have learned about that just from watching the news.

Sheri's Random Rant: The Typical American Voter

Every time there is an election season, I thank God for sending me into the field of political science because it taught me how to pick candidates using research and logic, not emotion. This post has several sections so please bear with me. Some will find this post offensive and frankly my dear, I don't give a damn. At this point I feel like some people DESERVE to get their feelings hurt. I would also like to point out that I am not and will not endorse any of the candidates.

I am often asked about my thoughts on political issues but I try not to answer them because the inquirer isn't looking for my opinion, they are looking for someone to agree with them. If I do participate in the conversation, I am forced to endure a speech that is just loyalty-based emotion on a subject. I realize that maybe I should speak up more, and stop worrying about other people's feelings.

The first thing that bothers me about the typical American voter is that every election voters complain about campaign mud slinging. Well, guess who you should blame for it America? YOU! Whenever you as a voter go around quoting the mud and voting based on the mud you are giving candidates a reason to continue slinging mud. If someone sells you spoiled meat and you know its spoiled but you continue to buy it instead of the fresh food, you are to blame because YOU are the one that continues to buy it. This "lipstick on a pig" nonsense is a good example of how voters run the mud-slinging machine. It is just as senseless as when Clinton was accused of being a racist because of a comment he made about Obama. Guess what, America? If you turned off the news every time crap like this would come on the media ratings would go down and they might actually talk about something else!

One of my relatives is constantly trying to get into political debates with me because I refuse to blindly follow Obama. This person argues that this candidate is the perfect president because they give great speeches. I don't even watch the speeches. A speech is not a reflection of a candidate, but the talent of their speech writers, and in the event that said candidate wrote their speech, it only proves that they would have had a great career in journalism, not running a world power. When Palin gave her intro speech (let's be honest: Palin is the one running for president; McCain is 72 years old and his health is less-than-desirable so there is a notable chance that he could die in office), America cheered and that confused the hell out of me. Given that they coached her to death I am not surprised that she read it without screwing up. And since when is the ability to give a great speech evidence of sound leadership? Need I remind you that Hitler gave rousing speeches, too?

I do plan on watching the VP debates, not because it will affect my opinion on either potential VP but because it promises to be entertaining.

I was going to write more, but I think I will stop here. America, if you are going to vote for a candidate, don't do it from speeches or watching the news, do it from researching their domestic and foreign policies plans. Picture them talking to a foreign leader and ask yourself do they have what it takes to secure America's place in the international system. Don't vote because of race or because you like how someone looks or because they seem "normal" to you. Looks do not run a successful country. Abraham Lincoln wasn't aesthetically pleasing at all and he is remembered as one of our greatest presidents. And as for voting for someone because they seem like a "normal" American with "normal" problems, go outside and look around: the country is crawling with "normal" people with problems...would you want any of them to be your president?

History holds the leaders of nations responsible for the failings of their countries. I think that the people that put them in power play a great role in those shortcomings as well.

Any unstructured and/or irrational replies will be deleted. I don't have the patience for it anymore.

In Memory of 9/11

"Big Bang" Machine Switched On

There was some speculation that this machine could possibly destroy Earth. That idea used to bother me, but then it occurred to me that it would probably be a pretty quick disintegration so there is a good chance that we wouldn't feel any pain when the world imploded.

Weird Stories: Bear Takes Up War on Drugs

I guess he either was pushing out the competition or he had the munchies.

Fannie and Freddie Get Bigger Gov't Bailout

Link to article

Mother Microwaves Baby

China Arnold's defense team contends that she was not in her right mind when she microwaved her infant daughter to death because she was drunk.

What the hell kind of alcohol induces homicidal urges like that? Killing a baby in a microwave? Did the jury realize that the time it must have taken in the torturous death of this child? That the child had not only enough time to feel pain, but to cry out to her mother about it?

If someone drinks and drives, they are lambasted, but if someone drinks and microwaves their child, that makes sense?

Introducing Sarah Palin...

I watched her speech...why, I don't know. A speech is not a reflection of a candidate, but the talent of their speech writers, and given that they coached her to death I am not surprised that she gave it without screwing up.

However, you can teach a monkey how to play the piano, but that doesn't make it Mozart.

Palin's Little Secret

I originally was going to leave this story alone since I usually think it is unnecessary to go after a candidate's family. Then it dawned on me that Gov. Palin decided to make this announcement when America was conveniently distracted by two hurricanes. That ticked me off so I decided to do a post on it.

By the by, Gov. Palin: John Edwards made his career-killing announcement about his affair during the opening ceremony of the Olympics and all that did was tick people off. How do you think people are going to respond to you hiding behind a hurricane?

And let's be honest: if this was the daughter of Biden, the Republicans would tear that child alive.