Let's Simplify This

For those of you keeping track, there have been a bunch of comments flying back and forth in the last couple of posts. I've had responses to many of the things written but I was interested in how others were responding and instead held back. I'd like to take this opportunity to continue the dialogue on a number of issues beginning with this gem from Frieda...

"You choose to believe the perspective on the "facts" that you wish to. they just don't fall hook line and sinker for the liberal distortions that you seem to fall prey to."

The facts that I presented had nothing to do with my perspective. In the first few months of Bush's presidency he backed the United States out of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol agreement on global warming, which was signed by 178 other countries. Is this a liberal perspective that I have fallen into? Do you have any idea what kind of message it sends to the other countries who had agreed to be a part of this agreement, who do not pollute nearly as much as we do, when we back out? I don't want to sound mean, but it is getting very tiring to share these facts and hear O'Reilly rhetoric back. "Oh that's just liberal spin." What does liberal have to do with the 1997 Kyoto Protocol? So here I feel I have established a point until Gorss retorts...

"Frieda is right. Information does not equal enlightenment, and facts do not exist in a vacuum.
Are these the facts that are supposed to open our eyes? The Kyoto Protocol is hardly the answer to all the world's environmental problems."

True to his style, he speaks the truth. To be sure, the Kyoto Protocol was not the answer to solving the global warming problem nor will I gain enlightenment from it's cancellation. I (not some) would argue that backing out of the agreement was not the answer to solving the global warming problem either. In fact cutting half a billion dollars from the Environmental Protection Agency's budget problem wasn't the answer either. In fact hiring Linda Fisher, an executive from Monsanto (you know, the company that bought out Calgene, the first company to introduce genetically engineered foods to stores), to be the deputy administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency could be argued to be going against solving the worlds environmental policies. Am I just sounding like a liberal? We should pinpoint the sentences that are liberal. I'd be interested.

Gorss responds to my liberal claim that there were no WMD in Iraq.

"Tons of people thought there were WMD, including Kerry."

I will speak personally. For me, this still does not justify the war. I'd like to keep this as an ongoing dialogue, so lets talk honestly, without predispositions toward any candidate. I understand that you are...

"...not trying to defend the Iraq war at all, because I was never exactly a fan. But it did seem to me that some people (mostly Protestant pundit types) laid out a pretty decent case that it was a just war from the beginning. That case has fallen apart, of course (no imminent threat, high civilian casualties, extended duration, etc.)."

I am not trying to be critical of you. It is your candidate who single handedly waged this war on Iraq. This should be part of your decision making process. I am incapable of whimsically saying,

"Genocide in Sudan, AIDS in Africa, etc. No doubt these are tragedies of the highest order. More can always be done to promote life."

More was not done to promote life. In fact more was done to demote life. It is impossible to come up with solid numbers on how many lifes could be saved if generic drugs would have been allowed in Africa. But how would Ashcroft (who received $50,000 from Schering-Plough a pharmaceutical company) make any money. How would Rumsfeld, who was CEO of the G.D. Searle pharmaceutical company make any money? These are huge issues. I will not allow them to be marginalized.

Is it liberal to assume that the plan to attack Iraq may have something to do with Bush's staff and less to do with going after al Queda and the War on Terror or no wait, I mean freeing the Iraqi people? It really hurts me as a person to know about the deaths waged in my name across the globe. Because of The Project for the New American Century we will never know if the mess in Iraq could have been avoided. It complicates my feelings. Do you know who is involved with this Project for the New American Century? It scares me. Onward...

"He (or she) is elected based on public opinion (no comments about Florida 2000 please)"

I don't understand. What do you mean no comments about Florida 2000? Katherine Harris was the Bush state campaign chairwoman/in charge of the state election procedure. A full cousin of George W. Bush, John Prescott Ellis, was analyzing data from the Voter News Service for Fox News and had several times contacted, by telephone, both George and Jeb Bush that night. It was his decision to call Florida for Bush, with Fox being the first network to do so. The man was never elected. It is difficult to just brush this aside as old news. This is part of my election process.

My point is surely not to change anyone’s mind. I'm sure your minds have been made up. Like I've said before, there is a good chance I would vote for one of those two guys that sat in the balcony and made critical remarks of the Muppet show for president before I voted for George Bush. This is not because I affiliate myself with the Democrats, or the Liberals or anyone really. My decision is based on what I've seen and what I've read over the past three years. I can't tell you how many times I've tried to honestly, in my heart, make a claim for George Bush. The facts (and yes, we can have the talk about how nothing is real and yesterday is today and the moment is now but the now doesn't exist and no fact lives in a vacuum, in fact, a fact is not a fact because of the many factors that go into it's creation as a fact and time and space later) that are presented, for me personally are absolutely overwhelming.

I wanted to add a few video clips that make me feel more comfortable with my choice of those Muppet guys for president.
These clips could be argued as being liberal, but I'd need to here a good case for it.

Here Bush show his vast knowledge of historical terminology.
Here he shows his knowledge of old sayings.
Here we see a promise that Bush has kept.
Here the first thing that must come to mind is Lincoln, Jefferson and this guy.
Here we get a better idea of Bush's respect for a classes.
Here our unelected President's understanding of medicine.
The 911 video of Bush sitting in a class room. When the secretary comes in to tell him about the second plane, he sure sits a long time.

This is just plain funny.

Meanwhile...

The Pickle (My Sister Sight) has a nice wrap up of how we suck. I thought the Starbuck's in every Starbuck's bathroom part was a stroke of genius. Here's a silent soundbite...

"It's a full time job, not sucking. Just this morning I had a latte and pounded out the crossword. In fact, for people like us, we must suck--only briefly and on rare occasions can we escape that fate.

The best we can do is be aware of it. Maybe if we always note how bad we are, how deeply American we are, we'll be doing a little to undo this mess. After all, none of us would be American if we weren't human first; to Amerr is human. If the poor Swazis had a choice, damn, they'd be Americans too. Who wouldn't want a Starbucks in every Starbucks bathroom?"

are you kidding me?

dear john kerry,
we are the spirits of the geese that you killed needlessly so that you could get the vote of the nra and support of ohio voters. shame on you, you fake, opportunistic bastard. next time you walk through a beautiful field where we fly, without a gun and camoflauge, we will make sure to poop on your head.
signed,
the pissed off geese

Jon Stewart

If you haven't already seen this, you should. Jon Stewart is a guest on Crossfire. It's fantastic. Just click on the picture.

people should not. part one.

nothing worse than ugly. ugly worse than ugly. don't do ugly.

people should not have big noses pimples on their necks droopy cheeks over gray gummed teeth fat waves of flesh rippling down their spines. people should not have yellow jagged toenails. wear peach lipstick with matcthing rouge allow their hair to tint blue and wear orthopedic shoes no matter how old they are. nor should older men wear shorts way up high as well as tube socks. this is not sexy. should not lay multicolored shag rugs across their bedrooms under brown colonial pressboard furniture with gold drawer handles. people should not display snow globe and elephant tzchakis all over their houses, nor hang bob ross like landscapes over their rust tweed woven couches. should not store plastic shopping bags inside plastic shopping bags inside their kitchen cabinets while walking over their dirty linoleum floors. people should not have old receipts and paperwork overflowing out of every crevice of available space of their bookshelves. people should not have pineapple or palm tree magnets that say florida on their refridgerators. people should definitely stop throwing fast food wrap out of their moving vehicles. idiots should stop spraying their ugly tags all over every beautiful piece of architecture. people should not kick their dogs or set cats tails on fire put birds in cages hurt majestic horses and elephants and tigers for the sake of entertaining their snotty little children at the circus. people should not care about how their lawn looks so that they spray chemical fertilzers into the earth so that their children develop cancer cells. people who smoke should not flick their filters any damn place they please because they think that it's too small to be litter. no one should cut down a beautiful forest to bulid another plastic stinky shoe payless.

Whoa!

After dinner, I kicked my feet up on the coffee table and read the New York Times while the Red Sox tried to squeeze another game out of the Yankees. I was weaaring my thick rimmed black glasses designed by Versace. I had on second hand clothes, polyester pants and a light blue alligator shirt, short sleeved. I finished the article I was reading and decided I should make myself a Cappuccino. (My father won a Cappuccino maker in a golf tournament we played in earlier in the year. He had no use for it. He wanted to trade it in for some pots.) It was a little cool in our apartment. When my Cappuccino was prepared, I decided it was time to sit down at my Macintosh computer and compose a well articulated post concerned with detailed reasons why it is impossible for me or anyone informed to vote for George W. Bush. I set my cell phone down next to the keyboard should somone call. It was at this moment, sitting in front of an empty blog screen with a steaming Cappuccino fogging up my arty glasses, critical thoughts of Bush brewing in my head, that I was fully realized...

I completely, entirely suck.