Thursday, September 30, 2004

You liberals should be ashamed of yourselves for calling Iyad Allawi a "puppet." He is a courageous man who's fighting for the people of his country! Oh, wait, maybe you're saying that because he IS a puppet.

Even if Team Bush didn't write a good deal of the speech, does it matter? Anyone who thinks about things for, I dunno, more than three seconds knows that Allawi is far from an objective source. Yeah, the former CIA operative is going to criticize the people who gave him his current job and say things that will make them look bad. People in that position typically bite the hand that feeds them, especially when that hand is occupying their fucking country.

Shit, if nothing else, he's kissing ass so that a year or two down the road he doesn't have to pop up every once in awhile like Hamid Karzai saying "Please don't forget about us (even though you already have...)!" Of course, Afghanistan was just an unwanted bump in the road to get to what the administration had wanted to do way before 9/11 -- Iraq -- so I doubt they'd just ditch Iraq as well. But you never know with those fuckers.

Round one... Fight!

So the first of three debates nearly as sterile as the candidates themselves was this evening. And I've gotta say... Not too bad. Not really stellar, but not too bad. Kerry looked good up there. Bush, well, looked like Bush.

Is this any kind of surprise, though? Beforehand, a bunch of people were like "This could make or break the election! This could make or break the election!" Well, not really. At least, not when it comes to making the election for Bush or breaking it for Kerry. We all know that Bush is, ah, let's just come out and say it -- a shitty speaker. I mean, repugnantly awful for someone who ostensibly has a lot of power and influence. He's not a particularly rousing speaker, either. We all remember his RNC speech which was... Adequate. It was pretty much nothing but a bunch of people clapping at the shit they like being spoonfed anyway. Same thing tonight -- Bush repeated what you'd expect him to, but there was no way he was going to burn down the house like a Reagan or a Clinton.

John Kerry pretty much had to keep from drooling on himself and it was surefire that he would at least look adequate as well. The main concern, undoubtedly, was that he would come off as wooden or distant and fuck himself or get fucked (depending on how you look at it) like Al Gore four years ago.

Kerry did quite a bit more than not drool on himself. He was pretty solid up there. He spoke concisely and made his points. He pronounced "nuclear" properly. God, I just wanted him to go slap Bush in the mouth everytime he mispronounced it. Kerry looked like a man who at least has his shit reasonably well put together. Much more the kind of guy you'd feel at least somewhat secure leaving to run the country. What do you expect, though? He's a fucking educated man who's spent decades in the Senate. Oh, but what about Bush, you say? He went to Yale, and he's president! Yeah. Joke and joke.

The thing I liked best about Kerry's performance was that he was all over the place. Not in a helter-skelter, I-don't-know-what-the-fuck-I'm-doing kinda way, though, unlike someone we know. No, He just managed to hit everything he could in the time allowed while keeping it all tied together. Bush, on the other hand, got across one or two points the entire night (or at least tried to), the main one of them being that you have to be consistent. Or something. Seriously, how many fucking times did Bush talk about how you can't change your mind and blah blah blah?

Before this first debate, all we could hear was that Bush has never lost a debate and, as such, that he's a great debater. And it's like, no he isn't. He's Bush. Haven't you been paying attention for the last FOUR FUCKING YEARS? Oh, that's right -- you haven't.

I know that Kerry must have done a decent job despite my biases since Fox's commentators were being pretty positive with regards to his performance. When you've got the editorial staff of The Weekly Standard giving Kerry points, you know he did something good.

Of course, Kerry was far from perfect. He didn't exactly burn the place down, either. In some ways he was pretty lucky, because there were lots of times that anyone but Bush could have nailed Kerry on a particular point. Bush, the great debater that he is, failed to capitalize. Kerry, on the other hand, had opportunities where he could have really buried Bush on some stuff, or at least clarified a Bush distortion or hammered home a point, but didn't. Like I said, not perfect.

I just wish we could have at least one debate that's totally free-form. Just put these two in a cage -- no moderator, no handlers, no bullshit, just let them have at eachother. Rhetorically, of course. I'm not sure that we're at the point where even we're ready to turn presidential races into bloodsport, but yeah, maybe. Anyway, if these two could just sit down and argue shit out, and furthermore if Kerry didn't hold back at all, I know Kerry would rip Bush to shreds. I've had my own fair share of criticism for John Kerry, but I have no doubt that the man is a hundred times smarter than Bush. Hell, the floater I flushed down the toilet awhile ago is at least ten times the intellect that Bush is, so I know Kerry could shine against Bush if the shackles were undone.

One down, two to go. I don't know if this helped Kerry's chances a great deal, but I just don't see how it could have hurt.

Tuesday, September 28, 2004

I love The Onion. I also care a great deal for the "National Outlook" on this page.

Monday, September 27, 2004

Google search:

gynecological DNC

I've gotten a hit of this nature at least twice, and the best I can figure is that the searcher is looking for a discussion of how the DNC was a total clinic in looking at nothing but a bunch of pussies.

Get your drink on

Steve Colbert: it's French... Bitch.

While we're in the groove with random product reviews, ETP and I tried an utterly atrocious beer this weekend: Wexford Irish Cream Ale. It tastes like fucking medicine, and proves that just because it's got the little ball of compressed gases like Guinness doesn't mean it's good. ETP and I were able to get down a few sips before it went down the drain.

The worst thing about it was that those few sips destroyed my palette for the rest of the night. Nothing tasted right for the rest of the evening, and I couldn't even enjoy my beloved Fuller's ESB after that.

Last week just wasn't a good week when it came to bad aftertastes. Don't get any dirty ideas; I've already gotten used to that aftertaste. What exactly "that" is referring to is up to you; if you decide to go homoerotic that's just fine since that's where I was headed. Anyway, one day at work I decided to try a piece of candy from Korea that someone brought in. After about three seconds in my mouth, I was like, this tastes like potting soil. Not that I eat a lot of potting soil, but if I did that's what I'd imagine it must taste like. Like the Wexford I couldn't get rid of the taste for quite some time, and all I could think of for the several hours following that brief taste of the candy was "What the fuck is wrong with Korean people?" But at least they're not making scheisse flicks. Or at least, not that I know of, and even with my sick mind I don't fucking want to know if they are.

Alright, back to beer. If you're looking for a good beer, that Fuller's ESB is one to check out if you can find it. The ESB, as you may already know (in other words, if you're an alcoholic like me... because, yeah, having any knowledge of alcohol automatically makes you an alkie), stands for extra special bitter. Of course, if you don't like bitter beers, Fuller's ESB isn't for you. And, you're a pussy. Seriously, everyone knows Keystone, right? The real alcoholics know Keystone well, I'm sure. Keystone's mission is to stamp out "bitter beer face." And all I can say is... Fuck you! For me, bitter beer face is a big-ass smile. You can take your watered-down piss-water and, well, do whatever the fuck you want with it, because I won't be drinking it.

Another quality brew I've been consistently buying for the past few months is Breckenridge Brewery's oatmeal stout. The first time I had one, all I could do was repeat the cycle of taking a drink and then looking at the bottle, saying to myself "This is a good beer." Since it's one of the smaller breweries here in Colorado I don't know how far from home it's sold, but if you find it and you go for this kind of beer, I'd recommend checking it out.

I'm sure it's apparent by now that my taste in beers tilts heavily towards dark and flavorful. My worst enemy is the pale ale, my best friend is the stout.

As a fun fact for the day, Guinness in particular is not only tasty, but it's also healthy. Low in calories and high in iron. My step-dad's mother was telling us this story of growing up in England and how she was anemic as a child. To combat this, her parents would give her a bit of Guinness mixed with milk. She's not anemic anymore, and it's not because of the milk.

Okay, so I've managed to post about cream corn, how I need to find Fluke only in woman form, and beer, all in one night. Yeah, I don't sound like a drunk or anything.

Six Discs in My Changer

As a preface to this post, if you don't know who Fluke is, then you're living under a huge rock as you've somehow avoided hearing both "Atom Bomb" and "Absurd" for the past several years even though they've been all over the place. Also, if this description fits you, you're missing out and your life sucks.

Okay, so I got two new Fluke CDs over the weekend. By new, of course, I mean old -- Oto and Six Wheels on My Wagon. I hadn't picked these up yet since, naturally, they're only available as imports since we don't get anything good here because America sucks. I mean, it's no wonder us liberals hate America so much -- we can't even get our Fluke fix without having to go overseas.

Oh, and before you start in with that "Well, if you hate it so much, why don't you just leave?" bullshit, stop. Quit thinking you're clever, because you're not.

So far, I fucking love SWOMW. I've been playing it pretty much non-stop for the past several days. As such, what happened with the three-disc Progressive History XXX (AKA Hardcore, as opposed to the domestic Progressive History X, otherwise known as Softcore -- not a value judgment, by the way, because both compilations fucking rule) is happening with these two new discs. You see, with Hardcore, I almost always listen to disc 1. Yes, there's lots of cool stuff on the other two, but lots of times when I consider listening to one of them, I'm like, "Shit, I could be listening to disc 1 right now. It has track two, the second best track from anywhere."

As such, discs 2 and 3 get neglected, even though they don't deserve it. So far, Oto is suffering this fate. I just can't stop listening to SWOMW (unless of course if I'm listening to Hardcore disc 1, as I am right now). Maybe once I get my shit together and hit more of Oto we can buck this trend, but I'm not making any promises.

For some reason, I just don't get sick of any of these damn Fluke CDs, whether I listen to any particular disc constantly or just every now and then. It's been nice, because it's meant that I haven't had a continual driving urge to buy new music for quite some time now. This is useful for A) the wallet and B) the fact that there's virtually nothing but crap out there anyway. Not that I don't pick up new CDs from time to time (usually just more random noise -- you know, techno), but if some great tragedy befell the world and I had to live the rest of my days with only what I've got on hand, I'd be perfectly fine with that. Until, of course, a new Fluke album came out.

One thing that's always been hard for me to grasp with relationships is how people can do something like get married and then actually be happy for the rest of their fucking lives together. Now, it's not that I'm afraid of commitment, it's just that I oftentimes just tend to get sick of people after awhile, even if there are no issues whatsoever. Like, do you remember the story I told about the Vegas trip where I spent every waking moment of one week with this one friend of mine, and at one point I had to wander Paris aimlessly for five minutes by myself just to get some proverbial fresh air away from him? Yeah, stuff like that is what I'm talking about. Maybe you'll get out your textbook and try and psych 101 that into a fear of commitment, Freud, but you're wrong.

Thanks to Fluke, though, I do see that it's possible to have consistent exposure to something and not get sick of it. Granted, Fluke and I haven't been together for our entire lives yet (and I hope I'm not close to that point, either -- gotta cover my bases just in case they are listening and get any bright ideas), but it's looking real good. Most other CDs get constant play in the beginning and then some action every once in awhile, but it's been practically all Fluke, all the time for the past few years with me.

So what I need to do is find myself the female equivalent of Fluke. Some who, while I don't like absolutely everything that they do, I find enough good stuff in that I know they're pretty much better than everyone else. Hmm, I guess this doesn't quite work, though, since no matter how committed I am to Fluke, I don't know that Fluke likes me back. But wait a minute -- they must like the fact that I give them money, and I'll be damned if that doesn't sound exactly like a woman. I am the best at all metaphors!
Am I the only person alive who likes creamed corn? I'm pretty sure that I am, because I've never met anyone else who likes it. Hey, I'm not saying that I'd want to eat it every day, but if I had to, it wouldn't be the worst thing I could think of. And look, I don't profess to know what the "cream" is, nor do I care. To adapt a line from Lewis Black (although he was talking about sunscreen, not creamed corn), it could be zebra cum -- you don't know. But even if it is, then it looks like I need to get myself a pet zebra.

Dammit, something interesting has gotta happen soon. I mean, I'm posting about fucking creamed corn for Christ's sake. What are there, like, 36 days left until the election? I'd be willing to bet shit starts going down after the election, whether Team Bush wins or loses.

If by some act of Joe Pesci Kerry manages to win, look the fuck out, world. TB is going to go into "nothing to lose" mode since, well, they'll have nothing to lose. Remember how everyone got all bent out of shape when Clinton pardoned everyone? Yeah, that was nothing. See, they'll have four months to accomplish as much evil shit as they can that was originally planned to stretch out over four years.

Should they win, Team Bush is going to go into "nothing to lose" mode since, well, they've already won everything and there's nothing left for them to lose. They can then take their time anally raping this country. Nice and slow, long and hard, just the way they like it. I hope you like bleeding from the asshole, America.

As an example of what we might have to look forward to, I've been hearing rumors from the left-wing about how regardless of the election's outcome, we're going to go all-out in Iraq to quell the uprising. I don't know if anyone has any hard evidence of this supposed plan, but it sounds logical. No sense risking an assault before the election that could potentially have a negative influence as far as TB is concerned.

Now, cracking down on insurgents isn't really what I'm on about here. What will piss me off about this, if indeed it happens, is the timing. If this happens, I don't want to hear anyone on the right EVER criticize ANYONE for politicizing the Iraq war, The War Against Terror (TWAT), or anything else. Because that's exactly what a maneuver like hitting the insurgency post election would be.

But hey, at least there should be something interesting and relatively new to talk about. It most likely won't be good-interesting, but I'm trying to be as positive as I'm capable of here.

Sunday, September 26, 2004

That's... Pretty good. Not to mention Ted Rall's latest.
As Bill Maher said on the most recent Real Time, Maureen Dowd: always the smartest kid in the class. I may be sick and tired of politics (can we just have the election tomorrow and get it over with?), but I just can't get sick of Maureen. I was going to make some comments on the whole Bush/Allawi puppet thing, but there's no real point now since she pretty much covered it.