another lesson in how to lose an election, corporate entitlement, and the death of tabloids...

obama's numbers, in a year tailor-made for a progressive voice, are eerily similar to those of kerry's four years ago. how can it be that in an environment where having (R) after your name seems to automatically drop you ten points the supposed savior of the democratic party has a virtually insignificant advantage over a man running as a Big R Republican? apparently everyone in the obama campaign has forgotten two simple lessons of history - number one (which still amazing me when democrats are blind to this one), people really don't want a nixon republican posing as a democrat...they'd rather have the reagan republican proudly posing as a republican. especially people like myself and the far-too numerous other young, disenchanted and "independent" voters...we, unlike the drones on the right, will not be taken for granted. gore found out the hard way...kerry found out the hard way...hell, clinton would've found out the hard way were it not for a little elfish looking libertarian businessman that crushed bush sr.'s hopes of a repeat four years. (yes, for all you bitching about how nader ruined the 2000 election for al gore...remember that al gore wouldn't have been in a position to run the second worst campaign in history - first until kerry's 2004 campaign - were it not for the dreaded third party spoiler on the right eight years earlier...you didn't have a problem with it then now did you?) and now, in quite possibly the absolute high point of political idiocy, obama is shifting hard right and calling his populist talk "overheated rhetoric". not only is he not inspiring to us anymore...but he doesn't sound inspiring anymore...he sounds like just another clinton-esque shitbag. and that is why, in a year and a political landscape when the obama of a few months ago would be opening up a 15 point advantage, the clinton obama is barely clinging to a lead in the polls. speaking as a ex-pat midwesterner...if you continue on this path, you are doomed in the region obama. your apparent desire to sacrifice everything for victory will prove all for naught when the one thing that assured you victory in the first place was your apparent willingness not to sacrifice the american people for political gain. NAFTA and its counterparts are wrong - cultural conservatives in the formerly industrial midwest know this...and by abandoning the economic populist ties that brought them to you, you will lose them. the war in iraq was a mistake and continues to be a disaster in more ways than the media's love affair with you and mccain will let us know - the american people have been telling washington this for years and sent you and your jackass friends there two years ago to end it...by abandoning that promise, you will lose them. no american likes the government to invade their privacy by reading their mail, listening into their phone calls, checking their banking records, and god knows what else - the southern libertarian belt is pissed off at the expansive government intrusions into their civil liberties, along with the far left and the middle...and by selling them out to corporate america, you will lose them. stop running the token democratic campaign...if you are doing it to win, you are very, very, very wrong. if you are doing it because you believe it...then you are just a shitbag and deserve to be tossed into the scrapheap with the rest of the useless class of fuckheads that have thrown us under the bus for decades. either way...my feeling at the moment can be summed up as such - fuck you.

banks are failing due to moronic risks and your tax dollars are going to step in and save the day. whatever happened to the importance of personal responsibility? granted, if someone were to tell me that if I took ridiculous and boneheaded financial risks I could keep the profits in the miniscule chance that it worked, but if it did not the government would pay it all off anyhow, I would've gone for it too. don't get me wrong, I am not against (in theory) the government saving industries that may need it (although the key word should be "industry" and not financial institution). there needs to be some sort of fall back to promote risks that very well may work to the benefit of society. the same is true for the individual entrepreneur...if we establish and stregthen the social safety net there is greater incentive for individuals to take the risks necessary in starting up new ventures. why is it that with corporate america we agree to raise the safety net with tax dollars, but with actual living, breathing human beings we rip it out and "reform" bankruptcy so that it is no help whatsoever to the average person? something is very, very wrong with this system...

turns out jon benet was not murdered by her parents. after all these years, DNA tests showed they didn't do it. at least they got an "oops, our bad, sorry" from law enforcement...because after having your little girl brutally murdered and law enforcement deciding you did it and trying in vain to find a way to pin it to you everything is much better if you get an "I'm sorry" in the end. at least the tabloids will be hurting for stories again now...back to batboy and satan's head in clouds. god help us all...

when there's nothing left to burn you have to set yourself on fire...