Politics

A while back I decided to ease off on political statements on my blog. People who go on and on about politics tend to look like real jerkoffs no matter what political affiliation they tend towards. A person's political extremity is directly proportional to how large of a douchebag they are.

However, sometimes politicians say things that are so mind numbingly stupid that I just can't let it go. These past few weeks are one prime example of political bullshit of epic proportions.

John Shimkus is, of course, a Republican, and made the following statement regarding man made global warming and the EPA ruling that CO2 is dangerous:

"Does EPA propose we stop breathing?"

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So I know this will reach all of five people, but I feel I need to vent somewhere, and I refuse to spread anything political on Facebook or anything like that and be a total hypocrite, so I'll put it here where it's on my dime:

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Shimkus, you fucking imbecile, this has to do with the carbon cycle. Breathing is part of the normal cycle. Digging up multiple trillions of tons fossilized carbon is not part of the normal cycle, you dumb disingenuous tool.

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Naturally, some of the real bottom scrapers of the conservative movement (like Sarah Palin) think this is a great, catchy little statement. A hell of a lot of them are all up in arms over 'climategate', which is even less meaningful to Global Warming science than the Piltdown Man hoax was to Evolutionary Theory.

With all of this bullshit the Republican party sure looks like the anti-science party lately. Not that this is a new trend for them, but it's got no hope of being fixed with the current crop of science illiterate buffoons that have been elected.

I suppose I'll get some random spambots and angry responses to this; should be fun!

Well, we're finally done. It's finally over. No more George Bush; now we have Obama. Now, I may be an atheist, but thank god the bullshit of the last eight years are over with. I mean, really, it has been one long crappy road with that idiot in charge.

Hopefully things will start to suck less in years to come. I'm pretty confident that they will, but you never know. That being said, I can scarcely imagine Obama could fuck things up any worse than what this nation and, indeed, the entire world has been through.

The inauguration was pretty interesting. Not so much for the inauguration itself, but just the reaction people have had to it. I was sitting at work, and half the people at my job were just sitting quietly in the cafeteria listening to the speech (which was pretty good, by the way). I don't recall that many moments in my life where a whole lot of varied people were all sort of in synch with what they were thinking and how they were reacting; and certainly not any positive ones like this.

The minority of hateful, spiteful folks are, naturally, being as loud as they can, but I'm really amazed at how few of them there are. Seems that a lot of people who aren't fond of Obama are, at the least, completely fed up with Bush and his relentless string of failures.

I guess any way you look at it yesterday was a big deal. A big deal for the United States, a big deal for the world, a big deal for humanity in general. That probably sounds very Ameri-centric, but that's not what I mean. Any nation that can really make a good step forward to rise above past biases as we've just witnessed is doing something great for all of us.

So to sum it up, yesterday was a pretty good day. Hopefully we'll have a few more after this.

Ok, more political BS, then I swear I'm done till the next major election or the next time a politician screws up. I'm sort of killing time waiting for my laptop to arrive, since Fujitsu keeps pushing back the bloody ship date.

Anyway, Obama won, we have our first black president, and the Democrats control everything just short of being filibuster proof in the senate (which I think is a good thing).

Now, myself being fairly liberal (ok, very liberal), you might suspect that I'd wax poetic about Obama and how great this is going to be. But I won't because I have no clue if the next 4 years will be shit or not. I figure, based on what I saw of the two parties and candidates, that this is the better alternative, that's all.

But what I do know, being a denizen of the internet, is that the reaction from internet conservatives and Republicans is astonishing in its hate, bile, and unfiltered rage.

Back in 2004, a hell of a lot of butthurt liberals I chat with online were semi-seriously saying they were going to "move to Canada" since Bush won. Well, about .00001% of them actually followed through, but it was an indicator of how disappointed they were with the election results.

But now, with the Republican party basically being rebuked by the voting public, the reactions are like the liberals in 2004, only amplified ten fold and sprinkled with blatant racism and end-of-days armagedon speak.

Some fun highlights from the several days post-election I spent trolling conservative boards and blogs:

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• "Obama the magic lawn-jockey"  ~No, that's not racist at all~

• "That's it, I'm going to leech SSI for all I can and then move to lithuania before the liberals ruin the country"  ~Aparently Lithuania is to conservatives as Canada is to liberals. Also, lol at the hypocricy of the anti-welfare crowd.

• "That uppity anti-christ ain't my president."  ~Tough titty dude, he kind of won. By a lot.

• "Get your guns ya'll, the only way we'll survive the next four years is through an armed march on Washington to get the commie usurper off the throne."  ~I'm still trying to figure out what throne he's talking about. Maybe the commode in the east wing?

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That's just a tiny taste of the fun and exciting things Republicans are saying. Additionally, with the more sane members of the conservative voting public, a bit of finger pointing and blame-gaming has begun, where they try to decide who gets thrown under the bus (early bet's on Palin) and who gets to stick around and rebuild the GOP.

The really fun character to come out of this besides Bible Spice/Caribou Barbie is Joe the Not-a-Plumber. Joe is an awesome guy, who's terrified that the $250,000 imaginary plumbing business he doesn't have the money or credit to purchase will be beyond his grasp if he has to pay around $900 more a year in taxes. Even better, his family once was on welfare, and that was ok because he and his family had paid into the system. But government handouts and taxation are bad. At least Joe gets a book deal out of the whole mess. Hypocricy can pay well, I guess.

Also, a big dummy managed to get himself removed from his football team for a facebook comment about Obama that reads "All the hunters gather up, we have a nigger in the White House". And you thought conservatives were classless!

It's been a fun time, and I look forward to even more fun and excitement and even more stupid shit coming from all sides, although especially the right. There's nothing like complete and utter ideological failure to really get the good reactions going.

Well, it's election day tomorrow.

Finally.

This has been a pretty crazy election year... I'm glad it'll be over soon. I'm especially glad that Obama appears to be winning by a huge margin too; maybe we can get finally get past this historical period of Republican idiocy.

In other news, I'm waiting impatiently for my new tablet PC to show up. I can't really afford the thing, but the extra hours of work I'll be able to put in while commuting and during lunch will be most excellent.

Other than that I'm still plugging along on Flash projects and researching how to code browser games. Not a whole lot of art lately; too much insanity between job, house repairs/renovation, foster dogs, and my own neurosis to get much done.

Getting the tablet will be nice though. There's a lot of times I just need to bugger off and find a place to chill out and do some work, and I've got a back-log of over 60 sketches that have been scanned I've not had a chance to do any digital coloring too. Same with some of my comics and other ideas, and this website is held together with the virtual equivalent of chewing gum and duct tape.

That's one of those shitty things about having so much stuff to do at home: you just can't relax and actually do any side projects when your to-do list is two meters long. Blarg.

This election season has been a profound source of right-wing idiocy. Sure, there's plenty of left wing idiocy too, but the profound and absolute failure of the Republican party over the past eight years has produced some stunning material.

Like this moron, Barbara West. This is an interview of hers with Joe Biden that's so bad it has to be watched to be believed. It's as if Biden is being interviewd by a creepy news-anchor version of a stepford wife with a malfunctioning turing program.

Nice compilation of what a tard this woman is.

So far I've actually been rather quiet about politics this election season. I suppose part of it is my attempt to be a bit more professional, less partisan, more appealing to visitors once I get some content built.

But today, I must speak.

I watched the debates last night, between John McCain and Barrack Obama. Especially the part about health care. You see, I used to work in the insurance industry, so I know at least a little itty bit about it. And this is what I found:

John McCain’s health-care plan for our nation is, quite literally, the worst idea mankind has ever given birth to. It is a festering, necrotic abortion of reason, and an affront to all thinking non-HMO CEO creatures on the planet.

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I’m still trying to figure out if the idea to green-light a movie like Gigli was a worse decision than this health care plan or not, and I’m actually having a tough time deciding, that’s how unfathomably bad it is.

Of course, if you want to see the downfall of America, this is a good start. Bush has destroyed our economy, I figure McCain can annihilate healthcare, and then the next Republican after him could, perhaps, destroy agriculture. It seems like a logical progression to me.

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Ok, getting down from my soapbox now.

Perhaps, once I calm down, I will explain in detail why it is such a heinous thing, but there are plenty of sources out there that do a better job than I.

This squidish picture has nothing to do with anything, it just happens to be a sketch I colored last night.

So today was exciting: I heard an impressive political speech, with 50% less bullshit than average, got to watch one of my co-

So the Iowa caucus results are in, and it would appear that the favored candidates for both the Republicans and Democrats have been firmly rejected by the voting public. Not Romney, But Huckabee. Not Hillary, but Obama.

Weird. I mean, it's cool, but it's weird.

Generally speaking most of my vaguely amusing ideas are pretty rude and offensive. This one is, naturally, no exception. Clearly I'm not a fan of the current administration.

If that was ever in doubt, please, let this put those doubts to rest :cute:

I worked this up for the Impeachment Project site as a quick offensive jab of a comic.

Just found out a few minutes ago that Moral Majority leader Jerry Falwell died in his office, most likely of some sort of heart condition.

As an aside, wikipedia has already been updated. man the community that works on that site act fast...