Welcome: how's ya like it? (the rant)

As an aside from my main blog, Your Daily Redneck Moment, I will be putting in my two cents on political issues, doubletalk on both sides, and tossing in some philosophy just for good measure.

First of all, I would like to ask all three presidential candidates, as well as all of the news media, what the fuck? Seriously, I've been asking for clarification, telling you to shut up, or explaining why I don't even care about whatever you're freaking out about, but no matter how loud I talk to the TV, all ya'll don't listen. I know I haven't been the only one shouting at my TV during some of these televised events. On behalf of all of us, who do you think you are, and where do you get off telling us what to think?

Global warming: not a lie, but definitely bad science. In the past, higher CO2 has been because of increased solar heat, based on solar activity cycles and how close we are. Hotter = more plants, more plants = more carbon in the air as they decompose. You 'scientists' have decided that the cart is pushing the horse.

Life is resilient. It will survive an increse of 12 degrees at the pole and 1 degree at the equator. Extinction is natural. Life has survived asteroid impacts that would have destroyed the human race. The Ice Age caused millions of extinctions, but life survived. Calm down, people. This means we get NEW critters to eat.

KATRINA WAS NOT A PRODUCT OF GLOBAL WARMING. That disaster was product of idiotic planning. Seriously, have you ever tried to keep water out of the lowest point in your yard? It doesn't stay gone very long. Now imagine placing all of your electronics in that low spot and blaming the fact that it was THE WORST PLACE YOUR COULD POSSIBLY PUT THEM on illegal immigrants and bad sci-fi writers, and blame them for the fact that now, you have no TV, and your cell phone contains algae.

Sounds like drunk-idiot logic, doesn't it?

__________________________________

Danica Patrick's good or bad indy-car preformance is billed as the only be-all, end-all indicator of whether or not women can race. When AJ Allmandinger fails to qualify, nobody says, "Maybe men just can't make it in motorsports." They say, "AJ needs a better crew, more money to research, and most of all, give him time." We have one, count em, one, woman racing in indycar. Sometimes, its the person, or the other circumastances, that determines their performance. We need a larger sample size, and I will punch the next newscaster that says Danica's performance is an indicator of all women. Face or gut, buddy? Here, I'll even take off my rings, just to be nice.

One the same token, this is the first time that a woman has had a serious bid for the U.S. presidency. But when she doesn't get nominated, or somehow she IS nominated and loses the general election, let me tell you, it is because she is a calculating, double-talking politician, and we know it. I don't care if you're God incarnate, if you act like she has, I'm not voting for you.

(Alice Cooper for president)

Don't treat Hillary Clinton's performance as an indicator of whether women can get elected, treat it as an indicator of whether THAT woman can get elected. I say no, she can't.

Same with Barack Obama. He scares me. He scares me on a deep level, because he has such a following of impressionable, outspoken sheep. Really, that's what most of the young generation is, sheep. Obama's a great speaker. So was Hitler. So was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. They all have different adgendas. If JFK and Barack Obama somehow, with some kind of time-space anomaly, could switch bodies, it is likely that JFK-body/Obama-brain would not have won in 1960, and that Obama-body/JFK-brain would be nominated and elected this year. It's not just about someone's demographics, it's also about their beliefs. And it's about what they're going to do once they have power.

Maybe Obama honestly thinks he can be America's messiah. Whatever. Maybe he'd do precisely what I want him to do. Maybe he'd mean well and accidentally screw up our country more. He's naive. He also isn't specific. Please, anyone, tell me what SPECIFIC changes he'll give us, and how. Maybe he'd be shot before May. I don't know. But there are two many unkowns, and I'd rather have the devil I know than the devil I don't.

Which brings me to John McCain. The straight-talk-express is anything but, but the well-oiled neocon propaganda machine is predictable. Fox News has the most comprehensive news coverage because they try to preemp anyone else getting ahold of the story, and they put out the party line about whatever happened. By knowing what ACTUALLY happened and how they're trying to sell it (video and pictures vs. judgements, descriptions, and absolutes), one can tell what they're trying to cover up and why.

The propaganda machine is such that we can say with relative certainty what we'll get with a McCain presidency. Even if it's disturbing, curtails our freedoms more (and makes us WANT it; as the people did in Fahrenheit 451), and gives the appreance of improving our position while actually employing shortsighted policies to undermine it, we know what we'll get.

I don't believe any of the candidates will do the right thing for this country, and the more news bather I hear about it, the more I want to go postal. But the solution is to turn the TV off, tape all of the broadcasts for posterity, and just chill. Seriously, people, just chill. Local politics are much more important, and that's where democracy really works. one out of 300 million is not much, especially when your vote doens't actually count for much, but one out of 3 million is something. One out of 1 million even better. Local politics have low turnouts anyway. Improve your own communities, cities, and states, people.

_______________________

Let's talk about that buzzword of the day: terrorism. Terrorism is the use of violence to intimidate. Activism is the use of peace OR violence to affect and inspire change. Psychological terrorism is the continued repetition of the concept that we are ALWAYS in extreme danger from our enemy du jour. The man in the the cloak with the talisman can keep you safe.

Now let's distinguish violent activism and terrorism from another form of violence: the snap-and-shoot-up-a-mall-or-build-a-tank-and-rampage-through-a-small-Colorado-town. That has no adgenda but revenge. It is criminal, but not terrorism. School shootings are not terrorism-- they are terrible, but not terrorism.

Terrorism is raining napalm on people who may or may not be enemy combatants (but probably aren't.. or weren't until you napalmed them) in order to clear jungle and, primarily, instill fear and terror in those who want to fight you.

Terrorism is "shocking and awing" the enemy into blind submission. Terrorism is a point of view. Terrorism is training and arming people who hate the people they're suppost to keep peacful.

"Death solves all problems: No man, no problem." -- Joseph Stalin.

Terrorism is telling people that in order to keep them safe, one must search for and invent enemies among them.

Terrorism is what the government is doing right now.

Arrest them.

_________________________

Ethanol. Is tha tnot the most idiotic fuel you've ver heard of? Ask any distiller: You don't get that much ethanol from a given volume of corn. Even if we use OUR ENTIRE FOOD CROP to make fuel, we'll still need oil, and then we'll need foriegn food, too, which means we'd be subject to whatever country sold it. Think about that.

Methanol can be fermented out of and distilled from wood, which is why it's called wood alcohol. That's what Indy cars run on. Pikes Peak competitors like it, too. Per gallon, it has less energy than gas, but by distilling things that don't need oil-based fertilizers and would otherwise have been left to rot, we really would be getting a net energy GAIN from it. But corn's more glamorous than sawdust.

________________________

Isn't nuclear just stupid? It has a lower accident rate than coal, but when you have a coal accident, it doens't pollute rivers, kill thousands, and render an area uninhabitable. Accidents can, will, and HAVE happened. Plus, it's not zero-emmissions: we need to store all that radioactive poison somewhere. For longer than civilization has even esisted so far.

We'll eventually run out of uranium, too. It's just like oil: a finite naural resource. Dumbass.

And get this: now they want to ship all that spent fuel by highway and train THROUGH EVERY MAJOR CITY IN THE U.S. in order to stuff it in a Nevada mounatin and contaminate their drinking water. No more hanging out at the railyard. It starts in 2010. Allegedly. The containers are supposed to be unmarked. That semi in traffic that's tailgating you might be darrying enough poison to contaminate the s=whole city.

I know a guy that literally lives spitting distance from the train tracks. Think about that, nuclear waste going by right outside your house. Is that really safe?

I love eating at Giuseppe's Old Depot Restaurant in Colroado Springs. Best pizza in the whole state. I'm not sure I would ever be comfortable eating at the train depot with at least three trains going by during the meal, just feet away, some of which may be carrying unmarked nuclear waste.

Whoever decided this was a good idea, c'mere. I'll put my rings back on for you. Face or gut?