A big long large hefty humongous rant
Alright, I've been quiet about politics for a while, so now I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore. Or rather, I'm just going to say things I've been thinking but have not written down.
1. Bin Laden threatened today that we will "never take him alive." The American public promptly replied with a stern yawn. He seems to think we care, oblivious to the fact that we all pretty much know and have accepted that he's going to be shot in the head by the first Jarhead that comes across his cave, and he'll claim Bin Laden was struggling, and we won't care to do an inquiry because, hey, who cares? The idea that him shooting himself moments or months before we get there isn't a threat, it's a fucking gift. Save us a bullet.
2. Seems the Dick Cheney mess has calmed down, and the guy pulled through (Ted Kennedy: "Dammit!"). I don't really see what the big deal was, and apparently not many people were, because the White House Press Corps is now being fairly open about the fact that it made them look foolish. Hunting accidents happen, even Clinton said so. Maybe Cheney didn't say anything for a few hours because it's not all that uncommon, and it's embarassing, and it involves the guy's personal life, and he didn't want them jumping on the story like a pack of rabid wolverines, which would be justified fear because they totally did. But in the circus that followed, more pertinent issues got overlooked, such as...
3. CIA officers getting into a hubaloo about the release of Saddam audio tapes, saying such innocuous things as "Terror will hit America, and Iraq would not condone it, but if terror DOES hit America this would be a really good way. Wink wink." No link to al-Queda my ass.
4. Moving on, a recent Gallup poll reveals that 1 in 5 Americans thinks that they have been spied on using Bush's domestic spying program. Leaving aside the fact that Democrats knew about this program and didn't speak up until it hit the news ("Oh shit, now we have to look outraged!"), how many fucking dumb Americans are there? Despite the drum beat of "domestic domestic domestic," the spying program was only ever used for international calls, not state-to-state ones. That rules out a lot of people because, well, I don't know about you, but I don't call Iran very often. Secondly, there are about 286,000,000 people living in the US today. Let's do the math. 1/5 of those is 57,200,000. Still pretty hefty, no? Now let's say they make, oh, two calls per day. Sometimes I make one, sometimes I make five, so I figure two is a pretty safe estimate. That means that one small organisation (the NSA) would have to monitor about one hundred and twenty million calls every single damn day. Sorry, America, the government doesn't care that much about what you thought of Dancing with the Stars.
5. Finally, this cartoon fiasco. I understand why people would be upset on both sides. It's impossible to consider the offense of the cartoons (which was tactless) without also considering the gross exaggeration of the reaction (which is murderous). What pisses me off, really, and what some people don't even seem to realize, is that groups within the rioters added cartoons of their own that were much, much more offensive than anything the newspaper published. Their leader was called a pedophile demon, a pig, and a Muslim was shown fucking a dog. Of course if we try to point out that the newspaper didn't do that, we'll be accused by the extremists of attempting to cover lies or some such bullshit. The question is, why the hell would you even do that? People are getting killed over cartoons that were never published, when even if they were published the reaction seems ironically cartoonish. I say we whack them with a large prop mallet.
And after that angry rant, how about I lighten the mood with a little love? Peace, baby.
1. Bin Laden threatened today that we will "never take him alive." The American public promptly replied with a stern yawn. He seems to think we care, oblivious to the fact that we all pretty much know and have accepted that he's going to be shot in the head by the first Jarhead that comes across his cave, and he'll claim Bin Laden was struggling, and we won't care to do an inquiry because, hey, who cares? The idea that him shooting himself moments or months before we get there isn't a threat, it's a fucking gift. Save us a bullet.
2. Seems the Dick Cheney mess has calmed down, and the guy pulled through (Ted Kennedy: "Dammit!"). I don't really see what the big deal was, and apparently not many people were, because the White House Press Corps is now being fairly open about the fact that it made them look foolish. Hunting accidents happen, even Clinton said so. Maybe Cheney didn't say anything for a few hours because it's not all that uncommon, and it's embarassing, and it involves the guy's personal life, and he didn't want them jumping on the story like a pack of rabid wolverines, which would be justified fear because they totally did. But in the circus that followed, more pertinent issues got overlooked, such as...
3. CIA officers getting into a hubaloo about the release of Saddam audio tapes, saying such innocuous things as "Terror will hit America, and Iraq would not condone it, but if terror DOES hit America this would be a really good way. Wink wink." No link to al-Queda my ass.
4. Moving on, a recent Gallup poll reveals that 1 in 5 Americans thinks that they have been spied on using Bush's domestic spying program. Leaving aside the fact that Democrats knew about this program and didn't speak up until it hit the news ("Oh shit, now we have to look outraged!"), how many fucking dumb Americans are there? Despite the drum beat of "domestic domestic domestic," the spying program was only ever used for international calls, not state-to-state ones. That rules out a lot of people because, well, I don't know about you, but I don't call Iran very often. Secondly, there are about 286,000,000 people living in the US today. Let's do the math. 1/5 of those is 57,200,000. Still pretty hefty, no? Now let's say they make, oh, two calls per day. Sometimes I make one, sometimes I make five, so I figure two is a pretty safe estimate. That means that one small organisation (the NSA) would have to monitor about one hundred and twenty million calls every single damn day. Sorry, America, the government doesn't care that much about what you thought of Dancing with the Stars.
5. Finally, this cartoon fiasco. I understand why people would be upset on both sides. It's impossible to consider the offense of the cartoons (which was tactless) without also considering the gross exaggeration of the reaction (which is murderous). What pisses me off, really, and what some people don't even seem to realize, is that groups within the rioters added cartoons of their own that were much, much more offensive than anything the newspaper published. Their leader was called a pedophile demon, a pig, and a Muslim was shown fucking a dog. Of course if we try to point out that the newspaper didn't do that, we'll be accused by the extremists of attempting to cover lies or some such bullshit. The question is, why the hell would you even do that? People are getting killed over cartoons that were never published, when even if they were published the reaction seems ironically cartoonish. I say we whack them with a large prop mallet.
And after that angry rant, how about I lighten the mood with a little love? Peace, baby.