Mormons and Palins and Bailouts, Oh My!

The government, by which I mean you and I, are about to give failed insurance giant, AIG, another $40 billion dollars, on top of the $110 billion we’ve already handed them. This company has been burning through $12-15 billion dollars EACH WEEK, since the initial $85 billion dollar bailout. Even the war in Iraq only costs about$10 billion per week, and that includes blowing up $h!t. The initial logic was that this company is too big to fail, and we have to bail them out, or we’re all doomed. A couple of ideas:

1) We should stop letting companies get so big that a failure takes taxpayers hostage.
2) F them. Let it fail. Whatever happened to the invisible hand of the free market?

Same thing with GM. My only hesitation here is that the auto industry still provides good jobs to people that actually work and create things, unlike the Wall Street douchebags who’ve built nothing but fake wealth on paper.

My neighbor was working on his car, a Chrysler, Saturday. He was in his front wheel well, and had taken off part of the front bumper, trying to get at something way the hell down underneath.

“Whatcha working on,” I asked.
“Trying to get at the battery to test it.”
“Why is your battery buried all the way under the engine?”
“I have no idea. I’m buying a Toyota next time.”

To hell with it, you make an inferior product, you should go out of business. Your service sucks? Adios.

The federal government should tell all US automakers that they can have their bailout, but there will be conditions:

1) All plants will be converted to build autos that get at least 40mpg by 2015.
2) All cars will have plug-in batteries that will run for at least 60 miles by the same date.
3) Any vehicle the company builds will be built in the US by Americans. You want to sell cars in China? Great, you’ll build them in Ohio, Texas and California, and union workers will build them. Henry Ford was a tyrant, but even he knew that he had to pay workers well enough to afford the product that they were building.

Those are your conditions, take it or leave it.

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Sarah Palin, complained this week that her ticket lost because it represented too much of the status quo. No one bothered to ask her what “status quo” means, but I have it on good authority that she thinks it has something to do with statehood for Puerto Rico. Which she is against, 51 being a much more difficult number to remember than 50.

The governor marveled that given how bad the Republican brand smells, that she and what’s-his-face did pretty well. Well, you ran against a black guy, or you’d have lost by 20 points and 400 electoral votes instead of 6 and 200. She beefed about some of the rumors that came out about her during her run, including the whopper about her son Trig actually being Bristol’s kid. And that was a cheap shot, admittedly. She then said that if you wanted to know the truth, we could have just asked for her medical records.

Well, we did ask for them, along with your tax returns. Thanks for nothing.

Meanwhile, you said repeatedly that Barack Obama was a Socialist, implied that he was a terrorist, anti-Israel, and wanted to serve aborted fetuses to the poor on gold-plated welfare checks. At least a lot of the horrible things that were said about you were the truth.

I would ask that you get back to work, ma’am. Your state may have trouble handing out its annual petrodollar welfare checks next year given the dive in oil prices. The natives will be restless, and you’ve got a family to raise, a seventeen year-old to marry off, and realistically, a grandchild to raise. Try and do a better job than you did with Bristol. I’m really looking forward to doing this again with you in 2012.

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Finally, to the Mormons, who made the passage of Prop 8 a reality, I will begrudgingly say congratulations. You’ve succeeded in reducing freedom in this country, but as in all cases where this has been done, enjoy your victory, it is only temporary.

But since I’m being so magnanimous, could you please do me a favor? Please stop posthumously baptizing people.

First of all, no one asked you. I’m pretty sure that, even if it wasn’t a complete bunch of hooey, that people who practiced other religions would assume be left alone in the afterlife. Does this make the foreskins of dead Jewish men grow back in heaven? There are a million questions, really. Just please stop, it’s presumptuous, arrogant, and gross. Clean up the weirdos in your own house before you think about harvesting the souls of people who didn’t want your help when they were alive.

Aside from that horrible abomination, I like that you have your young people on bikes. It’s forward-thinking and retro-quaint all at once.

Labels: America, Mormons, Sarah Palin, Wall Street bailout

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Thursday, November 06, 2008

Labels: Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, Socialist, Wall Street bailout

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Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Labels: America, Barack Obama, election

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Sunday, November 02, 2008

1. A fortune to be made for her and her cronies
2. Millions of heathen souls to save

So, that's incentive.

There's no getting around the woman's political skills. She's got good instincts, in spite of her ignorance, she's possibly quite intelligent, and let's face it, she's a good-looking woman. Attractive politicians do have a natural advantage, which is why I'm still scratching my head at the wholesale rejection of Rudy Giuliani.



Baffling.

You can really see it at the Palin/McCain rallies. People who really work for a living, white collar, blue collar, you name it, the people just go nuts when she's up there, even though 99% of them will be better off under the Obama tax plan than the one McCain offers.

Some of it may be cultural issues, sure. If all you care about is abortion, then you knew who you wanted to vote for three years ago. Everything else is nebulous, from the war in Iraq to the economy, although most people seem to agree that Obama actually has a plan that could help our country and its people.

An aside: Have you seen these bumper stickers?

Do you think they'll still count if Obama wins?

But back to Palin, the reaction to her, from people who would be poorly served by her ticket's victory is visceral. Perhaps even a little lower, to be specific.

Let me be blunt: A lot of the men hootin' and hollerin' during her speeches just want to bang the bejeezus out of her.

That's fine, really. It's not great for the country, but it's honest, and I can live with that. Just don't pretend that McCain made a responsible choice in picking her, and I won't criticize you for having a hanging chad about her. I freely admit, she's hot. But this may not be her year.

So, if it doesn't work out for Team Maverick, there's always 2012 for Sarah. If she is as smart as I suspect she is, she'll get back to Alaska, study like hell, and be prepared for the exams that will start late in 2011. She could make herself mentally qualified for office, notwithstanding her bizarre fear of witches.


But 2012 is four years away. If Obama wins and does well, she may not want to be the sacrificial lamb against an incumbent. That leaves us in 2016.

Eight years is a long time. Again, she may use this time to vastly improve herself in the foreign policy arena, as well as become conversant about education, science, ecology, the environment, how many baseball teams are in Pennsylvania, the Constitution, you name it. There are a lot of ways she could become truly formidable if she works hard and studies. I have no reason to believe that she isn't capable of this kind of improvement. But let me ask you this, rabid Palin partisans:

Are you still going to want to fuck her in eight years?

If that's a portion of what makes her "intriguing" to you as a candidate, how are you going to feel about her when she's 52 and is losing her looks? Or will she just be another mouthy broad who needs to get her ass back to the kitchen once the Neiman-Marcus wardrobe begins needing to be let out a few sizes?


I can't imagine why she'd end up with pancakes on her head, but I can't see the future any more clearly than anyone else. I hope she does stick around, and tries to make something of herself. I hope she tries to shortcut her path to legitimacy by flirting, winking, acidic sarcasm, and continuing to backstab her mentors as she's done since she first entered local politics. And I hope cameras will be rolling to see her face the first time someone says to her, "Aren't kind of old to behave this way, ma'am?"

Labels: Barack Obama, election, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Sarah Palin