So, it is show time tonight!

The pre-election season has been running since November 2006. And tonight we finally start to get this over with.

Iowa has been the first state to nominate a candidate since 1972. Which means there will be no sensible farm bills passed as long as it remains first, but that is a rant for another post.

A candidate has lost Iowa but gone on to the presidency 25% of the time. A candidate has lost Iowa but got their party's nomination 25% of the time(GOP) and 33%(Dem). So, it is a state that is not to be missed.

So, at worst you have a 66% chance of picking the next president of the USA. And who picks that candidate? Only about 150,000 people.
In 2000 31,000 people chose George Bush to be president. In 2000 31,000 people chose to fuck everyone up the ass an administration with horrendous policies that have been known to inflame rhetoric.

yikes.

Media pundits are saying that there will be record turn out! Just like they did in the 2004 general election. Oops, the kidos who didn't know who John Kerry was but knew they hated Bush because John Stewart does and that dude is fuckin' funny bro, didn't show up to vote... again. Some are saying it will double, or triple. Well, if there is a huge turnout at all it will be the Dems and asshat independents, not the GOP. I certainly wouldn't miss CSI: Juno to decide which empty suit is more viable.

So, America, this is what you do if you don't live in the anointed state of Iowa. You throw rocks at them. You throw rocks at them and pull their hair.

That is all, my little Davids.

Wow,

I am not a Hillary hater. She isn't my candidate of choice but I still like her well enough. But she is having a rough, rough day.

Between thursday and tomorrow she has gone from the inevitable candidate to barely alive. Obama leads her by double digit numbers in New Hampshire (tomorrow's primary) and South Carolina (the next big, important show). This means he has gone from distant second place to the clear front runner in four days. Let me say that again in a new paragraph for full emphasis.

In four days Hillary has gone from the Democratic candidate for a presidential election she was sure to win to a hail mary strategy to win a few unimportant primary states.

You have to feel some compassion for her. It is different from Mitt Romney who is an empty suit that tried to buy the election. Hillary was a genuinely good candidate with a very good chance at winning.

Today she choked up with tears when a woman asked her how she stays so upbeat.

Then we had her husband Bill, doing his best borscht belt comic impression, say "I can't make younger, taller, male. There are a lot of things I can't do. But if you want a president and need one she would be by far the best". Is that the best you could do Bill?

But the worst thing to happen to her campaign happened today. She played the race card in the worst way in the history of the game. Here is what she said

Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act. It took a president to get it done."

So, she likens Obama to Martin Luther King, Jr. and her to Lyndon Johnson. She says MLK's contributions to American civil rights were less than President Johnson's. She likens her self to a one term president with a mixed legacy. Who is running her campaign and why are they still working for her? That is not how the race card works. You do not liken your opponent to one of the most beloved and respected of Americans and then try to say you are better than them. That is setting the bar absurdly high.

Well, at least she has her Senate seat.

Is America ready for a black or woman president?

This is the most banal question of the campaign. It is also the most over asked question of the campaign.

Why wouldn't be ready? Because there are some drooling yokels who think the darkies should go back to Africa and women make babies, not decisions?

For months we heard people question the authenticity of Obama's blackness. Perhaps because he was raised by his white mother and Indonesian step-father. Maybe it was because his father was Kenyan, not African-American. His bio-father left when Barack was 2 and didn't play much a roll in his life, if I understand the story. This means he isn't black enough. The black man in public life is either a preacher, a pop/rap musician, or what ever the fuck Allen Keyes is. Since Barack does not fit in any of these characters he is not black enough. Um.. what? It is a non-issue.

Hillary is criticized for being too butch. She is cold and stony. For years people have called her a lesbian because her belly isn't perpetually full of babies or has spells of the vapors. She is too manly, accused of being a megalomaniac and authoritarian. It is classic Freud. Male anxiety fearing castration by vagina-dentata.

Yet, when she merely choked up yesterday the media and John Edwards jumped on her for being too weak and feminine. We dislike her for being to masculine and then deride her for being famine.

America is and has been ready for a black or woman president. But the media is still dragging its knuckles on the ground, asking stupid questions for stupid people.

Is America ready for intelligent media?

Politics is my favorite sport.

Sadly, the New Hampshire primary did not go as I hoped it would have. Very sadly in fact. I started off well enough with a celebratory glass of wine. Then the numbers started coming in. So it went to glasses of gin, gritting my teeth as I drank. The polls disappointed me again.

It takes me back to November of 2004. When I assured all my friends that after months of reading polls America would choose cottage cheese John Kerry over insipid pepper jack Bush.

So I spent that evening at a bar, filled with drag queens and their admirers. Watching the numbers come back in ways they shouldn't have but somehow did.

I hate drag queens. I hate George Bush. And most of all I hate being wrong.

cheers

*edit*

No, I wont let this set back discourage me. For, while I do not want to spend yet another election night drunk and surrounding by drag queens there is a shining glimmer of hope.

For Bill Clinton lost both Iowa and New Hampshire and still came out on top!

And there is but one drag queen who still bestills my heart with her grace and talent.

The one

The only

Dina Martina

cheers

I love snobby movies.

I just finished a film noir kick and still can't get the zither music from The Third Man out of my head. A bunch of Hitchcock is due from Netflix soon, but I have my sites on something much different and somehow much more exciting.



so next time someone calls me a snob for hating Transformers, Pirates of the Caribbean, and every Rambo movie ever, I will just remind them that Neil Patrick Harris riding on a unicorn is way better than the words 'rosebud' whispered over a snow globe.

There have been a lot of 'ZOMG my fucking doctor is teh lamest lulz' posts over the past couple of months. You would think there are no competent doctors in Buffalo from reading it. So, when I do have a positive experience with a doctor I will let you all know.

But in the meantime...

what a fucking idiot doctor. I spent all of seven minutes with the guy. He walks in, checks my heartbeat and the sound of my lungs, asks if I need any scripts refilled and leaves to write them up.

I didn't have the opportunity to say something like "oh, and while you are here can you please check this giant infected gash oozing pussy slime" or "oh, I got stabbed last night and I stitched it myself, care to take a look?". Just wham, bam, that will be $20 for your copay ma'am.

He doesn't ask me about my diet but proceeds to tell me not to eat things I haven't had in years, like white bread or pasta. This would be like telling a vegetarian to cut red meat out of their diet.

But he pulled out a real show stopper at the end. Apparently, I am too fat and need to lose some weight. Yup, he looks at my height, looks at my weight, walks over to a BMI chart on the wall and declares me over-weight. He is using a useless metric that would declare the beefiest of body builders as obese as the chunkiest opera tenor. (Muscle = fat) = stupid metric used by stupid doctors.

This is the Keleida health place on Hertel. The last time I was there I got a lecture about the use of condoms. When I told the doctor I was monogamously coupled she said I should still use condoms. Because, you know, all gay guys sleep around.

grumph

I have a horrible cold. The cold medicine got me through last nights lovely dinner with e:pmt. I would have loved some sushi, but my palate has gone to hell with this cold. If we had gone to Korean House I am sure some pickled fish heads would have been able to penetrate the phlegm barrier.

I fucking hate student teaching.

We will see if I finish next week.

Then I will beat myself up for the next month and drink too much.

Then, I will do something else.

God damn it what a waste of time.

So,

Now that I am out of student teaching I have to do a lot of work. I have a part time job that pays well enough and has a very flexible schedule. But the tricky thing is getting a career going.

I know next to nothing about technical writing. But I can explain things to people well and I love to write, so that might be fun. Jim is going to help me put some samples on a web site. I would do things like explain how to use a complex function on the flickr web site. Adding video would be awesome. I was born to be a star! A star who explains how to edit out the face of your ex-wife from photos. In a world full of podcasts why not aim for untold internet stardom and prove Warhol's axiom true.

Telling professional adults that I quit has been mixed. Most have told me it was a good idea, some have told me I should stick it out.

But I never did like to listen to authority figures.

boom

Now that Grandpa Fred's presidential bid/nap is over what is his staff up to?

Much bigger and more noble work apparently.

A former communications staffer has launched Boycott Chuck Norris to fight the disease which is Chuck Norris.

Chuck has been a very public supporter of whackjob Mike Huckabee. In fact, when the Huckster won the Iowa caucus his wife was not up on stage with him, but Chuck was there.

Huckabee, is fucking crazy. Seriously fucking crazy. He believes in a literal biblical interpretation of reality. There is no evolution and he said if elected he would rewrite the constitution to be in line with god's word. In the early 90's he called for the quarantining of people with AIDS. He has continually likened homosexuality to necrophilia and bestiality.

Chuck is free to get in bed with whomever he wants. But, as the site says

I want you to join me in boycotting all of the products that Chuck Norris endorses and some of the national companies that run advertisements on the show in which he starred and currently rerunning on the USA cable network, Walker, Texas Ranger.

all I got to say is, thanks, 20 years ahead of you on that one.