Convention Comments with a dash of "WHO?"

Wow.

Did you know that Obama's acceptance speech was viewed by more Americans than the opening ceremonies of the Olympics?

I'm sure some of those viewers tuned in just for the spectacle of a man of color accepting the nomination of one of the two major parties, but man, did they get so much more.

Senator Obama found the perfect balance between strength and grace, between assertiveness and respect. He stated in no uncertain terms what he stood for and what the American people could expect from an Obama presidentcy. I dare anyone who watched the speech to say they don't know who this man is or what he wants to accomplish. If they don't know now, they're either idiots of they've been drinking the Republican red Kool-Aid for so long that their brain won't allow them to consider an alternative.

But for me, there were two moments in his speech that were more important than the rest. Two moments when Senator Obama transended traditional presidential politics.

First, when Senator Obama talked about the way he intends to campaign. He said that the issues were too great to be distracted by personal attacks. It sounds like a common enough theme, but the continuous theme of respect of John McCain and his service from Obama, from Sen. Biden, from Hillary, from President Clinton made it clear that Sen. Obama wants to campaign on the issues. Senator Obama's campaign wants to change the way people campaign in this country and I say it's about damn time. Talk about the issues, talk about your vision, but damn it, quit it with the personal attacks. They belittle us all.

The second was when Sen. Obama reached across the political divide to explain that reasonable people can disagree, but still find common ground, still make progress. I'm talking about the section of his speech when he spoke about how people who disagree on abortion rights can certainly agree that we should reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. When he said that people who disagree on gun control can certainly agree that we need to keep AK47 assault rifles off the streets and out of the hands of criminals.

Instead of the slash and burn politics of the past, Sen. Obama is talking about taking on the issues, having meaningful debate, finding common ground and then reaching compromise. Isn't that what we need today? Isn't that what Americans on both sides of the political spectrum have been calling for for years, an end to the personal attacks and negative campaigning? I know it is what I want and I think it's what you folks want too.

Sarah Palin

What the hell are they thinking? Gov. Palin is not qualified. When you are the running mate of the oldest presidential candidate in history, you had better be ready to be president. He has had multiple bouts with cancer and he is a past POW and a torture victim. I think we can assume that torture isn't a precurser to a long and healthly life. With this in mind, he chooses a vice-presidential candidate who is a first term governor from the wilds of Alaska.

I guess all that talk about the importantace of experience was just a bunch of horse shit, eh John?

You know, if I were a woman, I'd be insulted by this choice. McCain is telling the country that he thinks women will vote for any female he puts on the ticket. Experience? Not important. Proven track record? Don't need one. Strong record on women's issues? She's a republican, remember? No my fellow American's, all John McCain thinks women want on the ticket is a person with a vagina. That's enough for you ladies. It isn't about the country, it's about the vajayjay.

Just so you understand, two years ago this mother of five was eating moose burgers and working as mayor of a town of 9,000 people. Now John McCain wants you to think she's the right person to be a missed heartbeat away from the most challenging, most important job in the world.

On top of that, she's under investigation by the Alaska state legislature for abuse of power. She's accused of firing the man who refused to fire the Alaska state trooper who was divorcing her sister. That is exactly the kind of leaderhip this country doesn't need. That kind politics is what we have suffered for the last eight years, it is time for a change. It is time for President Obama.

Well, that's my two cents, what do you all think?

Convention Coverage

I am sure some of you figured I'd be writing every night on the Democratic Convention. Naw, you are already getting all the coverage you could ever want. I'll just mention a few things that I'm not sure the regular media would say/report:

1) Hillary had a nice speech that covered all the bases and told people what they needed to hear, but she really isn't much of a speaker. Of all the big ones, her speech seemed the most read vs. actually given. You know what I mean?

2) While that was a lovely color on Michelle Obama, don't you think someone would have told her not to wear a color that almost exactly matched the background when she gave her big speech? Maybe they were intentionally trying to soften her look, but I think she just blended-in instead.

3) Bill Clinton made me think about how much fun it must be to be an ex-president. You get to lob rhetoric bombs at the guys you don't like, make big bucks on the lecture circuit and every four years at the party's national convention, it's a big freakin' love fest for you. It doesn't suck to be Bill.

4) I think I like Joe Biden's mom the best. As he was telling stories about his youth, she kept turning to the person sitting next to her, some campaign staffer I'm sure, and saying "That's true, I said that." You go girl.

Alrighty everyone. Buckle your seatbelts, tonight we make history. I'll be watching and you should be too. Whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, this is history in the making tonight at Mile High Stadium. The house is sold-out and the stage is set. For the first time in a few years, I'm excited again about politics and the convention. I hope you are too.

Obama Chooses Biden

Alrighty then...it's Joe "Hair Plugs" Biden for Vice President.

This wasn't the pick I predicted, but I understand why he went this way. I thought he was going to go with the Virginia Governor Tim Kaine but in the end, experience won out over synergy.

So the real quick look at some of the pros and cons of choosing Biden.


Pros:

- Foreign policy experience out the butt. He's been on the foreign relations committee for quite a while and is the current chair.

- He's an old, white guy. Old white guys like to vote for other old white guys and that is a demographic that McCain had to himself until now.

- He's a good debater and a decent campaigner.

Cons:

- He has been in the Senate for over 30 years. You can't be a senator that long and not make some apparent flip-flop votes. It's just the way the game is played.

- He was an opponent during the primaries. That means he said things to make Obama look badly. I'm sure the McCain camp's "Biden said Obama ain't ready" ad is already in the can and set to air.

- He's from Delaware. The "liberal northerners" label will be plastered all over this ticket south of the Mason-Dixon line. Not that the NASCAR dads were ever going to put down their remote controls and fishing rods long enough to listen to, let alone vote for Obama anyway.

- He's not Hillary. Why won't these Hillary fanatics let it go. She lost, Obama won. Threatening the party with defection and convention chaos only helps us get 4 to 8 more years of Republican rule.

Okay, let the games begin. I think McCain is going to pick Milt so that he can put Michigan in play and have a little youth on the ticket. Of course, with Grampy McGrumpy being the nominee, Moses might add a little youth to the ticket.

I was tagged...whatever that means.

I was tagged. That means I'm supposed to do something. For anyone who knows me, I don't always react well to authority or demands. I'm always polite, I just prefer not to comply. That being said, I like the blogger who tagged me. She's funny and she swears and both of those things go a long way with me. So, that being said, I've decided to give this whole tagging thing a shot. I'm sure someone will hate me for it in the end.

Da Rulez:

1. Link the person that tagged you. (That would be TheHMC)
2. Mention the rules on your blog. (I'm doing that...jeez, give me a break. Didn't I just tell you I didn't do well with authority?!)
3. Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours. (Only six?)
4. Tag 6 following blogger's by linking them.
5. Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger's blogs letting them know they've been tagged.

The six things:

1) I have a dental implant. I lost a tooth playing flag football many years ago. Remind me to tell that story sometime. The story of getting the implant is interesting, the implant itself is not.

2) I have not been to all fifty states. But the people who have been to all fifty seem to think it's quite interesting therefore my not having been in all fifty must be uninteresting. (Really, North Dakota? Indiana? Alabama? Who fucking cares.)

3) My left leg is bigger than my right. Not longer, bigger. Once again, this is one of those deals where the result isn't very interesting, but the story...that's a good one. But this is about uninteresting so no soup for you.

4) I rarely wear yellow. Don't really like yellow that much. Reminds me of piss and puss, cheap lemonade and liver failure. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of nice yellow things, but for some reason, none of them compel me to wear the color.

5) I don't wear white sneakers. Drives the wife crazy. She likes white sneakers. I don't.

6) I hate getting my hair cut. When I was a kid, my mom used to cut my hair. One time she cut my ear. To this day, the sound of scissors behind my head makes me cringe. Not exactly PTSD material but you never know what is going to creep into the dark corners of your mind and set up shop. If the commies/terrorists/nazis ever wanted to make me talk, they'd just need a pair a Fiskars. Don't tell.

The Tags

Now, like a chain letter or some pyramid scheme, I have to tag some other people. Frankly, I don't know that many bloggers, but I'll take a shot a few who I've been reading for a while a couple I just check out now and then.

1) Jane stops by now and then and reads my blog and always has something interesting to say. I stop by her's and look at those cute kids but being a man, I don't really have anything interesting to say. But I keep going back because deep down, I kinda like kids. Not enough to have any more, but still.

2) Becky over at Twidderpated. She good for a joke and is an old-fashioned, hard working gal. If you aren't checking her out, maybe you should.

3) ERRN is a great place to read about all the crap emergency room nurses have to put up with. When she took a break a while back, it was like losing a regular watering hole. I'm glad she's back and I hope she'll play along.

4) Martini is a Canadian who lives for Halloween, his Delorean and the Back to the Future series of films. And I still really like him and his blog. Like a peanut butter and dill pickle sandwich, when you string all of those things together, they can sound odd, but they are in fact, quite wonderful. Besides that, from some of the comments he has left in the past, I can tell you he's a really nice guy.

5) Jim is a great guy who writes a wonderful blog full of food, fun, travel and music. And he and my wife have become regular e-mail friends. If she decides to do this tagging thing, she's gonna be pissed that I tagged him first. Snooze ya lose babe. Love ya!

6) I'm done. No more. TheHMC only did five and I have issues with authority so I'm done too.

Have fun everyone.

I love the Olympics

That is part of the reason I haven't been writing much, I'm spending way too much time watching the Olympics. I love the drama, I love the ideal, it's just too much fun. So forgive me for not being as prolific a writer as I might be.

The Migratory Democratic Trouser Snake

If the prior two years were the era of Republican sex scandals, then 2008 has to be the year of the Democratic one. Eliot Spitzer, the tough-minded Dem. prosecutor turned Governor of New York gets caught spending his hard earned cash and begging to bareback with a high-end prostitute by the name of Ashley Dupré.


The Mayor of Detroit, Kwame Kilpatrick gets caught in an affair with his Chief of Staff Christine Beatty, (both were married at the time) and then they both get indicted on a variety of felony charges related to obstruction of justice and the like.

And now, the icing on the cake, one of the big three from the race for the Democratic nomination for president, Sen. John Edwards admits to an affair with 42 year-old campaign worker Rielle Hunter, an affair that had been rumored for a long time but that he had denied.

What the hell is wrong with these guys?

Let's be clear up front, I don't care. The sex lives of politicians is between them and their wives/partners/blow up dolls, provided whatever they are doing isn't illegal. Rep. Foley attempting to get in the pants of underage Capital Hill pages, that's very different than whatever arrangement a husband and wife have concerning who they fuck.

But what in their genetic make-up makes them think that they aren't going to get caught? Spitzer, a former prosecutor remember, got caught because he paid Ashley Dupré with a credit card. A credit card! Can you say paper trail, I bet he said that very phrase about a billion times when he was putting away criminals.

Kilpatrick got caught sending romantic/explicit text messages on city-leased devices to Beatty. It's called the Freedom of Information Act you morons! If it's produced on a government device, it is likely to be discovered sometime. Go buy your own crackberries if you want to send dirty notes to your mistress/lover. How fucking stupid can you be.

And John Edwards...I don't know what to say. The best and easiest way to get busted out in public for an affair is to RUN FOR PRESIDENT! Both parties have trained geeks whose sole purpose in life is to dig up the dirt, to spring the skeletons from the closet. And if you are going to run for President while having an affair, you only have one shot of getting past it. Admit it. If you don't admit it, you're not just a philanderer, but you're a liar too.

But why?

Why do they think they can get away with it and not have it become public? Are their dicks really separate animals with the power to control the politician's actions? Are they just so arrogant that they think themselves unstoppable?

All I know is this: we all have to make choices in our lives. You drive a fancy car, you have to pay the high-end insurance. You want to spend time with your kids, you can't take that job as a traveling salesman. And if you're a Democrat who might want to be president one day, you shouldn't have extra-marital affairs.

So D's, do me a favor: keep your dicks in your pants. Not just because it's the right thing to do, but because every time you all do something so fucking stupid, you hurt the party's chances of winning.

This election, hell, most elections are much too important to be put at risk just so you can screw someone other than your wife. According to 70-some percent of Americans, the current administration has this country on the wrong track. Sen. McCain (Who isn't exactly innocent when it comes to women, but that's for another day.) will continue to drive it down this road to economic and political disaster.

We have to have a change in the White House and in elected offices across the country, so D's, please don't succumb to the siren song of your migratory trouser snake. Make it stay home on Saturday night. Home cooking is better for you than take out, just ask Gov. Spitzer, he learned the hard way the dangers of eating out .

CNN: Edwards admits to extramarital affair

CNN: Recent Political Scandals

The Gipper

Am I the only one who thinks that McCain's new ad calling Obama nothing but an celebrity is hypocritical for a candidate and a party that throws President Reagan's name in our face every chance they get?

He was an actual celebrity. Movie roles, actress wife, product endorsements, and yet the republican party thinks he turned out okay.

BTW -- Paris Hilton's mom is pissed about that ad, I guess she won't be writing any more checks to the McCain campaign. Hmmmm...I wonder how much of the money they donated went into the ad? Just desserts if you ask me.

Quick Hits with Vajayjay

Designer Vaginae? WHAT?

When I first read the headline 'Designer Vaginas' Blacklisted in Australia, I was sure they were talking about Donatella Versace, but the truth is actually much scarier. Apparently, the plastic surgery craze has hit every where, including Australian pussy. Women down under are getting their...well...down unders adjusted with cosmetic surgery. In one case, according the article:

"In one case we heard of a man bringing in a Brazilian pornographic photo and saying: `Make my girlfriend look like this','' Weaver said.

In a refreshing bit of common sense, Aussie gynos are telling women not to have this kind of work done.

There was concern that women seeking the most common operation, the labiaplasty, [trimming and/or shaping of the labia] did not understand there was a huge variation in how women's external genitalia look.

On behalf of most men, ladies, before you ever think about this kind of thing, remember this: Most men don't care what the interior decorator did to your house, we're just glad we were invited to the party.

'Designer Vaginas' Blacklisted in Australia

McCain Equates Obama to Cooter Flashers Hilton/Spears

Dear Sen. McCain,

This is all you've got? This is your best shot? You think the American people are going to equate a Harvard Law educated Senator from Illinois with Paris "Beaver Shot" Hilton? You believe that the American people are going to consider one of the most articulate, well-spoken politicians this country has seen in a long time on par with a couple of 20-something blonds who keep forgetting to wear underwear?

Seriously?

God help us all if you are right.

McCain camp compares Obama to Spears, Hilton

On a side note, this isn't going to be the last time you see this kind of campaign tactic from the McCain camp, if the New York Times is right.