What do Afghanistan, Obama, and the GOP have in common? I wish they'd go away...

A few things to discuss tonight, mostly political, so, sorry to those of you who don't care. The Snooze Fest begins....now.

First off, is Afghanistan. Obama is reportedly going to announce sending an additional 34,000 troops to Afghanistan on Friday. Personally, I don't think it'd matter if we sent every lower class 18-35 year old citizen in America, we'd still have trouble accomplishing anything. They're a divided, xenophobic people who view us as occupiers(Thanks to Imperial Hubris by Michael Scheuer for drilling this into my head). The Karzai government is laughable(ranked 2nd most corrupt country in the world, Somalia is 1st, Iraq is 5th[isn't it funny how U.S. troops have all been to these places in the two decades?]), the Taliban is growing, and casualties are practically soaring. What really pisses me off about this is the notion that congress is actually concerned about how to pay for all this. Democrats are throwing around the idea of instead of adding this to the 12,000,000,000,000 dollar debt, we start taxing rich people(that 250k mark is being thrown around again) to curb the cost and lessen some of the cost to our children! Wow, that's brilliant guys, you're really earning that six figure salary we pay for every year. I have a solution just as simple, and I believe, just as worthy of a congressional seat. Stop fighting! Realize that we failed to do the job properly, realize that Osama is going to die of natural causes(maybe he'll go out with a real bang though), and realize that we've REALLY fucked things over at home in our effort to further the empire.

Onwards, to slightly more comical matters. After switching off CNN in disgust today, mostly over shitty reporting, but at least a bit because I <3 Lou Dobbs, I turned on FOX. Now, I haven't watched FOX regularly in about 3 years, but I'm pondering a come back, but that's a story for another post. I saw a story about the Grand Ol' Party potentially making GOP candidates take a test which determines whether or not they are true conservatives, and if they don't fall in with 8 of the 10 party lines, the GOP will shut off party funding. Besides being struck with the initial feeling that this stunt is something I might expect in Soviet Russia, I was very curious what the 10 things were. Luckily, I found them:
You must support 8 of the following 10 things to be a Conservative in the Republican party,

1. Smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama's “stimulus” bill.
2. Market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run health care.
3. Market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation.
4. Workers' right to secret ballot by opposing card check.
5. Legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants.
6. Victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges.
7. Containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat.
8. Retention of the Defense of Marriage Act.
9. Protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion.
10. The right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership.

1) Yes, making government smaller, or at least preventing it from growing takes precedence over anything.
2) Yes, government has no role in dishing out healthcare, the free market will take care of that.
3) Yes, cap and trade is a ridiculous amount of government regulation and it will increase living costs across the board.
4) Yes, workers shouldn't be forced to unionize, and likewise, I think corporations should be able to decide if they will allow unions.
5) Yes, illegal immigration is a plague upon our country, and should be a priority(one of few) of the government to take reasonable measures to shore up our nations borders.
6) No, these wars are lost, and were not meant to be fought in the first place. It is not the responsibility of the United States to spread democracy.
7) No, While rogue states are a problem, they are not a particular threat, and the only thing that's going to help spread and create nations like Iran and North Korea is if the U.S. keeps threatening them. These nations will naturally collapse over time. Iran was close to revolution this summer, and although North Korea doesn't show signs of loosening up any time soon, I think they will not do anything that will threaten the United States.
8) No, gay people should be allowed to marry, who is the government to say they can't? The Defence of Marriage Act is a restriction of freedom and should be struck down. Let the states choose.
9) Yes, government shouldn't have the power a persons healthcare, and thus, while I'm pro-choice, money for abortions is really a non-issue here.
10) Yes, the second amendment guarantee for gun ownership is essential to our freedom and restriction of gun ownership(beyond some bits regulation) is unconstitutional.


7/10. To be honest I'm a bit shocked, I was thinking more around the range of 5-6, but these aren't all the issues. I find that abortion not being it's own little issue on here is an encouraging step for the GOP. It's an interesting survey, and I'm curious as to where congressional republicans would fall. The good news in all of this is that, while I'm a registered Libertarian, a career in politics is only a signature and one measly issue away from me.

If Facebook were around in years past...

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Watch the %&#$ out Obama, a wild Belgian appears!

As some of you may have heard...kidding kidding, BREAKING NEWS! EUROPE ELECTS PRESIDENT OF ALL EUROPE. PRESIDENT OF BELGIUM SELECTED. RESPONSE FROM OBAMA UNSURE. SELECTIVE SERVICE EXPECTED TO BE ANNOUNCED. "I TOLD YA'LL THIS WOULD HAPPEN!!!" SAYS W. BUSH. CHENEY DIES UPON HEARING THE NEWS. JOE BIDEN RELATIVELY CONFUSED. ISRAEL READIES NUCLEAR WEAPONS FOR USE. THE POPE FINALLY ADMITS HE DOESN'T REALLY HAVE ANY POWER ANYMORE, KILLS HIMSELF. ISLAM UNITES UNDER ONE GLOBAL FLAG! SERBIAN ASSASSINS POSITION THROUGHOUT EUROPE, READY TO STRIKE. WHAT IS THE WORLD COMING TO???



-pause-



Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's true. European bureaucrats created a new mega bureaucratic position. The president of all Europe. If the position held any real meaning, I'd be hard pressed to say there isn't a new most powerful man in the world. However, the new president is this guy, from Belgium

As one Indian official said before the announcement: "If the EU chooses as its worldwide representative the prime minister of Belgium or Luxembourg I am not sure our leaders will have the time to meet him."

Besides the laughable fact that he happens to be from Belgium, I suspect the presidential position will have little to no power, at least at first. There's no way of knowing this because they haven't actually decided what the new president of Europe will actually do. They elected him, but have not decided his powers. This sounds terrible, this new guy won't even have to steal, plunder, and abuse power over centuries like our presidents, he might just be given it right now. Given Europe's history of love affairs with kings and dictators, I'd say there's a good chance this might actually be a relevant position once a non-belgian takes office. A good englishmen will have this position relevant and hated within his first few years in office.



Now I'm a small government guy, so the idea of a bunch of leaders from democratic countries electing a leader to represent the whole continent(without a single citizen getting to vote on the matter, mind you), scares the living Jesus out of me. I don't understand how this is a good thing for anyone. The interests of Cyprus are just not the same as Ireland, and vice versa. But then again you could say that for Alabama and New York. Regardless, this brings everyone one step closer to a world government. The United States has been doing it's best to police the world, and I guess Europe finally decided to man up. Give it 50 years and our President and Their president will be voting(publicly) on shit that goes down in Siam, I can hardly wait.


But I'm being negative, let's look at the positives of this.

-We're one step closer to Gundam 00 coming true.
-Wars on the continent of Europe will now be civil wars, not world wars, so 1) they won't be able to make fun of us anymore, and 2) the phrase Civil War in America scares people, so maybe we'll stay out of the next series of European Shenanigans.
-This is just one more target for radicals to assassinate.
-While playing CoD:MW2 online, you can shout to your European Faggot Enemies "All your presidents combined into one president still can't handle our president. Bitch."
-Belgium has a slightly better chance of not getting invaded for a few years.
-New conspiracy theories!(I'm telling you, wait 50 years and see how much power this position has!)
-Australia is no longer the only continent with a single ruling president or prime minister.

My time in an English Pub...in Boca Raton, Florida.

It's been awhile since I've posted anything, but I was definitely inspired by my time at the local English pub. The Lion and Eagle! I'd never been in there before and today Ireland played France. I got out of POS1001 and knew that I must see the game. I'm going to be spending some time in ireland this summer and I knew it was time to man up. I was sporting my Celtic jersey, and my Irish hat, and walked up to the pub hoping the IRA hadn't killed any cops recently. After briefly entering the wrong establishment in confusion, a nice Ukrainian gentlemen pointed me to the right door. Great start. I entered.

First of all, it was crowded as fuck. Slovenia was playing Russia, Portugal was playing Boznia, and Ukraine had just lost to Greece. Needless to say, there were lots of foreigners. I walked up to the barman and my first question was answered, "do english people really run the bar?", they do, his accent was awesome. I ordered a coke and landed myself in the middle of the bar, standing between a bunch of dark skinned frenchmen. I only wish someone had a camera to capture how utterly uncomfortable I was, standing there with both hands on my drink, sipping my coke from a straw, sandwiched between these french people. I texted my brother about my visit and he informed me that I should have just ordered a beer. I rationalized, I drove here, and it's 3:30, probly best I stuck with the coke.

That argument lasted about 5 minutes, when the french guys left and I got a spot with my irish comrades. There was probably about 15 irish fans and I started to make friendly with two guys in their thirties. Both of them were from south florida and we started chatting about the experience. Then we scored! The crowd erupts! The english feller at the bar exclaims, "last I checked this was an english bar", in jest. Everyone is happy. My new irish buddy offers to buy a round for the two of us. The barman asks what we're drinkin. "Miller!" says one guy. "Bud" says the buyer. "Uhh...Coke..." I murmer.
"Coke? Jeez man, way to carpe diem there mate, you're practically in international waters here, they don't care." says the round buyer.
"Uhh...well..."
"You're a cheap ass date at least"
and the merrymaking continues...
at one point the friendly buyer had to piss and asked me to protect his spot. Well I got distracted by another game and the tallest fucker in the bar(seriously, he was like 6'7 at least) jumped in his spot. I knew I was fucked. The round buyer returned to ask if I had simply asked the tallest person I could find to steal his spot. I offered him mine and he tells I haven't learned my lesson at all, never give up your spot and to be assertive, you're a big guy.

The game goes on, and then into over time, and then disaster strikes in the form of a black french player by the name of Theirry Henry.He practically caught the ball and knocked it to his teammate to score the series winning goal. The game ended shortly after and the entire pub was crushed to see the Irish be denied by such whorish french ungodly slut jewish nazi rapist islamofascist stalinesque tactics. I say goodbye to my new mates and make for the exit. As I'm leaving I hear a toast "to the memories we've made!" by the elder irishmen at the bar. It made me smile a bit but the american anger in me was just too damn overwhelming. Injustice had conquered on this day, and americans hate injustice.

So I came out of today with a few new experiences and a few lessons learned, so I shall list them.

1) Carpe Diem. If you're in a foreign bar, you can always order beer.
2) French People are dirty and smelly.
3) English people are not to be fucked with(a man bumped into the barman and said "I didn't just bump you" to which the englishmen replied "I know when a man bumps me, for it's the last thing he'll ever do.").
4) English people don't call it sexting, they call it 'sleaze texting'.
5) Never give up your spot.
6) Sporadic racist jokes aren't looked down upon.
7) I think the jury's still out on this one but I say if he's an ass when he's sober, it doesn't necessarily make him an ass when he's drunk.
8) However tempted you are to buy the pub tshirt, you're only going to look like a douche.(I wanted one SO badly...)
9) Be ready to tell your family history on a moments notice.
And most important...
10) Always make yourself out to be a working man(CC student worked wonderfully). Lower or
lower-middle class only.