John McCain recently had a reverend give a bitterly partican invocation at a rally in Iowa. In that invocation, the reverend flatly challenged God to prove himself to be a just God by ensuring that McCain win next Tuesday. Here are his words:
I would also pray Lord that your reputation is involved in all that happens between now and November, because there are millions of people around this world praying to their God -- whether it's Hindu, Buddha, Allah -- that his [McCain’s] opponent wins for a variety of reasons.
And Lord I pray that you would guard your own reputation, because they’re going to think that their god is bigger than you, if that happens. So I pray that you would step forward and honor your own name in all that happens between now and Election Day.
I won't get into a debate on my belief that God probably doesn't appreciate being "challenged" by mortals. But what I will say--or ask, rather--is this: If John McCain loses on election day, is God dead? Or at least, is the God of these McCain supporters dead?
Even this week, James Dobson of Focus on the Family in an interview of Saint Sara Palin said that he and his wife, Shirley, had convened a prayer meeting to beseech that "God's perfect will be done on Nov. 4."
So, again, I have to ask, when John McCain loses next week, will James Dobson be able to recover? I keep hearing this theme in reoccurring public prayers. Some version of the idea that God needs to ensure the election of John McCain. But in the same way John McCain is playing with fire with his vile attacks on Obama, essentially daring the gun-toting, God-fearing lunatics within his fan-base to take action on their fed hatred of Obama, these religious figures are playing with some canonical fire.
If you're going to be fucking with God, challenging him to prove himself by somehow taking your personal political preference, wouldn't you at least do it when the odds are somewhat in your favor? It's pretty obvious to most that Obama will likely win this election. So in my mind, these supposedly devout Christians are essentially preparing to flush their faith down the toilets. I'm not sure how someone like Lou Dobson, who claims to have a personal relationship with God, who claims that God personally talks to him in his prayers, can legitimize his continuing faith in God if he has essentially bet the house on his faith in God for this election.
If Obama wins...which he will...God will have directly not answered the prayers of the self-appointed Christian guru and expert in the word of God. I know that God is supposed to do miracles, and that the stories of the Bible are rife with big under-dog upsets, but this is not the times of yore. This is 2008. And when Obama wins next week, I say to all those who have prayed directly to God to make McCain win, they must renounce their faith from there-on out. Because it's obvious, if there is a God, he obviously isn't listening to they're prayers.
Sorry dudes.
On the other hand, if McCain DOES win this election, I would definitely consider that a miracle only allowable by God (or voting machine fraud). But in the absence of any legitimate proof of fraud, and McCain wins this one straight up, I will be forced to rethink my position on faith and God. But I gotta say, even for God, it's going to take more than the power to part the Red Sea to swing this one for McCain.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Shut up about ACORN already
This should be a fairly easy concept for people to digest. Voter registration fraud and voter fraud are two totally separate issues. And ACORN is guilty of voter registration fraud for sure. But we shouldn't feel so compelled to assume that the registration of ten thousand fake people will "steal this election from John McCain." Because I can tell you, with a large degree of certainty, that there is one thing that we can count on fake people doing...and that is nothing. Because they're fake. Mickey Mouse is not going to enter a polling station in Georgia to cast a ballot for Obama. Because he's not real. And not real people have a bad habit of never making it to the polls. And if Mickey were real, I'm sure he'd be voting Republican any way.
The starting line-up for the Dallas Cowboys were registered fraudulently by an ACORN employee in Nevada. And though they're certainly more real than Mickey Mouse and have the ability to vote, the chance of all of them collectively deciding to go vote in the battle ground state of Nevada on the hunch that they might have been fraudulently registered there seems unlikely, to say the least.
This ACORN excuse is yet another way that the McCain campaign is using veiled racism to scare their base into a frenzy. And dare I point out that McCain, himself, spoke at an ACORN-sponsored event as recently as 2006 in support of their efforts.
ACORN isn't stealing this election. And now with the hundreds of reports coming in every day from early voters across the country claiming that their straight Democrat votes on Deibold voting machines are coming up as McCain votes, I'd say we have a much more pressing voter fraud issue on our hands. Of course, all of these cases of potential machine malfunctions are occurring in precincts run by Republicans.
Their explanation? Voter error.
My recommendation? Take a video on your cell phone or digital camera while you vote to record exactly what's going on when you vote. Capturing even one occurrence of the described machine malfunction would irrefutably prove that we need to totally redesign our voting system. Because if even one machine proves to be faulty (which seems irrationally isolated in the scope of things) it puts the whole idea into question. We cannot have a voting machine that does not provide a paper trail. PERIOD.
How difficult is it? Deibold's ATM machines seem to be perfectly capable of providing it's customer with a receipt of their transaction. Printing out a filled ballot receipt seems like a pretty easy concept to get behind.
How have we not fixed this problem yet?
How can we call this a democracy?
The starting line-up for the Dallas Cowboys were registered fraudulently by an ACORN employee in Nevada. And though they're certainly more real than Mickey Mouse and have the ability to vote, the chance of all of them collectively deciding to go vote in the battle ground state of Nevada on the hunch that they might have been fraudulently registered there seems unlikely, to say the least.
This ACORN excuse is yet another way that the McCain campaign is using veiled racism to scare their base into a frenzy. And dare I point out that McCain, himself, spoke at an ACORN-sponsored event as recently as 2006 in support of their efforts.
ACORN isn't stealing this election. And now with the hundreds of reports coming in every day from early voters across the country claiming that their straight Democrat votes on Deibold voting machines are coming up as McCain votes, I'd say we have a much more pressing voter fraud issue on our hands. Of course, all of these cases of potential machine malfunctions are occurring in precincts run by Republicans.
Their explanation? Voter error.
My recommendation? Take a video on your cell phone or digital camera while you vote to record exactly what's going on when you vote. Capturing even one occurrence of the described machine malfunction would irrefutably prove that we need to totally redesign our voting system. Because if even one machine proves to be faulty (which seems irrationally isolated in the scope of things) it puts the whole idea into question. We cannot have a voting machine that does not provide a paper trail. PERIOD.
How difficult is it? Deibold's ATM machines seem to be perfectly capable of providing it's customer with a receipt of their transaction. Printing out a filled ballot receipt seems like a pretty easy concept to get behind.
How have we not fixed this problem yet?
How can we call this a democracy?
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Where did all the reasonable Republicans go?
The voice of the Republican party is being lost to wackos!
Where are all you reasonable Republicans? I know you're out there! You've left your campaign to be controlled by an army of uninformed, fear-mongering nit-wits. And I'll tell you right now, unless you intelligent and reasonable people within the Republican party don't start standing up for yourselves, you're party will trudging through an endless cesspool of mindless and turgid thought forever.
The first thing you have to realize is that you have lost this election. Given the situation in my state, New Mexico, I feel hard pressed to consider the McCain camp competition considering the overwhelming volunteer support we've created in this state. We have 30+ field offices in this state alone, compared to McCain's 6. Our number of canvassers is well into the thousands. McCain struggles to get any at all. Fivethirtyeight.com has Obama's win percentage at over 90%. By all accounts, baring some October surprise involving lurid photos of Barack, I think he has got it in the bag. And I think you know it.
Take, for example, what the sensation of the week has been in my office. It seems a fundamentalist church just a few blocks from our office has decided to ignore the clear rules of conduct for a tax-exempt entity and raised a giant poster of an aborted fetus (mysteriously, same photo used on every other similar anti-abortion sign in America) in front of their church with Obama's name written under it...Of course, close by is an other picture--of a healthy, non-bloody, baby with McCain's name under it. The message is clear. "We're simplistic morons who can't concoct an intelligent argument of our own to defend our position against Barack Obama, so we're resorting to ludicrous image association." The greatest part about it is...I've schedules numerous new volunteers for Obama who were driven to volunteer service by their disgust of this church's statement.
And again, the intelligent and normal Republican loses.
When John McCain has to hastily grab a microphone out of the hands of a disturbed supporter who's just called Barack Obama an untrustworthy Muslim, you normal Republicans lose.
When people in the audience of a McCain rally call for the death of Barack Obama, you normal Republicans lose.
When the idiots who are running McCain's campaign are delusional enough to think that it's a good idea to put Sarah Palin in front of 15,000 hockey fans in south Philly, only to be met with overwhelming BOOOOOOOS, you normal Republicans lose.
When you have a wildly reckless evangelical minister decry all other religions other than Christianity and challenge God to "honor" his name by making sure Obama loses in an invocation speech at a McCain rally, you normal Republicans lose.
Stand up if you're still out there. Because you've totally lost your party. You are now past the tipping point of credibility. You've entrenched yourselves so deeply in this mindlessly ideological battle of patriotism and religion that you've essentially got nothing left but the sycophants and numbnuts we all see on TV every night, publicly displaying to all that, indeed, racism is still thriving in some parts of the country.
So Republicans...those of you who feel you've lost control of your party. I know you're out there. I know you are aware of the fact that Sarah Palin was the single dumbest decision the Republican party has ever made (Iraq war aside...after all, that was a bi-partisan effort, right?). Concede your failure now and admit that this campaign was a huge disaster. Because the more you continue to fool yourselves into thinking you still have a shot here, the more you babble off premeditated and automated assertions in defense of this charade of a campaign, the more you guys look like...well...the idiot who really thinks that Barack Obama is a muslim, terrorist plotting to infultrate the White House and turn the United States into a Allah-praising country. And--the more you're losing your party.
You're going to lose Nov 4th. And you're going to lose big. Seriously. I'm not trying to be an asshole. It's pretty obvious to most Americans. So accept that fact and start rejecting the direction your party is going into. Because if you really care about anything more than just winning an election, and there's actually some conviction in the true beliefs of the Republican party, you guys better start quickly distancing yourselves from the nut-job who's standing right next to you holding the monkey doll with Obama's name stuck to it (that actually happened). That's some real and sickening shit right there. Not the highest moment in Republican history.
Where are all you reasonable Republicans? I know you're out there! You've left your campaign to be controlled by an army of uninformed, fear-mongering nit-wits. And I'll tell you right now, unless you intelligent and reasonable people within the Republican party don't start standing up for yourselves, you're party will trudging through an endless cesspool of mindless and turgid thought forever.
The first thing you have to realize is that you have lost this election. Given the situation in my state, New Mexico, I feel hard pressed to consider the McCain camp competition considering the overwhelming volunteer support we've created in this state. We have 30+ field offices in this state alone, compared to McCain's 6. Our number of canvassers is well into the thousands. McCain struggles to get any at all. Fivethirtyeight.com has Obama's win percentage at over 90%. By all accounts, baring some October surprise involving lurid photos of Barack, I think he has got it in the bag. And I think you know it.
Take, for example, what the sensation of the week has been in my office. It seems a fundamentalist church just a few blocks from our office has decided to ignore the clear rules of conduct for a tax-exempt entity and raised a giant poster of an aborted fetus (mysteriously, same photo used on every other similar anti-abortion sign in America) in front of their church with Obama's name written under it...Of course, close by is an other picture--of a healthy, non-bloody, baby with McCain's name under it. The message is clear. "We're simplistic morons who can't concoct an intelligent argument of our own to defend our position against Barack Obama, so we're resorting to ludicrous image association." The greatest part about it is...I've schedules numerous new volunteers for Obama who were driven to volunteer service by their disgust of this church's statement.
And again, the intelligent and normal Republican loses.
When John McCain has to hastily grab a microphone out of the hands of a disturbed supporter who's just called Barack Obama an untrustworthy Muslim, you normal Republicans lose.
When people in the audience of a McCain rally call for the death of Barack Obama, you normal Republicans lose.
When the idiots who are running McCain's campaign are delusional enough to think that it's a good idea to put Sarah Palin in front of 15,000 hockey fans in south Philly, only to be met with overwhelming BOOOOOOOS, you normal Republicans lose.
When you have a wildly reckless evangelical minister decry all other religions other than Christianity and challenge God to "honor" his name by making sure Obama loses in an invocation speech at a McCain rally, you normal Republicans lose.
Stand up if you're still out there. Because you've totally lost your party. You are now past the tipping point of credibility. You've entrenched yourselves so deeply in this mindlessly ideological battle of patriotism and religion that you've essentially got nothing left but the sycophants and numbnuts we all see on TV every night, publicly displaying to all that, indeed, racism is still thriving in some parts of the country.
So Republicans...those of you who feel you've lost control of your party. I know you're out there. I know you are aware of the fact that Sarah Palin was the single dumbest decision the Republican party has ever made (Iraq war aside...after all, that was a bi-partisan effort, right?). Concede your failure now and admit that this campaign was a huge disaster. Because the more you continue to fool yourselves into thinking you still have a shot here, the more you babble off premeditated and automated assertions in defense of this charade of a campaign, the more you guys look like...well...the idiot who really thinks that Barack Obama is a muslim, terrorist plotting to infultrate the White House and turn the United States into a Allah-praising country. And--the more you're losing your party.
You're going to lose Nov 4th. And you're going to lose big. Seriously. I'm not trying to be an asshole. It's pretty obvious to most Americans. So accept that fact and start rejecting the direction your party is going into. Because if you really care about anything more than just winning an election, and there's actually some conviction in the true beliefs of the Republican party, you guys better start quickly distancing yourselves from the nut-job who's standing right next to you holding the monkey doll with Obama's name stuck to it (that actually happened). That's some real and sickening shit right there. Not the highest moment in Republican history.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
So why does Sarah Palin wink so damn much?
Single funniest thing I've ever read about Palin. Just priceless.
I give you...the world's greatest explanation for gratuitous winking from Sarah Palin.
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