That's Debatable

Chris Wallace of Fox News said yesterday that all these Republican debates were stupid. There have been so many that the moderators are having trouble finding new questions to ask. People, we shouldn’t need a Fox News broadcaster to tell us 19 debates are too many. This is an ability that should be inherent to all of us. There are babies being born right now who’s first thought while lying in their mother’s arms is “Really? 19 Republican debates? I’ve been in the womb for the last 9 months and I know Newt Gingrich is a dbag.”

The original field of candidates was transparent in their faults. As a society we didn’t require even one debate to know all we needed. Every time Michelle Bachman speaks the music from the shower scene in Psycho plays in our heads. The republican voters rightfully discarded her quickly in a field somewhere in Iowa. She’s probably preaching to the rats that the corn stalks are un-American and should be investigated by the department of agriculture.

Rick Perry? HE’S FROM TEXAS! Why would you need more? But for you stubborn folks out there, Rick decided to open his mouth . . . and forget what he was talking about mid-sentence, ending with a doofus grin and an “oops”. Imagine that scenario with Perry’s finger a half inch from the button that controls our arsenal of nuclear weapons. Whoo doggies!

Have we really learned anything new about Mitt Romney through 19 agonizing debates? He’s rich, he’s a Mormon, he will say anything to get the nomination, and he’s brainless. He’s Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz and we saw the straw protruding from his scalp 4 years ago. Nothing’s changed. Call me when you find out he’s wearing ruby red pumps behind the podium.

Rick Santorum has been and always will be an ultra-conservative nightmare. All the debates have done is allowed a wider audience to hear the feces that leaks from his mouth. I would say that that was actually a good thing except someone listened and instead of phoning Pennsylvania and asking us to take him back, they VOTED for him. I’m looking in your direction Iowa.

Ron Paul is Ron Paul, always the outsider, which is strange because he has the pre-requisite racism needed to be a Republican politician along with the gutless denials of said racism. He wants to repeal the civil rights act, is an extreme isolationist and couldn’t give a shit if you can’t afford health insurance. It is a wonder he doesn’t garner more votes.

There are several more debates scheduled which is insanity. How many more times can Mitt Romney change his position on an issue before his head explodes. Actually, I’d watch that. Debate on, assholes.

America Picks a Candidate . . . or Not

It’s a battle royale for the dumbest state in the union. Tonight’s bout pits Iowa vs. South Carolina.

I was giving Iowa credit for brazen ignorance for casting enough votes for Google favorite Rick Santorum to come in second. But now it’s been announced that Iowa did a re-count and Santorum actually won the primary.

That’s 2 strikes against Iowa. They can’t do basic addition and enough of them them thought Rick “Massive Tool” Santorum would make a good president. This is a man who said that scientists “don’t have morals” and need to be government regulated. For Christ’s sake Iowa, come in from the corn field and join the 21^st century. To paraphrase Bill Hicks, “we’ve got thumbs now, we’re evolving”. You can have faith in God and still believe in science. It’s easy, I do it every day.

Santorum has said so many idiotic things I could write about them all day. I will mention one more. President Obama once gave a speech in France apologizing for some of the things done under President Bush in an attempt to repair broken relations with a traditional ally. Santorum criticized Obama for apologizing to people that “owes its freedom to the sacrifices of Americans”. While it’s true that the United States liberated France in World War 2, Rick seems to be forgetting that France assisted us in winning the Revolutionary War. You know, the one that allowed us to form an independent nation?

Rick Santorum: a vote for him is a vote for unfailing ignorance.

This brings us to Iowa’s opponent in the dumbass sweepstakes, South Carolina. Last night they threw their hat in the ring of shame by voting for Newt Gingrich by a wide margin over Richie Rich, uh, I mean Mitt Romney. I have detailed Newts faults and absurdities in detail in this blog before so I will only list them now. South Carolina decided the man they want for president is someone who is narcissistic, racist, misogynistic, closed-minded, inflammatory, egomaniacal, self-involved, self-absorbed, whatever the word is for someone who will bomb Iran while he sits safe and sound in a bunker eating Ding Dongs and watching a Two and a Half Men marathon, bloviating, an unrepentant liar, an exaggerator and though I can’t prove it, I believe flatulent.

Look South Carolina, I realize you weren’t given a lot of choices. It’s like being handed a TV remote to flip through American Idol, a Larry the Cable Guy movie, Survivor: Tijuana and Different Strokes re-runs on TV Land as your only viewing choices. But Newt Gingrich? I’m bitching at Iowa to enter our current century, S. Carolina you need to at least break through to the 20^th.

Newt Gingrich has been in American politics for decades. His failings have been widely detailed. His own party essentially fired him from his job as speaker of the house. He pretends to love his country when what he loves is himself and power. This information was all available to you South Carolina and still you voted for him.

So who wins the battle royale? I think it’s a draw. Both combatants swung wildly and missed altogether, falling drunkenly through the ropes and out of the ring. Now we move on to Florida. Oh God, Florida. We’re doomed.

Mittens

Barring something wild happening it looks like Mittens Mormon Flip-Flopper Plastic Man Elitist Millionaire No Common Sense Loves to Fire People The Candidate No One Really Wants Romney will win the Republican nomination for president. He’s already won the hearts and minds of a small percentage of Iowans and New Hampshirites and is now way out in front in early polling with an equally small percentage of South Carolinians. What are we to make of Mitt Romney?

Well, he smiles a lot. Every picture or video taken of him he has a giant, fake smile painted on his face, sort of like a clown without the makeup. It remains to be determined if he’s squirting seltzer down his pants, but my guess is ‘yes’.

He is an idiot. He passed some kind of health care reform in Massachusetts that very closely resembles what the Obama administration passed last year, but since most republicans don’t agree with it, Mittens has tried to deny what he did. That makes sense. I mean it’s not like they keep records of the legislation a state passes or that the governor has to sign documents or that people take pictures and video and report on it in the news on TV and the internet and you tube and political blogs blah blah blah.

He’s a bastard. Go online and Google Romney’s dog story. This asshole put the family dog in a kennel and then tied the kennel on the roof of the car during a 12 hour trip into Canada. Part way through the trip when one of his sons noticed the dog shitting down the back window out of pure, abject terror, Mittens became a man of action. He pulled over, hosed down the dog and the kennel, put the dog back into the kennel, re-tied it to the roof of the car and continued with the trip. Bastard.

He’s made millions by down-sizing companies and laying off hard-working people, all the while apparently laughing as if he were watching a Green Acres re-run. This election the number one issue is . . . drum roll please . . . job creation and the unemployment rate! Hmmm, Mittens doesn’t seem like a good match for this issue. It’s like an eHarmony meet-up between Paris Hilton and Tim Tebow.

So basically Mitt Romney is a smiley idiot bastard who, if elected president, would spend four years still trying to get people to like him, passing legislation and then backtracking, and denying suffering people unemployment while slashing jobs rather than creating them. Sounds like a fun 1460 days.

In conclusion I’d like to apologize to any reader who thought by the title that this was an article on winter outer wear. No harm was ever intended to gloves, hand warmers or Isotoners.

Fun with Spell Check

I’ve noticed that the spell check in Microsoft can give you some strange suggestions when you misspell a word. For instance, if my last name, Hivner, is in my document it would like me to change it to “Hivers”. While this may be a way for me to avoid the IRS for a while I don’t think my Mom would approve. With this in mind I did an experiment, typing up some famous quotations along with the names of the person who said them. Then I took a few of the letters out to give spell check something to do.

Albert Einstein said “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” His lesser known cousin Ale Eaten said, “Iodination is more imp tat than college”, which I think is just as profound if you really think about it.

“Four score and seven years ago . . .” is of course the beginning of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Words you may not be as familiar with are “Four sod and Sven yaks ago . . .” which is of course the start to the Geyser Padres from unknown antebellum politician Bathe Lingo.

Poet Robert Frost wrote these immortal words, “Two roads diverged in a wood and I took the one less travelled”. Under the pen name Rover Fest he wrote these slightly less memorable words, “Two rams veered in a woody and I hook the one less railed”.

British leader Winston Churchill was once cheekily quoted as saying, “I am easily satisfied with the very best.” His alter ego Wisdom Circle had even more cheek when he said, “I am easily stiffed with the very bust”.

American Writer Mark Twain had this to say about the human psyche, “Everyone is a moon and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.” An unknown writer named Mask Taint who was trying to mimic his hero has this to stay, “Urine is a monk and has a dry side which he never sags to dayboy.”

As you can see you have to be careful with spell check or you can end up wiring a very sage bog pet.

Damn it!

In the Dark Iowa Night

What are we to make of Rick “Pennsylvania’s Greatest Embarrassment” Santorum’s near victory in the Iowa caucus? If you watch TV news shows or read any news web sites you would think by the smothering coverage that this was the biggest event since politics was invented by a few over-intellectualizing Greeks. But let’s take a look at some facts.

1. The voter turnout for the Iowa caucus was around 5%. 5. Five. FIVE. One, two, three, four, five. Looked at another way this means 95% of the voters in Iowa stayed home to watch The Bachelor. MSNBC, Fox and the others of their ilk would have you believe this was a very important event but 9.5 out of every 10 Iowans didn’t give a shit. If the state itself didn’t care, why should the rest of us?

2. Does the winner of the Iowa race eventually win the nomination? No. Iowa voters have only managed to choose the future winner twice in the past 30 years. In other words they are successful about as often as I win on a lottery scratch off ticket. For all we know Michelle Bachmann will magically be written in on ballots in the other states and win the nomination, sweeping her way to the White House and plunging the country into 4 years of eye-gouging insanity.

3. Rachel Maddow made an interesting point last evening that maybe one of the reasons Santorum did so well in Iowa was because he hasn’t been vetted yet and the reason for that is: no one, not one person, nada, zilch, nobody . . . thinks he can win. We haven’t paid attention to Rick “Google Problem” Santorum because we don’t think he’s got a chance. Maybe the good people of Iowa haven’t heard the ignorant shit he’s said over the years. Get ready remaining 49 states, your ears are about to bleed.

In the end, the Iowa caucus made news only because it was the first one on the slate. Even the people who live there couldn’t be bothered to come out and cast a vote for Grumpy, Dopey, Sneezy, Sleepy, Bashful, Happy or Doc. The winner in Iowa clearly has no historical precedent so who cares?

The last time Santorum ran for the Pennsylvania senate, as the incumbent, he got flushed like a turd into the Susquehanna so it’s surprising to now see him win anything, much less a primary for the nomination for president. But what does it ultimately mean?

Not a damn thing.

3 Days

It’s 2012 and what do we have? Seven idiots running for the republican presidential nomination, someone got arrested at Lindsay Lohan’s house and another celebrity couple is getting divorced after barely a year of marriage. Seems a lot like 2011 to me.

Of course, it has only been 3 days so maybe I should give the new year a break. How much could it actually have accomplished in 3 days? Hmm.

Woodstock—3 days of peace, love and music

Gettysburg—3 day battle that effectively lost the Civil War for the south

Apollo 11—3 days to fly from the Earth to the moon

Wimbledon—in 2010 Nicolas Mahut and John Isner played the longest tennis match in history stretching over portions of 3 days with Isner finally prevailing 70-68 in the 5^th set

With these events in mind I think it’s time for 2012 to step it up. Three days now seems like plenty of time for the new year to distinguish itself from 2011. I don’t know about you, but I’m still working the same job for the same pay, my car still has 117,000 miles on it and I still don’t love vegetables (2012 is supposed to teach me to love vegetables so I can be healthier. Damn I want a donut).

I think in the past I was content to let the new year ease into its job, take care of the previous regime’s problems first before announcing its presence. But I’m 46. My life needs action to change. I know 2012 still has that new year smell and we’ve barely gotten the oil mixed through the entire engine, but I think my list proves it’s possible to accomplish a lot in 3 days.

It’s clear what happened. The 1^st was a Sunday so 2012 took it easy. It slept in, no doubt with a hangover, and when it did finally get up, it never made it out of its pajamas and bathrobe. A little hair of the dog while watching football and boom day 1 is over with nothing accomplished. Day 2, television was filled with college football bowl games. 2012 was in a pick ‘em pool. Instead of helping people with resolutions, the new year was on 2011’s couch, eating hot wings while imploring Wisconsin to score before his whole ticket was blown. Today was day 3, a Tuesday of all days. Nothing of consequence gets done on a Tuesday. 2012 knows this so it went to OTB trying for the trifecta, lost, and spent the evening smoking weed with 2009 and 2010.

We are all very disappointed in you, 2012. I know many people had very high hopes for you to start strong. We all have a lot of problems and were counting on you to have answers.

Oh well. Maybe day 4 will be a day of miracles, if we can get 2012 out of bed.