"[H]e [stands] firm behind his paranoia and radical beliefs. I respect that. Besides, he [is] a good source of nudie links."--Ravenwood.
"Its foci, in no particular order, seem to be baseball, Bush-bashing, and bare breasts. Not the stuff of legend, perhaps, but a lot easier to read than, say, Bartcop."--Dustbury
"This was a fine blog; it's just too bad his talent is wasted on the dark side." "Aesthetically speaking, LARS isn't the prettiest blog... it looks like a California mudslide at dusk."--The Smartercop
"A TRUE PATRIOT DEFENDS HIS COUNTRY FROM HIS GOVERNMENT."
Friday, August 08, 2008
Already Back
Ok, fifty minutes after telling you that I'm all done, I'm back! My co-worker just took a trip to Africa, and has some really amazing photos to show for it. Nate is near genious status when it comes to art and design work, and not only are his photos brilliant, but the layout of his site, all done by the man himself, is quite extraordinary, too.
posted by The Rust One on 8/08/2008 11:39:00 AM |
link
Not Much to See Here Yeah, came by today for some minor house-keeping, but as you can see, I don't write for this anymore. I do have some good archives (nice critiques of the Bush Administration, that, though written in its infancy, have turned out to be pretty accurate. Too bad Google disabled the archives script, and they are difficult to find. I'm sure you can find them through a Google search, which is how you probably got here anyway, which I'm sure was by accident.
posted by The Rust One on 8/08/2008 10:49:00 AM |
link
BLOOMBERG COULD CAUSE CHAOS, SHOULD HE CHOOSE TO There seems to be some pretty widespread speculation that Michael Bloomberg will invest $1 billion in a Presidential run. The billionaire mayor of New York, who switched to the Republican Party from the Democratic to win his current office, would self-fund an independent bid in 2008. If he does, he could, as Rasmussen Reports reports, deadlock both the Electoral College and the House of Representatives in the 2008 Presidential Election. If he does indeed run (Time: "Did Mike Bloomberg become a multi-billionaire by lowering his sights? I don't think so," says a friend of the popular second-term mayor. "Why would he want to be governor? If he runs for anything, it'll be the White House."), his finances, as well as his job approval rating, and overall favorable rating put him in a strong position to win enough states to cause the Electoral College to not produce a winner in 2008. If the vote then goes to the House of Representatives, it won't be an easy victory for the Dems, as one would suspect. Why? According to RR:
The House would then vote, but the result would not be determined by the overall number of Representatives. According to the Constitution, each state gets to cast one vote… and a majority of all the states is required to select a President. That means a candidate needs to get the nod from 26 state delegations before moving into the White House.
Today, the Democrats control precisely 26 state delegations. Republicans control 21 and 3 are tied. But, many are closely divided. If the Democrats lose a single state delegation, they lose the majority needed to select a President on their own.
In at least 12 state delegations currently controlled by Democrats, the loss of a single representative would either shift control to the Republicans or create a deadlock. If the Democrats lose just a single net seat in any one of those twelve states, they lose control of the ability to select the next President in the House.
There are a lot of if's involved here. But if Bloomberg does run and does do as well as currently anticipated, Election 2008 could make Indecision 2000 look like no big thing.
Most of us have known for a long time that The Powers That Be main job is to maintain that The Powers That Be remain The Powers That Be.
Never, ever did I think that a major media figure would actually come out and say that, all while a major Presidential candidate nods his head and agrees. Well, Bill O'Reilly and John McCain proved me wrong. O'Reilly blatantly states that the liberal media "want to break down the white, Christian, male power structure, which you're [McCain] a part, and so am I, and they want to bring in millions of foreign nationals to basically break down the structure that we have." I don't think that's the reason behind it. I'm sure that's not the reasoning for which President Bush wants this bill to be passed. But the fact that O'Reilly and McCain don't understand the real issues about immigration reform is the least of our worries. The fact that they admit to this white Christian male power structure and lament any change in it is really, really disturbing. I think Mr. O'Reilly has a lot of explaning to do in his near future. As does McCain, who inexplicably posted this clip on his campaign website.
The video:
Thanks to... Crooks and Liars
posted by The Rust One on 6/01/2007 09:51:00 AM |
link
Among the things in his story I found interesting... He claims to have 43 kills, and to have saved 4 lives... He doesn't necessarily think that the "troop surge" will help much, yet still believes that the war is worth fighting... He's survived three sniper attempts and several IEDs... He has an interesting story about a unmanned donkey carrying explosives... He doesn't feel that anti-war sentiment in the US is hurting troop morale... He does feel that setting deadlines for troop removal will embolden the enemy; he says that as soon as the troops leave an area, al-Qaida moves in... He feels really badly for the Iraqi people... Al-Qaida is a very real threat where he's stationed, every day... He claims the media does not accurately cover the war. He says that most reporters are in Bagdad (which is less violent than Anbar) and that they rarely leave the hotel room. He says there seldom is any reporters in the Western region where he is stationed... Despite several members of the forum asking for "war stories," he does not see any glory in them and says that we don't want to even know the stuff he has seen...
A very, very interesting read. I recommend for all!
Thanks to... Something Awful.
posted by The Rust One on 5/03/2007 11:45:00 AM |
link
BALLS WASTED Does anyone have balls anymore? In his 2004 Presidential campaign, Sen. John Kerry failed to show that he has any cajones. Instead of calling President Bush out on his Iraq War mistake, he just sat back and allowed Bush to call him a flip-flopper. Bush's main campaign was not even to show that he was having success in Iraq, but merely to state that Kerry had no real position on the war and that it wasn't good "to change Commanders in the middle of a war." Kerry finally showed he had a pair when he stated: "You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq." Very candid words that needed to be spoken. What was the result? Bitching and moaning by everyone, so much so that Kerry was forced to apologize and blow the statement off as a "botched joke."
A couple of weeks ago, Barack Obama rightly said that the "lives of the bravest young Americans [are being] wasted" in the Iraq War. I look at that statement as a defense of the troops, saying that they should not be dying in vain. Yet, he was forced to apologize for those remarks. For what reason, I have yet to comprehend. Last night on Letterman, Sen. John McCain (a former Prisoner of War) also said that American lives are being wasted in Iraq. That is causing someone in the Democratic Party to ask him to apologize, obviously in a tit-for-tat move related to the Obama incident.
Two-thirds of Americans currently disapprove of the Iraq War. If that is the case, why are politicians not allowed to state that the war is wasting our troops lives? If this war was a bad move, if it is not being won, if it does nothing for American security, etc., etc., then those lives lost have indeed been wasted. Yet, anytime a politician speaks the truth (or at least their opinion of the truth) they get chastised. So much for the 1st Amendment. Apparently, in America, it's ok to say that a war was mismanaged and going poorly, but not ok to say it's bad that people are dying due to the mismanaged war. What the fuck???
Not that I like him at all, but my guess is that Sen. McCain will be the only one of these lousy bunch of politicians willing to show some balls and stick by his "wasted" statement. Then again, maybe he won't. Apparently, Americans can't handle the truth, especially when it comes to stupid, losing wars.
Update, 2 hours later:McCain has indeed apologized for the remarks, saying he "regrets" saying "wasted" and should have instead used the term sacrificed. Obviously!
