Politics

Lots of random shit today. For starters, the sketch above sucks, but it's the first chance I've had to really sit down and just doodle stuff. No real idea what it is, just some kind of beaked golem thing. Whatever. Finding free time is a real bitch, although step one is cutting out video games, quite frankly (ironic given my last post). Video games eat time and shit fun. If you want to get other stuff done in life, you really gotta cut back. I'm always amused by geeky gamers who trash professional sports or non-sports like golf for being a huge waste of time, while they'll burn six hours straight in a friggin World of Warcraft raid. I'm not a sports guy; I'm a gamer at heart, but I gotta call a spade a spade here. If you play copious amounts of video games, you probably should shut the fuck up about other people's hobbies being a 'waste of time'.

In other news, this: An asshole opines on how to screw people over and foster terrible professional relationships. This article generated a hell of a lot of furor all over the internet, particularly on DeviantArt where I'm pretty active. It's an incredible article, and a spectacular example of the kind of douchebag to avoid if you do freelance art. His basic premise is that you can save money on a game design project by hiring young, inexperienced artists and lying to them and manipulating them into giving you as much as possible for your money. he even includes social engineering techniques right from the Dilbert pointy-haired boss school of project management. While technically correct, that yes, you can often get some quick savings by being a sleaze, he's completely off base on long term success. Nothing he said in there is unique; it's all the same sort of techniques employed by used car salesmen and scam artist everywhere, going as far back as the concept of money and contractors.

I've got more thoughts and information on this topic, but it'll have to wait till I get home and can access my links. Ok, sort of changed my mind about taking the time to dig up more information and opinions on this. I think the guy's article speaks for itself, really.

And last but not least, all the World Trade Center Mosque craziness. In case you live under a rock, a group wants to put up an Islamic Cultural Center two or three blocks from the World Trade Center site in New York City, and a lot of people are freaked out over this. This center will be the equivalent of a YMCA, from the description, and the guy who's behind it has actually worked with the George W. Bush administration and Obama's administration on international programs to foster tolerance and cooperation between the U.S. and Arab nations. He's not a terrorist or any of that B.S., he's a liberal/moderate Muslim, just like most Muslims.

The issue is really simple: people who are opposed to this are shitheads. For starters, this is private property. The site in question is a run down old retail building. There are absolutely no laws that will prevent this from happening. Nothing. Debates about whether they have the 'right' to build there are idiotic. Secondly, the first amendment. You know, that whole freedom of religion thing. The part that a lot of conservatives seem to want to selectively apply when it suits their voting base. And third, the first amendment, because that's pretty fucking important here and deserves a second mention. Someone give this to Newt Gingrich, he could use a refresher:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

A lot of people, indeed, a majority of the country, seem to think that this is a bad idea and that they shouldn't be allowed to build there. The perception seems to be that this is an insult to the victims of 9/11, and they equate it to putting up a giant Nazi Swastika next to the Holocaust Museum. That's actually a pretty interesting mentality. There really are a lot of people who think that this is a religious war, and that we're at war with the entire Muslim world. I guess it goes to our tribal tendencies, and of humanity's tendency to separate into us vs. them camps. Hell, polls are indicating that twenty percent of the country think Obama is a Muslim, so who the fuck knows what these imbeciles are really thinking. This is the same as thinking all Catholics are child molesting pedophiles, or that all Atheists are immoral monsters, or that all Teapartiers are racists, or that Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world, or that all Black people are crooks and welfare exploiters. Pick a stereotype, almost any one can apply.

You just can't paint people with such broad brush strokes. The actions of a small subset of assholes in any group can't be applied to the entire group. It just doesn't work that way. But we all do it. Again, it's that idiotic tribal mentality our species just can't get past. The latest tack I've seen is a lot of commentors asserting that Islam isn't a real religion, it's a political system designed to control and oppress people, and thus it isn't protected by the first amendment. Ironic, given how people who espouse this attitude often want to force the rest of the country to bow to their religious beliefs and prejudices.

The angry backlash is just another indicator of a portion of our country's xenophobia and hatred, although it's a good way to spot people who really don't give a fuck about the constitution or the law.

Anyway, that's all for today. Fear not though, I've got more irrelevant opinions on the way!

You know, I didn't want to talk politics, I keep trying to avoid it, but I have this real problem with wanting to be aware of stuff going on in the world. And I make the mistake of reading commentary on news sites. Don't do that. Seriously.

So two days ago, Sunday the 20th, 2010, The United States of America turned into a leftist pinko commie fag hippie tree hugger welfare state where no-one has to work for a living anymore and we're also on the brink of economic and financial ruin. Blood is running in the streets, a coup de tat is brewing, and open armed revolt will soon come, lead by Glen Beck in a napoleon uniform, flanked on one side by Rush Limbaugh and on the other by Bill O'Reilly. They're going to lead a revolt of the people, gather the masses of teabaggers everywhere, that vast majority who has been run over by a totalitarian nazi non-citizen usurper anti-christ black man with a terrorist's name. They're going to take back the white house by force and get those damn dirty progressives the hell out of this great country. God and Jesus both wept a tear in heaven for the plight of our nation, the great defeat that has been visited upon us by the marxist stalinist evildoers who want to rape your babies and take your money.

Well, anyway, that's kind of what the world looks like according to Fox news and the various message board comments I've seen from conservative types.

So, yeah, pretty funny shit. I particularly enjoy the news stories about teabaggers yelling 'nigger' and 'faggot' and spitting at various Democratic congress members, and all of the Hitler-Obama imagery.

Personally, I'm pretty happy, but there's no need for some art nerd to go into boring details. World ain't gonna end, and for once we, as a people, actually got some half way decent shit accomplished.

A while back I decided to ease off on political statements on my blog. People who go on and on about politics tend to look like real jerkoffs no matter what political affiliation they tend towards. A person's political extremity is directly proportional to how large of a douchebag they are.

However, sometimes politicians say things that are so mind numbingly stupid that I just can't let it go. These past few weeks are one prime example of political bullshit of epic proportions.

John Shimkus is, of course, a Republican, and made the following statement regarding man made global warming and the EPA ruling that CO2 is dangerous:

"Does EPA propose we stop breathing?"

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So I know this will reach all of five people, but I feel I need to vent somewhere, and I refuse to spread anything political on Facebook or anything like that and be a total hypocrite, so I'll put it here where it's on my dime:

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Shimkus, you fucking imbecile, this has to do with the carbon cycle. Breathing is part of the normal cycle. Digging up multiple trillions of tons fossilized carbon is not part of the normal cycle, you dumb disingenuous tool.

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Naturally, some of the real bottom scrapers of the conservative movement (like Sarah Palin) think this is a great, catchy little statement. A hell of a lot of them are all up in arms over 'climategate', which is even less meaningful to Global Warming science than the Piltdown Man hoax was to Evolutionary Theory.

With all of this bullshit the Republican party sure looks like the anti-science party lately. Not that this is a new trend for them, but it's got no hope of being fixed with the current crop of science illiterate buffoons that have been elected.

I suppose I'll get some random spambots and angry responses to this; should be fun!

Well, we're finally done. It's finally over. No more George Bush; now we have Obama. Now, I may be an atheist, but thank god the bullshit of the last eight years are over with. I mean, really, it has been one long crappy road with that idiot in charge.

Hopefully things will start to suck less in years to come. I'm pretty confident that they will, but you never know. That being said, I can scarcely imagine Obama could fuck things up any worse than what this nation and, indeed, the entire world has been through.

The inauguration was pretty interesting. Not so much for the inauguration itself, but just the reaction people have had to it. I was sitting at work, and half the people at my job were just sitting quietly in the cafeteria listening to the speech (which was pretty good, by the way). I don't recall that many moments in my life where a whole lot of varied people were all sort of in synch with what they were thinking and how they were reacting; and certainly not any positive ones like this.

The minority of hateful, spiteful folks are, naturally, being as loud as they can, but I'm really amazed at how few of them there are. Seems that a lot of people who aren't fond of Obama are, at the least, completely fed up with Bush and his relentless string of failures.

I guess any way you look at it yesterday was a big deal. A big deal for the United States, a big deal for the world, a big deal for humanity in general. That probably sounds very Ameri-centric, but that's not what I mean. Any nation that can really make a good step forward to rise above past biases as we've just witnessed is doing something great for all of us.

So to sum it up, yesterday was a pretty good day. Hopefully we'll have a few more after this.

Ok, more political BS, then I swear I'm done till the next major election or the next time a politician screws up. I'm sort of killing time waiting for my laptop to arrive, since Fujitsu keeps pushing back the bloody ship date.

Anyway, Obama won, we have our first black president, and the Democrats control everything just short of being filibuster proof in the senate (which I think is a good thing).

Now, myself being fairly liberal (ok, very liberal), you might suspect that I'd wax poetic about Obama and how great this is going to be. But I won't because I have no clue if the next 4 years will be shit or not. I figure, based on what I saw of the two parties and candidates, that this is the better alternative, that's all.

But what I do know, being a denizen of the internet, is that the reaction from internet conservatives and Republicans is astonishing in its hate, bile, and unfiltered rage.

Back in 2004, a hell of a lot of butthurt liberals I chat with online were semi-seriously saying they were going to "move to Canada" since Bush won. Well, about .00001% of them actually followed through, but it was an indicator of how disappointed they were with the election results.

But now, with the Republican party basically being rebuked by the voting public, the reactions are like the liberals in 2004, only amplified ten fold and sprinkled with blatant racism and end-of-days armagedon speak.

Some fun highlights from the several days post-election I spent trolling conservative boards and blogs:

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• "Obama the magic lawn-jockey"  ~No, that's not racist at all~

• "That's it, I'm going to leech SSI for all I can and then move to lithuania before the liberals ruin the country"  ~Aparently Lithuania is to conservatives as Canada is to liberals. Also, lol at the hypocricy of the anti-welfare crowd.

• "That uppity anti-christ ain't my president."  ~Tough titty dude, he kind of won. By a lot.

• "Get your guns ya'll, the only way we'll survive the next four years is through an armed march on Washington to get the commie usurper off the throne."  ~I'm still trying to figure out what throne he's talking about. Maybe the commode in the east wing?

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That's just a tiny taste of the fun and exciting things Republicans are saying. Additionally, with the more sane members of the conservative voting public, a bit of finger pointing and blame-gaming has begun, where they try to decide who gets thrown under the bus (early bet's on Palin) and who gets to stick around and rebuild the GOP.

The really fun character to come out of this besides Bible Spice/Caribou Barbie is Joe the Not-a-Plumber. Joe is an awesome guy, who's terrified that the $250,000 imaginary plumbing business he doesn't have the money or credit to purchase will be beyond his grasp if he has to pay around $900 more a year in taxes. Even better, his family once was on welfare, and that was ok because he and his family had paid into the system. But government handouts and taxation are bad. At least Joe gets a book deal out of the whole mess. Hypocricy can pay well, I guess.

Also, a big dummy managed to get himself removed from his football team for a facebook comment about Obama that reads "All the hunters gather up, we have a nigger in the White House". And you thought conservatives were classless!

It's been a fun time, and I look forward to even more fun and excitement and even more stupid shit coming from all sides, although especially the right. There's nothing like complete and utter ideological failure to really get the good reactions going.

Well, it's election day tomorrow.

Finally.

This has been a pretty crazy election year... I'm glad it'll be over soon. I'm especially glad that Obama appears to be winning by a huge margin too; maybe we can get finally get past this historical period of Republican idiocy.

In other news, I'm waiting impatiently for my new tablet PC to show up. I can't really afford the thing, but the extra hours of work I'll be able to put in while commuting and during lunch will be most excellent.

Other than that I'm still plugging along on Flash projects and researching how to code browser games. Not a whole lot of art lately; too much insanity between job, house repairs/renovation, foster dogs, and my own neurosis to get much done.

Getting the tablet will be nice though. There's a lot of times I just need to bugger off and find a place to chill out and do some work, and I've got a back-log of over 60 sketches that have been scanned I've not had a chance to do any digital coloring too. Same with some of my comics and other ideas, and this website is held together with the virtual equivalent of chewing gum and duct tape.

That's one of those shitty things about having so much stuff to do at home: you just can't relax and actually do any side projects when your to-do list is two meters long. Blarg.

This election season has been a profound source of right-wing idiocy. Sure, there's plenty of left wing idiocy too, but the profound and absolute failure of the Republican party over the past eight years has produced some stunning material.

Like this moron, Barbara West. This is an interview of hers with Joe Biden that's so bad it has to be watched to be believed. It's as if Biden is being interviewd by a creepy news-anchor version of a stepford wife with a malfunctioning turing program.

Nice compilation of what a tard this woman is.

So far I've actually been rather quiet about politics this election season. I suppose part of it is my attempt to be a bit more professional, less partisan, more appealing to visitors once I get some content built.

But today, I must speak.

I watched the debates last night, between John McCain and Barrack Obama. Especially the part about health care. You see, I used to work in the insurance industry, so I know at least a little itty bit about it. And this is what I found:

John McCain’s health-care plan for our nation is, quite literally, the worst idea mankind has ever given birth to. It is a festering, necrotic abortion of reason, and an affront to all thinking non-HMO CEO creatures on the planet.

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I’m still trying to figure out if the idea to green-light a movie like Gigli was a worse decision than this health care plan or not, and I’m actually having a tough time deciding, that’s how unfathomably bad it is.

Of course, if you want to see the downfall of America, this is a good start. Bush has destroyed our economy, I figure McCain can annihilate healthcare, and then the next Republican after him could, perhaps, destroy agriculture. It seems like a logical progression to me.

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Ok, getting down from my soapbox now.

Perhaps, once I calm down, I will explain in detail why it is such a heinous thing, but there are plenty of sources out there that do a better job than I.

This squidish picture has nothing to do with anything, it just happens to be a sketch I colored last night.

So today was exciting: I heard an impressive political speech, with 50% less bullshit than average, got to watch one of my co-

So the Iowa caucus results are in, and it would appear that the favored candidates for both the Republicans and Democrats have been firmly rejected by the voting public. Not Romney, But Huckabee. Not Hillary, but Obama.

Weird. I mean, it's cool, but it's weird.