Fucking Assholes!

http://www.lungusa.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=dvLUK9O0E&b=34893&ct=233851&notoc=1

Take a gander at the above statement from the president and CEO of the American Lung Association, regarding recent legislation regarding regulation of the tobacco industry. Shit like this makes me so angry.

Would they stop at nothing?

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/10/10/bush.rumor.ap/index.html

This article on CNN is about a possible dirty, cheating trick by the bush campaign. Post your thoughts.

A Good (and Surprising!) Read

Bush's hometown paper endorses Kerry!" This is a great editorial, very informative, interesting take on Social Security. Should be able to post here about the debates sometime later today. Post your comments please!

Kerry finally shows some spine

This ABCNews story is about the debate between Kerry and Bush over the Iraqi occupation. Although Kerry does show some balls by calling Bush out on some of his errors with the way he handled Iraq, I still believe he is holding back. I don't understand why he continues to pull his punches, and doesn't just rail on Bush for all his inadequacies and blatant failures in policy: economic, environmental, and foreign, among others. In fact, I can't think of one realm of policy in which he hasn't failed. Discuss dammit!

Controversy

Not sure how I found this, but it looks very interesting to me. The Socialist Party has some great ideas, I encourage everyone to take a look at their platform, and post your thoughts. One of the most notable things I found out was that they support cutting 90% of the military budget, closing all the overseas military bases, and establishing a progressively graduated income tax. I can hear it now:"Ooh..John's becoming a socialist, oh my God! Socialism bad!". Seriously though, take a look at their platform, tell me what you think.

Friends

Friendships are wonderful things, and a good friend of mine said something that I'd like to share. He said that the way conservatives act and think is similar to the way the loyalists to England were during the revolutionary war, and liberals are equivalent to the minutemen of the same period. This is true, in my opinion, since a lot of Republicans believe the way they do just because of tradition, which, in and of itself is not a bad thing. However, when "the way things have always been done" doesn't jive with the natural progression of events over time, tradition should be thrown out the window. For instance! I was reading a chapter out of "Liars..." by Al Franken to my father the other day, and it was about hog farming, and feces lagoons. These lagoons are simply huge expanses of plastic that get filled with all the pig feces that are left over from the pigs. This is not such a bad thing when you have maybe 100 hogs. But, these days, there are corporate farms, which are known to have about 1/4 of a million hogs! When that many hogs are producing feces, there needs to be new ways of getting rid of it, instead of just putting into a big pile. Anyway, I'm ranting now, so please, any discussion is welcome.

Bush did Lines?!?

Speaking of controversy...This is an article at boston.com, taken from the Boston Globe, about a new book written by Kitty Kelley. The book is entitled "The Family" and claims that Dubya was using cocaine at Camp David as recently as 1993. Kelley is known for writing supposed exposes with anonymous sources that reporters can't interview (by virtue of being anonymous), and has teams of lawyers at her beck and call. I welcome any discussion of this article.

Curses and Expletives

I am consumed with anger at my father. I don't say that very often, but my anger knows no bounds when it comes to the Bush administration. Mi Padre was speaking with a friend of his, who is well known to be quite intelligent, and he was adamantly in favor of George W. Bush getting reelected. Now, I'm not saying that the man isnt' intelligent, but atleast in this case, he is flat wrong.

The worst thing is about this situation, is that my father may be voting for Bush just to spite me! Yesterday, he told me that he felt I was manipulating him, so he feels like rebelling against me. I'm still going to be lecturing him everyday. If anyone has any suggestions, let me know, thanks!

The Great Divide?

This website has a great explanation of the current divide we are seeing in this country. I recommend you check it out, their description lays it all out, and explains some things that you may or may not have considered.

An Experiment

Good Morning! Let me share with you a little experiment which I engaged in this morning. I'm sure you all are aware of the "next blog" button which is in the right hand corner of the website. The experiment was, if I click that button three times, would I get a Republican Blog? So, I tried it, and guess what? The first blog I came to was Republican...the website is http://patriotism101.blogspot.com/ , which is the blog of a Texan, who works in a call center, and is a strong Republican. I suggest ya'll check it out, just to get an idea of the way the other side thinks. (He actually thinks that the media is liberal! Hah!)

Financial Crisis

Today I was reading SFgate.com, and found this article about the financial crisis bearing down on the US within the next few years. I don't make any claim that this is absolutely correct, but it sure is scary, if even a fraction of what they say in this article is true. Discussion is welcome.