So, my cousin called me out on recently only posting about aggravating republicans. She's right, but I really am worried about what is going to happen in the next year. I hate republicans. They scare me. I think anyone who can justify support for the current administration is worthy of scorn and humiliation. Expose them as the goat fuckers they are. The democrats aren't perfect, but we need constitutional triage right now, and any of them are better than any of the republican fearmongers. Maybe Richardson or Biden can become the surprise dark horse... Nah, who am I kidding, it's all rigged.

So I've been busy getting my thesis proposal done. It's almost there. I just got the last edits and comments from my final committee member, so the rest of this weekend is trying to get it done so that I can get signature from them first thing after the new year. I'm getting nervous about being able to finish by May. It should still happen, but it's going to be tough. I've got a couple of scholarship applications to get in during the next couple of weeks, and I have to have the PhD application in to the school by the first of February. It's big and scary to sign on for at least for another four years. I'm not 100% on it, maybe 80%. The thought of finishing up at 42 and fighting for post-doc and proffessor positions with people 10 years younger than me is a bit scary. Not being tenured until almost 50... yikes.

This is one of the best pranks on the ID dumbshits I've seen in a while.

Here's a list from the same people of the 50 most loathsome people of 2007.


Anyways, I hope everyone has a good 2008.

Another "star" Republican to avoid. Mike Huckabee. Sure, he's from Hope, AR. But he was a Baptist Minister, and doesn't believe in the separation of church and state that I think we desperately need. Being religious is fine. Involving religion in education or government is not. It makes it too easy to for government to become based on religion, and that is wrong. Religion should be a personal choice which helps you deal with life. It should never become a reason to stop learning about and questioning the world, which it becomes for too many people. Interpreting any religious text as literal is dangerous. As far as I'm concerned, all of the repugnicants want to turn the country into even more of a theocracy than it already is.

The system is down.

The system is down.

Please, can we impeach now? The repugs. would be smart if they put up with Pelosi in the White House for 6 months, just to distance themselves from these goat-fuckers. But they're not, and the dems aren't much better...

Check out this for more reasons not to vote for Ron Paul. I agree with much of what he says, except for the Alex Jones part. Alex Jones is an Austin conspiracy theory fucktard. Like Hunter Thompson with Nixon, I find it healthy to question anything which we might agree on. The man thinks traffic chicanes (used to slow traffic down in neighborhoods) are government mind control experiments.

I wish I could be this optimistic about the fate of the Republican party in next year's election, but I'm not. For two reasons, one that I won't be surprised if BushCo and the Republicans succeed in their tactics scare the American public into another four years of their crap. The Dems have zero backbone, and haven't given me any reason to think they are going to change in the next year. This leads to the second reason, which is that the top Democratic candidates are not the answer. I'll vote for them because I think we need to stop the hemorrhaging of the economy, environment, civil liberties, etc. which the current administration has caused, and getting the Repugnicants out of office is the first step; but Hillary is a political opportunist, and she'll say anything. I don't trust her, and I still think her campaign is going to implode. The only two I can feel good about (Richardson and Kucinich) have no chance of winning. It'll probably end up being Edwards and Obama, but I think they are still part of the corporate money machine. Will this election really send the Republicans back to political obscurity, like the '32 election? I hope so. If we don't have some sort of positive watershed event, we'll end up being a fundamentalist theocracy in 10 years, maybe sooner.

I was talking to some people today, and we got on the subject of how much things have changed since Kennedy. Kennedy had to assure people that he wasn't going to try to turn the country Catholic; that federal monies weren't going to go to the church. Now Romney has to assure fundamentalist Christians that, he is going to support their agenda of eroding the separation of church and state (nevermind the fact that Huckabee is a retired baptist minister). Now Kennedy wasn't perfect, by any means, and I don't pretend that religion hasn't always had at least some hand in American government, but the separation should be absolute. If you are religious, and it helps you live a better life, fine. I encourage it. If you want to send your kids to a religious private school, fine. The church should have nothing to do with public education or government. Period. Ever. It is a private matter. No religious school should ever get public money, and no religion should be taught in public school. Any church that directly tries to influence people's support of candidates should loose its non-profit status, and start paying taxes, and back taxes.

Lawmakers have come up with a plan to raise the CAFE standards to 35mpg by 2020. It is a step in the right direction, especially since the standards haven't been raised for 30(?) years. I can't believe it's 2007 and an SUV which gets 25mpg is considered to get good mileage. The automakers, of course, are balking at the new proposal. "It'll cost jobs" "We can't do it..." whine, whine, whine... Bullshit. They already have to average 40mpg in Europe. I think it is similar in Japan. American car companies need to get their act together, or they won't be around. What baffles me is, is that Toyota is complaining. They could ship the tooling over for their cars that already meet the standards, get the cars built in the US in two years, and advertise that they are 10 years ahead of the American manufacturers. Does Toyota not import cars to Europe? No, they're there. Do American companies ignore the European market? Nope. Hell, they even own a few of the larger European automakers. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. The US lags behind every developed country in fuel efficiency standards. We lag behind CHINA. If we had a progressive government that wasn't in bed with the oil industry and US automakers, we could easily reach the goals and then some. Reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and strengthen our economy. Why is American business so scared to be the world leaders in innovation again?

So the people who wrote this test don't know percentages. I got every question right with no extra hints. How is that 98%:

98%ALCOHOLIC

I am 100% alcoholic god dammit! How dare they take that 2% away! Or maybe I just know way too much about alcohol...

So I've been hearing way too much about Ron Paul. Please. He is a conservative fucktard who just happens to talk about getting out of Iraq and being fiscally responsible (in that uniquely Republican way which involves cutting social and environmental funding, yet keeping big business subsidy) He's a trojan. He represents Galveston which is not a bastion of liberalism in Texas. He's accepted money from Stormfront.org, which is a white supremacist web site; David Duke supports him; He doesn't think we ratified the 16th Amendment... Uggggggh. He wants to take the federal government back to the days of Reagan, because that worked so well. How long will we be paying for the savings and loan scandal? It's still gonna be a long time.