VPILF

VPILF

After receiving a text from Lora Mae last week expressing her desire to kick over a Palin sign, I thought about my reactions to the woman. Seeing her on TV, seeing her picture, and especially hearing her voice raises a seemingly irrational rage in me. I thought that was weird. I haven’t had that kind of reaction since my reaction to W in the last election. For a small scale social experiment, I asked a man of my acquaintance with very similar political views if seeing/hearing Palin made him angry. He said no. I know one man doesn’t make a truth, but it seemed to be a telling thing to me.

I guess it is because she’s attractive to the men, or somewhat attractive to them anyway. Men have the strangest ideas about women being attractive. I’ve read men say that Palin is attractive in a in-the-dark, as-long-as-she-doesn’t-speak, squint-your-eyes, from-behind-her-ass-looks-good-enough way. There are those that find the whole package appealing, but I haven’t heard so much of that. To my brain, these qualifiers would seem to lead one to the conclusion that the object of said qualifiers is, in fact, unattractive. But I guess that’s one of the things that separate women from men.

I finally pinpointed the source of my own rage by relating it back to an episode of Futurama. I relate entirely too many real-life situations back to Futurama; I guess it is a testament to the genius of the show, or conversely to my mental state. Remember the episode where Leela became the first female Major League Blurnsball player? She was a pitcher that was discovered because she has no depth perception, and just keeps beaning people in the head. She became a parody of what could have been a major milestone for women. A very talented college female player expresses to Leela how disappointed she is that Leela is giving female players a bad name. Her argument is that by allowing herself to be exploited, she belittles the other women.

This is what Palin is doing. By being the worst qualified vice presidential candidate in recent history, she is prolonging the day that a woman will be vice president, even president. Her use of sexuality to succeed, her consistent use of emotional appeals, her smearing Obama, and her cattiness confirms all the negative stereotypes that have convinced the voting majority that women are unfit to serve in these important positions. No one takes her seriously. We’ve moved from having a strong, capable female candidate for president to a complete mockery of a political figure that allows the public to continue under the impression that strong women are bad and unnatural, and what you can allow is an Eskimo Barbie to go with your White House playset.

700 Gazillion dollars later. . .

They passed the thing. I'm pretty sure we're living through the end times. The combination of this bill and Sarah Palin has pushed me over the edge--from caring desperately to WTF. Seriously.

The debate was crazy, Palin recited talking points and was folksy and blah, blah, blah. I couldn't stand her. (By the way Republicans, get that woman a vocal coach pronto)

For them to pass this bill now, after they already voted it down is crazy. The only way they could pass a hugely controversial and high cost bill is to add more controversial and expensive tax earmarks.

If the Republicans win this year, I don't know if I can deal with that. People everywhere will have to form support groups to deal with it. Coffee and lemon bars and tears and support; that's what it will take if I have to live through another four years of Republican mistakes.

On the bright side, McCain stopped campaigning in Michigan; apparently he lost all hope for winning that state. Not just stopped some campaigning, the man stopped everything. That is a good sign.

Pigs do Wear Lipstick

Ok, Obama didn’t say it, so I’ll say it: Sarah Palin is a Natzi Pig in lipstick. We’ve already established that she is a woman who doesn’t believe that women are actually people who deserve equal rights as citizens of America. Now we know she is a big fat liar; an opportunist. Well thanks McCain for giving her a big fat opportunity to spread her lies and deceit (and pig manure) all over this country. Her “thanks but no thanks” to the bridge to nowhere – a big fat lie. She never actually said that. She did say “oh yes please, we’d LOVE that bridge to nowhere” in her campaign for governor of Alaska. But then Congress, not Natzi Pig Palin canceled the bridge. Just so we get our big fat facts straight.

Selling McCain

Ok, on to part two. Didn't want to lay it all on you at once. It's about the POW thing. John McCain is a POW. We are all aware of this fact. He provided a great service to his country, and in the performance of his duty, was captured and was in a POW camp for five years. This is something that I admire him for living through and continuing to live with as a part of his life history.

What I don't like about it is the fact that everyone that gets up to talk at the Republican Convention throws it around. I feel that it is hugely disrespectful for Guliani to use it as a marketing tool, Palin to sell a man based on a horrible experience, and a Republican crowd to cheer when a man’s long, horrible experience is trotted out as a talking point. They even had a country singer sing a song he wrote, wherein an entire verse was dedicated to the candidate's torture.

This was a real experience, it must have had a huge impact on his life. To treat it as political experience that qualifies him to be president seems, to me, to belittle the man's experiences. I’m all for him using this experience to promote himself; it was his experience, and he can do with it what he likes. But to hear every Republican in America to celebrate the capture and torture of a soldier seems really sick and twisted.

Is that pit bull wearing lipstick?

I must be a masochist, I watched the lipstick-wearing pitbull hockey mom Sarah Palin last night. There was a lot of things that I disagreed with, was angered by, and thought was flat out ridiculous, but there are two things that stood out most to me, and I’d like to devote a couple of blogs to them. First, energy.

These people have the biggest hard-on for offshore drilling ever, when reports have shown that offshore drilling will be largely ineffective. It will take time to get these sources generating oil, and once they do, it will not solve our oil dependency. The amounts of oil potentially generated by these sites may not warrant the investment needed to get them producing. I imagine by the time these sources are producing, (if they produce any significant amount) our need will have expanded, as it continues to do, and then we will be back at square one only minus natural environments and tourism in Alaska and Florida.

Instead, doesn’t it make much more sense to develop new sources of energy? I can’t fathom the focus on retaining this obviously malfunctioning system. Yes, it makes us rely on other countries when we shouldn’t be. It involves us in foreign affairs that we shouldn’t be involved in. It leads to pollution and destruction of the environment. Imagine if the oil producing countries decided to cut us off. What would we do then? They could sell the oil to other countries, I imagine. China’s demand for oil is rising every day. We are not the strong, autonomous nation that we believe that we are.

Focusing our energy on developing new technologies in order to provide us with the fuel that we need seems to be a much more sound idea. There are many benefits. We would become self-reliant, which is hugely important. We would greatly profit from the new technologies. Aren’t we a capitalist country? We’re talking big time money to be made from these developments We would once again be industry leaders, leaders in the development of innovations, which hasn’t been very true for a long time. It would lead to more jobs than offshore drilling. It would be a great help in curbing the effects of global warming and the damage that is being caused by our current reality.

Longwinded, I know, but the current attitude about oil makes no sense to me. The only logical explanation for why we haven’t moved on is the amount of money that the oil companies spread around to keep the system in place.

Hottest new political accessory

I was anxiously awaiting McCain's announcement for VP pick. I came into the breakroom, on CNN they had a headline about him picking Palin. In my geeky way, I thought that Michael Palin would be a very funny choice--they could recreate the fish-slapping dance on the White House lawn. But seriously, I thought he had picked a generic white male to complement his generic white maleness.

Then they said Sarah, and showed a picture of an attractive brunette striding with purpose across a field somewhere. A woman? Like, with a vagina and everything? Really? Do they know she has a vagina?

Guess what ladies? We're the hottest new political accessory. Soon no presidential campaign will not be complete without the token woman trailing behind the president. It is a clever tactic. One designed to sway legions of women that wanted to vote for Hilary, women who want to see a woman hold the highest office in the land.

Here's a hint for you fellas: we're not that stupid. You can't throw a woman whose only experience has been two years as governor in a distant state, put her in position that can potentially have little or no influence and expect us to rush to you side. Also, he's risking alienating all those devout conservatives who don't want the frat party to end. I hope McCain enjoys his token vagina, because he's going to be losing with her.