never hire a neocon pundit

so, since my last post, benazir bhutto, an amazing woman who was brilliant (graduate of oxford and then harvard who was once leader of oxford’s debate team), used to be attractive 20 years ago (named one of people magazine’s 50 most beautiful people in the late 80s), who was friends with many americans like arianna huffington of the huffington post, who was leader of the pakistan people’s party (ppp), who was prime minister of pakistan twice, who was a liberal secular feminist despite being muslim (she even kept her last name after being married and her kids got her last name instead of her husband’s), the only woman who ever was in charge of a muslim nation, well she was assassinated by terrorists. whether the terrorists were from al qaeda, or whether they were from pakistan’s intelligence agency the i.s.i., or the pakistani military, or from the taliban, or from a rival political party... who knows? but apparently al qaeda has a long history of assassinations, starting with anwar sadat, the egyptian president assassinated in 1981 by an egyptian terrorist group that later became a main part of al qaeda (al qaeda formed later). the group that assassinated sadat was led by ayman al-zawahiri, the egyptian terrorist leader who is now #2 in command in al qaeda after the saudi/yemeni terrorist leader osama bin laden. and terrorists were trying to kill benazir bhutto for years... they had already killed 2 of her brothers and a military dictatorship that once ruled pakistan had executed her father. so now, her husband (a very corrupt and discredited figure) and her 19-year-old son (a student at oxford) are taking over her party. violence has erupted around pakistan, lots of people have been killed, and it is all a big mess, because that country is the only islamic nation to have nuclear weapons, and is also harboring al qaeda leaders such as osama bin laden and ayman al-zawahiri, and is a major recipient of united states military aid, having gotten $10,000,000,000 of aid from the united states since september 11, 2001. pretending to support the united states in the war on terror while helping out the terrorists really pays off! i suggest we threaten cut off all aid to pakistan, and send all that aid to india instead. also, if the pakistani government has never been able to control its western tribal provinces in all its decades of existence, perhaps the united states military could cross the border from afghanistan and take control of those provinces so we can finally get osama bin laden and his cronies who are holed up there. that is, if anyone still cares about getting osama bin laden and the al qaeda leadership. apparently nobody cares about that anymore, though, and we would rather coddle a military dictator who is giving al qaeda safe haven than actually fight the terrorists. of course, i am not advocating war, but rather, putting a bit of pressure on mr. musharraf, and encouraging him to “purge” the military and i.s.i. of any elements which may be supporting al qaeda or the taliban or other islamic fundamentalist/terrorist groups. after all, a year ago, the united states found out where ayman al-zawahiri was hiding in pakistan, and we asked pakistan for permission to bomb him. pakistan gave us permission, but not before terrorist-supporting double agents within the i.s.i. (pakistani intelligence agency) told ayman al-zawahiri everything so that he could escape to safety before the united states bombed him. if pervez musharraf wants to continue to receive aid and not become our enemy, we should require him to purge all terrorist supporters from his intelligence agency and military.

now, recently, karl rove was hired by newsweek as a paid propagandist for that “news” magazine, and now the “news”paper the new york times, infamous for judith miller and jayson blair, has hired william kristol, the leader of the neocon propagandists, editor-in-chief of the weekly standard, the neocon propaganda magazine that is published weekly, and a commentator on fox news, the neocon propaganda channel. the new york times already has several right-wing commentators, such as william safire and david brooks, and some useless wishy-washy commentators such as thomas friedman and maureen dowd. they only really have one decent left-wing commentator, namely paul krugman, oh and i guess bob herbert is also o.k. anyway, the new york times does have some good investigative news stories on a fairly regular basis, but their editorial columnists are all across the political spectrum, and only a few are actually reliable liberals, and those are equally balanced by the reliable conservatives. the washington post has a bit more of a right-wing bent to its columnists and pundits. and as for conservative newspapers, such as the washington times or the wall street journal or the new york post, all of their commentators are conservative republicans, with not one liberal or moderate to be found. similarly, cnn and msnbc are both relatively neutral politically, whereas fox news channel is completely right-wing and neoconservative. now what about political magazines? well, the weekly standard is rupert murdoch’s flagship neoconservative publication, the national review is a mouthpiece of the republican party and conservatives, and there is one called the new republic which is center-left but pro-war and has had several controversies with writers who made up stories full of lies. the new republic is complete crap, in other words. so what publications are actually liberal? well, there is the nation magazine, mother jones, and the progressive (another magazine). still, we are faced with a situation where right-wing talking heads like bill o’reilly are simultaneously given television “news” shows, radio talk shows, and widely syndicated newspaper columns. their left-wing counterparts do not have any tv news shows except for keith olbermann (who is not on radio or published in newspapers), liberals have failed to get a large audience in radio with networks such as air america radio that went bankrupt, and most of the top syndicated columnists are conservative republicans. in other words, there is no liberal media, unless you are talking about the nation magazine, mother jones, and the progressive magazine, or talking about air america radio or a few other liberal radio talk show hosts who manage to survive among a sea of conservative radio talk show hosts that vastly outnumber them, or if you are talking about liberal websites and blogs on the internet. but even on the internet, liberals and conservatives are fairly evenly matched. now why is the media so conservative, even spilling over into publications like the new york times that are supposed to be liberal according to everyone like ann coulter and bill o’reilly and william kristol (the new new york times columnist) himself? well, the media is owned by large corporations, and large corporations support the republican party because the republican party always tries to help them out with deregulation and lower taxes. since democrats in general and left-wing/progressive/liberal people in particular stand on the side of the poor and the middle class against the rich people who own everything, they are not very popular among the rich people who own everything, except for people like george soros who have decided to, in effect, be traitors to their own class. people like george soros who have a lot of money but want to support politicians who are in favor of helping out the poor at the expense of the rich, they are considered traitors to the wealthy ruling class, and are outnumbered by people such as richard mellon scaife, rupert murdoch, the walton family, and many others. atheism is apparently much more common among billionaires than the average folk, with people such as bill gates and ted turner as prominent examples of billionaire atheists. there are a few very wealthy people who are ultra-religious, however, such as tom monaghan, the founder of domino’s pizza. and while the wealthy atheists keep their disbelief to themselves, wealthy religious people like tom monaghan try to spread their belief far and wide. in any event, hardly any billionaires support liberalism like george soros does. the reason he has become such a target and so vilified is that the wealthy ruling class considers him a traitor to the wealthy ruling class, and will stop at nothing to do character assassination against him to make an example of him and prevent any other billionaires or multimillionaires from financing liberalism. in the meantime, wealthy people who finance conservatism only get attacked in liberal publications like the nation magazine or on air america radio or in liberal blogs, and none of this is ever heard in the so-called “mainstream” media. there are a large number of big conservative “think-tanks” in the washington, d.c. area, such as the heritage foundation, the american enterprise institute, and of course the infamous project for a new american century. there are also “centrist” ones that largely favor conservatism over liberalism, such as the brookings institution, the council on foreign relations, rand corporation, and the center for strategic and international studies. there are about as many liberal think-tanks like the center for american progress as there are libertarian think-tanks like the cato institute. and of course libertarians are very conservative on economic issues and very liberal on social issues, so on the economic issues that matter to the ultra-wealthy, libertarians are even more reliable allies than conservative republicans. now i have already mentioned the people at fox news and keith olbermann of msnbc. besides them, the only major opinion shows on cable news are the ones of lou dobbs and chris matthews. lou dobbs is a former republican, now independent, who promotes deporting all illegal immigrants, greatly increased border security, and an end to free-trade agreements like nafta that he believes ship jobs overseas. although at times he seems quite xenophobic, he is actually married to a legal immigrant from mexico and has several half-hispanic children. lou dobbs seems to have the greatest ire towards china, and his message is full of populist appeals about closing our borders and ending free trade, and he loves to condemn both democrats and republicans, and condemns congress regardless of which party is in charge. the ironic part is that the policies lou dobbs advocates are the exact opposite of what most economists advocate, and yet lou dobbs was for years cnn’s “money” guy who would talk about the economy and the stock market and all that sort of shit, and most of that time he seemed to be an advocate for the wealthy ruling elite, and his recent conversion to populism is quite odd. chris matthews of msnbc is quite a bizarre character because he talks loudly and quite fast and always seems to have very strong opinions, but he can never seem to keep the same opinion for longer than 5 seconds. he was originally an aide to a democratic speaker of the house, but he seems to praise and condemn democrats and republicans equally. he originally supported the war in iraq but then turned against it when the majority of public opinion did too. and chris matthews really likes george w. bush for some reason, although that is an on-again, off-again sort of relationship that they have. he likes to have self-promoting controversy-generating pompous blowhards like ann coulter on his show, regardless of how thoroughly discredited they are. chris matthews usually just mirrors whatever other people are saying and never has an original thought of his own. so who are the only other major opinion-makers on television? well, aside from the christian broadcasting network and pat robertson (an ultra-right-wing republican), you have jon stewart and stephen colbert on comedy central. jon stewart and stephen colbert are generally seen as liberal by most people (including me), although jon stewart claims to be fairly neutral (so that means his writing staff are the liberals), and stephen colbert pretends to be a conservative republican (which proves he is a liberal democrat, although in interviews stephen colbert has said he never really thought much about politics until a few years ago, when he started developing political awareness).

ok, so anyway, what is my point? ahh yes... my point is, if a publication like newsweek or the new york times that is thought of as part of the so-called “liberal media” hires a neoconservative pundit like karl rove or william kristol, someone who has been thoroughly discredited and has a very bad reputation, who is as hated among liberals as george w. bush or rupert murdoch, well they had better expect that many liberals will cancel their subscriptions and they will lose readership. but in the long run, the cancelled subscriptions will probably have little impact, and the publications may actually gain readers, such as dittoheads who watch fox news and listen to rush limbaugh on the radio. the real impact is that this will help solidify the republican party’s control of the media even more, and help the republicans gradually conquer the few remaining bastions of independent thought. and that if we do end up with a democratic president and keep our democratic congress, the media will be full of voices criticizing our democratic leaders for being too liberal. but what is even worse about hiring someone like william kristol is, he is rabidly pro-war and is neoconservative, part of the project for a new american century; we can expect him to help promote future disastrous wars that drain our federal budget and kill our soldiers and destroy foreign countries while making us even more hated around the world. and karl rove is a propagandist and master of dirty tricks whose main skill is dividing the country and making it more partisan and bitter; we can expect him to tear down the democrats and help turn public opinion against them even if they do nothing wrong to justify losing popularity. if conservative republicans have their own media outlets like fox news, almost all of talk radio, the wall street journal, the washington times, the new york post, the weekly standard, the national review, and half of the political blogosphere, why on earth should we be giving their talking heads even more control of the media, especially given the extreme lack of any liberal voices to counter them? if we do give voice to conservative pundits, we should at least give it to people who have not thoroughly discredited themselves and become infamous, people like william kristol and karl rove. william kristol and karl rove are almost as bad as ann coulter, and luckily we have been spared having ann coulter have her own tv show or radio show, and ann coulter’s newspaper column is much less widely syndicated now than it was before. why can’t william kristol and karl rove be rejected from relevance and thrown into the dustbin of history, ignored as they should be, and replaced with new conservative pundits who have not thoroughly discredited and disgraced themselves already? and why is rush limbaugh still on the radio despite being a drug addict, a bigot, a complete hypocrite, and a political hack who claims to be an “entertainer”? howard stern is an entertainer. rush limbaugh is more like a cult leader, like pat robertson. why don’t we elevate people from the nation magazine, air america radio, the liberal blogosphere, or the liberal ivory towers of academia into being the hosts of tv news shows or syndicated columnists with columns at major newspapers or having widely listened-to radio talk shows? politicians and prominent political commentators in the united states are much more conservative in the united states than in any other wealthy industrialized country, on all issues, whether social issues, economic issues, or foreign policy issues. their disastrous policies are ruining our country, and if we want to change course and fix things, we will need not only politicians who are progressive but progressive voices in the “mainstream” media as well. and not just mild or timid voices, but bold voices like noam chomsky. the media also needs to stop obsessing over the controversies in the personal lives of attractive young women who happen to be celebrities, such as britney spears, lindsey lohan, and paris hilton, or the not-quite-as-young-and-now-deceased anna nicole smith. if young ladies like them happen to have some embarrassing problems in their lives, the media should not cover it, and instead cover the stories of young people who are positive role models, you know, people like me, for instance. i mean, ok, i am not perfect, but still, i am a better role model than them... anyway, neoconservatism has been so thoroughly discredited. if they want a conservative, media outlets should hire a traditional conservative, like pat buchanan, or a libertarian, like ron paul. but not a neoconservative. nothing could be more disastrous than letting neoconservatives mislead our nation into another war that escalates into world war iii, into global thermonuclear war, where the only survivors are people who stay holed up in underground bunkers for years to avoid the nuclear radiation. if we listen to neoconservatives again, this could threaten the very survival of our species, since their doctrines of endless war have only one possible end result: world war iii and a nuclear holocaust, not a holocaust that kills 6 million jews, but one that kills 6 billion people of all races, religions, nations, genders, sexual orientations, political views, etc., killing them all indiscriminately. suppose another nation really does have weapons of mass destruction as the neoconservatives claimed iraq did. in that case, war against such a nation would be mutual assured destruction, or m.a.d. why can’t we rise above this m.a.d.ness? if iraq really did have chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, a lot more of our soldiers would have been killed in the invasion, and perhaps saddam hussein might have unleashed his weapons of mass destruction on the united states of america itself. we are certainly lucky that iraq turned out not to have any weapons of mass destruction, because otherwise, our invasion would have been hundreds of times more disastrous for our nation. hopefully we will not make the same mistake again. but we have painted ourselves into a corner with our policies towards pakistan. and our stand-off with iran remains a dangerous situation that would best be resolved through peace, not war. if we cannot win in pakistan, the war on terror has reached a dead end, and the terrorists have won, and we have lost. our support for pervez musharraf has been short-sighted and counterproductive, and proven our lack of commitment to the ideals of freedom and democracy, and our lack of resolve in fighting the terrorists and getting osama bin laden. we have no good options for dealing with pakistan, so perhaps the best option at this point would be to simply follow ron paul’s foreign policy, which would end the war on terror by getting us out of the middle east so the countries of the middle east leave us alone and we leave them alone. that is better than propping up an unpopular military dictator who is providing safe haven for al qaeda’s top leadership while being viewed as an american puppet by his own people. perhaps democracy will save pakistan from the disastrous rule of pervez musharraf. but it could just as easily lead to islamic fundamentalists being elected and having a democratically elected government that openly supports terrorism, just like the hamas government in the gaza strip. so perhaps we have little choice but to continue supporting pervez musharraf in order to prevent nuclear war, to keep pakistan’s nuclear weapons from falling into the wrong hands, and because of the minutely small probability that this might actually help us get the leaders of al qaeda. but i think it might be a better idea to simply end our alliance with pakistan and stop giving aid to that nation, since then, at least, the pakistani people would not view their government as american puppets. if we left pakistan alone and minded our own business, this might actually increase the chances that the leaders of al qaeda are brought to justice, since the public of that nation might not be so anti-american if we stopped propping up their dictator, and the loss of popular support for terrorism and islamic fundamentalism would increase the chances of the people of that nation taking on al qaeda themselves. who knows what to do?

the future

in the future, the human race will split into 2 separate species: 1 tall, slender, attractive, and intelligent, and 1 short, fat, ugly, and stupid, according to an article in the bbc news, and since bbc news is the most trusted news source in the entire world, obviously this article is 100% true.

in the local newspaper the press and sun bulletin, s.r. dickman, a professor of geophysics at binghamton university, wrote recently about global warming, and about how the effects of humans on global warming are minimal... but global warming is real and will wipe out all life on earth completely, within a mere 1 billion years! that’s right, we only have 1 billion years left on this planet before the sun increases its light output to the extent where the entire planet earth will be too hot for liquid water to exist, killing all life on earth. thus, we all need to move to mars or somewhere else. i suggest the attractive, smart people can all move to mars, leaving ugly, stupid people behind on earth, once humanity is 2 separate species. we only have 1 billion years to do it so we had better hurry up!

now obviously hillary clinton is going to be the next president of the united states. i was hoping that perhaps some other democrat could unseat her from being front-runner in the caucuses and primaries, but barack obama did not maintain his lead in iowa for very long, and she has shown resilience in new hampshire. the republicans are not uniting around mike huckabee as much as i thought would happen in my last post. instead, there are more and more republican candidates who now have a shot at winning. rudy giuliani has the highest numbers nationally but is doing quite badly in iowa and new hampshire, and has a ridiculous gamble of a strategy banking on florida of all states. mitt romney has the most money and was the front-runner in all the early voting states until very recently, and is still top in new hampshire. john mccain was left for dead long ago but recent endorsements have given him a big boost in poll numbers in the last week, and he is close behind mitt romney in new hampshire. and mike huckabee has emerged as the #1 choice in iowa. tom tancredo dropped out of the race. but the real story is ron paul and how his legions of devoted followers have managed to raise record sums of money on 2 separate days this year, and how half the people on the internet are devoted ron paul supporters, despite him not registering in the polls. similarly, though, dennis kucinich is ranked #1 in several polls of progressive activists, namely the polls of democracy for america, progressive democrats of america, and the nation magazine. and interestingly enough, john edwards is the #2 choice in all those polls of progressive activists, not barack obama! i was kind of suprised by that, because i was mostly ignoring john edwards. so why are the #1 picks of activists so low in the polls, and why are dennis kucinich and ron paul not doing well? it is because of the media hand-picking who the front-runners and “viable candidates” are, based on polls that happen almost 2 years before the general election. anyway, my point with all of this is, the media is not going to allow someone like ron paul or dennis kucinich to win. the media are really the ones who control the outcome here. and that is why hillary clinton is going to win... i mean she even has the support of rupert murdoch, the owner of fox news, the wall street journal, the new york post, and many other media outlets in the united states, britain, and australia. there is no way she can be defeated in the primaries now. as for the republicans, any of the ones still in the race could win, except for duncan hunter. this includes rudolph giuliani, mitt romney, john mccain, mike huckabee, fred thompson, and ron paul. yes, i am including ron paul as a remote possibility, because the republicans are in such disarray, anything could happen, even him winning. anyway, none of the republican candidates is someone who appeals to a majority of republicans, because each of them goes against their party’s base on a few key issues, different ones for each candidate. meanwhile, the top 3 democratic candidates, hillary clinton, barack obama, and john edwards, all have very similar views on all the issues, so you can either choose based on the minor differences in their views, or things such as their personality or experience. if you look 4 years ago at the candidacies of rev. al sharpton and that black woman who ran (the one who used to be a senator from illonois), you see that there is not much support for black candidates, even among democrats. so now we have barack obama, who white people love because he doesn’t make them feel guilty about slavery or segregation or racism or stuff like that, but black people can’t seem to unite behind him because a lot of them don’t trust him and think he is a sellout like colin powell and condi rice. but it is funny... even though all the white people like barack obama, people are still choosing other candidates instead, saying that he is too inexperienced or some crap like that. we do hear funny things like what a fine articulate young man he is and how it is wonderful that he is getting involved in politics instead of being in a street gang or making that awful rap music. but then everyone starts accusing him of being a muslim terrorist trained to be a suicide bomber at a madrassa in indonesia, whose ultimate goal is to destroy the united states by becoming president and then handing over control of the country to al qaeda and osama bin laden. so anyway, he has a lot of things working against him... racism... people who think he is inexperienced (despite all his experience as majority leader of his state senate before he came to washington). plus, there are just more women in the united states than black people, so hillary clinton has a natural base of support from her fellow women. and all the other democratic candidates have just been ignored by the media and treated like they have no chance. and when the media treats you that way, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. the media is choosing who the candidates are, and they are the ones who decided barack obama should be the runner-up to hillary clinton. i think the media is trying to cause complete chaos on the republican side because many in the media have seen how badly republicans ran government from when bush took office in january 2001 until the democrats took over congress in january 2007. either that, or perhaps the media really wanted republicans to unite behind someone like rudy giuliani but the republican party base balked at it after looking at his record. anyway, the republicans are running on a record of years of failure and ruining this country and the world, and their popularity is quite low, and they are demoralized and fighting amongst themselves, and they cannot find a leader to unite behind because every leading contender for their leader is a big disappointment to them in many ways. so in 2008 it looks like congress and the white house will be mortal enemies and bush will veto everything (even though he never vetoed anything when the previous republican congress was racking up gigantic deficits year after year). the war in iraq will continue all throughout 2008 (and president bush has proposed a permanent u.s. military presence in iraq, after all). congress will be unable to stop the war, since they have been such a failure at stopping it this year. and what have we seen with all the earmarks in the omnibus appropriations bill? well, earmarks much are lower for 2007 than in 2006. and it seems rep. ron paul of texas, the presidential candidate who claims to oppose earmarks, is actually a big beneficiary of them, with several major ones he put in for his district. hypocrisy anyone? congress does have a leader in the fight against earmarks, rep. jeff flake of arizona, who actually takes no earmarks for his district, and he has a few buddies now who have joined him, but they are of little significance compared to the vast majority of congress who are all supporters of earmarks. but we must remember that the u.s. supreme court is 4/9 made up of ultra-right-wing radicals, and 7/9 made up of republicans. hopefully president hillary clinton will be able to take on the supreme court. while she is not my #1 or #2 choice for president, she is going to win anyway, since the media has picked her and the system is rigged, so i might as well just accept it.

anyway, did you know that the religious right once strongly opposed celebrating christmas and considered it a pagan holiday? history has been rewritten many times about christmas, which has its orgins in celebrations of the winter solstice, which led to the roman empire having a holiday called saturnalia to celebrate the god saturn that the planet saturn is named after (poseidon in greek). and the character of santa claus only gradually came into being, mainly in the 1800s with cartoons by thomas nast. also, why are republicans called the g.o.p., or grand old party, when the democrats go back way further? the first democrat to be president was thomas jefferson, many years before the first republican, abraham lincoln. the democratic party started when there was a personal dispute between the secretary of state for president george washington, thomas jefferson, and the secretary of treasury, alexander hamilton. alexander hamilton founded the federalist party and thomas jefferson founded the democrats (originally called the democratic-republican party but later shortened to just the democratic party). after the federalists fell apart, a new 2nd party was formed, the whig party, which lasted a few decades in the 1800s as the 2nd biggest party after the democrats. but the whigs fell apart too, and in the aftermath of the collapse of the whigs, the republican party was formed, and it quickly grew to become the largest political party within a few years after being founded. there were times in the late 1800s when the democratic party seemed like it might go the way of the federalists and the whigs and collapse into oblivion, but luckily, we had people like boss tweed to keep it going. boss tweed was a political boss in new york city that, like santa claus, was caricatured by cartoonist thomas nast. there was only one democrat elected president in the late 1800s, namely grover cleveland, and the others were all republicans. since that time, republicans have continued to dominate, and the only democratic presidents since grover cleveland have been woodrow wilson, franklin delano roosevelt, harry truman, john f. kennedy, lyndon johnson, jimmy carter, and bill clinton. so, despite their current disarray, republicans have shown themselves to be the dominant force in presidential elections ever since abraham lincoln. but democrats have been around since 1789 and we will keep going no matter what. until global warming kills all life on earth in a billion years. or until humanity becomes 2 separate species in the year 3000. even then, in the year 3000, we democrats will continue to represent one of the 2 species. probably the ugly, stupid one, out of pity for them.

anyway, i have a solution to the illegal immigration problem and to the military recruiting problem: send illegal immigrants as soldiers to iraq or wherever else we fight stupid wars. when they come home, if they manage to make it back alive without going awol or doing any friendly fire, we can make them citizens and even let them vote. we might even let them pay income taxes! now what if the illegal immigrants are women or elderly? well they can be soldiers too? and what about if they are kids? hey, africa uses child soldiers, we could use some too! who cares? if they don’t want to fight for us, we can just send the illegal immigrants back to their countries of origin. but it would be sort of like a draft. then, since the military would no longer be all-volunteer, we could lower the salaries and benefits of soldiers, dramatically cutting military spending while allowing more soldiers to be put on the payroll. we could give them less expensive training, less expensive equipment, and instead just rely on having millions and millions of soldiers. we could also eliminate unemployment and homelessness in a similar manner, and rescue people stuck in refugee camps around the world (like refugees from palestine or iraq) and let them become soldiers for us too, for minimal pay, of course. using such methods, we could eventually grow the military to have over 1 billion soldiers working at sweatshop wages, poorly equipped and trained, with cheap guns and ammo they had to build out of scrap metal and spare parts using instructions they found on the internet. and we would have a very wonderful healthcare system for our soldiers: if you complain about being sick, you get shot dead. then everyone would be healthy all the time. at least everyone who is alive. and of course we can genetically engineer a new race of super-soldier, using secret nazi science techniques that have been considered unethical since 1945. this army of over a billion soldiers would be used as cannon fodder in defending the planet earth from an invasion of aliens from outer space. of course, by that time, everybody who is anybody will already be safely living on mars, and only losers will be stuck back on earth. all of this will come to pass unless ron paul is elected president, since only he can stop open borders and the north american union and new world order, while pursuing a foreign policy of isolationism as advocated by our first president, george washington.

speaking of ron paul, 9/11 conspiracy theories are very popular among his supporters, but also in the general public. here are my top 10 favorite ones:

1) saddam hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks.
2) the bush administration was behind the 9/11 attacks.
3) the jews and israel were behind the 9/11 attacks.
4) the democrats and bill clinton were behind the 9/11 attacks.
5) vladimir putin and the secret soviet union that still exists were behind the 9/11 attacks.
6) an undead clone of adolf hitler from transylvania was behind the 9/11 attacks.
7) the real darth vader (you know, the one who actually exists, not the fake one in movies) was behind the 9/11 attacks.
8) space aliens from a parallel universe in the future were behind the 9/11 attacks.
9) an underground race of humanoid robots built in the center of earth (i.e., hell) by satan and his demons was behind the 9/11 attacks.
10) the 9/11 attacks never actually happened, and the world trade center never even existed in the first place, and it was all staged by hollywood and the media and the government all conspiring together. also, there is no such thing as osama bin laden or al qaeda or even the religion of islam, and aeroplanes do not exist either, nor does the geometric shape of a pentagon.

personally, i think conspiracy theory #10 from that list is the most likely out of all of them. anyway, i predict that september 11 will happen again in the future, not only once, but every single year! the only solution is to change our calendars. and we have to leave earth before humanity splits into 2 separate species. i predict the end of the world will happen on x-day, namely july 5, 1998 at 7:00 am. we will need to escape on pleasure saucers going to planet x. and while july 5, 1998 seems like a date in the past, it is actually in the future, once we change our calendars to eliminate september 11. that is because the year 1998 is really upside down and the real year for the end of the world is 8661. and the human race already split into 2 separate species, long ago: homo sapiens and homo subgenius. on this pagan holiday of christmas which is based on the roman holiday of saturnalia and full of all sorts of other pagan traditions like trees and gifts and santa claus and reindeer and the north pole, let us reflect on all the gifts we have been given. let us thank the united states government for giving each and every american $30,000 worth of debt, as their personal share of the national debt. let us thank republicans for cutting taxes and increasing spending whenever they are in office, putting us all deeper in debt. and hopefully a republican other than ron paul, one who supports the war in iraq, will be the next president, so we can carry out president bush’s brilliant plan for a permanent u.s. war in that country. we must never waver in our determination to get as many of our soldiers killed as possible in stupid and pointless wars that waste hundreds of billions of dollars and kill hundreds of thousands of people! only a republican will have the courage and strength and leadership to send our men and women in uniform off to certain doom and still not have any trouble sleeping at night or have any doubts about it. osama bin laden has publicly stated many times that his strategy is to trick us into fighting stupid wars and bankrupting our nation. only republican leadership can play into osama bin laden’s hands and deliver him complete victory in his war against us. vote republican next year, in essence delivering a third term to bush by putting in office someone who will have the exact same policies as bush. because christmas is about giving gifts, so why not give the terrorists the gift of victory? if we leave iraq now, that will ruin the terrorist strategy of luring us into unwinnable wars and getting us to waste all our money on it until our nation goes bankrupt. that is not in the christmas spirit. let us all send a message to our troops in uniform that we support letting them all get killed needlessly, and oppose any effort by anyone trying to save their lives by bringing them back out of harm’s way. i mean, you either support the troops, or you don’t. you either want our troops killed, or you support the terrorists. when they signed up to be soldiers, in essence, they were writing suicide notes. shouldn’t we assist our soldiers in their mass suicide by sending them off to get slaughtered by hostile muslim nations? this assisted suicide would help correct the male-female ratio imbalance caused by all the female babies killed in china because of the chinese 1-child policy and bias towards having sons. and then we could either send all our women to china, or import men from china to replace those killed in iraq, in order to get the male-female ratio back to 1:1.

anyway, september 11 never happened. that date is not even on the calendar. at least not my calendar, because i changed it. the only way to defeat terrorists is to prove that they do not exist, and then they will simply vanish into thin air. that is the same thing that happened to god. and you know how jesus was born in the year zero? well the year zero never happened, at least not officially. there is actually a conspiracy to cover up the fact that the year zero really did happen, and jesus was born that year, the forbidden year that nobody is allowed to ever talk about. and you don’t even want to know what happened on september 11 in the year zero. i still remember that day like it was yesterday. ah, whatever... this whole post is just one big joke... merry x-mas... if you have seen the show futurama you would know that the pronunciation christmas is archaic, at least in the year 3000. futurama is coming back with new episodes in 2008... in the future! on comedy central, instead of the cartoon network. and to think, the show was originally on fox... and fox is run by rupert murdoch... and rupert murdoch supports hillary clinton... who will be president in the future. as you see, everything is connected. since the outcome of the election next year is already predetermined, why even vote? well... what would jesus do? especially the baby jesus? what would a little baby do? you guessed it right... jesus would run for president and win. let us only hope that jesus will see his shadow under the mistletoe this year when he comes out of the cave and then it will be another 3 weeks of winter... or is that groundhog day when that happens? where is the easter bunny when you need him? anyway, according to jewish law i am jewish because of my maternal ancestry, so happy belated hannukah! i wonder if bill clinton will dress like a woman once he is first lady. praise santa!

moron the presidential elections

yes, the title of this post, “moron the presidential elections”, is a pun. much of what is said about elections is stupid. people ought to vote for whichever candidate they think is best, not whoever they think is “electable”. why do you think john kerry lost in 2004? because democrats stupidly chose the candidate they thought was most “electable”, rather than going with the correct choice, howard dean, who is awesome and would have made the best president ever.

oh, and if you are new to this blog you may wonder why i use lowercase. well some poet named e. e. cummings or something like that always used lowercase. it is simpler if everything is all in the same case, and uppercase would look like yelling. a lot of people on the internet do use proper capitalization, but misspell everything, and i prefer to spell everything correctly but keep everything lowercase. a lot of people spell rupert murdoch as rupert murdock when talking about how evil the bastard is, for instance. i am obsessed with accuracy and hate inaccuracy, but i do like sticking with lowercase because it is more efficient to just use one case. and then in rare instances i can write something in all capitals to get attention or put emphasis on it. i can also use a bigger font or put it in bold or underline it too, of course. like one thing that bugs me is when people who are anti-united states like hugo chavez (duly elected president and communist dictator of venezuela) are called anti-american. it is simply untrue. hugo chavez loves at least part of america, namely latin america, and he wants to help elect communists all over latin america (or as he calls them, “socialists”). but i refuse to dignify hugo chavez with the title of socialist, because socialism is good and hugo chavez and other communists are bad. most wealthy industrialized countries practice socialism, especially ones like canada and sweden. but they are democracies. also, vladimir putin is a communist. or, at the very least, he is a totalitarian dictator. the recent elections in russia were a complete fraud. world chess champion gary kasparov was not even allowed to participate in the elections, despite the fact that he once defeated a computer built by ibm in the game of chess. if you look at how vladimir putin destroyed the company yukos and put its billionaire ceo in jail, or how he assassinated many dissidents and journalists, it is clear that putin, like hugo chavez, is a communist dictator with a cult of personality who tries to brainwash everyone into making him dictator-for-life. now pakistani dictator pervez musharraf, no longer a general, is no communist, but he has failed miserably in the war on terror, allowing al qaeda to have safe haven in the western tribal regions of his country, despite the fact that the united states has given him tremendous amounts of military aid. musharraf is also no supporter of democracy. another foreign leader who is just plain awful is mahmoud ahmadenijad, president of iran, who, like these other foreign presidents, was elected in fake, rigged elections, and is a major league asshole, but unlike the others, ahmadenijad is completely batshit insane. of course, i think u.s. president george w. bush also belongs on that list of evil assholes who are ruining the world, but at least he is not trying to be dictator-for-life like hugo chavez, vladimir putin, and pervez musharraf. now officially, the only communist nations are china, cuba, north korea, vietnam, and i think maybe laos or mongolia might also be officially communist, but i am not sure, i think mostly it is just china, cuba, north korea, and vietnam. out of those nations that are officially communist, the only one that is afflicted with a severe case of communism is north korea; the others only have it midly. in the case of china, the government is actually much more like a fascist totalitarian regime than a communist one, because it is pro-business and pro-capitalism. quite different from russia and venezuela, which i consider to be communist despite neither of them officially claiming to be so. now some other nations in latin america like bolivia, brazil, ecuador, and nicaragua (i think) are led by socialists who are allied with hugo chavez and venezuela (who is allied with cuba and the fidel+raul castro regime). but none of them are as seriously committed to extremely radical left-wing socialism as hugo chavez, and none of them has a cult of personality like hugo chavez or has a leader trying to become dictator-for-life like hugo chavez. i actually used to think hugo chavez was a good guy and the united states was bad for supporting a coup against him in 2002. (he was democratically elected, after all.) but then again, adolf hitler was democratically elected. maybe the united states was right when it tried to overthrow hugo chavez 5 years ago. i don’t think it was right, it was probably wrong, but i am not sure; i think the coup backfired and hugo chavez would not be so anti-united states if we had not tried to overthrow him. anyway, he did try to do a military coup of his own in the early 90’s (similar to how hitler tried to do a military coup called the beer hall putsch but it failed and he was sent to jail and wrote mein kampf while in jail and he got out of jail and ended up being elected german chancellor). anyway, i think george w. bush is a horrible misleader for our nation, but many other nations have even worse national misleaders, and i hate all of them. i suspect french president nicolas sarkozy will turn out to be absolutely horrible in the next few years, worse than former italian misleader silvio berlusconi or former british misleader tony blair. of course, the worst government in the world would have to be either saudi arabia or sudan. there is only one nation in the world whose form of government has been anarchy for over a decade, and that nation is somalia. it has not worked out too well for them, so i think a government is unfortunately necessary. without governments we would return to feudalism or tribalism.

anyway, now for moron the elections. there are some good videos on theonion.com about the elections. here are the 3 so far specifically about the 2008 u.s. presidential election:


In The Know: Candidates Compete For Vital Idgit Vote


Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters


Poll: Mitt Romney Is Candidate Most Voters Want To Get Into Bar Fight With

so those videos are quite informative and full of made-up nonsense but also very insightful and full of more insight than almost anything about the elections from the so-called “mainstream” media. the 2nd of these 3 videos, about bullshit being the most important issue, singles out hillary clinton as a leading purveyor of bullshit, and that part of the video is no joke. hillary clinton is actually the weakest democratic candidate when it comes to the general election, at least according to this story at alternet.org. and guess who is winning in iowa now among democrats? barack obama. check it out here. and the blog post i just linked to also shows that mike huckabee is now the republican front-runner, leaving other contenders such as mitt romney, rudolph giuliani, fred thompson, john mccain, and ron paul in the dust. far-right-wing radicals have already started going after mike huckabee with anonymous smear campaigns. mike huckabee is the only true christian^tm running for president, having had the correct religious right-approved positions on all the social issues for many, many years. as a former southern baptist minister, nobody can question his commitment to christianity. mitt romney, on the other hand, recently gave a speech on religion that actually praised religions other than his own, and mainly called for a greater role for religion in politics, quite the opposite of what john f. kennedy said in his speech on religion before he was elected president (with the help of the chicago mafia). but this time around, barack obama has the full support of chicago, most notably the billionaire talk show host oprah winfrey. anyway, i am an atheist and supporter of separation of church and state, and i find the views of people like mike huckabee and mitt romney on religion and its role in politics to be, quite frankly, unconstitutional, in violation of the first amendment and the separation of church and state. and i also think that nations where religion plays a great deal of a role in politics, like iran, tend to be quite a bit more wacko than nations like the united kingdom where tony blair had to keep quiet about his religiosity in order to appear sane to voters. a new movie out now, the golden compass, is based on a book written by an agnostic (not an atheist!) and in the story the main character actually does meet god at one point (so it is not even an atheistic story), but religious people are up in arms about how the main villain in the story is something called the magisterium, which is actually the roman catholic church. now, after the crusades and inquisitions and all sorts of other atrocities they have committed, the roman catholic church ought to be apologetic for all the bad things it has done in previous centuries, and willing to admit it is imperfect and that the pope is not infallible. but bill donohue, leader of the catholic league, takes an entirely different approach, viciously attacking anyone who ever dares question his religion. now granted, he is not a member of the catholic clergy and does not officially speak for that religion. but he has spoken out in the media on many issues over the years and has always proven himself to be a right-wing radical who wants the government to censor anything that he finds objectionable, anything that questions his religion. and he attacks the golden compass movie for promoting atheism! even though god actually appears as a character in the story, and even though the author has no position on whether or not god exists! this right-wing religious radicalism that is pro-censorship, pro-oppression, and anti-freedom is exactly what led the taliban to blow up giant buddha statues, and exactly what is used to govern nations like iran and saudi arabia, and exactly what led people to kill each other over a bunch of silly cartoons of the prophet mohammed in a danish newspaper. why, in saudi arabia, women cannot drive cars, and a victim of gang rape was given a quite nasty sentence by a government that decided she was the criminal. that is the type of government you get if you let too much religion into politics. but i think mike huckabee will win the republican nomination, because the republican party base is made of religious zealots, and none of the other candidates have the right positions on the issues that matter to these religious radicals. well perhaps mitt romney has the right positions now, but he is a flip-flopper who used to be socially liberal before he became socially conservative, plus he is mormon and that is considered a “cult” by members of the rival cult known as the religious right. what is the difference between a religion and a cult? a religion is treated with respect by the media and the general public, and a cult is condemned by the media and the general public. religions usually have more members than cults, but some religions such as judaism have hardly any members, and some cults such as scientology have a whole lot of members. but basically, religions and cults are the same exact thing, except cults might go a little further with overt attempts at mind control and enslaving people and getting them to give all their money to the church. however, if you look at how the catholic church operated before the protestant reformation, back during the middle/dark ages when 99% of europeans were illiterate, they brainwashed people just like a cult. and even today, right-wing protestant evangelicals operate in quite a similar fashion, as do islamic fundamentalists in the middle east, hindus in india, and certain ultra-religious sects of judaism in israel. religion and cults all promote belief in the supernatural. but all belief in the supernatural, all faith in that which cannot be proven or even observed, it is all irrational and wrong. so i oppose not only religion, but also belief in space aliens that come to earth, also fortune cookies, also horoscopes, also belief in ghosts, also belief in magic, also psychic services that have 900 numbers to call on the telephone, also belief in zero point energy and other mad science, also people who think the world is flat or that the geocentric model of the universe is correct or that the big bang never happened or that evolution or global warming is wrong. we need to follow logic, reason, and science. and while none of the democrats really follows logic and reason perfectly, they do it a lot better than the republicans, at least when it comes to whether someone is too religious. now if someone is “spiritual” instead of religious, that is usually not as bad, because at least they are not blindly following whatever some wacko tells them is true. someone who is spiritual instead of religious probably thinks for themselves instead of blindly following some official dogma, but unfortunately, they come to the wrong conclusions and end up believing in all sorts of supernatural nonsense. now there are 5 basic belief systems regarding god, in my view. #1 is polytheism, where someone believes in multiple gods. #2 is monotheism, where someone believes in one and only one god. #3 is weak atheism, where someone does not actively believe in any god or gods, and also does not make any claims regarding whether or not the existence of any god or gods can be proven or disproven. #4 is agnosticism, where someone believes that it is impossible for anyone to tell whether or not any god or gods exist. #5 is strong atheism, where someone firmly believes that no god or gods could ever possibly exist under any circumstances. the default view people are born with is #3, weak atheism, the middle of the 5 positions, the one that does not make any claims about anything, where someone admits they do not know but does not claim that they know that it is impossible for anyone to know. if someone is unsure about whether or not god exists, and perhaps they think there is a 75% chance god exists or a 90% chance god exists, they are a weak atheist. positions 1, 2, 4, and 5 are all ones where someone actively claims they know for sure what the answer is, although in the case of #4, agnosticism, what the person is claiming they know for sure is that nobody knows the answer. which position do i take? well... heh heh... it depends on how the term "god" is defined. depending on how you define that term, i could take any of the 5 positions. i think it is impossible to prove or disprove the existence of god as long as the condition exists that there is no universally agreed-upon definition for the word “god” (and god is just a word like any other as far as i am concerned, so no need to capitalize it). but i do not believe in agnosticism, because i think you could prove or disprove the existence of god if you defined god in such a way as to make that outcome possible. and ultimately, a word such as god is a creation of society, part of language, something whose definition changes over time like every other word in the language, perhaps also changing its spelling and pronunciation as well (which is how new languages arise from old ones). so, in that sense, if god is just a word, i believe in god, since i believe that the word “god” exists as a word in the english language, so god exists, albeit only as a word (so thus i could take position #2). or if we assume society can never agree on a definition of the word “god”, then i would be agnostic, since you can neither prove nor disprove the existence of something that cannot even be defined. or i could just decide to define god as, for instance, any living organism that exists. then you, me, every animal, every plant, every microorganism, are all gods. thus i would take position #1, polytheism. or if god is defined as omniscient and omnipotent (all-knowing and all-powerful), this would mean god does not exist, since the properties attributed to god would be self-contradictory, as god would know everything that will happen in the future but have the power to change things to happen differently than predicted, thus contradicting being all-knowing. in that case i would take position #5, strong atheism. that is actually the way most people define god. but i take the position #3, weak atheism, the neutral position that makes no claims, because i do not think the word “god” has any universally agreed-upon definition, and so existence or nonexistence cannot be proven at the time being, but it is possible that things may change and the word might actually have a meaning people can agree on, and in that case, proving or disproving the existence of god would become possible. i used to be a strong atheist, but when i talked about things with people who did not adhere to the dogma about god being an omniscient, omnipotent, anthropomorphized being, i realized that a large percentage of people believe in a god who does not even remotely adhere to the definition you would find in a dictionary. some people say god is love. quakers say there is part of god in everyone (so the quaker god is sorta like a large vegetable or piece of meat or some other kind of food that was chopped up into little pieces, except unlike most food, the quaker god is still alive). and back in the old days, the early jews believed in many gods but thought only their tribal god, jehovah, would watch over them and protect them, and that while other gods existed and could do neat stuff like turn sticks into snakes, jehovah did not want them praying to other gods because he would get jealous and then smite them. in northern europe, people believed in the norse gods. the greeks and romans had their gods, whose stories are still well-known to this day. and the hindus still believe in many gods, and are quite superstitious and believe in all sorts of supernatural silliness even today. in india, people do crazy things like get married to animals because they think they would be cursed by the gods otherwise. and most native americans were polytheistic, as well as the people of africa who believed in animism. so early humans, tribal societies with no technology, were almost all animists or polytheists, and gradually, people have believed in fewer and fewer gods, until they got down to one, and then zero. and now the debate is mainly between the one and zero folks, which probably pisses off the people who still think there are thousands or millions of gods. anyway, my point is, irrational stupidity is still very popular, and that is why mike huckabee will win the republican nomination. as for the democrats, i am quite hopeful that barack obama will win, because he is starting to be ahead of hillary clinton in some of the polls such as the ones in iowa. barack obama is a true liberal/progressive democrat, but hillary clinton is just a centrist/“moderate” democrat. hillary clinton has been so demonized and attacked on all sides, from the right and the left, that she has “triangulated” herself right into the center, trying not to take any positions that could possibly piss anyone off. perhaps all the criticism of her is a bit unfair, especially since barack obama seems to get nothing but praise from anyone. but i think her image, her public persona, is quite damaged, and that would not matter too much if i trusted her judgment to make the right decisions on important issues. barack obama has proven himself to have much better judgment. however, i think barack obama might be a bit too timid to attack others or go negative, just like john edwards was in 2004 and is again this time. i read an article about how john edwards’s failure to go negative against bush and cheney like vice presidential candidates traditionally do cost kerry/edwards the 2004 election. the relentless positivity of john edwards simply did not work. and perhaps barack obama is too positive, too nice, too timid about viciously attacking other people’s reputations, motivations, credibility, and personal lives. perhaps, to be president, you have to be a complete asshole or bitch. the one good thing about hillary clinton is that if she wins the nomination, i can at least trust her to viciously trash her opponent in the general election, which i do not think barack obama or john edwards would ever do. and that is what is needed. just remember how bush viciously trashed john kerry in 2004, with some help from the swift boat veterans for bullshit. kerry and edwards were far too timid about attacking bush, which cost them the election. still, i would like to think that someone positive like barack obama could win the election. and hopefully mike huckabee will be too positive to attack anyone. i think huckabee is locked into a cycle of increasing poll numbers and popularity and then news stories about his increasing poll numbers and popularity, which will then give him even more increasing poll numbers and popularity, and this cycle will continue at least until super tuesday in february. we will hear about how mitt romney spent many, many times as much money as huckabee and still lost, and people will think romney is a loser, and giuliani and mccain and thompson will all do badly in the early primary states as well. mike huckabee’s victory will be a big defeat for the club for growth and other groups that don’t like him. and the decades-long alliance between religious zealots who want to legislate morality and rich people who want low taxes and deregulation will come to an end. the wealthy elites will someday ultimately realize their true allies, the people they should really throw all their support to, the people they can really count on: the libertarians. people like ron paul and lew rockwell, and groups like the cato institute, reason magazine, and the ludwig von mises institute. and then the libertarians will either have to take over one of the 2 main political parties (probably the republicans), or they will have to win elections as the libertarian party, becoming a successful 3rd party. the religious right will probably ultimately self-destruct and cease to exist as a viable political force with any real influence. and that is when the republican party will all become libertarians, unless the libertarian party manage to become as big as the democrats and republicans. although ron paul will lose this 2008 election, his candidacy is jump-starting a movement that will end up taking over this entire country, years from now. and i will try to defend liberalism, progressivism, and socialism (socialism like in canada and europe), although i completely agree with libertarians on social issues and may vote for them if i feel they are more in sync with my views than the democratic candidates. but if you look at how religion is in decline and is self-destructing, and the libertarian movement is getting bigger and bigger all the time, and how libertarians agree with the wealthy on all the issues that matter to rich people, it seems obvious that someday the libertarians will win. as for other third parties? well, the reform party that ross perot founded never really had any clear agenda, and split up because nobody could agree on what they all believed in. the green party advocate the exact same things as the most left-wing liberal democrats. and the constitution party advocates the exact same things as the most right-wing conservative republicans. the green party and constitution party are mainly pressure groups on the democrats and republicans that threaten to take away votes if the 2 big parties stray away from what their party base wants them to do, and get too centrist. the greens are ultra-liberal and the constitution party people are ultra-conservative. so neither of them will ever get anywhere. only the libertarians have a chance as a third party, since they are the only ones advocating a third way, something completely different from liberalism or conservatism. but it will take years, and i will probably not support them, although i might. of course there are countless other tiny political parties (besides libertarian, green, and reform), such as the natural law party, the socialist party, the communist party, the socialist workers party, the socialist equality party, the democratic socialist party, the workers world party, the nazi party, etc... and there are parties that are only in 1 state, like in new york state we have the liberal party, the conservative party, the working families party, the independence party, and the right to life party, among others. the working families party is actually very powerful in binghamton, because they chose mayor matt ryan and they now control the city council. but the working families party is just an oddity of new york state. the working families party is the same thing as an activist group known as citizen action that is very active in binghamton and in several other places in new york state. the mayor of binghamton has been having things called neighborhood assemblies where he and other politicians meet with whatever local citizens from a neighborhood decide to show up, and then they just talk about stuff. and the neighborhood assemblies are all organized by citizen action, or in other words, the working families party. the mayor has even gotten taxpayer money to go to citizen action for this. now personally i think it is unethical for the government to give money to political activist organizations. but i do not live inside the city of binghamton, only next to it, so it is none of my concern. and the candidates supported by the working families party won fair and square. it is just odd that the activists of citizen action and the working families party now control who wins democratic primaries for local elected offices. whoever they endorse always wins the democratic primary, and then almost always wins the general election. i think the reason they carry so much clout is, binghamton has a pretty small population and very few activist groups, and almost all the activist groups are left-wing. besides citizen action/working families party, most of the left-wing activist groups are pacifist groups that hold peace vigils and do not really do much in the way of politics. the right-wing people of binghamton are quite disorganized, since they rely almost solely on the republican party and do not have separate activist groups. and the democratic party in the binghamton area is now a puppet being controlled by the working families party, since the working families party is able to use the primary process of the democratic party to control it by selecting which candidates to support ahead of time and then doing lots of grassroots effort to get them elected, and not many people vote in primary elections. i suppose there might be some other parts of the united states, other locales where third parties have somehow managed to take control of everything. it seems the best way for a third party to win is to hijack the primary process of the democratic or republican party. it really is a brilliant strategy, and i commend the working families party for their success in conquering the local democratic party. of course the local democratic party leaders are not too happy about this, and neither am i, but i admire the success the working families party has achieved here in binghamton, controlling both the mayor and the city council. i think the local democratic leaders will probably think of a way to counteract the influence of the working families party (who had amazing success in the 2007 local elections last month in november). but by law, they have to remain neutral about who to support in the primaries, which is why an outside group can come in and hijack the primary process if they have enough volunteers. with that in mind, perhaps it would be a good idea for someone to do likewise and hijack the republican primary process the same way it was done to the democrats. anyway, i do not trust the working families party or citizen action. perhaps it is just because i am such a loyal democrat that i do not like outside influences taking over my party. but i do support the political agenda that the working families party and citizen action espouse. and i suppose i do support binghamton mayor matt ryan as well as new york governor eliot spitzer. nobody is perfect... i just wish these neighborhood assemblies could have been organized by a politically neutral group rather than a progressive left-wing activist group, because the government is actually giving money to an activist organization, and i think the government should keep its money out of politics. likewise, george w. bush’s justice department and other departments have become politicized and have actively worked to help the republican party and hurt the democratic party, such as with the u.s. attorney scandal, and selective prosecutions of democrats but not republicans. in many foreign countries, governments spend money on campaign commercials for whoever is in power, and try to control the media. anyway, this citizen action/working families party group has managed to take over the mayor’s office and the city council in binghamton, and has basically taken over the local democratic party, but i think the democrats here are going to fight back. i am not sure which side to take, because on the one hand, i agree with the working families party and citizen action on the issues, but on the other hand, i think their actions are unethical and undermine the democratic process. at least in the national elections for president i am starting to have hope... barack obama is the great hope of this country, the only one who can save our nation. but even if he loses, i can still take heart... hillary clinton will utterly demolish mike huckabee or whoever else the republicans choose. unlike obama and edwards, she has not typecast herself as a positive person who never goes negative or attacks anyone else. if obama or edwards goes negative and attacks, they get labelled as a hypocrite and flip-flopper for pretending to be all nice and positive and then changing their mind. but obama has the mystical power to unite this nation and end our divisions and partisan bickering. he also has powers of telepathy, telekinesis, mind control, time travel, teleportation, invisibility, flying, mind control, god mode, and the ability to shoot lasers from his eyes. he is an alien, a robot, a ghost, a pirate, a ninja, an angel, a demon, a vampire, a zombie, a mummy, and an international man of mystery. also, he is the reincarnation of jesus christ as well as the buddha. basically i am saying, it is ridiculous to think he can magically end the partisan divisions in this country, because that will never happen, and that is as ridiculous as those other things i just made up. but if hillary clinton is elected, partisan divisions will just get worse than ever. she can unite republicans... against her. oh well... i am such a silly person. i need some rest because i am quite sleepy and getting to be rather ridiculous in all the silly things i say. i have given up on dennis kucinich. for the time being, i am supporting barack obama, just like oprah winfrey is doing. but my support is not very deep and i could still change my mind. one thing is clear and that is, i will vote party-line democrat in the 2008 election, no matter who wins the primaries. nothing can change my mind about that. i am quite upset at the democrats in washington, d.c. after reading recent news reports that they are planning on sending bush more money for the war in iraq, before the end of this month of december, without any conditions. they had promised not to do that. they had better get their act together and end the damn war already, or there will be hell to pay. still, i will vote for them no matter what they do. i do not have much of a choice, because the republicans are way more pro-war than the democrats, and the democrats at least claim to oppose the war, even though they keep funding it and do nothing to stop it. i prefer someone who at least pretends to be on my side to someone who adamantly opposes everything i stand for. the democrats may not do what they say, but neither do the republicans. at least i like what the democrats say. i hate what the republicans say. and when it comes to actions, i am disappointed with everyone. the only way to end the war is to cut off funding, and nobody has done that. only a few democrats in congress are trying to do that, and it never works. there is so much cowardice about politicians being afraid of being branded as not supporting the troops. you know what? if we really supported the troops we would bring them home and stop putting them in harm’s way in hostile muslim countries. if we really cared we would stop putting them in danger and getting so many of them permanently disabled or killed. our nation is in danger, but the biggest threat is not foreigners, it the threat of us destroying ourselves. we are destroying ourselves through going into debt, as individuals, as businesses, as government. and our money is becoming worthless. we are destroying the other life forms on this planet. we are using up all our natural resources. we are spending all our money on useless crap we don’t need. the gap between rich and poor is getting bigger and bigger, and most people are not well educated. our healthcare system is broken. and all our jobs are going to foreigners. meanwhile, people in the highest levels of the government are planning an endless series of wars for world domination to steal the natural resources of other nations and bring in a new colonialism, new imperialism, a new world order, with the united states conquering any nation that dares oppose it. this pax americana will never work, not like the pax romana did. we are the ones who turn the rest of the world against us, through our actions, or rather, not the actions of our private citizens, but the actions of our government and our corporations. perhaps we should adopt the somali system of government. it has worked quite well for somalia, don’t you think?

politics is a waste of time

getting involved in politics is generally a waste of time. most notably, if you want to help get your favorite presidential candidate elected president of the united states. you will probably have no effect at all unless you are a billionaire or live in iowa or new hampshire and have a lot of friends who vote who listen to what you say. you can have much more of an effect in local political races if you volunteer or campaign, or actually run for office yourself. but if you try to run for office, you will probably lose, unless you are an insider. if you volunteer and campaign, you will not get to see the direct results of your actions, and even if the candidates you support win the election, you can never be sure if your support even mattered at all, or if everything would have turned out exactly the same way if you had done nothing whatsoever. but the least you can do is vote. at least vote. everyone should vote, except stupid people or people who make wrong decisions. you need to vote based on the issues that matter to you, and get educated about what the candidates’ stances on all the issues are. i have found, for instance, that my stances on the issues very closely match democratic presidential candidate dennis kucinich. but the so-called mainstream media ignores him and never seriously considers him as a candidate, even though he is the closest match to my beliefs and my core values and my stances on all the issues, and probably a lot of other people would also find him to be the closest match to them as well, if they bothered to take online tests to see which candidate is the best match for you. none of the republican candidates are even close to my beliefs. the only republican candidate i like at all is ron paul, because the issue most important to me is the war in iraq. i believe the war was wrong and that people should have seen right from the beginning, before the war even started, that it was wrong. now granted, i was raised in a quaker background and taught to be a pacifist. but i did support the american invasion of afghanistan (that osama bin laden called unjustified in his latest message), despite the fact that i am normally a pacifist. anyway, the war in iraq is completely based on lies, and they changed the justification of the war again and again and again, and each time it was a lie, and the united states has no national interest in maintaining an occupation in a hostile muslim country on the opposite side of the world. our troops are sitting ducks for the terrorists to attack, and it is asymmetrical warfare, and we have nowhere near enough troops to pacify such a large country as iraq. and even if we could achieve victory, it would still be an unjustified war based on lies. “might makes right” is not a valid moral principle. even if we achieved total military victory in iraq and eliminated all opposition to our occupation, this would not justify anything we have done there. we replaced a strong, totalitarian government that was able to maintain order with a weak, divided, bickering government that has little power and is distrusted by all the citizens of iraq. revolutions against unjust dictators like saddam hussein are a good thing, but they must be carried out by the citizens of the country, not by foreign invaders. for example, i and many other people hate president bush and think he is absolutely awful, but would i like a foreign country to invade the united states and remove him by force, and put in place a puppet government run by that foreign nation? no. we americans will deal with president bush ourselves; we have our own democratic process for peaceful transition of power through elections and term limits, and we can speed it up with things like impeachment. and if bush tries shit like what hugo chavez is doing in venezuela to be dictator-for-life, or what pervez musharraf has been doing to stay in power in pakistan, or what vladimir putin has been doing to stay in power in russia... well... i would still say, let americans take care of choosing our government, and foreigners should mind their own business. and this means, in applying this principle around the world, we should mind our own damn business and stop trying to overthrow governments around the world, no matter how much we might dislike them. as long as those nations have not attacked our nation, that is. and saddam hussein did not attack the united states, nor was his third-world shithole of a country ever a threat to anyone except tiny-ass countries next door to it like kuwait. in the lead-up to the war in iraq, the bush administration officials made such ridiculous public comments, so hyperbolic and the-sky-is-falling, it was completely obvious that they were completely full of shit. it was obvious they were full of irrational hysteria about dangers posed by a small, unimportant third-world hellhole on the opposite side of the world. they could just as well have gotten all worked up about the dangers posed by bhutan, equatorial guinea, luxembourg, or trinidad and tobago (all countries that, like iraq, posed absolutely zero threat to us). any idiot dumb enough to fall for the rush to war in iraq does not deserve the high honor of being president of the united states. so it really pisses me off that hillary clinton is still the democratic front-runner according to the so-called mainstream media. what the hell has she ever done in her 7 years as senator or 8 years as first lady? i have no idea. all i know is, everybody hates her. she has really high disapproval ratings. she would obviously be the weakest candidate of all the democrats, and if she were the democratic nominee, this would give the republicans the greatest chance of winning the white house. well okay, maybe a few of the democrats might do worse, to be fair. i am not sure which ones. i am not completely familiar with all of them. anyway, there is a lot of ridiculous anti-illegal-immigrant hysteria nowadays. i have a modest proposal. genocide. that would completely eliminate the illegal immigrants, once and for all. the final solution. inspired by adolf hitler, who killed 6 million jews. i bet lots of people would actually go for genocide, and approve of it, if they were asked about it in a poll. i bet if a powerful president tried to carry out genocide, with a congress full of sycophants from the same party, it would be quite successful. now of course i think we should treat illegal immigrants humanely and not do anything outrageously mean and evil to them. but i really get the feeling that there is such hatred towards them, a lot of people really would want to carry out genocide if that option were on the table. that is the real ugly side the republicans are showing now, their hatred of illegal immigrants, especially coming from tom tancredo, although he is a nobody. but another thing about politics that bothers me, besides all the idiots who supported the iraq war and then stopped or still support it and will continue no matter what, and the idiots who hate illegal immigrants, is the religious idiots who have completely screwed up american politics. if you hate gay people and think women are subordinate to men and oppose embryonic stem cell research and believe in creationism instead of evolution and also think global warming is not happening, this makes you a “values voter” and means you have “moral values” and are part of the “moral majority”. religion is a set of beliefs based on faith, which is unthinking, illogical, stubborn belief in something without any evidence. every single one of the presidential candidates in both political parties believes in the religion of christianity. now is christianity any better than the religion of islam that turns people into suicide bombers and makes people fly planes into buildings? yes, but not that much better. christianity is still based on irrational faith just like islam, and both religions require people to have values systems that have become antiquated due to recent advances in moral reasoning and human society, such as the development of democracy, an end to aristocracy and feudal class systems, recognizing human rights like freedom of speech and right to a fair trial, abolition of slavery, equality for women, equality for different races of people, and equality for people of different sexual orientation. religions were once used to justify the autocratic rule of kings and emperors, around the globe, from europe to china. they were used to justify slavery and the supremacy of whites over other races, the supremacy of men over women, etc. and there were great religious wars, including the crusades, and people were also killed in inquisitions and witch hunts. christianity is only better than islam nowadays because christians today are much more civilized and worldly than the primitive, uneducated christians who lived centuries ago, in times such as the middle ages or when the “new world” was first colonized. but there are many other religions besides christianity and islam, and christianity and islam are both very complicated and have a lot of denominations that are different from each other. but all of this complexity and variety among religious denominations and beliefs hides one common factor: all religions are based on irrational faith in things that cannot be proven, and all of them mislead people away from thinking and acting rationally based on facts and reality. in practical terms, this means that a president who is very religious, like george w. bush, is a lot more likely to make bad decisions than someone who is more of a freethinker, like thomas jefferson. recently there has been a controversy at oral roberts university, and this shows directly the irrationality of religious belief. the son of oral roberts was in charge of the university and he kept claiming that god told him stuff, when it seems perfectly obvious to everyone else that this “god” who keeps talking to oral roberts’ son is just a voice inside that guy’s head. not really his conscience, though. more just a voice in his head that tells him that whatever he feels like doing is ok and he can go ahead and do it and it is righteous and it is god’s will. and why should i capitalize the word “god”? nobody even agrees on what the word means, and capitalizing it would imply there is only one god, one god that the believers in god can agree on, but the believers cannot agree on anything, really. that is why there are so many different religions. if religion really were true, there would only be one religion. the fact that there are so many demonstrates the fact that religions are all the creations of humankind, and all of their beliefs are made up by people, and this is the reason they cannot agree on anything, because people feel attached to things that they made up or things they believe in that they were taught by someone else who made them up. so the more religious a presidential candidate is, the less i like them, the less qualified they seem for the job. recently tony blair, in an interview, talked about how he has strong religious faith but felt he had to keep quiet about it or else voters in britain would think he was crazy. and rightfully so! that is exactly what people ought to think of religious people! i am glad that the british public have the proper view that someone who is excessively religious, whose mind is filled with irrational faith-based beliefs that have no basis in fact or reality, is too nutty to be the leader of their country. unfortunately, even my favorite candidate, dennis kucinich, is a man of faith... all of the presidential candidates in both the democratic and republican parties are people of faith. it is quite a sad situation. anyway, out of the “leading” presidential candidates, the closest one to my views on all the political issues facing the united states is without a doubt barack obama. on every single one of the policy disputes he has had with hillary clinton that made the news, i found myself agreeing with him and disagreeing with hillary clinton, who always takes the more conservative policy when compared with barack obama, who is always the more liberal of the 2. i find it absolutely ridiculous how much republicans and conservatives hate hillary clinton and how much they claim she is a far-left-wing liberal in disguise. i would really like it if that were the case! i would really like it if, secretly, hillary clinton were as far left-wing as dennis kucinich on all the issues. but sadly, that is not the case. in fact, she is almost as right-wing as rudolph giuliani. most of their positions on the issues are indistinguishable. of course, rudolph giuliani is far too liberal on many issues to be a conservative republican. hillary clinton and rudolph giuliani are basically both diehard centrists. now mitt romney is the guy who used to be liberal on all the issues but is now conservative on all the issues, unlike giuliani, who is still liberal on all the social issues, just like arnold schwarzenegger, the governor of california (who is not running for president). fred thompson is a hollywood actor that richard nixon called “dumb as hell”, and used to be a pro-abortion lobbyist, and his campaign is going nowhere. john mccain is hated among republicans for his correct stances on immigration, campaign finance reform, and torture, stances that are quite unpopular in his party. and ron paul is a libertarian, which is far too radical for most conservative republicans, since on many issues he actually agrees with liberals. the religious right is left with only one candidate who is actually one of them: mike huckabee. the only problems with him, as far as conservative republicans are concerned, are how he raised taxes (which is considered the worst possible thing anyone could ever do, ever, since taxes must always be cut and never ever be raised no matter how deeply the government goes into debt), and how he actually spent state money on educating children who happened to be illegal immigrants, instead of deporting them immediately. anyway, my point is, all of the republican candidates are incredibly flawed and have a ton of stances on issues that their potential supporters will all disagree with. the democrats do not seem to be as out of touch with their own base, except for hillary clinton. back in 2004, of course, joseph lieberman ran for president as a democrat, and his platform was so wildly divergent from the democratic base, so centrist and pro-republican, it was ridiculous, and he was pretty much running in the wrong party. in fact, i think rudolph giuliani is probably a better democrat than joe lieberman, in terms of how well his stances on the issues match the democratic base. rudolph giuliani and hillary clinton are basically the same thing. it is ridiculous how giuliani got the endorsement of pat robertson. that is like if adolf hitler said his favorite television show was seinfeld. anyway, i do not really know too much about john edwards, joe biden, chris dodd, bill richardson, and mike gravel (sorry if i left any out). i mostly just know about hillary clinton and barack obama, since only they get in the news, and about dennis kucinich, since he is the one i like enough to find out more about him. i feel pretty positive about all the democratic candidates except for hillary clinton. and i also feel positive about the republican ron paul. but anyway, i think the 2-party system sucks and we need more parties. or maybe no political parties at all, which is what george washington wanted. maybe political parties could get proportional representation in legislatures like congress, so if one party gets 23% of the vote nationwide, they get 23% of the seats in congress. i also think unicameral legislatures are more efficient, and executives like governors and presidents should not be allowed to veto anything. that would make things much more efficient and eliminate gridlock. executive leaders like presidents and governors need to have as little power as possible, and all that power should be transferred to legislatures. when voting for a single office, in a situation where proportional representation would not apply, it would be best to use the condorcet method of voting, or at least instant runoff voting, rather than simply having a winner-take-all system awarding the office to whoever wins a plurality (the most votes). and of course the electoral college needs to be completely thrown in the garbage and replaced with nationwide popular vote using the condorcet or instant runoff voting method. and the system of having voters in iowa and new hampshire decide who the candidates are? throw that in the garbage too. combine primaries and general elections into one single massive election that all happens at once, and the condorcet or instant runoff voting method will allow voters to pick their favorite candidate and the most popular one (or least unpopular one) will win. so why is politics a waste of time? my favorite candidate is going nowhere in the polls, and my least favorite democratic candidate is #1. i do not live in iowa or new hampshire, and i have hardly any money, so i have basically no influence at all on who gets elected. and i detest the republicans, at least in general. and i am glad none of their candidates are acceptable to them. it means less of them will vote, so the democrat will probably win. hopefully we can get a better nominee than hillary clinton as the democrat. if the republicans want a good chance in the general election, i would recommend ron paul, since, as he says, “freedom is popular”. but i am not a republican and i do not agree with ron paul on free market capitalism or about all the government agencies he wants to abolish. people might complain about oppressive governments. but look at what happened when the soviet union collapsed, or when saddam hussein’s government in iraq collapsed. the united states government might be a bit oppressive, sort of like those governments, but if ron paul is elected, his dismantling of the apparatus of government oppression might happen too quickly, and cause disorder and chaos, a rise in crime, economic collapse, major increases in pollution, or other problems. who knows what would happen if we legalize everything, dismantle all the government agencies, and deregulate everything? we all would like a little more freedom, but perhaps ron paul would give us too much freedom... he would give us enough rope to hang ourselves. i am not sure if we need this united states government, but i think we probably do, and it would be risky to try experimenting with anything too close to anarchy like libertarianism. anyway, ron paul has no chance of being elected as the republican nominee, regardless. that is unfortunate, though, because i think he would help advance the national debate a lot if he were the republican nominee, even though i think a lot of his policies might be dangerous. but you know what? hillary clinton has been my senator for 7 years and all i know is she voted for the patriot act and the war in iraq and i am not sure what else she has done, but i disagree with her overly interventionist foreign policy positions, since she wants to basically control the governments of every country in the entire world, once she is president (i exaggerate a bit but you get the point). barack obama is still a bit interventionist but he is not afflicted as severely, and he is more prone to having us mind our own damn business for a change and stop messing around in things that are none of our business that will only get us into trouble with “blowback” about our foreign policy fiascos. like for instance, iran. hillary clinton has a tough stance against iran, possibly a pro-war hawkish stance, whereas barack obama is basically antiwar. one thing i don’t like about joe biden is he has a plan to partition iraq, which is pretty much just a case of us meddling in iraq’s internal affairs, something that is none of our business. it is up to the iraqis how to govern themselves, as long as terrorists do not take over that country’s government and attack the united states from abroad. we have no business telling iraqis to undo de-baathification or pass an oil law or form a coalition government with the sunnis. and if the kurds want independence for kurdistan, fine. it is none of our business. as for the israeli-palestinian dispute, it is also none of our business. we should not be subsidizing the israelis or the palestinians with aid from our government. and if they want to negotiate, let them do it on their own. there is no need for a mediator. getting a mediator and traveling across the world to america is a waste of time for them. the israeli and palestinian leaders ought to sit down and meet in jerusalem or somewhere close by, and meet every single day until they have peace. but that is just a suggestion. we americans, on the other hand, ought to mind our own business, and not directly interfere in such things, only offer polite suggestions like that. most of our so-called “allies” in the middle east are actually, in some ways, functioning as our enemies. iraq, saudi arabia, israel, qatar, pakistan, turkey, and others... all of those nations are supposedly our allies, but have done things that are not exactly what you would consider the behavior of a true ally, or of someone you would want to be allies with. so why do we only have 3 official enemies in the middle east (iran, syria, and hamas-controlled gaza strip)? our leaders have cozied up to the leaders of other countries that are not really our friends, but just pretend to be our friends. and we give out lots of aid, for free. aid to the militaries of totalitarian theocratic regimes, to help oppress their own people. but anyway, politics is a waste of time. there is nothing i can do about any of this. i am helpless to solve any of the world’s problems. i have virtually no say in who gets elected, and once elected, the politicians will do whatever the hell they want, without regard to public opinion, since they will just use the corporate media to disseminate their propaganda and get people to agree with whatever policies they decide to put in place. public opinion will change to match whatever the politicians want it to be, when they use the media to manipulate the public. and both political parties will cooperate in this. but joining or voting for a “third” party is a waste of time and a wasted vote. it will only make things worse. ralph nader got george w. bush elected, since nader mainly kept liberals from voting for al gore, while having no effect on conservatives. in our current winner-take-all system, third parties can only act as spoilers, and the only real way to have influence is to take part in choosing major-party candidates through the primaries. but i learned in 2004, when my favorite candidate howard dean did quite badly in the primaries, how flawed that system is, and how the stupidest voters are the swing group that ends up deciding everything. people were so focused on finding someone who fit an arbitrary media-created definition of “electable”, they completely lost sight of all of the issues. iowa and new hampshire are all about pandering to locals, and those states are almost all white people, and more conservative than the average state. so ethnic/racial minorities have pretty much zero influence in choosing who wins. the entire system is corrupt, because whoever raises the most money wins, and you raise money by selling out to the special interest groups whose interests pretty much always are the exact opposite of the general public interest. and the way things are turning out with the bushes and the clintons, we might as well have a hereditary monarchy, since that is basically what this country seems to be turning into. what will the line of succession be? george h. w. bush, bill clinton, george w. bush, hillary clinton, jeb bush, chelsea clinton, jenna bush, paris hilton, britney spears, lindsey lohan, hannah montana? well if so, i hope we get to the post-jenna-bush phase soon, when paris hilton becomes president. then we will finally be out of the monotony of alternating between bushes and clintons. of course, all of those young ladies will have married into the bush and clinton families by then! so it will be george h. w. bush, bill clinton, george w. bush, hillary clinton, jeb bush, chelsea clinton, jenna bush, paris clinton, britney bush, lindsey clinton, hannah bush! why? because most women still change their last name when they marry! we will never get out of this endless repeating loop! if only immigrants were allowed to be president! then henry kissinger could save us, with his secret doomsday device! i actually have a proposal for a doomsday device. the heaviest naturally occurring element on earth is uranium, and gravity naturally pulls most of the planet’s uranium into the inner core. simply drill a hole to the center of the earth and drop a nuclear bomb down there. since the center of earth’s core is made of highly fissionable uranium, a nuclear chain reaction would be triggered, causing a huge explosion that would blow the entire planet into itty bitty bits. all life forms on earth, even cockroaches, would be completely exterminated. no more need to call tom delay, the exterminator! all thanks to the doomsday device, which would save us from the endlessly repeating cycle of bushes and clintons. of course, we could just vote for someone else. but that would be too easy. and how could we ever get enough people across america to mobilize for a vote that is for neither a bush nor a clinton? are human beings even physically capable of voting for candidates whose last names are neither bush nor clinton? only time will tell. but as for me, i have not donated any money at all to any political candidates. and i am glad about that. it would be a waste for me to give money to a politician, since i would get nothing in return. they would only end up losing the election, and someone i hate would win anyway, like always. that is the genius of american democracy. the nation is always led by someone who is universally despised by half the population. and we spend so much time arguing amongst ourselves, we are ripe targets for foreigners to attack. it is impossible for us to unite behind a single leader because we all hate each other. instead of hating hate and fearing fear, we hate fear and fear hate. we have had the war on poverty, the war on drugs, the war on terror, and even the war on christmas. which comes next? world war 3 or civil war 2? we can only unite as a nation if we have a common enemy that everyone in our nation can fight, such as the rest of the world combined. that adds up to about 200 nations that would be our enemies in the war on anti-america (anti-america is everything that is not america). since we have already alienated the rest of the world and become the most hated and feared nation in the world, it is time to exercise our national sovereignty by declaring all alliances and treaties with other nations null and void, and declaring war on every single nation in the entire world, including ourselves. then we can pursue the goal of complete world domination and a pax americana that would happen afterwards, using the doomsday device as a negotiating tool. we can follow andy rooney’s advice and make english the only language in the entire world. it will be the end of history, as predicted by francis fukayama. the bush-clinton dynasty will alternate in control of the entire globe... a new world order. of course, none of this will happen unless i get the doomsday device built for henry kissinger. if the doomsday device is not built, the world will be taken over by islamic fundamentalist fire-breathing dragons, illegal aliens from outer space, and giant lesbian marxist gorillas... that is, prior to the robocratic revolution.