ralph nader is back... again

first of all, i would like to congratulate barack obama on his 11 caucuses/primaries-in-a-row winning streak. it was 10 the last time i posted here, but it was brought up to 11 because of the “democrats abroad” primary-by-mail. so he has won all 11 contests that happened after super tuesday up until now. on march 4th there are 4 more primaries (none of them caucuses), so 4 chances for hillary clinton to come back from the dead. and here is a weird video of hillary clinton attacking barack obama in cincinnati, ohio, saying “shame on you, barack obama”:



all i have to say to hillary clinton’s tirade is, “WTF?!?!?!?!?” what is with all this bullshit from her attacking obama? barack obama has a health care plan just like hillary clinton does! i call BS on her tirade! and you know who else doesn’t like obama?

ralph nader likes to mock barack obama. that was just a link to an article where ralph nader totally made fun of barack obama and belittled him and completely disrespected him. you can read more articles ralph nader has written at counterpunch.org by looking at these google search results, if you like his type of bullshit.

so what is the deal with ralph nader? he ran for president in 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004, and is running again in 2008 now. earlier in this 2008 campaign, he endorsed john edwards (instead of dennis kucinich). now ralph nader is back to his old spiel that the democrats and republicans are both the same, both run by the same corporations, and only he, an outsider to both major parties, can really change anything. ralph nader is driven by his own ego, and is very self-centered and arrogant, although on most political issues, i agree with him. but i also agree with barack obama on most political issues, and barack obama has a much better chance of winning than ralph nader. in 2004, the green party refused to endorse ralph nader for president, so he ran on the reform party banner, the same party that ran ross perot in 1992 and 1996, and pat buchanan in 2000. who did the green party pick in 2004 as their candidate? david cobb, somebody nobody ever heard of! why? because ralph nader, in his typical egotistical self-centered fashion, had completely snubbed the green party, a party that he had helped to create! and the reform party was basically a train wreck and had nobody else to nominate in 2004. ralph nader got 0.4% of the vote in 2004. basically nothing. anyway, what is my point? ralph nader only cares about one person: himself. he does not care about this country, or about which of the 2 major parties wins elections. he stubbornly refuses to accept the reality of the situation: that we have winner-take-all elections, that we do not use instant runoff voting or any other method that might allow someone like him to have even a remote chance of winning, and that he has never had a snowball’s chance in hell to win an election. if he really gave a damn about the issues he claims to care about, and really wanted to change the country, he would do it inside the existing 2-party system that we already have. that is what dennis kucinich, russ feingold, and other progressive leaders do! if ralph nader doesn’t like the democrats because he is too ultra-liberal and the democrats have gotten too conservative, he ought to join our party and do a hostile takeover! how do you think howard dean got to be chairman of the democratic national committee? it was a hostile takeover of the central party apparatus by an outsider from a tiny state with a small population (vermont)! howard dean had a very good chance of winning the 2004 democratic nomination, up until the iowa caucuses demolishing his chances. why? he had a progressive message that resonated with voters! if ralph nader thinks he has a progressive message that resonates with voters, he ought to run as a democrat! that is the only way he could possibly win... unless ralph nader actually thinks he would do better as a republican. it does not make sense how ralph nader keeps running for president, again and again and again, always as an outsider not in either major party, never getting much of the vote. he keeps making the same mistake again and again and again! people ought to learn from their mistakes! ralph nader is a stubborn old fool, just like arizona senator john mccain and former alaska senator mike gravel. he is well past retirement age. all his candidacy does is siphon votes away from democrats and help the republicans. everybody knows that, even him! so if he actually gave a damn about anything at all, he would just stop running for president, and endorse the democratic nominee once the democrats pick one. of course, it is a free country, and ralph nader can do as he pleases. but please, do not listen to him, because all he does is spout bullshit and denounce the democrats as republican-like, making people turn against the democratic party and helping the republican party win elections. it is true that many democrats are republican-lite and are not true progressives, but there are also many progressive democrats fighting to change that, and this is a battle within the party. but ralph nader is not on the side of us progressive democrats, because his desire is to overturn the 2-party system, which i agree is a noble goal, but it is unachievable unless the laws governing elections are changed to a system such as instant runoff voting, the condorcet method, or proportional representation.

as long as we have winner-take-all elections, it is mathematically impossible for there to be more than 2 viable political parties. early in the united states, the 2 parties were the democratic-republicans (later shortened to the democrats) and the federalists. the federalists collapsed and for a while it was just the democrats. then the whigs emerged as the 2nd party alongside the democrats. the whigs collapsed completely. then the republicans were formed as the 2nd party, the 3rd major party to fight opposite the democrats, after the federalists (#1) and the whigs (#2). the republicans went on to dominate politics throughout the latter half of the 19th century, but the democrats were not completely wiped out like the federalists or whigs. and the democrats made a comeback in the late 1800s with grover cleveland, and in the early 1900s with woodrow wilson, and in the 1930s it was franklin delano roosevelt who finally restored the democratic party to its rightful standing. so anyway, we have had a 2-party system ever since the nation was founded, with the democrats founded by thomas jefferson and the federalists founded by alexander hamilton. the republican party is not the “grand old party”: the first republican president, abe lincoln, was elected 60 years after the first democratic president, thomas jefferson. anyway, my point is very simple: 3rd parties do not work unless we completely change the election laws. so, prior to running for president as a 3rd party candidate, ralph nader or any other person wishing to run outside the 2-party system ought to have a big national grassroots campaign to change the election laws to be instant runoff voting, the condorcet method, or proportional representation. if you are a 3rd party candidate, you cannot win the game unless you change the rules. and if, by some miracle, a 3rd party candidate does win, historically what this means is, one of the 2 parties that were previously the main parties will completely fall apart and cease to exist, and we will be back to a 2-party system, just with a different pair of parties. that is what happened when abraham lincoln was elected as a republican: it spelled the final demise of the whig party, and brought us the democrat + republican 2-party system.

or if you want to look at other countries: the united kingdom has 2 main parties: the labour party and the conservative (tory) party. there are other political parties in the united kingdom, such as the liberal democrat party and a number of northern ireland parties, but they are all bit players that only get elected in certain regions and cannot compete nationally, and only have a few members in parliament. only 2 parties in the united kingdom matter, and they are the labour party and the conservative party. even with tremendous dissatisfaction with tony blair’s support for the war in iraq and his centrist policies, the liberal democrat party completely failed to defeat the labour party, because the labour party is still the main left-wing party, and the conservative party is still the main right-wing party. and the green party, or an independent like ralph nader, will fare even worse than the liberal democrat party of the united kingdom. the same also goes for the libertarian party, the reform party, and all the other 3rd parties. ron paul is running as a libertarian inside the republican party this year. he is not doing too well, having lost every single primary and caucus so far, although he came in second in a few. he would do much, much worse if he ran under the libertarian party banner. running as a republican, at least ron paul has some nonzero chance of winning. it is ron paul’s best shot at being president, because we are stuck in a 2-party system, and ron paul understands that 2-party system better than anyone. i think ralph nader could learn a thing or two from ron paul. who knows? if ralph nader had run in the democratic primaries and caucuses in 2008, maybe he would be the one beating hillary clinton, instead of barack obama. but it is too late for that now. now all ralph nader can do is spoil things for the democrats and help the republicans win, because it is a winner-take-all zero-sum game, and the system is rigged to only allow 2 parties to have a chance at winning. and all ralph nader does is discredit the democrats among liberals and progressives, and make people not want to vote for democrats. he does not have the same effect on conservatives, because conservatives love big corporations and they think of ralph nader as a socialist or quasi-communist. do you remember what ross perot did in 1992? he spoiled things for george bush sr., and by getting the conservatives to split their vote, ross perot made bill clinton president. ralph nader played the same role in 2000, spoiling things for al gore and helping george w. bush get elected president. the republicans have no better ally in politics than ralph nader, which is why, in 2004, the republicans helped to lead the effort to get ralph nader’s name on the ballots. so just remember: ralph nader is a spoiler who helps the republicans, just like ross perot was a spoiler who helped the democrats. a vote for ralph nader is one less vote for barack obama or hillary clinton, and helps john mccain win the general election by winning the electoral college.

so, if you want john mccain to be the next president, i urge you to go and support ralph nader! send ralph nader money! raise signatures to get him on the ballots! help him destroy the democratic party by making the liberal/progressive base disillusioned with their own party!

this election is not about “the lesser of two evils”. hillary clinton and barack obama are not evil! they are both good, overall, and barack obama is a little bit better, less of a war hawk. hillary clinton may be surrounded by war hawk advisors, but she is still good, overall. both of them would bring us universal health care, and their disputes over minor details in their health care plans are just silliness. both of them want to end the war in iraq as soon as possible, while john mccain wants the war to go on for 100 years. i think there is a clear difference between democrats and republicans, in fact there are a great many major differences, and every time ralph nader says democrats and republicans are the same, he is a flat-out liar of the worst kind. why on earth would people vote for a self-centered egotistical liar like ralph nader who got disowned by his own party, the green party, for being a complete asshole to them?

a much better person to listen to than ralph nader would be arianna huffington, who has said similar things about both parties being owned by corporations, but who lives in the real world, not some fantasy world where 3rd-party candidates can win. arianna huffington ran for governor of california as an independent a few years ago, when the main candidate was arnold schwarzenegger, and she went through the whole experience of being a 3rd party candidate who had no chance of winning. and she grew and learned from that experience, and now she supports barack obama. ralph nader, on the other hand, never learns from his experiences, and keeps losing election after election after election, in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, and now again, the same thing will happen to him in 2008. will he never learn? is this all just a publicity stunt he does so he can sell books and give speeches and make money? does he even give a damn? if he had any common sense at all, he would just give up. it is pointless for him to even try. ralph nader lives in a fantasy world, and has no understanding of the reality we live in, of how politics works, of how to win elections. all he knows about elections is how to screw them up for people who agree with him on most of the issues, and help people he disagrees with on everything get elected instead.

oh, and one last note: apparently cuba is now led by raul castro, fidel castro’s younger brother. is there going to be any change in cuba? no, of course not. we will probably have to wait for both of the castro brothers to die before communism will ever come to an end on that island near florida. there is nothing we can do to end communism in cuba... our government has been trying to get rid of fidel castro for almost 50 years, and our policies towards cuba have only helped him hold onto power. we should just normalize diplomatic and trade relations with cuba, like we have done with china and vietnam, and like we were with the soviet union back when it existed. we always had diplomatic and trade relations with the soviet union, even at the height of the cold war. embargoes never work. let us treat cuba the way we treat china and vietnam. and if someone from cuba lands on american soil, they should not automatically become a citizen. that is unfair, because mexicans who cross the border do not get citizenship, they get deported or have to stay in the underground economy, while cubans can become citizens and vote and get legitimate high-paying jobs. why do we give preferential treatment to illegal immigrants from cuba? we need to completely change all of our policies towards cuba, since we have had the same policies in place for almost 50 years and they have completely failed in every respect. and you know what? the candidate i support, barack obama, agrees with me that we need to change our failed strategies towards cuba, while hillary clinton and john mccain both agree that we should continue the same strategies that have been failing for 50 years, the strategies that helped the castro regime hold onto power for so long. and as for ralph nader... he just needs to go away. and pretty much everyone agrees with me.

in other news, there is a new survey on religion in the united states. apparently 78.4% of americans are christian, 16.1% do not belong to any religion, 4.7% belong to religions other than christianity, and 0.8% were unwilling or unable to answer the survey. and 44% of americans have switched their religious affiliation at least once in life, either switching from one religion to another, joining a religion, or leaving religion altogether. 25% of americans in the 18-29 age bracket are unaffiliated with any religion. there are more than three times as many people leaving religion completely as there are people joining religion. and the denomination suffering the greatest losses is catholicism. protestants are also having losses too, and now the percentage of americans who are members of protestant denominations is down to 51%. but oddly enough, more than half of people who were raised unaffiliated with any religion ended up joining a religion, despite the fact that more than 3 times as many people are leaving religion altogether as people joining it for the first time. now only 1.6% of americans call themselves atheists, and only 2.4% call themselves agnostics. compare that to the 6.3% of americans who do not belong to any religion and are completely nonreligious, but do not call themselves atheists or agnostics. apparently people are afraid of calling themselves one of those 2 “a-words”, because people do not seem to know what those words mean. an atheist is anyone who is not completely convinced that god exists, and an agnostic is a subtype of atheist who thinks it is impossible to prove or disprove the existence of god. so an agnostic is someone who boldly claims that it is impossible for anyone to know the truth, no matter how hard we try. an atheist is just anyone who is not 100% sure that god exists, and there are many different types of atheists. unfortunately, people do not know the meaning of the word “atheist” and think that it means someone who is 100% sure that god does not exist. if you are only 99.9% sure that god exists, you are an atheist, according to the dictionary definition of “atheist”. true faith in god is always 100%. if people actually knew the meaning of the word “atheist”, and the word were destigmatized, the majority of people would probably call themselves atheists, because even if you go to church every sunday and are a member of your church and go through all the rituals, if you do not have complete faith in god, then you are an atheist, according to the dictionary definition. i am an atheist, and proud of it. and i belong to the minority among atheists who actively deny the existence of god, and claim it to be impossible. most atheists are nowhere near as bold as to make a claim like that. now, if someone did a poll asking people if they were 100% sure that god exists, we would find out the true answer of how many people are atheists. if you are not 100% sure in your faith in god, you are an atheist. an atheist is defined as “a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings”. disbelieve is defined as “to withhold or reject belief”. so, by simply withholding belief in the existence of a supreme being or beings, someone automatically becomes an atheist, whether they want to be called an atheist or not. trying to claim not to be an atheist when you don’t have complete faith in god is like trying to claim to be one gender when you are the opposite gender, or trying to claim you are an alien from another planet when you are just a human like everyone else. it is a lie. if you do not have faith, if you are a closet atheist who does not want to be called an atheist, you need to “come out of the closet” already, and if anyone asks you if you are an atheist, tell the truth, and say “yes!” lying about it is dishonorable and immoral, if you believe in honor and/or morality. now i am sure there are plenty of people who wish they could believe in god but just can’t convince themselves of god’s existence, and those people are atheists even though they don’t want to be. i used to be like that, and i went to church every sunday, to quaker meetings, to a protestant christian denomination. i did not really believe in all the “god” stuff, but most of quakerism is not about this “god” character or his son “jesus”, but rather about how people ought to live their lives and treat each other. and that secular, non-superstitious aspect of quakerism is the aspect that i fully accepted and believed in, and continue to accept and believe in. but i am no longer affiliated with quakerism and no longer call myself a quaker, because i cannot bring myself to endorse any religion that has supernatural beliefs, much less one that considers the bible a holy book. i have read some of the bible, and been completely horrified and disgusted at what i read in that book, about how god carried out genocides (sodom and gomorrah, the great flood, the jews killing all the indigenous tribes of the land of canaan and renaming it israel) and did all sorts of horrible things, about all sorts of minor offenses that people need to be executed for (having sex with the wrong people, or eating the wrong type of food). i read it from the beginning of genesis all the way up to somewhere in numbers or somewhere around there, where it got from being a horrifying book to an incredibly boring book. and reading the bible convinced me that any religion that considers that book holy is a completely false religion, since no loving/righteous/good/noble god would ever do all the horrible things it says in the bible. and as to the question of whether god exists, disbelief in the bible does not necessarily mean you do not believe in god. but i came to realize that there are many ways to logically prove the nonexistence of god, if god is defined in the traditional way that religious people define him. then i realized that the word “god” means different things to different people, and that going by the dictionary definition does not seem to work, since many people disagree with that definition. so then we have a situation where nobody can agree on what the word “god” means, and there is such disagreement on this issue that basically i have concluded that “god” is a completely meaningless word. so, if i were to accept that the word “god” is completely meaningless, i would have to be an agnostic as well as an atheist, since it is impossible to prove or disprove the existence of something that cannot even be defined. but, i have decided to remain true to the dictionary definition of “god” and the way christian fundamentalists define “god”, so that i can prove that god does not exist, once and for all. my favorite proof is quite simple: god is defined as all-knowing, so he knows everything that will happen in the future. but god is also defined as all-powerful, so he can change things so they happen differently from the way he predicted. therefore, things can happen completely differently from the way god predicted they would happen, meaning that he is not all-knowing at all, and actually has zero knowledge of the future. conversely, one can make the claim that god would never do things differently than the way he predicted, which restores his all-knowing property and means he can predict the future infallibly after all. but, there is a catch. since god already knows everything that is going to happen in the future, he is incapable of doing things any differently than how he predicted. he is controlled by fate, all his actions are predetermined, and he has no free will whatsoever, absolutely zero power over his actions. and thus the all-knowing god is not all-powerful, but rather has no power whatsoever, all his actions predetermined by fate, by his predictions in the past. now some religious people claim “god exists outside of time”. what does that even mean? how can a god who exists outside of time interact with things going on in our universe, a universe where time exists, and goes from the past to the present to the future continuously? and anyway, if god is all-knowing and all-powerful, if we assume for the time being that such a scenario is even possible, and god created everything, does this not mean that god created everything in the universe, and each and every one of us human beings? and that he knew the future in advance, so everything is predetermined, nobody has any free will, and we all behave in exactly the way that god pre-programmed us to behave when he designed us? think about computers for a minute... computers only do what they are programmed to do; they have no free will. they were designed by human beings. the only way a computer can defy the will of its designer is if the design is flawed and it malfunctioned. but if “intelligent design” is true and god knew what he was doing when he designed us and did not make us defective on purpose, why is it that some people go astray and do not believe in evangelical protestant fundamentalist christianity, thereby condemning themselves to eternal hellfire? obviously there is a flaw in the design, if god made us so we could turn evil or reject his rigidly stated christian dogma and thereby end up in hell. if god were righteous and good, he would have designed us so that we would also be righteous and good, and never do anything evil, and all have the same correct beliefs, and all end up in heaven with him for eternity. but god created evil, he created satan, knowing full well in advance that satan would turn evil, and creating a scenario whereby billions of innocent victims would be sent to hell through no fault of their own, in a predetermined scheme that they had no control over. religious people counter by claiming that god had to create satan and evil so that human beings could have free will, but that is utter bullshit. if god is all-knowing and knows the future, he knows how a person will behave and what they will believe, and everything about them, before he even creates that person. an all-powerful, all-knowing god that created the universe by definition has complete control over everything going on in the entire universe, at all times. in such a situation, free will is impossible for a human being, and free will is also impossible for god himself. and why is god male? does he have a penis and testicles? if so, why? is there a female goddess for him to have sex with? or does he sit around with his penis and testicles, moping around miserably because he has nobody to have sex with? is that why he is always so angry and always massacring large numbers of innocent people, out of jealousy that they get to have sex and he doesn’t? and what is with the doctrine of “trinity”, that god is 3 separate entities but also 1 single unified entity? why did jesus cry out and ask his father god why god abandoned him? that would be impossible if jesus and god are one and the same, and are all the same entity. if god is the father, then why did the holy spirit, not the father, impregnate the virgin mary? and why doesn’t that count as sex, and why is she still considered a virgin after being knocked up by the holy spirit? it seems like the holy spirit is the real father, and the so-called “father” is just a father in name only. none of this makes any sense at all. and so, i think if people carefully and objectively considered these points i have brought up, in an open-minded fashion, the vast majority of americans would end up concluding that all judeo-christian religions are false, god does not exist, and atheism is correct. even if you just look at the old testament and judaism, the god of the old testament is such an evil genocidal maniac, he is far worse than adolf hitler, josef stalin, or any other evil mass-murderer of modern times. and since christians and muslims both accept the old testament as literal truth, christianity and islam are also wrong, just like judaism. and as for all the other religions of the world, like hinduism, buddhism, etc., those are all based on silly superstitions and belief in imaginary friends known as “gods”, despite a complete lack of any evidence justifying such a belief, and despite the fact that every religion in the world contradicts the teachings of science. and science is based on logic and reason, and on empirical study of the results of experiments, experiments which can be duplicated by other researchers skeptical of the results. it is impossible for the experimental results found in science to be wrong, since anyone can duplicate the experiments and see for themselves. sometimes someone does an experiment wrong or fakes a result, but later someone else will read about that experiment, do the exact same experiment, get the correct result, and prove the original result to be wrong, as a result of human error. science also has theories to explain the results of experiments, and these are not always true like the experimental results themselves. and theories can never be 100% proven. but if i were to tell you that gravity does not exist, you would not believe me. if i told you the world is flat, is shaped like a square, and has 4 corners, and you can fall off the edges, you would not believe me. so why do so many people find it necessary to deny the validity of science and instead propose that everyone believe in unproven ancient superstitions? luckily, many people in the united states and in other countries are turning away from religion, and this is a very good development. religions like quakerism might have a lot of good teachings about the right way to live your life and treat people, but why must we include the superstition? why can we not simply have them as secular philosophies, like the political philosophies of liberalism and conservatism? the chinese belief system of confucianism is sometimes thought of as a religion, but from what i heard, confucianism makes no claims about anything supernatural, and is simply a set of rules and guidelines for how people should behave while they are still alive. i think the dalai lama may have made similar claims that buddhism does not make any claims about anything supernatural and is only a set of guidelines and practices for how to live your life, and does not conflict with anything at all in science. and he said that if anything in buddhism is found to conflict with science, it should be thrown out and replaced with the scientific view. this is, of course, revisionist history, since buddhism is based on hinduism, a polytheistic religion, early buddhists were polytheists, and most buddhists today are polytheists. now a remarkable phenomenon in the united states is the prominence of superstitions that have absolutely nothing to do with christianity, or are even condemned by it. these include horoscopes, chinese fortune cookies (which are actually an american invention), psychics, fortune tellers, ouija boards, magic 8-balls, and lucky talismans that people carry around with them for good luck. a large percentage of christians in this country actually buy into these other non-christian superstitions, superstitions that are actually condemned in the bible. this shows that these so-called “christians” do not really believe in the bible, they are just attracted to all types of superstition, whether they are christian or not. only a small percentage of americans are what i would refer to as “real christians”, and the majority of americans are what i call “fake christians”. i listen to christian talk radio sometimes (the local csn international station), and those people are real christians, because they believe in 100% of the bible as literal truth, and do not question any of it. they completely believe in all of the superstitious nonsense in the bible, and completely reject all other superstitious nonsense that is either not mentioned in the bible or specifically forbidden in the bible. when it comes to religion, it is either all or nothing. if someone only believes in religion in a half-assed way, they ought to just give it up and become an atheist, because there is no way they are going to believe 100% of the nonsense in their religion’s fundamentalist dogma, so they might as well call it quits. i see no point in half-assed religion. people like that need to just quit the habit of religion (although it may be habit forming and possibly addictive and they may be emotionally and psychologically dependent upon reassurance that some higher power is looking out for them and everything will turn out fine in the end). religion should be reserved for those few fanatics who believe it wholeheartedly, and they should be isolated from the rest of society and looked down upon as backwards, insane, and emotionally dependent upon an imaginary friend. then we can peacefully, nonviolently eradicate religion from the world, by convincing people that it is wrong, through the power of logic and reason. and then all the wars and conflict and violence and killing done in the name of religion, all the jihads and crusades and fatwas and holy wars and intifadas, they will all be over and done with, never to happen again. people around the world will live together peacefully, no longer divided by their differing beliefs in supernatural things, everyone believing in reality, science, logic, and reason, so whenever there is a disagreement, people can negotiate logically and not behave unreasonably. of course, there will always be some people who are criminals, who resort to violence, so we will continue to have police to arrest them, courts to prosecute them, and jails to put them in. but just imagine a world where we were no longer divided by differing supernatural beliefs. and we could also have one world government, a new world order. john lennon wrote and sang a song describing just such an outcome, called “imagine”. and it is a very catchy tune. and i find the words to that song very inspirational, although possibly a bit naive and idealistic. but on christian talk radio, they talk all the time about how the antichrist will come and make atheism the new world religion and create a new world order of one world government. and you know what? it seems like a good idea to me. with only one government ruling the entire world, there will be nobody for them to fight wars against, so no need for war. no other countries to nuke, so no need for nuclear weapons. only one currency, making finance and trade and all sorts of economic transactions much more efficient. and no more borders between nations, since there would be no nations. people would be free to go wherever they want, without an oppressive government stopping them from having freedom of movement. and, as an added bonus, how about we throw in having everyone speak the same language, to eliminate all the problems of miscommunication between people from different parts of the world? and after many generations of mixed-race couples having children, imagine if everyone ended up being the same mixed-race shade of light brown, and there were no more racial divisions either. also, why don’t we give everyone a pony, and pave the streets with gold? every man a king and every woman a queen! a central world bank to manage 1 world currency, and due to inflation, everyone would be a billionaire, even the beggars on the gold-plated streets! just imagine that! now of course, in reality, none of that will ever happen. we will always have religions, we will always have nations, there will always be wars, and no, you do not get a pony. well technically, religions, nations, and wars will all cease to exist when humanity goes extinct. but we could still pave the streets with gold... but not real gold. fool’s gold, or bronze that looks like gold, or some sort of alternative that looks similar to gold. that can still be done. and then after humanity dies out, thousands of years from now, aliens in a faraway part of the galaxy may pick up a radio broadcast from earth, and decide to come visit us, and find our planet deserted and devoid of life, but with fake-gold-plated streets! at least the aliens will have something interesting to discover, when our radio broadcasts finally reach a distant alien civilization that is listening for civilizations like ours, with a project similar to the s.e.t.i. project, and then they decide to come here and check out earth. we ought to leave them some presents, like how kids leave milk and cookies for santa claus on christmas eve. what would be a nice gift to leave to space aliens that come to earth thousands or even millions of years from now after receiving our radio broadcasts through the vast reaches of space? i am thinking, maybe they would like some candy. but maybe the aliens have diabetes and can’t have sugar. or maybe they are not even carbon-based life forms, and are actually made of circuits and wires like robots except they are alive and have free will like people. or maybe the aliens are made of plastic and highly flammable. or they could be made of glass and shatter easily. i am hoping they are actually plutonium-based life forms. now that would be cool.

10 in a row for obama

in the above map: barack obama’s wins are red, hillary clinton’s wins that earned delegates are dark blue, and hillary clinton’s wins that did not count are light blue. on tuesday february 19th, there were primaries or caucuses in wisconsin, hawaii, and washington state. wisconsin was a primary for both parties, hawaii was a caucus for democrats only, and washington was a primary for both parties. washington already voted in caucuses for both parties earlier though. so the washington primary did not count at all for democrats, whereas both the primary and the caucus contributed delegates to the republican national convention. quite a complicated mess. march 4th will be even more complicated. but the results of these contests on february 19th are not complicated at all, even if the rules for them were. barack obama won every single democratic contest that happened after super tuesday (february 5th): every single primary or caucus from february 9th through february 19th, a winning streak of 10 wins in a row. hillary clinton, on the other hand, has a losing streak of losing 10 in a row, every single primary or caucus after super tuesday. it is absolutely clear who is going to win the democratic nomination: barack obama. hillary clinton has no chance in hell. every time she attacks barack obama or goes negative now, she is only helping republicans, only helping john mccain. if she wants to stay in this race, she had better stay positive and not attack barack obama, because attacking him helps john mccain win in november, and she has no chance of winning the nomination or in november. and if she does attack obama, she had better limit her attacks to attacking him from the left, accusing him of being too right-wing. if she joins forces with the right wing and attacks him of being a radical leftist, that shows incredible disloyalty to the democratic party and a reckless disregard for having democrats win in november. the national journal has said barack obama is the most liberal senator, out of all 100 united states senators, based on his voting record in some random year. of course, that national journal statistic is largely meaningless, given their flawed methodology in which votes they decided were important, but still, it does tell us that hillary clinton is the more right-wing of the 2 democratic candidates. and shouldn’t we offer voters a better, more clear-cut choice than a centrist democratic senator or a centrist republican center? okay, so what about the republicans? well, they voted for a 2nd time in washington state, and for the first time in wisconsin, and john mccain won both of these february 19th contests. but who cares? we already know he locked up the nomination after super tuesday and mitt romney conceding defeat, and having willard “mitt” romney and former president george bush sr. both endorse senator mccain. and john mccain has such a wide lead in delegates over everyone else, it is ridiculous. memo to ron paul and mike huckabee: you lost fair and square, and now it is all over for you. now beat it, and endorse someone other than yourself. hopefully a democrat. just to spite that awful john mccain that conservatives hate so much. rush limbaugh and ann coulter endorsed hillary clinton, even though ann coulter says it was a mistake to give women the right to vote. maybe ron paul and mike huckabee could endorse barack obama, just to shake things up a bit. or maybe they could help revive the clinton campaign and help her win the nomination so republicans can beat hillary in the general election. now here is the map with republican results up through february 19th, with john mccain blue, mike huckabee red, and mitt romney purple:



ok, so what happens next? march 4th has 4 primaries in both parties. except the one in texas is not really a primary, not really a caucus. it’s a hybrid! a really fucked up hybrid! the “texas two-step”, they call it. first people vote in a primary, then, later the same day, they vote in a caucus. the state of washington had a caucus in both parties on february 9th and a primary 10 days later on february 19th, but texas is doing things in the reverse order and all in one day. march 4th will be texas, ohio, rhode island, and vermont. texas and ohio are both must-win states for hillary clinton if she wants even a snowball’s chance in hell of winning the nomination. and she doesn’t just have to win them, she has to win by wide margins, to rack up a big lead in delegates in those states, since democrats do not have winner-take-all primaries like republicans. even if she wins by a few %, barack obama will still win almost as many delegates from texas and ohio as hillary clinton. he could even beat her in delegates in texas despite more people there voting for hillary, due to texas’s really complicated, silly, wacko rules for their “prima-caucus / texas two-step”. as for rhode island and vermont? i don’t think hillary clinton is wasting any time campaigning in those states, so barack obama should easily win them because he campaigns in every single state, and has had a long winning streak recently. barack obama already has connecticut and maine, and hillary clinton already has new hampshire and massachusetts. but maine was the most recent new england contest and hillary clinton was heavily favored to win, yet lost quite badly. and rhode island is right next to connecticut, which barack obama won on super tuesday, prior to his momentum and winning streak kicking in. so on march 4th, either hillary clinton will be “the comeback kid” just like her husband in 1992, or it will be the end of her campaign and she will have to concede defeat to barack obama. but even if she loses, she could stay in the race all the way until the convention, through tactics such as trying to get michigan and florida seated at the convention, trying to win even more superdelegates, and counting on later wins such as the final primary, which is in puerto rico in june. and since puerto rico is about 110% hispanic, and hillary clinton always gets about 120% of the hispanic vote, maybe if she stays in this race all the way until puerto rico, that tiny island could win her the nomination. personally, i cannot wait for march 4th, or for whenever this is finally over. this election, all this political coverage in the news, all these debates, it is a national nightmare for us to have so much politics for so long. i am really starting to get sick of this. why not just have an election with instant runoff voting and national popular vote tomorrow, and have the new president sworn into office the day after tomorrow? goodbye george bush jr., or dumbya, or shrubya, or whatever you’re called. george w. bush’s grandpa prescott was a supporter of adolf hitler during world war ii. dumbya’s a real chip off the old block, supporting asshole dictators like pervez musharraf in pakistan, you know, the dude whose country is now a safe haven for al qaeda, the country where osama bin laden is living in peace and security. pakistan just had elections and pervez musharraf’s party lost badly; his party got beaten by a party led by a dead woman! if a dead person is able to beat you at something, you know you are a loser. we need to ditch this musharraf jerk and tell him we want to start seeing other leaders. like the leaders of the new nation kosovo! kosovo might be a majority muslim nation, but they are pro-american, since we liberated them from oppressive serbia, whose dictator slobodan milosevic was committing genocide against them. the evil russians are supporting the evil serbs, as always, because russian leader vladimir putin is just like previous leaders of russia ending in “-in”: rasputin, lenin, stalin, and yeltsin. we americans just shot down one of our own satellites. why? to practice shooting down satellites, in case we want to take down some belonging to another country in the future. you know, a country like russia. a country that bullies its neighbors and helps genocidal regimes like the government of sudan escape punishment for war crimes in darfur. a country that murders any journalists who dare question the government. russia is not a democracy, and their behavior over the situation in kosovo is just one of many examples of how that nation is led by evil people such as vladimir putin. russia poisoned viktor yushchenko, president of ukraine, with dioxin. russian agents poisoned a dissident living in exile in england, alexander litvinenko, with polonium-210. these are just a few out of many examples of the evils in russia’s current corrupt, totalitarian government, led by ex-kgb spies who hate the united states. russia claims to be opposed to breakaway factions that want to split up nations as a principle they believe in: they believe in this with regard to both russia itself and with regard to their close ally serbia. but what about the pro-american former soviet republic georgia? the russians are supporting separatist movements inside the former soviet republic of georgia to try to destroy the country of georgia. this shows how the russian government has no principles, and how the cold war is not really over yet. but anyway, we do not really need any more wars, we need peace. we do not need a president like hillary clinton or john mccain who voted for war in iraq, who voted in favor of using land mines and cluster bombs against civilians. we need barack obama. and luckily for us, he is going to win, and lead us in the direction of peace, not war. that is not to say he is a pacifist. he knows pervez musharraf is a two-timing whore and would not hesitate to drop bombs in pakistan without the pakistani government agreeing, in order to kill osama bin laden once and for all. a while back, the cia found out where the #2 guy in al qaeda was hiding in pakistan, and asked for permission from the pakistani government to bomb. the pakistani government leaked this information to al qaeda, and the #2 guy fled from where he was and hid somewhere safer. and then the pakistani government gave us permission to bomb the place where the #2 guy in al qaeda had previously been hiding, after trucking in some innocent civilians to take his place to make the united states look bad. and then we ended up looking like idiots. all because the pakistani government is thoroughly infiltrated with al qaeda operatives. we should never ask permission from the pakistanis for any actions taken against al qaeda, because then al qaeda will know in advance what we are planning to do. and barack obama understands that. but he is not some war hawk who would recklessly go into war in pakistan. he would plan things carefully and actually have an exit strategy! how amazing! who ever heard of an exit strategy before? john mccain promises 100 years more war in iraq. what a horrible idea! that idea should go down in flames along with john mccain’s chances for winning the white house in november. as for hillary clinton... the end of the road for her is likely to be on march 4th. and if she did somehow manage to win the nomination based on a big win in texas... that’s the kind of thing that would make the 2 george bushes proud. “it was our state that stopped that awful black guy everyone loved from winning the white house! we kept the white house white! don’t mess with texas!” george w. bush has proven that speechifying skills are misoverestimated when it comes to winnifying the white house. even someone with severe language deficiencies can become president, even a mentally handicapped person like george bush junior. so can barack obama’s rhetorical skills at giving speeches really win him the white house? or do americans prefer a president who is obviously dumber than they are, thinking that it makes them look smart by comparison? actually, having a retard as president makes the entire nation look like a special ed class, since the american people were dumb enough to vote for him! hopefully the next president will not be some spoiled brat troublemaker whose daddy was in charge of the entire vietnam war (which we lost), who got a ton of demerits at the naval academy but received special treatment because of his daddy, who successfully intercepted a surface-to-air missile with the plane he was flying over vietnam, who spent years being brainwashed by vietnamese communists, and who suddenly became interested in ethics in government after being implicated for “questionable conduct” in the keating 5 scandal. if it was okay to go after john kerry for being a war hero in vietnam, it is even better this time around going after john mccain for the same thing. what goes around comes around... you can call it karma, if you believe in that sort of thing. anyway, john mccain, or as i just decided to call him, george bush the third, is going down. big time. and his best friend in the whole wide world joey lieberman from connecticut will also be going down, although that does not happen until 2012, unfortunately. since barack obama won connecticut on super tuesday, this shows that connecticut is in a “throw the bums out” mood and wants some real “change”. and conservatives in arizona do not really like john mccain much, either. john mccain might lose re-election to the senate the next time around, after losing this presidential election. he could face a very strong conservative challenger in the republican primary for the arizona senate seat, you know, someone who actually opposes illegal immigration instead of endorsing amnesty like ronald reagan did. anyway, the elections look to turn out very well this year, and i cannot wait until they are all over and we have won everything! then we will have 2 out of 3 branches of the federal government, and will have to wait for the supreme court members to die off, since 7 out of 9 members of the supreme court are republicans, and 4 of those 7 republicans are ultra-right-wing while the other 3 republicans on the supreme court are “moderates”. i hope the next president will nominate judges to the supreme court in the model of ruth bader ginsburg, a liberal feminist from the aclu, rather than reich-wing political hacks like antonin scalia, clarence thomas, john roberts, and samuel alito. if only all 9 judges on the supreme court were liberals from the aclu... then we might actually have some balance of power among the 3 branches of government, some limits on executive power, and a government that actually protects individual liberty against government and corporate encroachment upon our deeply cherished freedoms. the aclu is not all liberals; they include former conservative republican congressman bob barr, for instance. anyway, my point is, the conservative republican domination over all 3 branches of the federal government ended in january 2007 after the results of the november 2006 congressional elections, and liberal democrats are poised to make an even bigger comeback by electing the most liberal member of the united states senate to be president of the united states, and then we can pack the court with liberals over the years, as all the old supreme court justices die off or retire. if we fail to win the white house in november, our nation will be ruined, even worse than it already has been over the last 7 years. there is no room for failure. we have no choice but to succeed. if we do not do it, our nation is doomed to end up like russia, a third-rate former superpower that still has nukes but is ruled by corrupt murderous thugs, with a fake rigged democracy, a media that is nothing but pro-government propaganda, a lousy and highly unequal economy where most people are poor except for a few billionaire oligarchs, and a foreign policy that supports genocidal regimes. oh wait... we already are like russia, in all of those ways i just listed! that is why we need someone like barack obama to save us! and guess what? he will, with our help. YES WE CAN!

some recommended reading

here are some things to read in order to understand why barack obama is beating hillary clinton, and how bad the situation has gotten for her campaign.

1) inside the clinton shake-up, by joshua green, at theatlantic.com - this first article goes in detail about how the clinton campaign has been mismanaged and how people at the top were selected for being loyal or being people hillary knew for a long time rather than for merit or qualifications (very similar to how president bush operates)

2) is it too late for hillary?, by karen tumulty, at time.com - this second article talks about all of the infighting inside the hillary clinton campaign and how the campaign never really had a coherent winning strategy, and were basically disorganized and lacked any leadership

3) howard's end, by josh marshall, at talkingpointsmemo.com - this third article is about a tv appearance by pundit howard fineman and an analysis he did that says that it is almost impossible for hillary clinton to win the pledged delegates now, and it has a youtube video of this, and also links to a discussion thread where people comment in more detail on how hillary clinton is doomed

4) rasmussen daily presidential tracking poll, at rasmussenreports.com - according to the latest poll, done on february 14, 2008, barack obama has the support of 49% of likely democratic primary voters, compared to 37% for hillary clinton. obama would beat mccain 46% to 42% in a general election, while mccain would beat clinton 48% to 41% in a general election. among likely voters nationwide, obama is viewed favorably by 55% and unfavorably by 43%, mccain is viewed favorably by 50% and unfavorably by 47%, and clinton is viewed favorably by 44% and unfavorably by 53%.

so if you look at those 4 links you can see pretty clearly what is wrong with the hillary clinton campaign, how she completely screwed up an election she was supposed to win very easily, and how now she has almost no chance of winning because the people in her campaign have screwed things up so badly with their mismanagement. and if she cannot even manage the relatively small group of people who are in charge of a campaign, how on earth could she manage the entire federal government? she did not demand accountability from those working for her in the campaign until it was too late and the damage was already done. sure, hillary clinton did not know about the money problems that former campaign manager patti solis doyle was dishonestly hiding from her. but hillary clinton put her blind trust in patti solis doyle, and turned out to be a bad judge of character. if you remember, back in the 1990s, hillary clinton insisted that bill clinton hire dick morris as a top political advisor. dick morris was already known to be a staunch republican political operative with very shaky morals, a machiavellian karl-rove-type character with no loyalty to anyone. hillary clinton convinced her husband bill clinton to hire dick morris, who ended up running the successful 1996 re-election campaign against bob dole. but at what cost? dick morris invented “triangulation”, the technique both clintons have used to stab liberals in the back in order to appeal to centrists and even conservatives in general elections. triangulation is a fundamental betrayal of the principles true democrats believe in, and it is capitulation to republican demands before the battle even starts. some examples? the v-chip bill clinton had put into television sets. bill clinton signing into law the “welfare reform” bill of the republicans and then pretending the whole thing was his idea in the first place. hillary clinton, as senator, voting in favor of a constitutional amendment to ban flag-burning. hillary clinton giving some doublespeak on the issue of abortion, paying lip service to abortion opponents without changing her position in favor of abortion. triangulation does not work, because it alienates your party’s base, and then there will be nobody left to support you in a primary. triangulation only worked for bill clinton because when a president is up for re-election, there are never any credible primary challengers, and only the general election matters. but it was hillary clinton who originally had dick morris hired, and he has made a career out of clinton-bashing since 1997, a year after bill clinton fired him for having sex with prostitutes. and remember that hillary clinton said she believed bill clinton when he said he did not have sexual relations with monica lewinsky. she was the only person in the entire country who believed bill clinton. the point is, hillary clinton is not a good judge of character and cannot tell when people are lying or telling the truth, and this makes her bad at managing people. she blindly puts her trust into people who do not deserve it, and suffers negative consequences, yet never seems to learn from this, no matter how many times it happens to her. and that is why her campaign is doing so badly. and do not forget that george w. bush has this same problem, and it is why his administration has been full of incompetent cronies and lackeys that he gives his complete support to, no matter how badly they screw things up. of course john mccain also was surrounded by incompetents, but he fired them all last summer and replaced them with more competent people. barack obama does not seem to have had any problems in this regard. several months ago, a few of his staffers did a ridiculous hit piece on hillary clinton, and as soon as he found out, barack obama put a stop to it and told them to never make another hit piece again. and they stopped. he seems to actually have control over his campaign, which is why he is winning. if hillary clinton were actually in charge of her own campaign in a hands-on way instead of delegating everything to incompetent hacks, she could have easily won the democratic nomination by now. barack obama is winning mainly because of the dysfunctional chaotic nature of the clinton campaign. former president clinton repeatedly spouting nonsense that gets his wife in trouble in the press is only a symptom of this problem, not the root cause. the root cause: nobody is really in charge of hillary clinton’s campaign, and everyone inside the campaign is fighting with each other and doing different things without any centrally coordinated strategy.

obama finally #1 in total delegate count

in the above image, states barack obama won are in red (since he does better in red states), and states hillary clinton won are in blue (since she does better in blue states), while states that neither has won are white. michigan and florida are light blue because they do not count and have 0 delegates to the convention. so anyway, barack obama now has 8 victories in a row (if you count the virgin islands that do not get to vote in november). he won 5 contests over the weekend and 3 more within the last 24 hours. and how many contests has hillary clinton won in that same time period? zero. that’s gotta hurt. barack obama is getting to be about as unbeatable as the new england patriots were prior to the super bowl, after their long winning streak (and he supported that team, too). hillary clinton has about the same chances for victory as the new york giants did (the team she supported). can she follow the lead of the new york giants and somehow manage to win? only jesus knows. and jesus supports mike huckabee. speaking of mike huckabee, his supporter jesus was not very helpful in the 3 primaries that just happened in virginia, maryland, and washington, d.c. john mccain won all 3. so here is the republican map, with john mccain blue, mike huckabee red, and mitt romney purple:



guess who is winning? john mccain, duh. john mccain is already the republican nominee; mike huckabee and ron paul are just in denial. so since the republican race is over, who cares about it anymore? what is interesting is how barack obama now finally is ahead of hillary clinton in total delegates, including all the superdelegates who have indicated which candidate they support. for a while now, he has been in the lead among pledged delegates (you know, the ones actually elected by we the people) but behind in total delegates due to hillary clinton winning about 2/3 of the superdelegates who have chosen a candidate so far. but now, he has gotten far enough ahead of hillary clinton in pledged delegates that it more than makes up for him having less superdelegates, so he is ahead in delegates. period. and he is way ahead when it comes to the number of states he has won. he has won twice as many: he has won 22 and she has won 11 (if you include washington, d.c. which also counts in november, and if you exclude michigan and florida because they both get zero delegates to the democratic convention). twice as many. and now hillary clinton is losing more top people from her campaign: first her campaign manager patti solis doyle, and now her deputy campaign manager mike henry. and she had to loan $5 million from a joint bank account she shares with her ex-president husband to her campaign to keep it afloat prior to super tuesday. and her top campaign staff agreed to go 1 month without being paid, to save her campaign money. barack obama raised 2 and a half times as much money as her in january. and if you look at the polls, just back in december, hillary was way ahead of barack obama, but she has steadily declined and he has steadily gone up, and now we are at the point where he is slightly ahead of her in the polls nationally. those trends show no sign of stopping. and barack obama would do much better against john mccain in a general election than hillary clinton would, according to the polls. so, the question for democrats is this: do you want to win in november? if you do, there is only 1 choice: barack obama. to win in november, you need not only your own party faithful, but independent voters, and we have seen how independent voters love barack obama but can’t stand hillary clinton. now on the internet, many republican “trolls” like to try and instigate trouble between hillary clinton and barack obama by posting in online message boards and comment threads, posing as supporters of one candidate and trashing the other viciously. they also often say things like how they have been in the democratic party for many decades but they are so put off by one of the 2 democratic candidates’ online supporters that if that candidate wins, they will vote for john mccain instead. or they say things like how they are a member of this or that minority group (asian, hispanic, native american, etc.) and that they and everyone else in their minority group does not want to elect a black man like barack obama. or they say that the idea of a woman president is a joke. anyway, maybe the person who said they were a democrat for several decades who was considering voting for mccain was not a republican troll, but actually a victim of the republican trolls. you see, by viciously insulting one of the democratic candidates, and pretending to be a supporter of the other candidate, they are able to alienate supporters of the candidate who is insulted, and get them to say things like how they would never support the candidate whose supporters say such vicious things online. on many websites, there are actually ways to find out that someone really is a republican troll posing as a democrat. like on youtube, this one guy who was trashing barack obama who claimed to have voted for hillary clinton, if you go to his profile (or rather, his channel page), you see that his favorites are full of pro-mitt romney stuff, and #1 on his list of subscriptions is the one to the mitt romney campaign videos. and this mitt romney supporter was going around bashing obama and claiming to support hillary, in the comment thread to a video about obama! this type of thing happens all the time on the internet. and as democrats, we should not assume that someone really supports a particular democratic candidate just because they claim they do, because if all they do is trash other democrats, it really makes you wonder. as for people like rush limbaugh and ann coulter and the rest of them trashing john mccain, we do know for sure that those people really are republicans, because they are public figures and we in the public know all about them. so, while many republicans hate their nominee john mccain, i think the vast majority of democrats would be satisfied with either clinton or obama... at least satisfied enough to vote for them in november, despite maybe being disappointed that their favorite candidate did not win. i know i would be satisfied with either one of the democrats... i just like one better than the other. if someone is viciously trashing clinton or obama, and/or threatening to vote for mccain or some third-party candidate if their favorite candidate does not win, this person is not a democrat, and no democrat should listen to them since they are most likely a republican troll on a mission to cause strife among the democrats. i mean, what else do conservative republicans have to do, other than go online and pretend to be democrats and cause trouble? they hate their nominee mccain. they probably have plenty of time on their hands. and they love doing dirty tricks to win elections by any means necessary. so, anyway, there is a stark difference between democrats and republicans, and we will see that in the general election between john mccain and whoever us democrats pick. and anyone who does not vote for their party’s nominee must not really agree with their party on the issues, because if they really cared about the issues, they would vote for whoever is closest to them on the issues. you know: democrats want to keep abortion legal, republicans want it outlawed; democrats want to end the war in iraq, republicans want it to go on another 100 years; democrats believe in scientific theories like evolution and global warming, republicans believe every word of the bible is literally true; democrats want a balanced budget and have adopted pay-as-you-go rules in congress to help achieve this goal, republicans want endless tax cuts to bankrupt our government. there are huge differences between the 2 parties, and only extremist loonies deny this. and if someone is indecisive between the 2 sides, well they must not have been paying any attention during the last 7 years of having dumbya as president. anyway, barack obama looks like he will continue to win more states and more delegates than hillary clinton, and win the nomination. and if anybody has a problem with the idea of him as president and thinks john mccain might be better, just consider: was george w. bush a good president? and how would john mccain be any different from bush? the same goes if hillary clinton is the nominee: how could she possibly be worse than john mccain, who basically agrees with president bush on everything? john mccain = 4 more years of george w. bush. even on issues where mccain goes against conservative dogma, he agrees with president dumbya. illegal immigration? they both supported the same proposal that conservatives called “amnesty”. campaign finance reform? bush signed the bill mccain wrote into law. john mccain was the earliest, most outspoken supporter of bush’s troop “surge” in iraq. it is hard to find anything that george w. bush and john mccain do not agree on. even “torture”. john mccain has been a vocal opponent of torture. george w. bush says “we do not torture”. they both claim to be against torture. what is the difference? none, at least as far as their publicly stated positions. my point is, there is virtually no difference between john mccain and george w. bush. so conservative talk radio show hosts and pundits who condemn john mccain are basically condemning george w. bush, since bush and mccain have all the same policies. if their republican nominee is not “conservative” enough for them, that is their own fault, for not supporting the most conservative candidates early enough and strongly enough. but people like rush limbaugh and ann coulter need to realize they were the ones who created this mess. they supported bush, who has all the same policies as mccain. and now they condemn mccain for writing all these laws that bush signed into law, after they supported bush all these years! talk about hypocrisy! hopefully the democrats will be above such foolishness once a nominee is chosen, and not have a bunch of traitors who turn against the party just because their favorite person was not chosen to be #1. we do not need any more zell millers or joe liebermans. i bet joe lieberman will give a speech at the republican convention in 2008, just like zell miller did in 2004. they are just as traitorous to the democrats as rush limbaugh, ann coulter, etc. are to the republicans. and if someone is a traitor to their party, it just shows that either they do not care one iota about any of the issues, or they were in the wrong party to begin with. zell miller and joe lieberman were probably in the wrong party to begin with, and are both so conservative, they should have both just been republicans all along. rush limbaugh and ann coulter are just doing this for publicity so they make more money, and they have no loyalty to anyone, and no morals whatsoever, and do not really care about any issues except for the issue of how much money they make. neither of them is welcome in the democratic party, no matter how much they campaign for hillary clinton. they ought to both become recluses, go into hiding, and never be seen or heard from again. i am sure the majority of democrats as well as the majority of republicans would probably agree that rush limbaugh and ann coulter need to go away and never come back. for years, they have both fought relentlessly against democrats, against liberalism, against science, and against rationality, and presented their conservative republican point of view in a very unflattering way that makes conservatives and republicans look bad. and now they have gone into open revolt against their own republican party and pledged to campaign for and vote for hillary clinton if she is the nominee. the guy they supported, mitt romney, was a complete liar and fraud just like both of them, who had flip-flopped on all the major issues just to get elected, which must be why they supported him. and now they are stabbing the republicans in the back when the republican party needs them most, in a most foul and cruel betrayal. i would like to thank them for that, by the way: they are really helping the democrats. but i still hate their guts. i suppose having jackasses like them spout their mouths off in public all the time with no “off” switch is the price we pay for living in a free society, and it is better than the alternative where no dissent is tolerated. so i suppose we should all learn to put up with people like them, since even if those 2 went away, there would be plenty more jackasses spouting ridiculous nonsense to sway public opinion in an illogical direction. but anyway, back to the main point: barack obama has now had 8 victories in a row. how long can he continue this winning streak? and can hillary clinton really win in both texas and ohio, like she needs to do if she wants to beat barack obama? even if she does win both states, close margins could mean that she and barack obama both get a similar number of delegates from both of those large states. since democratic primaries and caucuses are not winner-take-all, her strategy of focusing on large states does not make much sense. what should hillary clinton do next to get her campaign back on track? fire chief strategist mark penn. the p.r. firm he runs represents blackwater (the bloodthirsty mercenaries in iraq who are above the law), countrywide (the biggest lender of subprime mortgages that are responsible for the current recession), and many other “bad guys”. mark penn is a bad person, just like dick morris. hillary clinton should not consort with such hooligans; they are just like karl rove. just look at how dick morris has betrayed the clintons; how do we know mark penn is any more trustworthy? neither of them has any morals, and it was just as wrong for hillary clinton to insist that her husband hire dick morris as it is wrong for her to have mark penn as chief political strategist right now. mark penn will probably end up betraying her in the end; he is only in it for the money. he is the one hillary clinton should have fired, not the campaign manager and deputy campaign manager. her recent losing streak of 8 losses in a row is probably mark penn’s fault, since he is chief political strategist yet he has failed utterly at his job and proven himself to be incompetent. and look at what the public thinks of his p.r. firm’s clients blackwater and countrywide: nobody likes his clients, so obviously his firm has failed miserably in public relations for those clients. maybe if hillary clinton loses the contest for the democratic nomination, mark penn’s career will be over. we can only hope.

guess who’s winning (hint: it’s ☻♂, not ☺♀)

in that map, the states that are red were won by barack obama in democratic primaries or caucuses, the states that are blue were won by hillary clinton, and the white states have not voted yet. the dark blue states are ones that actually count for hillary clinton, and the 2 light blue states (florida and michigan) do not count, according to rules that the democratic national committee and all of the candidates agreed to. so, out of the contests that count, barack obama won 19 out of the 30 that happened so far, and hillary clinton won 11 out of 30. and 3 of the contests (louisiana, nebraska, and washington) were on saturday and one was today, sunday. out of the 4 that happened in the last 2 days, how many did barack obama win? 4 out of 4! meanwhile, not only do we know that hillary clinton has loaned $5 million to her campaign (like loser mitt romney) and her top campaign staff agreed to go 1 month without being paid to save the campaign money (like loser rudy giuliani), but we also know that she just fired her campaign manager patti solis doyle (who is technically still going to be a senior advisor to the campaign). and who is the new campaign manager for hillary rodham clinton? maggie williams, a longtime advisor to hillary clinton who was chief of staff to hillary clinton when she was first lady. in other words, hillary’s campaign is now being managed by someone she has been close to for many years, but who has never managed a political campaign before. ever. the latest news does not look very good for hillary clinton, but she could still win. however, i think it would all be for the best if barack obama continues to win the most states and the most pledged delegates, and then maybe the not so superdelegates would come around and quit being such spoilers. and then maybe howard dean could get the democratic national committee to change the rules so we never have unelected party insider superdelegates again, and we never have rules that say certain states do not count again, as happened in florida and michigan. every state should count, and superdelegates should not exist. but even without such a system, it still looks as though barack obama has the advantage, for now. on tuesday, there are 3 more primaries: virginia, maryland, and the district of columbia. barack obama is going to win by such a huge margin in d.c. it won’t even be funny. and he will probably win in maryland and virginia by pretty large margins too, unless the bradley effect is playing a major role in distorting the opinion polls coming out of those states, as happened in new hampshire. a week from tuesday there will be 2 more contests for hillary clinton and barack obama: hawaii and wisconsin. and who will win wisconsin and hawaii? nobody has done any polling in either state recently, so nobody has any idea. after that there are even more states, and the biggest one is texas, which votes on march 4 along with ohio, rhode island, and vermont. maybe on march 4 we will finally have a winner decided! we can only hope... or maybe a long, drawn-out contest would get more people interested in the political process and voting, and create more excitement for the democrats in november. whoever wins the democratic nomination ought to pick the runner-up as their running mate, giving us either an obama-clinton or a clinton-obama ticket. that is what we need to unify the party after this is over. picking anyone else as running mate would be an insult to everyone who voted for the 2nd place finisher in the primaries and caucuses. with a unified ticket, the “fairy tale” would have a happy ending: either ☻♂☺♀ or ☺♀☻♂ defeating the same old republican ticket of ☹♂☹♂ in november. and we will win despite having our candidates accused of being ☪ or ☭, and the next president will bring us ☮. in the meantime, it is winter, so go build a ☃.

oh, and here is a republican map, with john mccain blue, mike huckabee red, and mitt romney purple, since john mccain mostly wins blue states, mike huckabee mostly wins red states, and mitt romney is a completely dishonest politician who pretended to be liberal for years and then pretended to be conservative to run for president, so mitt romney is neither blue nor red, but purple:

some women who have led countries

if you are wondering what would happen if hillary clinton were president, one way to help predict it would be to look at what happened when other women led other countries. here are some examples of women who have led countries, and you can see for yourself how things turned out by reading the articles about them:

benazir bhutto, former prime minister of pakistan

catherine the great, former empress of russia

elizabeth i, former queen of england and ireland

indira gandhi, former prime minister of india

gloria macapagal-arroyo, current president of the phillippines

golda meir, former prime minister of israel

angela merkel, current chancellor of germany

megawati sukarnoputri, former president of indonesia

margaret thatcher, former prime minister of the united kingdom of great britain and northern ireland

yulia tymoshenko, current prime minister of ukraine

a few things to note

mitt romney dropped out of the race and now john mccain has sealed the deal as republican nominee for president. mike huckabee and ron paul are both still officially in the race, but are so far behind in delegates and in the polls, they have no chance. in his concession speech in front of the c.p.a.c. (conservative political action conference) he was a douchebag and said democrats would surrender in the war on terror. the crazy assholes who make up the c.p.a.c. audience booed when mitt romney said he was dropping out of the race, and they also booed john mccain when he gave a speech (especially when john mccain talked about immigration), and they booed a speech by ron paul when ron paul talked about how the war in iraq was unjustified and there were no weapons of mass destruction. but the c.p.a.c. extremists loved george w. bush when he came there to give a speech, and actually chanted “4 more years” when he took the stage, essentially showing that they preferred the current president to any of the people now running for president to replace him, and would be willing to destroy the constitution to keep him in office if that were possible. this is despite fresh news that bush’s poll numbers are now the lowest they have ever been. these true believers are like brainwashed cultists, and are very sad and pathetic.

in other news, some people are accusing barack obama supporters of being like brainwashed cultists, too. like people at abc news, time magazine, and even a barack obama supporter at the la times. you want me to clear up this mystery of why some people act so nutty about barack obama? it is because he inspires people so much and they like him so much, they are willing to do anything to get him elected, but are confused about what if anything they can do, and feel slightly helpless since they are just 1 person in a country of 300 million people, so they find themselves mindlessly repeating campaign slogans he uses since they are so overcome with emotion they can no longer think straight. now, barack obama is definitely the most electable democrat, according to cnn. republican pundit peggy noonan agrees wholeheartedly, in an analysis everyone should read. however, i do have to warn you not to trust peggy noonan, because she is a right-wing republican partisan hack, and it is unclear what her motivations are, although her analysis in that particular article does seem to be 100% spot-on, which is very rare for her. so, please do remember to think for yourself and not just accept something as true because i say it or peggy noonan or someone else says it, and do your own research. anyway, rush limbaugh is now saying that he will campaign for hillary clinton, just like how ann coulter said she would vote for hillary clinton. cnn headline news host glenn beck, whose career started in talk radio, is also onboard the right-wing-pundits-for-hillary bandwagon. all of these right-wing pundits for hillary are people who supported mitt romney and are so pissed off that he lost that they have all completely lost their marbles. of course mitt romney was a flip-flopping wealthy massachusetts politician who had no core beliefs and kept changing his opinions on all the most important issues in order to please whatever constituencies would be voting next.

so okay, what else? oh yeah, hillary clinton loaned $5 million of her own money to her campaign, just like how mitt romney gave so many millions of his own money to his own campaign. she claims her campaign has already repaid that loan now... whatever. and many of her top campaign staffers are going without pay for 1 month in order to save her campaign money... that is what rudy giuliani had his campaign staffers do, right before he lost big time in florida and had to drop out of the race. bill clinton continues to make an ass of himself in public. hillary clinton is demanding a lot more debates with barack obama, but he was only willing to fit 2 more debates into his schedule, claiming he needed to have more events in states with upcoming contests so the people there could get to know him. and one of those 2 debates was scheduled to be on msnbc. but some asshole at msnbc named david shuster said that the clinton campaign was pimping out chelsea clinton, and now the clinton campaign has condemned msnbc and refuses to take part in any debates on that channel, and the clintons are completely boycotting msnbc, and probably nbc news as well. so this means there is now just 1 debate between clinton and obama scheduled for the time being. basically, cnn is thought of as the “clinton news network” by many people, and many people also consider msnbc to be the obama channel. fox news was the giuliani channel for a while, but now they will probably try to unite conservatives around john mccain. but anyway, hillary clinton and barack obama are almost tied when it comes to delegates. and both candidates have plenty of advantages and disadvantages. recently some in the hillary clinton campaign have started claiming that barack obama is the establishment candidate. i suggest a definition of establishment candidate: whomever has the support of the most superdelegates. since hillary clinton has the support of twice as many superdelegates as barack obama, it is obvious that she is the establishment candidates, since superdelegates ARE the democratic party establishment. now many of hillary clinton’s supporters have maxed out the amount of money they can contribute, thanks to the contribution limits of the mccain-feingold campaign finance reform law that is now on the books. but barack obama has a much larger number of contributors; unfortunately most of them do not contribute that much money. barack obama might seem to be “teflon” but he does have a potential achilles heel: tony rezko. of course, hillary clinton has a similar problem: norman hsu.

in other news, a barack obama supporter known simply as “obama girl” has gone into pakistan’s western tribal region and assassinated al qaeda’s #1 terrorist mastermind osama bin laden, because his name “osama” sounds too much like “obama”:



however, “obama girl” got sick when she was in pakistan killing osama bin laden, and was unable to vote in her native new jersey on super tuesday, thus handing victory in new jersey’s primary to hillary clinton. “obama girl” was in arizona on super tuesday, either to celebrate the super bowl that happened on sunday or to celebrate arizona senator john mccain’s historic run for the white house. and to think... just recently, on january 31, it was revealed that “obama girl” is now a superhero, “super obama girl”:



and don’t forget it was “obama girl” who defeated rudy giuliani:



i still think “obama girl” could win this election for us in november. she just needs to move to florida so her vote can be the 1 that decides the outcome of the election in the biggest swing state. remember how bill clinton smoked pot but did not inhale and how george w. bush did cocaine in his youth? well now it is time to get high with barack obama on the david letterman show:



but what about hillary clinton? turns out she hates white people:



also she farts:



and john mccain has some interesting dreams when he is asleep during state of the union speeches:



now if you really want to see barack obama show off what he learned as a young islamic fundamentalist in indonesia, just look at this video showing how he was also a bollywood star in india:



and to think... tonight on cnn, anderson cooper was talking about how asian-americans, just like latinos, overwhelmingly support hillary clinton over barack obama. what will people think when they find out that barack obama is not black, but is actually an asian bollywood star from india? also, john mccain is not white, he is arab and a member of the saudi royal family, as well as an al qaeda operative sent to destroy america from the inside out. and hillary clinton is an eskimo who grew up in an igloo and has a diet consisting of nothing but polar bears. and all 3 of them are secretly members of the council on foreign relations, the communist party, nambla, the flat earth society, and the church of the subgenius. but don’t take my word for it. research these facts yourself, instead of just believing anything you read in a blog or in a chain email. or don’t. whatever. it’s up to you. just don’t pay attention to what ann coulter said at the conservative political action conference after showing up uninvited, because it will make a blood vessel burst inside your brain.

super tuesday results

ok so john mccain won big on super tuesday and all of the other republicans have basically been defeated, since mike huckabee won more states on super tuesday than mitt romney, while john mccain won all the big winner-take-all states and got a huge gigantic lead in delegates that is basically insurmountable. but what about the democratic race? well, barack obama won more states than hillary clinton on super tuesday. the only state that hasn’t been officially called for either of them is new mexico, but since barack obama is ahead 49% to 48% and 92% of the results are in, i will just assume for the time being that he gets new mexico. and i will go ahead and give michigan and florida to hillary clinton even though those contests didn’t count and hillary was the only major candidate on the ballot in michigan and nobody was allowed to campaign in either of those 2 states. and then suppose i made a map showing who won which states, and colored in barack obama red and hillary clinton blue. it would look something like this:



now compare it to the results of the 2004 general election, with george w. bush as red and john kerry as blue:



and then look at the results from 2000, with george w. bush as red and al gore as blue (florida is white because we will never really know the truth about what happened there):



do you notice any patterns in these maps of red and blue states? okay, check this out:

the following states were red in all three maps: alaska, alabama, colorado, georgia, idaho, kansas, missouri, north dakota, south carolina, and utah. that means george w. bush won them in the 2000 and 2004 general elections, and barack obama won the 2008 democratic primaries in those states. there were also 2 states that al gore won in 2000 but george w. bush won in 2004: iowa and new mexico. both of those also went to barack obama. this shows barack obama has a very good chance at winning back at least some of these red states if he is the democratic nominee in the general election for president of the united states.

the following states were blue in all three maps: california, massachusetts, michigan, new jersey, and new york. these states voted for the democratic candidate in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, and voted for hillary clinton in the 2008 democratic primary. this shows that hillary clinton has strong support in states that the democrats are going to win no matter what, states that are democratic strongholds that will not be contested in november. hillary clinton also won in new hampshire, the only state that shifted from red to blue between 2000 and 2004, a state that was once republican but is now increasingly democratic just like all its neighbors in new england.

so what other states do not fit the pattern? hillary clinton beat barack obama in a few red states: arkansas, arizona, florida, oklahoma, nevada, and tennessee. but that is nowhere near the number of red states where barack obama beat hillary clinton. obama beat clinton in 12 of the states george w. bush won in 2004, and clinton beat obama in just 6 of them. and barack obama has won a few blue states, proving that he can actually win among real democrats. his blue states include connecticut, delaware, illinois, and minnesota, all of which are staunchly democratic. so he won 4 staunchly democratic states so far and hillary clinton has won 5 so far. but the ones hillary clinton won have much bigger populations: california and new york in particular. but connecticut is the state that elected joe lieberman, so it is not completely democratic. delaware is right next to the south, and illinois and minnesota both border some red states. in other words, people in those blue states are more likely to interact with conservative republicans on a regular basis, since they are in the general area. that contrasts with states like new york and massachusetts that hillary won, where even the republican politicians are all liberals.

so what is the point of all this? well, in november 2008, we will elect a president using the electoral college, and electoral votes will count, not the popular vote. this means winning swing states, holding onto your party’s stronghold states, and maybe even winning in a few states that nobody thought you could win in, states that used to always vote for the other party’s candidate. right now according to the polls, barack obama would beat john mccain in a general election, but hillary clinton would lose to john mccain. i think people need to really think about the electoral college and the idea of maybe picking up some states that we have not won in recent history. a number of so-called “red states” that voted for george w. bush in both 2000 and 2004 are not really all that conservative. the following “red states” actually voted for bill clinton in both 1992 and 1996: arkansas, kentucky, louisiana, missouri, nevada, tennessee, and west virginia. and bill clinton won these other red states in one of those 2 elections: arizona, colorado, florida, georgia, and montana. there are plenty of other red states that have not been won by a democratic presidential candidate in many, many years: alabama, alaska, idaho, indiana, kansas, mississippi, nebraska, north carolina, north dakota, oklahoma, south carolina, south dakota, texas, utah, virginia, and wyoming. if barack obama is the nominee, he has a good chance to actually pick up some of those states that democrats have not won electoral votes from in many, many years. why do you think democrats in states such as idaho, kansas, and alaska voted so overwhelmingly in favor of him and against hillary clinton on super tuesday? it is because they know he has a better chance of winning! they are surrounded by republicans, they know how much republicans hate hillary clinton, and they know it would be much better to have an inspirational candidate that actually attracts people rather than a divisive candidate everyone already hates.

so what is my point? if you live in a state that has not voted yet, please vote in your democratic primary or caucus for barack obama, since he has a much better chance at winning in the general election than hillary clinton if she is the nominee. there is no possible counter-argument to this electability argument in favor of barack obama. it is impossible to make any sort of convincing case that hillary clinton is more electable, using logic and statistics and poll numbers and such things, because all of the numbers, all of the indicators point to the fact that barack obama is far more electable. and not only could he win big, but he could help other candidates running for office as democrats win, by attracting more people into voting for democrats. this would mean more democrats in the house of representatives, the u.s. senate, more democratic governors, more democratic state legislators, more democratic mayors... we could revitalize the democratic party in all of those states where it is near-dead after years of republican one-party rule in those states! barack obama has consistently taken the high road and not trashed his democratic opponents, instead focusing his attacks on republicans. hillary clinton, on the other hand, has used surrogates like her husband bill clinton to make dirty attacks on barack obama that seem like something karl rove or dick nixon would do, with complete disregard to the fact that this hurts the democratic party and might help elect a republican president this november. we ought to elect a candidate who cares more about electing leaders who are right on the issues that matter, who are from the same party as us, than someone so caught up in personal ambitions that they are willing to ruin things for their own party if they don’t get to be the nominee. it is really important that the democrats win, and i do not want the clintons or anyone else to screw this up for us. so if hillary clinton is the nominee, she had better not screw up this election, and she had better win. but it would be a lot easier for barack obama to win in november than her. and in the end, that is what matters, because that is what will end the war in iraq and bring us universal healthcare and solve many other problems as well, and all the democratic candidates agree on most of those things. barack obama is better on issues of foreign policy, since he believes in diplomacy and does not believe in war, and does not want us using cluster bombs or land mines against innocent civilians. i have to admit, hillary clinton is probably a bit better on issues of healthcare. and although barack obama has spent plenty more years than hillary clinton in elected public office (mostly in his state senate), hillary clinton has spent more years in the national spotlight, and people know all about her, both good and bad. perhaps that is why so many people do not like her, because we focus on the few bad things and ignore the many good things. regardless, we ought to have a candidate who is very likely to win, and who will govern our nation wisely, rather than continuing the policies of the bush administration. and so, it is crystal clear whom we ought to be voting for in these primaries and caucuses. and as for the republicans, they are an interesting sideshow, but not the main attraction, and hopefully none of those clowns will get anywhere near the white house. perhaps hillary clinton would also have a good chance in the electoral college: florida is full of old white women, and that could tip the balance in hillary’s favor if she is the nominee in november. but banking on florida is a risky strategy: look where it got rudy giuliani, a fellow new yorker. so let us just stick with what we know works: choosing a candidate lots of people really like, instead of a candidate lots of people really dislike. it is just plain common sense.