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.

go johnny go!

i am really excited about john mccain crushing all opposition in the republican primaries and caucuses today, on super tuesday, and becoming the republican nominee. why? check this out:



see? ann coulter would campaign for hillary clinton if john mccain is the nominee! and she is not the only rabid right-winger who hates john mccain! rush limbaugh (the drug addicted radio talk show host who hates drug addicts), tom delay (the former majority leader of the republicans in the house of representatives who redistricted texas and had a “k street project” to make an unholy alliance between republicans in congress and all the washington lobbyists), and plenty of other ultra-right-wing republicans are up in arms about the prospect of john mccain as the republican nominee. check out the new york observer and the washington post.

and currently on the drudge report is a quote from newt gingrich telling ultra-right-wing neo-fascists to suck it up:

Gingrich: 'We need to shrug off McCain... he is likely to be the nominee... McCain is well positioned as reformer against a machine politician like Hillary... Obama most left wing candidate to run since McGovern'...

obama most left wing candidate? helloooooo? what about my main man dennis kucinich? are you pretending dennis kucinich does not exist, newt gingrich? sure he may have dropped out of the race, but he was running for president for quite some time, and he ran in 2004 as well. seriously, some people are completely nuts, and this includes both newt gingrich as well as all the rabidly anti-mccain people in the republican party. and if barack obama is so “left wing”, why is it that so many independents and republicans are voting for him, many changing their party registration to do so, as happened in iowa? if he is some ultra-left-wing radical, you would think that he would not be getting the support of so many senators and governors from red states, and would not be winning the rural areas with low population density in every primary and caucus so far. i mean sure, barack obama does not think we should be using cluster bombs or land mines against innocent civilians, unlike a certain female presidential candidate who shall remain nameless. wow! what a left-wing radical! to be “strong on national security”, we need a president who supports using cluster bombs and land mines against innocent civilians, who will not take a nuclear first strike against iran off the table, who will refuse to negotiate with any of our enemies unless they give into all our demands before negotiations even begin. yes! hillary clinton is so smart on matters of foreign policy and defense compared to barack obama. she voted in favor of invading iraq, but still refuses to call that vote a mistake, just saying if she knew then what she knows now, she would have voted differently. look... if people want to vote for a republican, they should vote republican, instead of voting for a democrat who is republican-lite. sure hillary clinton is against the iraq war... now. it only took her several years before she realized public opinion was strongly against the war... it only took her being booed by antiwar crowds when she was running for re-election to the senate before she realized she had to change her position. how convenient... like how mitt romney changes his mind on major issues to suit the mood of whatever electorate will be voting next. of course, she comes nowhere near to mitt romney’s level of expediency and lack of core convictions. nobody could possibly beat mitt romney at that game, since it is obvious the man does not have any firm views on any policy matters, but rather says whatever he thinks voters want to hear, which explains why his policies as a republican presidential candidate are a polar opposite to those when he ran for governor of massachusetts. since he is a master bullshitter, it is clear why the republican pundits in talk radio love him so much compared to all the others: he is one of them. they are in the same business as him: bullshit.

now, i surely do not want john mccain or any other republican as president... at this point, i doubt any of them are even qualified to be dogcatcher. but i sure do marvel at how willing the republican party right-wing hacks in the media are to go after a decorated war hero... no wait... they did it to john kerry in 2004 so it is no surprise. but still... this time, the decorated war hero is actually a member of their own party, but they treat him like he were from the other party, like john kerry. it is just amazing to me to see these republicans act so insane when it comes to john kerry. i will gladly vote for hillary clinton or any other democratic nominee... in the general election. sure, she might not be as great as barack obama, but she is still pretty good, and much better than any republican. i might not agree with her on everything. and people did say that out of all the democratic candidates running in 2008 (back before any of them dropped out of the race) she was the most conservative, the most like a republican.

now what was the basis for ralph nader’s candidacy in 2000? the one that cost al gore the election by making him lose florida? ralph nader claimed that there was no difference between democrats and republicans. well, if the candidates end up being hillary clinton and john mccain, this will make his claim actually have some merit, this time around. there will still be some difference, of course. but not very much. there would be the standard differences between any possible democrat-republican face-off with the exception of one involving ron paul: the democrat would want to end the war in iraq and the republican would want to continue it indefinitely with no exit strategy. the democrat would support the continued legality of abortion, while the republican would want to make abortion illegal (even rudy giuliani would appoint anti-abortion judges to the supreme court in the mold of antonin scalia and clarence thomas). the democrat would bring about universal healthcare and the republican would try to gradually dismantle existing welfare programs such as social security and medicare. but you know what? hillary clinton and john mccain actually agree about a lot of things, like voting in favor of war with iraq, voting in favor of cluster bombs and land mines against innocent civilians, etc. barack obama, on the other hand, could provide a clear contrast to the republicans on issues of war and peace and foreign policy. the contrast between democrats and john mccain is not as stark as between democrats and some of the other republicans. for instance, republican pundits hate campaign finance reform because they are opposed to transparency and accountability in government and are in favor of corruption. john mccain, along with the vast majority of democrats, supported campaign finance reform, and rightfully so. republican pundits hate illegal immigrants, and would probably like to massacre all of them, killing even more people than hitler killed in the holocaust, if there were the political will and if genocide was not considered a taboo and politically incorrect to propose. other groups they would probably like to massacre might possibly include homosexuals, muslims, atheists, liberal democrats, black people, and everyone living in the continents of asia, africa, and south america. now most republican pundits (or should i say, conservative pundits, since some claim not to be republicans) are probably not such genocidal maniacs, but there are plenty of talk show hosts like michael savage (real name michael weiner) and ann coulter (whose real name is “she who must not be mentioned”) who do make genocidal comments from time to time. anyway, the point is, deporting people to another country is the 2nd best alternative to actually massacring them in concentration camps, in the minds of these types of people. making homosexual acts illegal and throwing gay people in jail is the 2nd best alternative to stoning them to death or beheading them according to a literal interpretation of the bible. so, when john mccain supports letting illegal immigrants actually be able to become u.s. citizens, even if it is through a long, difficult, expensive process, this really pisses off the genocidal maniac demographic of the republican party, the group who thinks we should be carpet-bombing the muslim holy city of mecca with thermonuclear bombs right during the time of year when all muslims are supposed to flock there for the annual pilgrimage. and i can tell you, from reading lots of comment threads for news stories and blog postings on the internet, there are plenty of genocidal maniacs out there posting their genocidal trash talk on the internet. and despite his talk of staying in iraq for 100 years, john mccain does not really seem to appeal to the genocidal demographic because of his stance on illegal immigration. another issue that they are pissed about is global warming. ultra-right-wing nutcases think global warming does not exist and is a complete hoax, just like darwinian evolution, the moon landing, and the earth orbiting the sun. (yes, some right-wing religious nutcases think the sun actually orbits the earth. here is proof.) so, although it is mostly harmless if someone thinks that the sun orbits the earth, or the moon landing was faked, or evolution is wrong and “intelligent design” or “creation science” is correct, since this crazy belief will not actually cause the person to take any actions that have real negative consequences, it is dangerous when people do not believe in global warming. why? if we do nothing to stop global warming, and continue to make it worse, we could wipe out more and more species of life forms on earth: plants, animals, fungi, and single-celled organisms. and one of the species of animal that would be threatened is called homo sapiens in latin, or human in english. rising ocean levels would bury all of the coastal cities and other communities along coastlines. hurricanes and other severe weather storms would get much worse and cause a lot more damage. the polar ice cap on the north pole would end up melting completely every summer, and the one on the south pole would get smaller but not go away completely. jungles in equatorial regions of the planet would be replaced with vast deserts, like the sahara desert in africa that has already expanded quite a bit. people would end up having to move to places like canada and russia! oh, the horror of having to move to canada or russia! but the biggest threat from global warming is that it would wipe out other species (not us humans), species which we are somehow dependent upon without realizing exactly how. like the plants that the animals we eat eat. or something like that. anyway, i do not quite understand everything that would happen under global warming, but it would probably be quite bad, and politicians who would do nothing about it are no good. so john mccain and the democrats all want to do something to try to stop global warming. that is considered heresy among republicans! none of the other republicans would do anything at all to stop global warming, and they would continue the wise policies of george w. bush with regards to global warming. of course, bush and some portion of republicans now claim that they would be willing to sign on to a global warming treaty if it required an equal amount of sacrifice from nations like india and china, and every other nation, in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. this is just a political ploy to pretend they care about global warming when really they are trying to prevent any action being taken, since behind the scenes they will be perfectly willing to screw up negotiations of any global warming treaty on purpose in order to stop anything from getting accomplished. that is what george w. bush is currently doing and it is what mitt romney would do. another faction of the republican party is in complete denial about global warming and refuses to do anything at all about it, and publicly denounces the theory of global warming, and this faction includes talk show host rush limbaugh as well as senator james inhofe (r-oklahoma), who led the committee in the u.s. senate that had oversight over the environment until the democrats took over the senate in january 2007. this faction is up in arms about someone like john mccain who would actually be willing to fight global warming alongside the democrats. you see, on a very small number of key issues, john mccain realized his party was dead wrong and the democrats were entirely correct, and chose to align himself with the democrats on those issues. and thus he is hated by the true believers in the republican party, those who believe their party leaders are infallible and can do no wrong, who agree with their party leaders on every single issue, who are incapable of thinking for themselves. this includes pundits like rush limbaugh and ann coulter, who are both incapable of original thought or critical thinking, and would probably both score lower on an iq test than terri schiavo when she was alive and in a “chronic vegetative state”.

one last note: barack obama is not a muslim, nor were either of his parents. he is a christian, having gone to the same black church in chicago for over 20 years. as for his parents, his white mother and black father were both atheists, the same religion as me! now, barack obama’s mom was very open-minded and did teach him about all the religions of the world from the perspective of a sociologist or anthropologist. and he ended up deciding to be christian, even though she did not agree with any religion. anyway, barack obama’s parents did not work out together as a couple, for whatever reason, and barack never saw his father again, after his father left when he was 2. but what i say here is not really the original source of information, so look at snopes.com to see the truth about barack obama without having it first filtered by my brain. and as for hillary clinton? yes, i would vote for her in a general election, but she is not as close to me in her positions on the issues as barack obama. and i do not think as many other people would vote for her as a democratic nominee compared to the vast numbers who would vote for barack obama in a general election. he has an amazing effect on people when they hear him speak. i think the vast majority of people who voted for other candidates so far have never seen a single speech he delivered, because if they had, they would support him. that is why c-span is much better to get unfiltered video footage of the candidates than any other channel on television. and c-span’s videos of the candidates are available on the internet at campaignnetwork.org. just imagine if he were president and could deliver speeches and have the networks all carry the speeches live and unedited. he would be able to sway public opinion and congress would have no choice but to do what he asks because he would be so popular that the public would demand it from congress. hillary clinton believes in politics from the top down, with a single leader or small number of leaders making all the important decisions, while barack obama believes in politics from the bottom up, with mass popular movements organizing and demanding change from whatever “leaders” happen to be in power, and if those leaders fail, to replace them with ones who will carry out the will of the people. to be fair, most other politicians have the same top-down view of how politics should operate, including all of the republican candidates except ron paul. ron paul is one of the bottom-up crowd, like barack obama. anyway, top-down leaders such as our current president george w. bush tend to have a disrespectful view towards the will of the people, and love to ignore the will of the people if they think they can get away with it. and john mccain is also part of the top-down crowd. the top-downers believe in having strong, visionary leaders who are smarter than everyone else, who can make the tough decisions, who know better than the vast teeming masses of poorly educated losers known as the “public”. and so top-down-style politicians tend to market themselves in this fashion. it is obvious that john mccain will ignore the will of the people when it comes to the war in iraq, since he has made it very clear since the beginning of the “surge” strategy over a year ago. john mccain would be the kind of president who would do the exact opposite from what the american people want him to do for 4 years, and then probably ask them to re-elect him to continue ignoring their wishes for another 4 years. mitt romney, on the other hand, would agree to do whatever anyone asks of him if it means they might vote for him, including making promises to magically bring back manufacturing jobs lost to mexico, china, and india. once in office, he would break all of his promises to everybody. if hillary clinton were president, we would make some progress in the right direction, but it would be slow progress, held up by republican obstructionists in the congress, and a lack of political will in congress to get things done. why would the choice of president affect congress? simple. the choice of a presidential nominee helps determine the outcome of all the other races on the ballot, and the media coverage of a presidential nominee or president helps determine how that president will interact with congress and who will have the upper hand. even with democratic majorities in both houses of congress and a democrat as president, the republicans can stop anything from getting accomplished by using the filibuster in the senate, requiring 60 votes out of the 100 senators to get anything done. things like media coverage play a crucial role in determining whether it is politically viable to use the filibuster in the senate or not. since barack obama seems to do a much better job with media coverage than hillary clinton, he could more easily sway the pundits in the media, who would, in turn, sway the “moderate” republicans in the senate through their commentary. politicians pay very close attention to the media, and so, if a politician is able to exert some degree of control over media coverage through some factor such as likability, the media can be used to persuade politicians who could not otherwise be persuaded. that is why george w. bush was so successful in pushing through his agenda throughout his first 3 years in office: the media coverage was very favorable towards him and this gave him incredible leverage to control congress. in his second term, dubya lost control of congress even before the democrats won majorities in both houses, because he lost the support of the media establishment, and when the media says “jump”, most politicians say “how high?” you know who it was that prevented comprehensive immigration reform from being passed in congress like president bush and the democrats both wanted? pundits like lou dobbs at cnn. people fail to realize that the pundits in the media have grown more powerful than the politicians we elect to run the country, since the pundits shape the debate and they decide things for the moderate wishy-washy politicians. now that rush limbaugh and ann coulter have fallen off the republican party bandwagon, we are seeing the ill effects that happen to pundits who for years have been under complete republican party mind control, but are now finding themselves completely lost, unable to recognize their own party anymore as it is nominating someone whom they find anathema. i am not suggesting that the democrats engage in a similar level of brainwashing of the pundits, because then no thinking person would trust the pundits, and the pundits would behave like insane brainwashed cultists, and mislead their followers in the public in a variety of ways. i think the media ought to start some sort of self-regulation of the punditocracy. each media outlet, like cnn or fox news or the new york times or whatever, would be able to set its own standards, but basically, it would involve being correct a certain high percentage of the time on statements you make about objective facts, and being correct a certain lower percentage of the time on predictions you make about the future, and limiting statements that people find to be offensive or outrageous to a certain low number every month. so then someone like william kristol, editor of the weekly standard, fox news pundit, and the newest columnist for the new york times editorial page, would be out of a job because he would be unable to meet the performance benchmarks for pundits, since he is continually wrong about objective facts and even more often wrong about predictions for the future and occasionally says offensive/outrageous things. and of course there would be ethics standards, to keep out unethical pundits like robert novak who publish the secret identities of cia agents. we have to find some way to hold pundits accountable, something similar to the voting records we have of politicians, or the way politicians make promises and we can see if they keep them or not. pundits also have to be held accountable, and they ought to have their employment premised not on whether their opinions are ones other people agree with, but on whether their facts are correct and whether they have any sense at all about what is going to happen in the future and are able to make accurate predictions more often than inaccurate ones. as for opinions, a wide variety of them is good, as long as they are all grounded in facts and reality and logic and reason.

anyway, back to the main point... i am really glad that john mccain is making the ultra-right-wing nutcases like ann coulter and rush limbaugh finally go completely insane and lose the last vestiges of their sanity. i hope he continues to make their lives a living hell. and i hope mike huckabee continues to help john mccain beat mitt romney, by defeating mitt romney in states where john mccain is not competitive. things would be more interesting if it were a race between mccain and huckabee, rather than a race between mccain and romney. mike huckabee actually has some interesting ideas. and if rush limbaugh and phyllis schlafly hate mike huckabee, he can’t be that bad, although there is a lot of legitimate concern that mike huckabee is a theocrat. the only thing better than john mccain making the republican pundits hate their own party would be to have ron paul completely reshape the republican party into something unrecognizable to anyone, into a much larger version of the libertarian party. ron paul has a much better record than john mccain of doing the exact opposite from every other republican in congress. just imagine how nuts he could drive the pundits if he were the republican nominee! rush limbaugh, ann coulter, and the rest of them would probably organize a mass suicide for their neocon death cult. it would be just like the mass suicide of the heaven’s gate cult, except funnier. oh well. we can still hope that rush limbaugh, ann coulter, or another of their ilk finally goes off the deep end completely. no, wait, they already all have. but what i mean is, go off the deep end even more than they already have. but that is probably impossible. they are already as crazy as you can possibly get. they could not possibly go any further with their descent into utter insanity. hopefully john mccain will be able to push them off the deep end for good.