Short.

So, I discovered a meme generator...

I'm having fun with Newt...

I got nothing...

Sorry, I got nothing today.  I've been running around like a chicken with my head cut off and all I can think about is driving down to SoCal to visit some friends for the weekend, so I haven't even thought of something to blog about today.  But, I don't want to be a jerk and not post anything, so here's something.

Play with me!


That should keep you busy until I get back next week. ;)

The sexiest parts of a woman.

In case you were wondering, these are the sexiest parts of the female body that aren't her butt or boobs.

The Neck

Thank you to the lovely Reese Witherspoon for modeling this particular sexy part of a woman - the neck. Specifically, the area of the neck just below the ear.  Basically, where Reese's earring is dangling is pointing right at the magic spot.  Most girls will go crazy if you kiss them there and this is a good thing because kissing a girl on this part of her neck is awesome.  You know you're doing it right when she just sort of goes limp in your arms and presses herself against you.




The Stomach

The stomach, like the neck, is another spot on a woman where a little investment of time can pay huge dividends.  This whole area is sexy, from the abs to the navel.  Whether you're moving up or down her body, it's always worth it to spend some time in this area before moving to your final destination.  Also, moving down from this area brings us to one of my personal absolute favorite parts of a woman's body...


This part right here!

I'm not sure exactly what it's called, but that area right there, the part where the pelvic bone creates a little groove from the hips to the groin, the "magic triangle" if you will.  This is one of my favorite parts of a woman's body that isn't her butt or boobs.  When I see a girl wearing low-rise pants with that area sticking out, it's just ridiculously sexy.




Back Dimples

Pretty self-explanatory.  The last stop of PG sexiness before ass crack station.  Probably tied with the pelvic/hip blade area up there as my favorite parts of a woman's body that can be shown in public without violating any decency laws.  Back dimples are ridiculous, so freaking sexy and with the right "tramp stamp", the hotness is off the charts.  Yes, I know tramp stamps are way overdone and most of them are hideous, but a cute, tasteful little bit of ink between the dimples is smoking hot in my humble opinion.




The ankle

Looking for a good picture of a woman's ankle pointed out my biggest complaint with women and their ankles - too many women slap ugly-ass tattoos on their ankles and ruin them!  Now, I'm a big fan of ink on a lady, so the idea of ankle tattoos by itself isn't bad to me at all and, in fact, a good ankle tattoo only highlights this sexy and under appreciated part of a woman's body.  However, most of the time the tattoo is terrible, gaudy, poorly-done and it only detracts from this erogenous zone.  I would say that a good rule of thumb is, if you don't have an absolutely fantastic idea for an ankle tat that's sexy and tasteful and an amazing tattoo artist to do it perfectly, then don't get one.  In fact, even if you do have an absolutely fantastic idea and a great artist, you probably still shouldn't do it because you most likely don't really have a great idea and it will end up looking like you got jumped into a gang or something.




Between the shoulders

That area between the shoulder blades, it's pretty sexy.  In the same kind of way that the pelvic blade area is, it's like a sexy little groove on a woman's body that sort of channels your attention and lets it flow either upstream to the neck or downstream to the lower back.  When giving a woman a back rub, this is one of the areas you linger on, unless you're one of those horny-ass dudes who spends the whole back rub working her sides so you can slip a hand around and grab her boobs or rubbing her lower back, lower... lower... until she either moves your hand back up or your now officially massaging her butt.  Slow down, Romeo, take some time to work the back, act like you've been here before!




The Feet

I'm not really a "foot guy".  Feet are a pretty common fetish for guys and I don't really have a fetish-level attraction to a woman's foot, but I do appreciate a girl with particularly cute feet.  I prefer ankles to feet, but if I'm going to be paying attention to the ankles, the feet are just right there next door and it helps when the next door neighbor isn't a crusty, bunion-riddled mess of dry skin and toe jam.  I will say that the bottom of a woman's foot is kind of sexy, especially kissing the bottom of her foot and especially when in the most common position that would allow you easy access to kissing the bottom of a woman's foot.


The eyes

A woman's eyes can be the sexiest thing on her body or the scariest.  They can convey irrepressible desire or un-restrainable anger.  They can be demure and alluring or wild and aggressive.  They can put you at ease in an instant or keep you on edge all night long.  I love a woman's eyes.  I think that nice eyes are as important on a girl as any other physical attribute and many a girl who wouldn't be considered attractive in a classical sense can still be cute if she has nice eyes.  Also, I'm not a fan of girls who wear a lot of makeup, I go for girls who are natural normally, but I do like good makeup work on the eyes.  Good eye makeup highlights beautiful eyes and makes them like magnets that pull your soul out of your body and into hers, where hopefully she will treat it gently.

So there you go.  A list of the sexiest parts of a woman's body that aren't her butt or boobs.  You're free to disagree with my list, but you will be wrong.

This is why I love death metal, grindcore and whatever else you want to call it.

I've always been into extreme music.  I remember when I was a kid and bands like Black Sabbath almost scared the crap out of me, like a really good horror movie, but that scariness was addicting!  I couldn't get enough of loud, angry, scary music that evoked emotions much stronger than just the urge to get up and dance.  Now, I appreciate a wide variety of music and I absolutely enjoy a good dance song or something that doesn't require you to really do anything more than tap your feet and bob your head, but I will always have a special place in my cold, black heart for extreme metal.  There's just something about guttural, growling vocals over buzz saw guitars with machine gun drums blasting away in the back and a bass line that makes you want to poop yourself a little bit, like in the above clip for Walking Corpse by Brutal Truth.  You just can't get that from any other style of music.

I remember when I first heard Dead by Dawn by Deicide.  It was shortly after the album was released, in 1990, on Z-Rock when they had the show "Headbanger's Heaven" hosted by "Crazy" Mike Pain.  At the time, I was in a metal band and we were trying to find a sound that was heavier and harder than what we had been listening to at the time, but we weren't really sure what that would sound like.  Thanks to Headbanger's Heaven, we found the answer to that question.  This was when I would first be exposed to death metal and it was both awesome and a little scary at the same time, thanks to bands like Deicide.  Back then, I used to get the crap scared out of me by movies like The Exorcist, so a band who's lyrics read like outtakes from Pazuzu's dialog script was pretty damn freaky.  However, it was that freakiness that drew me to them, and other bands in the genre.

The intro to Out of the Body by Pestilence is something I will always be able to recognize immediately.  This is another song I discovered thanks to Headbanger's Heaven and it exposed me to the heaviness of European death metal bands.  I'm a big fan of Pestilence and Asphyx, which was singer Martin Van Drunen's second band after leaving Pestilence.  These guys were pioneers in the northern European death metal sound that would be made famous by a host of other bands, including Entombed.

Nothern European death metal, often generalized as "Swedish Death Metal", is darker, heavier and typically more Satanic in it's imagery and lyrical content than American death metal.  Obviously, there were American bands like Deicide and Morbid Angel who had very Satanic lyrics and imagery, but it was much more common in the northern European bands.  It makes sense, therefore, that black metal would originate in Norway, the most northern peak of northern Europe.  There is a definite fascination with Satan and the occult in northern European metal, which makes for some pretty wicked music!

Grave is another dark, Satanic Swedish death metal band.  I had the privilege of opening up for these guys in my own badass death metal band, Sunday Silence, back in 1992.  What I remember about these guys is that they drank orange cough syrup mixed with vodka like it was kool-aid and they were shocked that we didn't have a record deal.  I've often wondered why we never did, either.

Anyway, back to America!  Specifically, back to Florida, which was the epicenter of American death metal during it's first heyday back in the early 90's.  Morrisound studios and Scott Burns were the place and the producer for basically all the big bands back then.  Burns produced Obituary, Death, Deicide, Malevolent Creation and a host of other American death metal bands.  He also produced an album by a little English grindcore band from Nottingham called Napalm Death...

Napalm Death is one of the greatest extreme metal bands ever.  They pioneered the grindcore genre and are still one of my favorite extreme bands to this day.  I heard my first blast beat in a Napalm Death song, that was my introduction to grind and it once again raised the bar for what I wanted to do musically in my own band.  The original Napalm Death lineup produced 3 great bands.  The first was, of course, Napalm Death, who continued after singer Lee Dorian and guitarist Bill Steer left.  The second was Cathedral, a doom metal band formed by Dorian and the third was gore-grind godfathers Carcass, formed by Bill Steer.

Carcass was the first gore-grind band who's lyrics seemed to be lifted from medical school textbooks.  Using complicated medical terms for stuff like shitting until your intestines fall out and with an uncanny knack for rhyming a line like "saponified fats" with "nibbled by rats", Carcass elevated the sickness level of extreme metal to bloody new heights.  While a lot of bands today, like County Medical Examiners and Exhumed (another band I got to play a show with), have taken up the reigns of writing lyrics that read like a med school exam, Carcass was the pioneers of the "What's the medical term for when your anus is infested with maggots?" genre.

Death is widely considered to be the godfathers of American death metal.  Formed in 1983, Death is the most successful death metal band ever, in terms of album sales.  Ironically, the amount of albums Death has sold in it's entire history - 2 million albums - would be considered a good run for a single album by acts in just about any other style of music.  That's the price for playing an underground music style that has a relatively small, albeit fiercely loyal, following.  The early Death albums rock, though.  Not that I necessarily don't like their later stuff, but the closer the band got to the point where Chuck Shuldiner eventually renamed it Control Denied and ventured into a more prog-metal direction, the more they replaced their raw, heavy edge with polished, technical finesse.  It's good stuff, I mean I dig the musicianship and talent displayed in their later recordings, but Spiritual Healing, Leprosy and Scream Bloody Gore are classics.

Cannibal Corpse is the second most successful death metal band and they've actually sold more albums domestically than Death did.  Eaten Back to Life is one of my favorite Cannibal Corpse albums, even though the band has gone through a pretty significant change in sound since putting it out.  This is another Headbanger's Heaven song, one of the early jams that got me wanting to learn how to play blasts and pick up my double-bass speed.

Another death metal band that recorded at the infamous Morrisound, produced by Scott Burns, although hailing from New York, Suffocation was the hardest and fastest death metal band I had heard when I first listened to a copy of Effigy of the Forgotten.  Drummer Mike Smith had a whole new style of blast beat drumming I'd never heard before, one that incorporated double-bass and sounded faster, harder and more brutal than anything else around at the time.  Smith's style has influenced a horde of extreme metal drummers, including myself.

I'm ending this trip down extreme metal memory lane with one of my favorite grindcore bands ever, Righteous Pigs.  I guess technically they might be considered more an extreme hardcore punk band than grindcore to some hyper-sensitive metal nerd, but I consider them grindcore.  They're fast, hard, heavy and brutal, just like grindcore is supposed to be.  I don't downgrade them just because the vocals are more punk sounding than growly.  Their songs are short and sweet, their lyrics range from scathing social commentary to ridiculous rantings about hidden zits but most of all, their songs are catchy and awesomer than hell.  This is due in no small part to the brilliant songwriting of guitarist Mitch Harris.  Harris played in Righteous Pigs before recording a 2-man project with Napalm Death drummer Mick Harris (no relation) called Defecation.  He would go on to join Napalm Death after recording the Defecation album and has been with the band ever since.  Righteous Pigs is a perfect band to end this post on, they really display all the reasons why I love extreme metal - the heavy guitars, the brutal drumming, the rumbling bass and the disharmonic vocal aggression.  I love this shit.

Cartoons were better when I was a kid.

My apologies to all my friends who have kids, but most of the cartoons today are pretty terrible.  I've been told of the virtues of Spongebob, Phineas and Ferb and Invader Zim, but they just don't do it for me.  And forget about most of the stuff that's on Cartoon Network in the mornings.  I don't even know what their names are, they all look like the same cartoon over and over and it's unwatchable.  Cartoons were awesome when I was a kid, back when Saturday mornings belonged to kids from 6am until OG Readmore had some movie about a book right before ABC's wide world of sports or some crap ended the fun times.

Thundarr the Barbarian

Answering the eternal question "What would happen if a runaway planet came along and broke the moon and stole all the clouds from Earth?"  Still not sure how a global catastrophe results in dragons, lizard men and the creation of magical powers, even after two thousand years of evolution, but the future is a confusing and mysterious place.  Also, they have "super science" and "sorcery" but the hero is a barbarian who wears fur skins yet wields a "sun sword" that clearly is using some advanced ass technology.  Whatever, all I know is this shit owned when I was a kid and Ookla the Mok rapes face.  If it wasn't already a band name, I would so be using it.

Tranzor Z

This show is fantastic just for the intro. "Tranzooorrrrrr Zeeeeeeee!"  Like Voltron, Tranzor Z was a giant robot tasked with defending the universe from other giant, destructive antagonists.  Unlike Voltron, Tranzor Z wasn't comprised of a multitude of smaller robots.  Adapted and heavily edited down from it's superior Japanese predecessor, Mazinger Z, Tranzor Z was still a lot more entertaining than the majority of domestically produced kids cartoons at the time.  Giant robots kicking the hell out of stuff is almost always a winning formula.  Speaking of Voltron...

Voltron

There were two versions of Voltron on American tv.  The first was the superior, lion-based series.  The second was a crappier, vehicle-based Voltron, formed of more "pieces" and not nearly as good.  The lion Voltron owned, though.  Also, you know you're a pretty rape show when Optimus Prime does your voice over narration.

Godzilla

It's all fun and games until Godzuki comes along and Scrappy-Doo's all over a great cartoon.  I still loved the Godzilla cartoon though, but that's just because I love all things Godzilla.  Really though, this cartoon isn't any cheesier than most of the actual Godzilla movies... well, maybe a little, but so what, it's Godzilla!

Spiderman and His Amazing Friends

This and the Incredible Hulk cartoon both owned.  Also, I liked Spiderman's amazing friends even more than Spiderman because of their powers.  I probably liked Firestar the best because she could fly and burn shit up, but Iceman was awesome too.  I'm pretty sure that they both could have raped Spiderman in a straight up fight, but they just let him be in charge because they didn't want all the pressure of leading the team, doing paperwork, cleaning up all the flip-around computer stuff so that it didn't get stuck halfway from a beer bottle or something getting wedged between the table and the floor... boss type stuff.

The Superfriends

There were a few different incarnations of the Superfriends, as they added more heroes and whatnot, but for the most part this show was the kind.  Yes, the Wondertwins stunk - I don't understand why Zan always took "Shape of... WATER!"  Like really, what's water going to do?  And the monkey was yet another lame, cutesy sidekick meant to keep the little kids entertained.  However, the Superfriends were pretty great... except for Apache Chief, if you're going to make up a brand new hero just to stick in your cartoon, you should give him a better super power than "Get bigger!"

Battle of the Planets

The G Force.  I barely remembered this cartoon until I saw the intro and then it was like a crazy total recall where it all came rushing back to me.  More proof of two constants when it came to watching cartoons in America between the 70's and the 90's - The Japanese-made cartoons were always the best and American producers would always suck most of the cool out of those cartoons and replace it with cheesy sidekicks.  In this case, the Wonder Twin monkey/Godzuki was 7 Zark 7.  I wouldn't discover until I was a lot older that the original versions of these cartoons were so much better than the Americanized ones, but they were still pretty sweet.  I mean, say what you want about cheese, it goes good on pretty much everything.

Dungeons & Dragons

Hands-down my absolute favorite cartoon when I was a kid.  This cartoon is the reason I was such a huge D&D nerd as a kid and the reason I'm such a huge MMO nerd today.  I loved everything about this cartoon, even cheesy ass Uni the unicorn.  The storyline for this cartoon is actually really good and it's a shame that the cartoon wasn't picked up for the 4th season, which would have seen the kids returning home, Venger redeeming himself and becoming good again and all the other resolution that would have ended such a great series.  If ever there was a cartoon that needed to be remade by a good team who could do it without screwing it up, it's Dungeons & Dragons.  I need to pick up this show on dvd or something, I'm itching to watch it now just from seeing the intro.

Republicans, help me understand...

When you claim to be the "family values" party, why do you support a serial adulterer over a guy who has never cheated on his wife and loves his family?

When you claim to defend the "sanctity of marriage", why do you support a man who has cheated on each of his ex-wives with his successive wife and who has been divorced twice, to "protect" marriage from monogamous, committed gay couples?

When you claim to be for "smaller, less intrusive government" why do you support the party that grew government 25% in 8 years over the guy who reduced the size of government by 10% in the last 3 years?

Likewise, why do you support giving the government more power to "intrude" in our personal lives by legislating morality, telling a woman what she can and can't do with her own body and expanding the size and scope of government to grant this new, intrusive power?

Why do you claim to be the party of "lower taxes", to the point that you formed an extremist fringe named after the most famous anti-tax revolt in American history, but you opposed a payroll tax cut for the middle-class?

Also, why do you insist on calling the president a "tax and spend liberal" when our marginal tax rate is the lowest it's ever been and government spending has decreased each of the last 3 years?

Why do you call the guy who killed Bin Laden, along with most of the top Al Qaeda officials, who helped the Libyans overthrow and kill Gadhafi and who has increased military spending to the highest point it's ever been in our nation's history "soft on defense"?

Why were the 8 years of GW Bushs administration a great example of the power of unrestricted capitalism and conservative economic principles at work, but 3 years of Obama continuing almost all of those same policies is a downward spiral into a socialist dystopia?

Why do you think illegal labor is the reason why your good-paying middle-class job got shipped overseas?

In fact, what job of yours, exactly, did an illegal immigrant "take" away?

If lower taxes and less regulations are the two biggest factors that would lead to massive job growth and economic prosperity, then why are we in a recession despite having the lowest tax rate and least regulations in history?

Corporate profits are at an all-time high, why aren't businesses hiring?

Why do you strictly adhere to the part of the bible that says homosexuality is a sin, but you ignore the part that says you should beat a woman who enters church without a hat on?

Why do you ignore the part of the bible that says eating shellfish is a sin?

Why do you ignore the part of the bible that says masturbation is just as sinful as being gay?

Why don't you make your wives and daughters sleep outside the house when they're on their periods?  Also, after her cycle ends, why do you not pray for them and isolate them until they're "clean" again?

Why do you rail against a paranoid fear of Sharia Law being imposed on our country, while advocating the institution of "Bible Law" - the Christian version of Sharia?

Why do you want to destroy unions while lamenting the loss of good-paying, middle-class jobs and the decline of wages and benefits in our country?

Why do you blame teachers, firefighters and police officers for our national budget crises and think we need to get off the backs of Wall St. and the banks?

Why do you support our military as being the "strongest and best in the world" while lamenting the fact government never does anything right?

Why do you drive on roads and expect them to reach all the way to where you're heading, turn on switches and expect lights to come on, pick up a phone and expect a dial tone, call 911 and expect an emergency response, buy food in a store and expect it to be safe to eat, take medicine and expect it to work, turn on the faucet and expect clean water to come out and still insist that government can't do anything right and regulations only hurt the country?

Why is bigger government ok when it's doing the things you agree with, but not ok when it isn't?

Why is blaming Obama for an economic collapse that began 8 years before he took office perfectly reasonable, but blaming Bush for creating that economic collapse, and $10 trillion in debt that Obama is still trying to help get the country to recover from "living in the past" and just making excuses?

Why is it not racism to claim that most blacks in this country are on food stamps, that they have no work ethic and that black children should be employed as janitors in schools to teach them the value of work that they apparently don't get at home, but it is racism to hire a black man for a job that a white guy thinks he was more qualified for?

Why can't you admit that you benefit from the existence of government?

Why can't you admit that you benefit from the existence of regulations?

Why can't you admit that you benefit from the existence of unions?

Why can't you admit that you benefit from a progressive tax code?

Why is trillions of dollars in bailouts, tax loopholes and subsidies "the promotion of free-market capitalism", but billions of dollars for healthcare, social security and food stamps for the poorest Americans "welfare" and "handouts"?

Why is it that when a poor person complains about being exploited by an unfair system that coddles the wealthy, they are just "jealous" of the rich?

Why is it "capitalism" when the wealthy exploit the poor, but "class warfare" when the poor complain about it?

What's the difference between Mitt Romney making millions by dismantling companies and putting Americans out of work and Newt Gingrich making millions to lobby for Fannie and Freddie, while they dismantled the economy and put Americans out of work and their homes?

Why is following the teachings of Jesus Christ - a man who believed in feeding and clothing the poor, giving medicine to the sick and who railed against greed and wealth - "socialism", and following the teachings of Ayn Rand - an atheist who preached egoism, putting your own personal wants over the needs of others, selfishness as a virtue and the "every man for himself" sink-or-swim mentality is considered "Christian values"?

Why is data put out by independent, non-partisan agencies considered "propaganda" but the stuff you hear Rush or Fox News say is indisputable fact?

Why is the far-right response to an alleged "left-wing media bias" considered "fair and balanced"?

Why is a guy who shops at Petsmart and plays a little golf an "elitist", but a guy with a $500,000 Tiffany's account who takes 2-week Mediterranean cruises is "in touch with the common man"?

Why do you fear the "angry black man" but vote for the "angry white man"?

Why do you support smaller government, lower taxes, less regulation and a stronger military - except when the Democratic president proposes all those things, and then you hate them and think they're all part of a diabolical plan to destroy America?

Why are you willing to vote for a guy who is in direct opposition to the fundamental ideologies you claim to support, instead of the guy who has legislated much of those same ideologies, simply because he has an "R" next to his name instead of a "D"?

Why are greed and selfishness a sign of strength and generosity and compassion signs of weakness to you?

Why are you bashing Obama for doing the very same things you praised Bush for?

How can you give Bush all the credit for killing Bin Laden 3 years after he left office but none of the blame for the recession that happened while he was president?

How can you take 30 years of trickle down economics and blame it's failure on the president who was in office before those policies were started (Carter), the president who actually managed to have the only budget surplus in the last 30 years (Clinton) and the guy who took office after yet another bubble-&-bust recession caused by rampant, unchecked market manipulation, subsidized by those very trickle-down economic principles (Obama)?


I have a lot more questions, but this is probably a good place to stop for now.

Why Newts Personal Life Matters.

Marianne Gingrich on Nightline last night, where she alleged Newt Gingrich wanted an "open marriage" with her while he was having an affair with current wife, Callista.

Last night's latest installment of the GOP primary debate reality tv show was making headlines before the day was even over, due largely to the very first question of the evening.  CNN Chief National Correspondent John King opened the debate by asking Newt directly about his ex-wife Marianne's allegations that he wanted an "open marriage" with his then-mistress Callista.  Newt, with all the sanctimonious mock outrage he could possibly muster, then proceeded to take King and the entire news media industry to task for such a "despicable" act as bringing up his personal shortcomings in a debate setting.  The crowd roared as Gingrich threw them the red meat, the beltway fell all over itself to laud Gingrich's response and the conservative media machine - apparently immune to the blanket of criticism Gingrich had just thrown over the entire industry - couldn't think of enough colorful adjectives to praise Newt fast enough.  I mean, how dare the "elite media" attack Gingrich over his personal life?  Gingrich's personal life doesn't have anything to do with whether or not he's capable of being president!

Except it does.  It has everything to do with his ability to be president...

See, normally I might be inclined to agree with the former speaker on this subject.  Personally, I don't think that what a person does in their private lives and how they conduct themselves in their relationships speaks to their capability of doing their job.  For example, I don't wonder if the doctor performing surgery on me is a faithful husband, nor do I care.  I don't worry if the chef who prepares my meal at a restaurant is in an open relationship - as long as he washes his hands before he touches my food.

However, when a political candidate runs on a platform of moral supremacy, when a candidate stands in judgement of the morality and character of others, when a candidate carries him or herself with an arrogance of superiority and act as if they are above reproach, then that changes things.  In fact, that changes everything.

Normally, Gingrich being a serial philanderer and a lousy husband wouldn't affect my opinion of his ability to be president.  Except, Gingrich holds himself up as an authority on the morality of the rest of the country.  If you're going to throw stones - for lack of a better analogy - then you better make sure you're not living in a house made of glass.  Gingrich's house has way too much glass in it for him to throw stones.

Gingrich personally believes that a president's marital infidelity is grounds to lose the job.  I know this because he lead the witch hunt against Bill Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky scandal.  So, according to Gingrich's own words and actions, a man who is unfaithful to his wife is not fit to hold the office of president.  Considering Gingrich has cheated on his 2 ex-wives and is alleged by others to have cheated on current wife Callista, I think his personal life matters here.

Gingrich believes that gay marriage destroys the "sanctity of marriage" and is damaging to "families".  As a man who has been twice divorced and thrice married and who essentially abandoned the children from his first marriage and had to be taken to court for child support, I think it's very appropriate to bring his own personal respect of the institution of marriage into question when he seeks to impose his own morality on others.  Gingrich thinks that committed, monogamous gay couples are more damaging to the institution of marriage than a lying, cheating adulterer who allegedly sought an open marriage with his second ex-wife.  His personal life matters in this case as well.

Gingrich believes honesty and integrity are essential qualifications for a candidate seeking the office of president.  Therefore, it matters if he is dishonest and lacks integrity in his personal life.

So, when Gingrich begins to arrogantly climb on his high horse and condescend to the debate panelist du jour who dares to question him on his rich history of unethical, immoral and dishonest behavior like a pretentious old curmudgeon, he really has only himself to blame for the line of questioning he finds himself subjected to.  He's the one who started throwing stones in his glass house, he can't get outraged when the falling glass cuts him.

Et Tu, Rick Perry?

"Oops..."

Rick Perry announced today that he's suspending his campaign for the GOP nomination and throwing his support behind the current popular "Not Mitt", Newt Gingrich.

This has to be a rough day for Rick Perry, a guy who is famous for refusing to give up and fighting to win at all costs from his brutal campaign for Governor of Texas.  For a guy who's known for being a poor loser and who has a personality that is even more over-the-top GW Bush-like than James Brolin's impression of him in the movie "W", the knowledge that this election started off being his to lose the minute he threw his hat in the ring and that... well... he lost it... has to sting pretty badly.  For all intents and purposes, Perry was supposed to be the knight in shining armor who rescued the GOP from Romney's flip-flopping, disingenuous inconsistency and the general battiness and self-promotional hucksterism of the rest of the field.  He was supposed to swagger in with his cowboy confidence and "If you thought Bush was annoying, wait till you get a load of me!" gleeful ignorance, talk about how amazing Texas is, all the great jobs they were creating and how his state should be a model for the rest of the country and then just walk away with the nomination.  He even entered the race much later than the rest of the field, making it even less likely that he would say or do something to screw up his chances of securing the nomination.

Oops...

So now we're down to Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul and Mitt Romney.  Or, basically, the almost certain guarantee that I'm going to vote for Obama.  I mean, unless I catch Obama giving my grandmother rough anal on her dining room table or something.  Actually, I don't even think that would cause me to not vote for Obama, in fact, it would be pretty awesome because I know I would be guaranteed a pretty sweet cabinet position or something if I walked in on the president giving it to my grandma where we eat Thanksgiving dinner.  Really, I can't think of any circumstance where I would cast my vote for any of the current GOP candidates over Obama.

There's no way in hell I'm voting for Rick Santorum, that's not even debatable.  This guy is so socially conservative (i.e. ignorant and hatefully bigoted) that it's like he's parodying the far-left stereotype of conservative intolerance, only he's serious.  If your solution to our economic problems is to ban gay marriage, if you think making contraception illegal is a smart move, if you want to impose Christian Law as an alternative to the completely fabricated fear of Sharia Law - as if that would be any better - then you fail.  In fact, all of these social conservatives are hypocrites and just frustratingly ridiculous in their views. I can't stand listening to all these GOP guys rail against "big government interfering in our lives" while simultaneously proposing expanding the size and scope of government when it comes to invading our privacy and legislating morality upon us.  Apparently, they only want less "big government intrusion" when it comes to the balance sheets and bank accounts of big businesses, but women's vaginas and people's bedrooms are still fair game.

Likewise, I'm not voting for Ron Paul.  Sure, he gets some Libertarian points with me for his support of legalizing drugs and getting government out of the business of banning vices and victimless "crimes" like getting high, visiting a prostitute, gambling, etc., but he's also an extreme social conservative who wants to ban abortion, ban gay marriage, impose his own Christian morality on the rest of the country and who honestly thinks that big corporation and Wall St. will just magically regulate themselves if we get rid of all government regulatory agencies, and not only that, but if we get rid of all their taxes, they'll just voluntarily spend all that money on creating jobs and helping the rest of the country out anyway out of the innate goodness of their hearts.  Unrestricted capitalism is not unlike Marxist communism - it looks great on paper, but the reality of human nature means it would never work in reality.  Of course, then there's the newsletters that he signed his name to and contributed content to, but never actually read...

As for Newt Gingrich...  I mean, wtf?  This guy is as shady, scandalous and unethical as they come.  He was carrying on an extra-marital affair while trying to impeach Bill Clinton for getting a BJ.  He was forced out of office for ethics violations that resulted in him paying over $300,000 in fines.  He's almost as big of a flip-flopping "say whatever people want to hear at the moment" opportunist as Romney and to top it off, he's got an arrogant ego that makes Rick Perry look downright humble.  He's condescending and abrasive and he's been doubling down lately on some incredibly ignorant and racially-charged statements, including calling Obama the "food stamp president", implying in no uncertain terms that black kids don't understand the value of working for a living because they have no examples of working for an honest living at all in the black community.  He also said that black people in general should want paychecks rather than food stamps, even though 76% of all food stamp recipients in the country are white.  That kind of dog whistle rhetoric might fly with the rednecks in South Carolina, but it doesn't score points with people who have any actual intelligence.

So, this is the field - an ignorant, homophobic Christian conservative (Santorum); an ignorant, homophobic Christian conservative (Paul); an ignorant, homophobic, hypocritical Christian conservative (Gingrich) and a fake, plastic, flip-flopping political chameleon (Romney).  I mean, damn, why not just hand Obama the re-election on a silver platter?

Stop SOPA and PIPA

If you enjoy being able to use the Internet freely and having the ability to visit any site you want, without content being restricted, without your browsing speed being throttled or otherwise manipulated, without having service providers or competing corporations deliberately blocking certain sites and content and generally without anyone else trying to control what you see and how you see it, then you need to go to Google.com and sign their petition.  It takes about 30 seconds and it's a very easy way to add your voice to the list of people who oppose government censorship of the free exchange of ideas, information and creativity.  The Internet is the last bastion of truly free speech we have left and it has remained such because it has been protected from overt government control and corporate manipulation.  The passing of SOPA and PIPA would change all that.  It would allow companies to limit what you can see, to "throttle" or intentionally slow down your browsing speed when visiting sites they don't want you to visit and to completely block content that they object to.  It also creates broad, easily distortable guidelines for piracy and fair use restrictions that could not only further censor what we can see on the Internet, but also restrict user-created content for sites like Youtube and even Facebook.  If you respect the first amendment and our constitutionally-protected right to freedom of speech and expression, then I urge you to add your name to the list of people who oppose SOPA and PIPA.

Thank You,
-Dave

Sign the petition now!

F@*K Censorship!

When the novocaine wears off, the pain sets in.

Yeah, I tried to blog yesterday, but I was pretty out of it and I just wasn't on my game - whatever "game" that may be.  I was in a fog of painkillers and sleep depravation and my brain was kind of being bi-polar where one minute I would have a pretty clear train of thought about a subject and the next minute I would be kind of incoherent and all over the place.  Anyway, I'm a little more clear-headed today, albeit still in a delightful narcotic cloud, so let's see if I can string together a compelling post...

Yesterday was Martin Luther King day.  It's an important day more so than usual because of the current political campaigning and the rhetoric coming from the GOP candidates regarding race, class and social equality.  Even though we have come a long way as a country from the days when Dr. King marched for civil rights, yesterday was an opportunity to take an interesting look at how many of the current republican presidential hopefuls still view racial and social inequality.  I found it particularly striking that during the latest GOP debate, Gingrich doubled down on his past comments about black kids not having any positive role models to teach them a work ethic and continued to foster the notion that blacks are all on food stamps, not to mention his ridiculous remarks about putting inner-city school kids to work as janitors.  Of course, he was deliberately and arrogantly pandering to the base with the welfare and food stamps red meat and he was also obviously feeding into the ignorant, neo-racism that permeates the Tea Party fringe, but there is still a pretty bold and shameless chutzpah to doubling down on your race-baiting rhetoric on MLK day.  It's not as if Gingrich is the only GOP candidate with his own racial controversy right now, either.  Rick Santorum is still getting criticism for his comments about blacks not having jobs and being on food stamps and of course there's Ron Paul and his incredibly racially-charged newsletters that he signed his name to even though he claims never to have read any of them.  Almost makes Rick Perry's Niggerhead Ranch sign seem tame in comparison, never thought that would be the case...

I already knew that once Jon Huntsman exited the race that any and all interest I might have had in possibly voting Republican in the next presidential election would go with him.  He was the only guy who didn't sound like a rabid, ignorant Tea Party shill.  Ron Paul might still have a lot of voters fooled with the Libertarian packaging that he wraps his extreme social conservatism in, but he's just as backwards as the rest of them when it comes to women's rights, true equality and the trickle-down corporate welfare that is the bread and butter of the current GOP platform.  Now that Huntsman is out, for all intents and purposes my vote for Obama is sealed.

Honestly, I'm not really happy about that.  It's not that I'm mad about supporting Obama or anything, but it's rather disappointing that my support for his re-election right now is more about a lack of a remotely better option from the other side than it is about any enthusiasm for Obama's campaign.  Like a lot of people who voted for Obama in '08, I have been pretty underwhelmed by his accomplishments since taking office.  Of course, I understand that a lot of that has to do with the deliberate obstruction from congress and the obsessive mission of the GOP to do any and everything they can to keep Obama from being re-elected, including contradicting their own values and party platform just so they can say "no" to whatever Obama asks of them, but regardless it's still frustrating to be 3 years into a presidency and the only action that seems to be coming out of our government is continuing the same lousy policies of the Bush administration that got us in this mess to begin with.  It's encouraging that Obama is finally giving up on trying to work with the do-nothing congress and is now using executive orders and the like to push through his agenda without them, but it's something that should have been done a year or more ago, back when it was first and glaringly obvious that there was no way Obama would get any cooperation.

That being said, I also understand that lame-duck terms are a different animal from first terms.  If Obama wins re-election, he will actually be able to lead without having to worry about approval ratings, which means he might make some decisions that actually affect the voters instead of just doing favors for the special interests that got him elected.  This also means that congress will have to think about losing their jobs, instead of costing Obama his.  If Obama wins, then that not only means the majority of the American people recognize that the obstructionist congress holds more culpability for our current state of the union than the president, but it also means they're going to be putting all of those congressmen and women on notice come the mid-terms.  If Obama wins, that's all but a wrap for the most extreme Tea Party fringe of congress.  In fact, I think it's fair to say that if Obama wins, that's a wrap for the Tea Party period.

So, it looks like it's going to end up being Obama vs. Romney in 2012, despite the best efforts of Gingrich, Santorum, Perry and Paul.  There is rumbling about Paul possibly running as an independent after the convention, but I don't know if that will actually happen.  For one thing, Paul running as an independent would only hurt the GOP, not Obama.  People who are going to vote for Obama aren't going to vote for Ron Paul anymore than they would vote for Mitt Romney.  What a Paul independent campaign would do is split the vote between the Republicans who "like" Romney and those who don't, and that just means Obama will get 51% and the other two will split the rest.  For another thing, I don't think Paul has anywhere near enough money to run an independent presidential campaign.  Without the support of the GOP and their big money donors, he will be decimated by both Obama and Romney, which will not only mean he doesn't win in November, but it would also basically kill any presidential hopes he might ever have in the future.  Lastly, it's obvious to everyone with their finger anywhere near the political pulse that Ron Paul is prepping the stage for his son, Rand, to pursue a lofty political career and putting the black mark of being a GOP spoiler on his name would be a terrible legacy to pass on when the ultimate goal is to make the Paul family the next conservative political dynasty.

I was thinking about all of this as the novocaine wore off and the pain of what had happened started setting in and that's actually a perfect metaphor for what's going on politically right now.

The novocaine of the many infatuations the GOP base has had with the different candidates is wearing off and the painful reality that there guy is just going to have to be Mitt is setting in.  When Jon Huntsman throws his endorsement behind the guy he said was "unelectable" and who's divisive rhetoric was "what's wrong with this country", the pain of reality is setting in.  Indeed, this entire GOP race has been like having an infected tooth - it's uncomfortable, painful even.  It's unsightly to look at and it gets irritated easily.  It makes it hard to enjoy anything because it's always there, reacting to everything in the most extremely oversensitive way possible.  And, like an infected tooth, the best remedy is just to suck it up and yank it out as quickly as possible and begin the process of healing and moving on.

Time to let that infected tooth go, Republicans.  Time to take the momentary pain of losing in 2012 and move on and let the wound heal.

Imogen Lloyd Webber is awesome.

Daughter of Andrew Lloyd Webber and popular fixture on both MSNBC and Fox News, Imogen Lloyd Webber is proof that the conservative media doesn't hold the monopoly on beautiful women with political opinions.  I became a fan of hers from watching her regular guest-rants on Dylan Ratigan's show and the more I watched her, the more her big, semi-crazy eyes pulled me in.  She's a bonafide hottie and she also has a sexy British accent to boot!

What can I say, it's Friday and I want to post pictures of hot liberal pundit girls!

Ok, so she's a little on the skinny side compared to the kinds of girls I usually like, but what she lacks in ghetto thickness she makes up for in great liberal dialog, delivered in a crisp British tone.  I could listen to her talk about income inequality and socioeconomic policy all damn day!

I didn't post this picture for Imogen so much as for the ticker at the bottom.  "Nearly 45% oppose tax hikes for the rich."  Fox News is awesome, their conservative spin is so strong that they actually made a positive out of the fact that far less than half the country supports their coddle-the-rich caste system agenda.  Gotta love that Konservative Kool-Aid!

Back to our regularly-scheduled program!  Look at those eyes.  I mean, sure, they could also be the eyes of the girl who's about to shoot you with your own gun, but you would almost want to thank her for it afterwards.

So, ok, Imogen is an intelligent woman with an accomplished career and a lot of respect and integrity in her industry and I should be going on an on about her credentials and resume and exalt her intellectual achievements instead of her physical beauty, but let's face it, she's a smoking hottie.  I mean, you can stick a supercomputer in a Ferrari, but it's still a Ferrari after all and that's what turns the heads.  Imogen is a progressive's wet dream, beautiful and sexy, but capable of holding a great conversation about politics after you're done shagging her silly.  See what I did there?  I called it "shagging" cuz she's British, I'm so fracking witty...

And that's Imogen Lloyd Webber, she's no Meghan McCain, but she's pretty awesome.


Also, I have to give honorable mention to my second favorite member of the Dylan Ratigan mega panel, Krystal Ball.

She's another liberal commentator who's not afraid to wade into the spooky swamp of Fox News, where, like Imogen, she's mostly portrayed as a poor, misguided, radical liberal socialist, but she looks damn hot while being marginalized!

However, unlike Imogen, Krystal has a bit of controversy in her past that actually helped propel her into the national spotlight and boosted her career.  When she was running for congress, her opponent got ahold of some pictures she took at a Christmas party with her husband when she was 28.  In the pics, her husband is wearing a red dildo on his nose and, well, see for yourself...

In addition to leading him around on a leash, there are also pics of her and a female friend taking turns "blowing" the fake penis nose.  These pictures were supposed to ruin her career, but instead they vaulted her into the spotlight and helped her launch a new and more successful run as a political strategist and commentator.  Apparently, seeing a hot girl do sexy things with fake genitalia is a positive, who could have predicted that? (that was sarcasm)

Those are some sexy legs.  Krystal almost looks like she would be the kind of girl who would be too serious and uptight to be a good time, but then you see those party pics and you realize she's just really good at hiding her wild side when she has to.  That's the best kind of girl, right there!

And there you go, two good reasons to watch more MSNBC and maybe even some Red Eye over on Fox, as long as you mute the sound so you don't have to hear the inane banter between the hosts.  Happy Friday the 13th!

Oh, extra note, I may or may not post anything on Monday.  I'm getting my wisdom teeth removed and I will likely be all jacked up on pain killers and in no mood to try and think of anything remotely interesting to blog about, so we'll see what happens.  My apologies to all 3 of you who read this blog daily and would actually care whether I post or not. ;)