Palin's a Psycho Bitch

I can't claim to be the most informed as far as politics go, but it's hard not to get involved for an election that seems to be as vital as the upcoming one. I'm not really a Democrat or a Republican. While socially I definitely lean towards the Democrats, economically I tend to be more conservative. That being said, the social changes that could possibly be enacted by the incoming presidency seem more important to me that any of the economic policies that will be put into place. Even though I wouldn't have voted for John McCain, I at least respected him. He used to be fairly progressive and always seemed to be genuine and honest (well, as honest as a politician can actually be). Then came his campaign for the coming election. Once McCain realized he couldn't get elected on crazy concepts like "ideals" he sold his soul to the lobbyists and the religious right. Honestly, McCain at least had my respect until he brought the religious right onto his side. One of my main problems with Bush (one of many) is that he destroyed any notion of separation of church and state, and now McCain wants to do the same exact thing. But the final straw, the one that turned me vehemently against the McCain campaign, was when he named as his running mate, of all people, Sarah f'ing Palin.
Like most people I'd never heard of her before, but honestly, has anyone listened to her talk? I wouldn't trust her to make me a sandwich let alone to be a heart beat away from running this country. She's an ultra-conservative, evolution denying mayor from a small Alaskan town that potentially believes that man and dinosaur, at one point, walked together. Her interview with Katie Couric is now infamous, and if you haven't seen it, it's totally worth a look. The entire interview is horribly troubling. Here's a lady that believes that 'living close to Russia' gives her foreign policy experience. As much as she got skewered by the awesome Tina Fey on SNL, the sad thing is that her parody of Palin was more or less a paraphrase of what Palin actually said. Can I just say, that is definitively NOT a good thing. When you lampoon a candidate by using her exact words that is a clear sign that said candidate should not be let into office.
I don't know how anyone could ever support Palin. She is freaking psychotic. She opposes abortion at all times (which includes cases of rape), she hates the environment, and can we just be honest that she'll set back female progress in the political field to some time in the 1950s. Now, I found Hillary Clinton to be an icy, manipulative bitch that would try and win at all costs, but never once did I doubt her intelligence; with Palin, who so far has given us nothing but rhetoric and lies, I wonder if she could get out of the tenth grade. While we're being honest, let's be clear on why she's in this position in the first place: she's female and not terrible looking. With those glasses and the business suits she has that whole stripper thing going on. Politically speaking, she's a wise choice by McCain's people: she'll get the uber-conservative votes that McCain simply could not reach, she'll get the voters who will vote for a candidate simply because she's female, and she'll reach the racist stoners that wouldn't vote for Obama cause he's black and would probably be too apathetic and lazy to get up and move from McCain. So I'll give McCain that, she does have the ability to get votes from several demographics he could not hope to reach as an older white male, but that aside, does anybody seriously expect her to be able to do even a semi-decent job if, heaven forbid, she actually reaches office? How is she different from any of the theocratic leaders in many of the countries that we consider our 'enemies'? If someone can tell me how a conservative heardliner with little-to-no experience and 18th century ideals would be good for this country I would be eternally grateful. Otherwise, when she gets elected and does nothing but pander to the social conservatives and brings us back to a 1930s era aesthetic, don't say I didn't tell you. Honestly, if you're female, and you believe in female rights and dignity, you HAVE TO vote for Obama. I'm by no means a feminist supporter (frankly, feminists piss me off), but Palin will take women's rights and place them somewhere close to John Winthrop. She's underqualified and simply unfit to have any leadership position within this country. With her fundamental views, I have a feeling that Sarah Palin would be a lot more comfortable in another country.... maybe she could try Saudi Arabia? Seems to me she'd fit in pretty well over there.... and at the very least she'd be the fuck out of America.

I've been lazy

Damn, I haven't posted in ages. Well, between settling down to Philly, looking for a job, getting a cat, and visiting people I haven't seen in what feels like forever, I've been a bit pre-occupied. But let's be honest - I spent the majority of my time watching the olympics. I will pretty much watch sports anytime, anywhere, and for me the olympics kind of are the acme of all sporting events. You had 200 some countries taking part, the majority of which knew they had no realistic shot of winning any medal at all. But still, they competed and literally gave everything they had. There's too many feel good olympic stories for me to reiterate (and besides, you've probably been enundated by them to the point of nausea). There really is just something totally cool about seeing people work all their lives for one moment and then getting to watch them finally achieve what they've been working towards. And there's nothing as absolutely gut-wrenching as watching somebody mess up and fail.
To that point, I was disappointed with the commentators NBC had at the games. They were mean-spirited and were clearly just trying to get their interview subjects to go off, thus increasing the profile of the interviewer. The worst, for me, was Andrea Kremer interviewing Alicia Sacramone after she'd fallen during her floor exercise routine. Obviously the girl felt terrible. I mean, I can't imagine how much time and effort gymnasts must put into their craft. They not only sacrifice any semblance of a normal childhood, but they purposely stunt their growth. No one can tell me that gymnasts are totally healthy. 1) Alicia felt terrible after she fell and 2) it wouldn't have mattered as the Chinese were pretty much guaranteed a gold medal at that point. So what does Andrea do? She basically rips into Alicia, blatantly trying to make her cry and pretty much implying that Alicia had 'let her team down.' Give me a fucking break. That's bullshit. The girl's only 20. And she's not a multi-millionaire NBA player. Give her a freaking break. Shit, give her a hug. She left it all out there and shit just didn't go right. But don't lambast the poor girl. Nor was that the only complaints I could levy towards the American broadcasters. When the one American hurdler got tripped up and was distraught, rather than let her have some reprieve when she was bawling, the cameras decided it'd be better tv to follow her. Classy, NBC. And when the one American sprinter ran out of his lane and was disqualified, rather than console him, whatever dumbass was interviewing him just tried to egg him on and get him to explode on tv. That's bullshit. You know any athlete is gonna be emotional after they just competed in the olympic games, how about we let them be and try act like dignified broadcasters? I don't think anyone really got a thrill out of seeing a 16 year old gymnast come close to tears.

Also, I'm not sure of the name of the one guy who was doing the commentary for gymnastics, but he was fucking obnoxious. I think it was Tim, or Tom or something like that. Whatever it is, he fucking blows.

I'm fairly positive that Waterworld is actually based off of Phelps. I made it a point to watch all of his races and I gotta say, I never realized swimming could be that exciting. That was awesome.

Congrats to the US men's basketball team. They brought back the gold to us. People kept writing that the awfully named "Redeem Team" aren't as dominant as the original Dream Team - no fucking shit. No team will ever be that good. And it's time to admit, once and for all, that the rest of the world has caught up. I mean, if Manu and Nocioni are healthy during the gold medal game, and if Pepe Sanchez and Walter Hermann decided to take part in the olympics, who's to say what could have happened? But as it is, America is once atop the basketball world, where it belongs.

The best part of the olympics has to be watching all the random sports: trampoline, handball, water polo, white water rafting, crew. I loved them all. Olympics, I will miss thee. Especially now that I have nothing to do during the day...