The State of the Union

Allison does a few things that infuriate me to no end. One of those things is pictured above. She has stopped taking the last piece of paper and just not replacing it- which is great - but she has a habit of now just replacing the toilet paper roll with another on top. She knows the proper way to do it, but she chooses her own way, retarded as it is. Out of pure stubbornness, I refused to fix the above problem just to see how long it took her to recognize her laziness and remedy the issue by taking an extra 1.7 seconds to do it the right way. I knew it would be a while and then, because photographic evidence is so sweet, I took this picture. Anyway, would you believe it if I told you that she did not fix this for the entire roll?

Well, she didn't. Unreal right?

And yet, it gets better.

She actually repeated this lazy fix TWO more times (TWO!!! more rolls sitting on top of the cardboard center) before I finally exploded in frustration.

Now, I love Allison. I love her more than anything really, but this behavior needs to stop. And it has stopped- at least with Allison. You wanna know why? Because she spoke to a rational person (me) and she was presented with the facts on the ground (A. That is not where the toilet paper goes, B. you know how to properly replace it, C. it is quite easy, you've done it before, D. it has been a long, long time to figure out how to change course - three rolls total!! - and yet, you stubbornly refuse to fix your egregious mistake, E. Why are you killing me softly?) and promised she'd take the time to do the right thing. I am sure W loves this country, but his behavior has done nothing but help to destroy it, and clearly that behavior needs to stop.

Well, anyway, this brings me to yesterday's State of the Union. I watched it on TiVo and actually had to check to see if I had infact recorded the 2004 State of the Union or maybe any other of Bush's speeches. Nothing new. Same old lies, falsehoods, empty promises and basically a lot of grand ideas (replacing the toilet paper!) with poor execution (quick-fix, not really replacing it) and outright lies (what does toilet paper wipe?).

What the President did was to have, as ThinkProgress called it, a one hour argument with himself. Most of his grand ideas and promises go directly in the face of what he actually does. His examples of Katrina, the "addiction to oil," NSA spying, Iraq- all bullshit. All opportunities to do the right thing, and all examples of where the President says one thing and does another.

He needs to get away from all of these people that tell him what he wants to hear. He needs to get away from the idea that Iraq is "winnable" in the way he thinks it is. He needs to listen to the American people. to generals like Shinseki, to environmentalist, to Democrats, and to scientists instead of religious fanatics and fix real problems that we have right now instead of living in a fantasy world where putting a roll of toilet poaper on top of a problem and believing that it is fixed is ok. Of course he won't do that, and next year's State of the Union will probably be more of the same rehashed empty rhetoric.

The Democratic response was pretty weak too (what was with that guy's eyebrow?) but in the setting (speaking to a majority conservative audience) I guess it was appropriate. But for me, it was a major disappointment. There was no challenge to the President's speech, just a canned appeal to doing things a "better way." I doubt Gov. Kaine won many people over, and it was a real opportunity to go after the president on his biggest weakness -Iraq. On a night where Cindy Sheehan was arrested for wearing a protest T-Shirt, the Democrats could have really made an appeal that this man is out of control. Take Murtha for example, I would have liked to have heard this as the response.

Murtha:
... Spreading democracy does not equate to or ensure stabilization. A safe world is a stable world. STABILITY is what is key here. Is the world safer today with the gains of Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon? Is the world safer with an emboldened Iran? Is Iraq or the region more stable as a result of our military intervention in Iraq? What proof to we have that the President's policies are working? ...

We have no proof, all we have is an unsecure homeland and a fiasco in Iraq. Nice job failing to drive that point home last night Democrats.

Update: Thursday, 1:06 a.m. ... Watching Lou Dobbs' rant ... He's talking about the Preznit's SOTU and a day after speech where the president tried to drive home a less-"moderate", more conservative message that the White House was afraid was absent from the SOTU. The speech was all bullshit of course, but what struck me was the signs behind the president that read
"Americans Win When Americans Lead."

Now, call me a "fulthy Amurrrica-hatur" if you must, but I laughed (got that, ,NSA, laughed) out loud when I saw the sign. A few random thoughts ran through my head, here they are:

1.) Do American's Win If An American President Leads American Straight Into A Toilet?

2.) What If A 40 Year Alcoholic Cokehead Leads America On An 8 Year Bar Binge On A Search For An Eightball That Is Never Found? Do Americans Win Then?

3.) Was America "Leading" When An American "President" Dodged the Draft When He "Enlisted" With the National Guard?

4.) If You Had to Guess, Was Louisiana the "Leader" of Party Towns You Got Fucked Up In When You Were AWOL From the National Guard?

5.) Is America the Leader in science anymore?

6.) How about schools?

7.) How about manufacturing? Do Americans Win If America Was A Manufacturing Leader?

8.) How About Respect from the other 6 Billion People in the World? Are we a serious global "leader" anymore?

9.) Are We A Christian Nation? Maybe so, but If This Man Is "their" Leader, does that show that the President is perverting Christianity, or that modern Christianity in itself is perverted? Maybe both. Should All of America Be Lead By People That Subscribe To Such Perverted Fantasy?

9.) Saw Bob Casey on Matthews tonight. I hate Matthews more by the second, but his on-air "phone-sex-type" panting over his lover, the President, and everything he does, his high praise for the President's speech and the President in general and pretty much all Republican criminals (Santorum and Delay, back to back- wow) is the only funny part of the Bush presidency. It's like watching Joe Izuzu trying to sell cars. And then when a Democrat like Murtha goes on and owns him like a sick comic trying to silence an ignorant heckler, he just crumbles like when a kid finally succumbs to the realization that Santa isn't real. It's like this crushing blow when Matthews briefly revisits reality and then *poof* it disappears in Russertonian style with "Do you think John McCain Would Be A More Or Less Handsome President Than Rudy Guiliani?"

10.) Anyway, back to Casey. He was on during the tolerable David Shuster's report. Casey snippet, Santorum comeback, Santorum snippet, Casey comeback. Typical formula for cable. So I go to change it to my DVR when all of the sudden Casey goes (paraphrase) "Well, some of Mr. Santorum's comments haven't passed the hysterical laughter test."

Exactly.

Game. Set. Match. Argument over.

I have never heard anything more precisely sum up a person, a party, and even that party's supporters and their Christo-fascist corporate agenda, than "they don't pass the hysterical laughter test."

On all the lies, spin, and distortions.
On every issue Bush talks about.
On all the bullshit talking points.
On the saying the opposite of what I am saying code to the Christian right.
On Falwell.
On Robertson.
On the Contract With America.
On Abramoff.
On Abramoff talking points and excuses and stonewalling.
On Iraq.
On the goose stepping gestapo propagandists at Fox News.
On the President waiting seven minutes to react to 9-11.
On torture.
On religious fundamentalists.
On religious fundamentalism in our country.
On the President waiting three days to fly over Katrina's after he was vacationing for his record time.
On the excuses, the stonewalling, and the talking point political pretzel the President and all his supporters make and twist themselves into to explain the President's delayed reaction to 9-11 and Katrina.
On Terry Schiavo's right to magically unbraindead herself.
On refusing to further stem cell research.
On diagnosing from a television set.
On being "fiscally conservative."
On domestic spying.
On cutting food to welfare mothers and children the week before Christmas.
On the attorney General lying during his confirmation.
On the English language.
On Our President's DUI.
On the latest Supreme Court Justice and his lying during confirmation.
On missing OBL in Tora Bora.
On Saying "Fuck You" to A Senator on the Floor of Congress.
On our strategy for "winning" in Iraq.
On the White Houses attempts to connect Iraq to the Global Wall on Terror.
On Why We Need to Make Tax Cuts For Billionaires.
On Why We Need to Make Tax Cuts For Billionaires permanent.
On Harriet Myers.
On Saudi Arabia.
On the Border.
On Science.
On ignoring science.
On Exxon Mobile and the Biggest Profits In the HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES and an ex-oil tycoon telling US that we are too "addicted to oil" on the same day.
On that very same company's profits, and the percentage of which that is spent on that very same President. And also on what is spent on a concentrated attempt at muddying the water on global warming.
On a President who still thinks evolution is 'still on the table.'
On "smaller government."
On "Tax and Spend" Being Worse in the Mind of the Public Than "Borrow On the Backs of Your Children and Spend."
On paying scientists to write bullshit science on a scientific and environmental catastrophe that companies with record-breaking profits and their President's policies are helping to accelerate to disastrous level.
On marijuana being illegal.
On no Democrat leading legislation to legalize mariuana.
On firing Generals who try to educate a chickenhawk on troop levels.
On refusing the suffering the right to die with dignity.
On state-sponsored murder.
On all of it with this lazy corporate-own, for-profit media, and those in and out of control of news, information, and government right now.
... it all really doesn't pass the hysterical laugh test.

But I laugh anyway. It's One ofthose Laugh Because It Hurts Laughs But Still.

I Laugh At the Fact That Progressives Don't Have A Party. We Have Very Small Numbers in One Party and Almost Nobody in the Media. We Have One Party That Constantly Screws and Bullshits the Public, and Another That Constantly Fears to Call Bullshit- Bullshit- and Loses On Message Every time.

I Laugh Because We As A Nation Are the Laughing Stock of the World On An Increasing Number of Points (Education, Honesty, "Free" Press, Borrowing Money, Civil Liberties, Science, Our "Freedom," etc.)

I Laugh Because the Democrats Continue to Ignore Public Opinion of the War, and Their Own Service Hero Jack Murtha, and Picked Tim "Crazy Eyebrow" Kaine to Deliver a Speech That Was Boring, and Incidently, Plagiarized From the Film "The Candidate," a movie about a man With No Ideas Who Uses Canned Speech Like "There's A Better Way."

I Laugh Because Fans of the President Packed the Grand Ol' Opry Today to Listen to A Man Explain the Fascinating Topic of "America Wins When America Leads" and They Loved It.

And I Sigh Because I Only Think Americans Will "Win" When One Party Finds A Message, Finds A Voice, And Shows Them That The Other Party Doesn't Pass the Hysterical Laugh Test. Then Maybe We Can Lead the World Forward, Instead Of Down the Toilet.

(I have no idea why I am so fixated on the GooPers and/or bathroom humor today. Sorry About the spllin.)