lost highway

Anyone who would abstain from a presidential vote in a two party system or a ten party system only because they feel the available choices don't accurately represent 'them as a person' is allowing ideology to be a stepping stone to apathy. Whether you are adequately represented as an individual, or not, their are two potential choices that will have a very different outcome. Everything I know tells me if I vote for McCain or even if I abstain from voting, I am just waiting for the poor to get poorer and a lot more people to die overseas. I have to resign myself to the fact that there isn

Yeah 'hip hop' agenda. Not a prayer. Some people are born to delegitimize their movement.

Absolutely. We've just been drumming up enemies a little fast for my world view.

Pakistan, Russia, Iran all someone has to do is get Kim Jong-Il out of the hospital and we could have WWIII. This one is the nuclear holocaust edition. So long world.

Here's a more optimistic spin on pragmatism: Don't vote for the lesser of evils. Vote for the greatest good. Ralph Nader and Ron Paul won't be a vote for the greatest good if they can't get in to office. Look into McCain's old caucasian hawk eyes when he talks about the military, that man can taste blood. Not the greatest good available to us.

The most glaring hitch in McCain's financial strategy is this: How does keeping both tax cuts, and aggressive military spending get the U.S. out of the biggest deficit of our lifetimes? Let's face it. Bush style foreign policy and military spending has gotten us half way up China's ass. One more person in office with the same strategy (in this respect McCain looks an awful lot like Bush) and we will be on our way to becoming a Chinese province.

I would argue that there is a rich variety of opinions regarding Latin American foreign policy coming from any U.S. citizen informed enough to care. If I gather anything from Pillowy Star's experience it is that there is no simple answer, neither a for it or against it, simple and clean enough to account for many of the latin American countries difficult positions. To the best of my knowledge, Bolivia doesn't have land that is inherently worthless. There seems to be some useful resource there and they are now trying to manage it in a way that can get a government off the ground. Really in

(post edit: this is response to jc4prez) Oooh this is getting good. You're smart, and that makes this so much more fun. This is a huge can of worms. My response on Cuba would be: Castro as both the stubborn bastard that refused to compromise at the cost of his nation's poor and starving, he also was the stubborn bastard who refused to compromise, very much to the benefit of his nation's poor and starving. Every before and after comparison I've read on Castro's Cuba shows an improvement in education and quality of life overall (with the same obvious exceptions regarding intolerance towar

The sanctions began as a knee jerk reaction. The U.S. and cronies thought they could stop Cuba's nationalization with a slap on the wrist, keeping Cuba as their bitch. Didn't work. I hear they're still not on speaking terms, but some Obama guy said he was willing to call and say hello.

1. Wilco is not alt-country. 2. It's about time Bolivia got it's oil supply feeding into it's own wallet. That's how Mexico pulled itself up a notch in the first half of the 20th century. 3. One can not believe anecdotal evidence against Chavez sitting in a country that created a covert op to topple him. 4. Castro was the best thing to happen to Cuban politics (a surprisingly modest achievement that doesn't negate some nasty human rights issues).

As this spins in it's third and fourth circle all I can think is: 1. Both parties need to keep all this tabloid stuff out, and keep focusing on what they can do for the country. Throwing around the term 'earmarks' doesn't do it for me. Check how many bills passed in the history of the U.S. had earmarks. 2. People need to ask themselves what McCain will do to get U.S. troops out of Iraq. Why Iraq has a surplus. Why does the U.S. have a massive deficit? How will military aggression and keeping tax cuts get us out of deficit? How will staying at an atrocious deficit help keep us from

I like how Jules always seems calm. Every Jules post reads like Samual L. Jackson said it to me in his most mellow "Royale with Cheese" mode. It seems Obama's witty swipe at Palin is earning him some bad press. This is only gonna get weirder and weirder.

Yes and there are a number of choices, of ways to deal with that consequence. There is the 'morning after' pill. There is the most responsible and safe early term abortion. There is motherhood. There is the orphanage. Any one of these choices has a myriad of psychological, ethical, financial and emotional consequences. They are all ways of 'dealing' with the consequence. Anyone who does any of these things (perhaps with the exception of the morning after pill) will be 'dealing' with the consequences for a very long time. To suggest otherwise would be callous. Again, not the governmen

Watching Pat play the bass is like watching your dad drive your mom's car for the first time. It feels wrong at first, but then you stop and realize you always kind of knew he could do it well, if he needed to.

Oh, hold up. Now that Palin is using it for her SuperWoman cape in a new ad, Obama is calling her out, and CNN.com is covering it. Yeesh!

Sexism, rampant sexism, working in the Republican parties favor. So strange. It can be said without thought of gender that Palin is a moron with theocratic tendencies sufficient enough to bring the U.S. back to the dark ages. And why has she gotten away with talking about the "bridge to nowhere" on tv without anyone besides John Stewart reminding us the whole thing was her fault to begin with. Crimeanee!

Mescaleros are cool. I will say that Streetcore is the best thing Joe Strummer did after Combat Rock which is pretty awesome if you think about dying on a high note. But Strummer solo better than the Clash? That's kind of crazy, I think.

No that was probably one of it's progeny. Those things are like Irish Catholics all they do is copulate and pray. They do throw in some creepy post-coital cannibalism, but that's just another addition to the confession.

This is the lynch pin of the entire Capitalist philosophy. In order to have a successful capitalism one can not have a true capitalism. It is always tempered with some degree of regulation, or *gasp* socialist programs. The U.S. of A. has historically done a great job of mixing these ideas in the past (although some people wet the bed if you paint us pink socialists), you can see this in laws against monopolies or public organizations like the USPS or the library system. This is the delicate balance that makes our country and economy work. On the one hand our government could be harde

Yeah. So much could happen. It's still scary no matter what. We live in a country that elected Bush a SECOND TIME. I will vote. Hold my breath. Pray.

Grading schools is problematic for a myriad of reasons. I see this happen all the time: School in shitty neighborhood has to perform to get better funding. Shitty neighborhood has messed up parents with messed up kids. School tests low and is not granted better funding. Score is published and the small community of parents that give a shit at the school decide to have their kids apply to go to neighboring school that is slightly better. Awesome extra curricular program can not start due to cut in funding. Families buying a house avoid neighborhood in district of school that tested poor

That's actually a really important point I forgot. I saw Mulholland the fist time in the theatre. Inland on DVD. Makes a huge difference.

"Excellent work once again Winston." (imagine this is said in a pretentious Oxford accent)

In England in 2006 and 2007 the average person spent 1,195 pounds a year on health care. That converts to about $2,125 US. I call that a massive improvement. Scotland is a little more expensive but haggis does awful things to your intestinal tract.

Politically motivated. And also true.