Palindrome

Well, McCain may have shot himself in the foot with his V.P. announcement. If the American voters bothered to think about important issues anyways, instead of just caring that she's both a woman, and kind of pretty. Sarah Palin is, to be blunt, a terrible choice.
She may be a governor, and she was a beauty queen, but that doesn't necessarily make you a good V.P. candidate. And this coming from someone who is a firm supporter of having attractive people in important positions.
Think about it this way, McCain is 72. He has a history of health issues, and being President is a very stressful position. Were he elected, it must be considered that he might not be able to serve a full term because of death or illness. Wouldn't it make sense to have a V.P. who is experienced and capable? Some foreign policy experience might be a good idea too. It is a very real possibility that, were McCain elected, Palin would have to take on all the responsibilities of President for part of his term. Do you really want a vice president who is so completely naive in foreign politics? Do you want a vice president who doesn't believe that human activity having an effect on the climate? Do you want a vice president who will actively help to overturn abortion rights?
Palin is a selfish choice by McCain, he wants someone who can help make up for his charisma deficits, and he chose someone who will not stand up to him on important issues. The vice president should be willing to give the president an opposing point of view, if they consider the president to be wrong about something. Palin will not do that, she will be a cheering section, nothing more.
John McCain also must think that he can lock up the female vote just by having a woman as his running mate. To me, that shows a great disrespect for female voters in America. Are there some people who will vote for a candidate just because of their gender? Absolutely. Is it a large proportion of the voting population? I don't think so. I have no problem with the idea of a woman as president or vice president, but to choose someone so inexperienced tells us that McCain thinks women are an easy vote to grab. It also tells us that he is more concerned with what happens on November 4th than with what happens after it. He cares more about being elected than he does about governing.
Is Palin (by far) the best looking Vice Presidential candidate ever? Absolutely. Is she probably the least qualified Vice Presidential candidate in my lifetime (so far)? Absolutely.

Election Time?

Well, I'm finally installed at my place in Montreal, got my room all set up.

McCain has finally announced his VP pick, and it is Sarah Palin.
If you asked "Sarah who?" then I'm with you.
Apparently she's the first-term governor of Alaska. Pretty much an unknown, but she's younger than Obama (to try and grab the young vote) and she's (obviously/allegedly) a woman (to grab the "I like Clinton only because I'm a woman" vote). Other than that, she seems to be a political nobody outside of Alaska, which makes her a bit of a wild card in the election.

On my side of the border, Prime Minister Harper is going ape-shit crazy. He's been frantically calling by-elections (to replace vacated seats in the house) and refusing to co-operate with investigations into his party's (alleged) violation of funding rules, and goading the opposition parties. Now he's claiming that parliament isn't working (even though it's only because of his party) and he will probably call a snap election in the next couple of weeks. If he does he will be hindered by a couple things: firstly, calling a general election will tell the voters in the by-election ridings that they don't matter. Second, it would violate a law that government passed that makes fixed elections (not due until next fall) unless the government gets defeated in parliament on a confidence motion (which it hasn't). What makes this a little more interesting is that even if he calls an election, it might not happen. The Governor General can refuse to dissolve parliament. Or, because we're in a minority government, can even tell the opposition parties to form their own government (of course this has only happened once so far, in 1926). If he really wants an election, he should introduce legislation that overturns the fixed elections, and make it a confidence motion. If he wins, he can call an election, and if he loses, the Governor General dissolves parliament.
Meanwhile, Harper is criticizing the Governor General for not returning early from her vacation to deal with a "political crisis" that he created. And yet his health minister, Tony Clement, didn't cut his vacation short (and still hasn't returned) to deal with a very real health crisis. You know, that listeriosis outbreak that could potentially make thousands ill (though now only in the dozens, thousands were exposed to tainted meat).
Oh well, Harper is trailing the Liberals (narrowly) in the polls, but I think Canadians have had enough of the Conservatives for a couple years.

Possibly My Last Post Ever! (In the next few days)

Well, it's moving time for me.

Bright and early tomorrow morning, anyways.

Since I'm packing, today's post will be in point-form.

-Not happy with Biden for V.P.

-Still don't like McCain.

-Canadian election soon?

I might not post/have the internet for the next few days, unless I can find a wifi spot.

See you all when I get back online.

Changes

Just a few small changes around the blog today.

Both have to do with making your life easier.

And no, I'm not shutting down.

You can now subscribe to me!

In two different ways, too!

You can subscribe to my feed and have it on your Google or Yahoo page (and a couple others too).

Or, even better, you can get my updates by email. No more frantically checking to see if I've put up anything new!

Foreign Follies

The ceasefire between Georgia and Russia is in effect, sort of. The Russians aren't too blatant in violating it, except for the whole fortifying their positions inside Georgia thing. But I'm not going to rag on Russia, or Georgia because that whole region is pretty messed up.

No, I'm going to talk about what the United States has to do with this, because they have some (though only a small amount of blame) to take for the war that broke out a couple weeks ago.

You see, what the United States did was make Georgia think its military could hit above its weight class. They genuinely believed that they could go into South Ossetia (where Russian soldiers were already stationed), take it over by force (which would involve engaging the Russians in combat) and hold off or deter any Russian response. Obviously they were completely incorrect. Instead, the Georgian David got curb-stomped by the Russian Goliath. Where the Americans come in is that they, indirectly, are the reason that the Georgians were so overconfident. You see, the Americans have about 1000 "military advisors" in Georgia, training the Georgian military. They also sell large amounts of arms to the Georgians, to modernize their military and bring them up to western (NATO) standards. I think the Georgians believed that either: a) That the presence of American soldiers in the country would prevent the Russians from attacking. b) That their new military gear purchased from the United States and Israel (which almost stopped sales to Georgia because of the conflict) would give them a massive technological advantage over the Russians. Or finally, c) That the Americans would respond to the Russians with something more than a stern talking-to.

Obviously option "c" is the least likely by far, America's military is too stretched to consider even a small-scale conflict with the Russians, not to mention that the American people would never stand for it.  "a" is also unlikely for reasons that the Georgians should have recognized. Russia is a big kid on the block once again, and fully intends to throw its weight around. They are not going to worry about hurting a few feelings here and there, even with the United States. The Russians are going to actively try to rebuild a power block to counter NATO's influence, and I think that this was the beginning of that effort. Russia isn't going to look the other way anymore in exchange for some Adidas track suits and a BMW. They're back in the game.

So it must have been option "b". Technological superiority. There is some merit to this theory, as the Georgians did manage to knock out several state-of-the-art Russian tanks with their new Israeli missiles (again, the Israelis were NOT pleased about the Georgians using those missiles). But ultimately the technological edge was minimal, and the Russians are (for now) much better trained, and had far more combat power in the area than the entire Georgian army possessed.

In things closer to home (just a little south to be exact), Obama has picked his running mate, and Joe Biden will be his V.P. candidate. I don't know much about Biden right now, but I will be reading up on him in the next few days.

I'm just glad Obama didn't make the colossal mistake that having Clinton as V.P. would have been.

It's Your Fault, America

It's going to be a busy week for me coming up. Yes! It's moving time! I get to truck a second van-load of my junk out to Montreal and finish setting up my apartment. And then it's school. Again.

Anyways, it'll be nice to be back in Montreal again, I missed it this summer.

It seems like Americans are getting ready to shoot themselves in the foot. Again.

John McCain is 5 points up in the polls over Barack Obama, and American voters think he has more credibility on the economy. McCain being the candidate who, in the primaries, admitted that he doesn't understand the economy. He also backed the (useless) gas tax holiday proposal. And he can't keep track of how many homes he has (7, worth almost 14 million dollars) in a time when foreclosure rates are approaching depression levels. 

At least people (including Governator Schwarzenegger) are lining up to back Obama on the whole tire inflation thing. It's interesting that the Republicans were so quick to ridicule something tangible and simple, that anyone can do for the price of a tire gauge, that will help reduce the United States' reliance on oil. It's because the Republican leadership doesn't want Americans to take things into their own hands. They want to keep getting fat kickbacks from oil companies, and a lot of them were oil men to begin with.

Anyways, it is entirely possible that McCain only got into the lead because Obama was away all week. Obama was looking and sounding sharp as soon as he got back.

But what it comes down to is that 67% of the United States is unhappy with the status quo, and only 28% are happy with it. John McCain will continue the status quo. And yet almost 50% of Americans would vote for him. America, when you do things like that, it makes it harder and harder for those of us who say we love Americans and hate your government. When you do things like that, it implicates you in your government and makes people like me sound like morons. So America I beg you, for my sake, please wake up and smell the instant coffee. You really do not want John McCain for 4 years. Just picture having Bush for 12 years. Sure McCain might, arguably, be more of a capable adult. But ask yourself this: is it better to have an incompetent idiot implementing bad policies, or to have a capable (and allegedly rage-filled) person implementing bad policies? That is the difference between Bush and McCain.

--------This Post Has Been Interrupted Because I'm Tired----------

Olympics, Russian Bear, PETP

Well, the Olympics are in full swing now and, I have to admit, I haven't really been paying attention. I realized that watching things like the parallel bars, while impressive feats of human ability, still don't interest me. Even when it's on the Olympic level. My participation in this year's Olympics has been pretty much limited to checking the medal counts every day or two. Canada, please stop letting me down on this one, it's just depressing to see 0 medals every day. And to watch you sink further in the medal rankings. Warm-ups are over Canada, let's see some wins!

Anyways, in things that matter, it looks like there's a cease-fire between Georgia and Russia which should, at least temporarily, halt the violence there. I'm not sure whether or not I'm on the Russian side of this, or the Georgian side just yet, to be honest, I don't know enough about the region or the events to pick a side. But one way or the other one thing is certain: the Russia of the 90s is gone. The new Russia is going to be a lot more assertive in its politics, and I think we can expect to see more of these "interventions" in the next few years. The biggest question is: where will Russia decide that their influence ends?

And Bush's personal take on the conflict?

http://www.latimesblogs.latimes.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/08/09/beachvolleyball2.jpg

Aww hell, women's beach volleyball is way more interesting than Russia!

And back to PETA, I think we need a new organization. One specifically to deal with PETA's tactics. How about People for the Ethical Treatment of People? PETP. I guess it's not a very pronounceable acronym, but it's the thought that counts. How would PETA members feel if their personal tragedies were twisted to promote political messages that they don't support? What if a beef company parodied Pamela Anderson's divorce in an advertisement? No, I've come to the conclusion that PETA is a hypocritical, selfish organization that not only assumes to be the moral superior of common people, but will also trample their privacy, and their tragedy in order to advance its own agenda. PETA is a perfect example of people with (relative) privilege preaching to those who may not. Like they say, there are no starving vegetarians. While probably not literally true, it does point out that if you're hungry enough, you will eat whatever you can. And if you don't worry about where your next meal is coming from, you can be picky. Stupid PETA.