call me a conspiracy theorist if you want. i have been called far worse. here's my thoughts on the current stem cell argument.

virtually everything discussed in congress these days is some kind of distraction technique put up by the republikkkans to hide the fact that they're still stealing money from us hand over fist (never you mind the missing katrina relief funds, or the vast sweeping tax cuts for the wealthy republikkkan base, there's a bunch of mexicans threatening your fruit picking career! hurry, before they teach your children spanish, impregnate your daughters with non-lilly-white offspring, and make enchiladas our national dish!). the stem cell debate is more insidious than usual, though. this is the republikkkans best chance to distance themselves from dubya and darth cheney they're going to have. here's how it works.
1) make it appear that a few of those incumbents whose seats are up for grabs are in favor of actual scientific progress in opposition the phony religious proclamations of the moron in our highest office.
2) dubya threatens to use the veto for the first time.
3) fake bravado from the toadies like frist, claiming that we must broaden the scope of stem cell research (especially adult stem cells and cord blood stem cells, which have shown so much promise).
4) veto
5) "we'll keep pushing for this legislation in our next term if you give us another chance..."-type speech that fades out sometime mid-november
6) see religious wackjobs? no harm done, and now all of your moral protectors are still in office.

numerous media sources are predicting that the neo-con movement is on its way out, but in my opinion, even if we get rid of the worst of them, the damage has been done. the political realm been infected, and the religious right is resistant to the pennicillin of the separation of church and state.

the hardest part is that i'm related to most of them. my grandmother gets a christmas card from the white house every year.

fuck all of those bastards.

the federal minimum wage has been the same for the entirety of the time i've been out of high school. people working for minimum wage have been getting poorer and poorer for ten years, and the republikkkans are just now figuring out that there needs to be a change? the best part in my estimation is that they don't want to do anything, but the only way they feel they won't be raped by the demokkkrats politically is to go ahead and support an increase. this is just a way to nullify the bad juju that would come from not supporting the bill. i like it when the right-wingers are on the defensive for a change. now, if only enough people could stop shouting mindless pseudo-patriotic drivel long enough to listen to the rational folk out there, we might even get to point out a few of the other things the republikkkans need to be scared of in november. like corruption, anti-privacy legislation, the anti-progress mentality, and, oh yeah, the needless waste of a money-sinkhole that is iraq.

fuck bush.

if the best thing you could brag about was "things are slightly less bad than was initially predicted," would you be crowing about it? that's just what our brave leader is doing now. has he forgotten that we were in a time of surplus under his oft villified predecessor? we were actually on our way to paying the national debt, as opposed to adding to it at a record pace.

deficit spending doesn't work for households (just ask some of my cousins); why would it work for the whole country? true, it is possible to float briefly on a wave of credit and then surge forward to pay it off, but drowning is more likely than surfing.

i've posted two days in a row. that's the all-star break for you, i guess.

fuck bush

dear vast american middle (by this i mean those who cannot be defined easily by "liberal" or "conservative" labels, not our collective enormous midsection),

please remember for just a few more months how bad these sons of bitches really are. they are sending your children to war, at this point only to "honor the memories" of the ones who've already died in the same war (go die for those already dead... doesn't sound as noble then, does it?). they've lied to you at every opportunity, and unless you're making better than 300k, they don't even like you.

elections are too far away for the outrage to last, so consider this a public service reminder from gthedamned. stay mad. they're motherfuckers.

sincerely
gthedamned

ps fuck bush

today is mine and siouxs!'s three year anniversary. we have a beautiful baby boy, and we're pretty damned happy, if somewhat sleep deprived. happy anniversary, baby.

and just for the record, the three year anniversary is the leather anniversary, which is the funniest thing i've heard all day. i think next year is the official "nipple clamp anniversary."