Now you have no money and She's Just Not That Into You

A few months ago I read a novel that had been left behind by some German girls who were residents in our complex last year left to return home. 'Chasing Harry Winston', it was called- I forget who the author was, but it was by the same woman who wrote 'The Devil Wears Prada'. I haven't read the latter, nor seen the movie, but the cover informed me that this was the case.

The novel was about a bunch of really irritating, vapid, shallow women living in New York. Poetic license, you'd think, not really reflective of any real live New York women. No?

This piece in the New York Times a couple of weeks back made me rethink that assumption. Women who date guys in finance: a more vapid, pathetic, gold-digging bunch you would be hard-pressed to find. They put the book's characters to shame.

Dawn Spinner Davis, 26, a beauty writer, said the downward-trending graphs began to make sense when the man she married on Nov. 1, a 28-year-old private wealth manager, stopped playing golf, once his passion. “One of his best friends told me that my job is now to keep him calm and keep him from dying at the age of 35,” Ms. Davis said. “It’s not what I signed up for.”

Wow, she sounds like she really gives a shit about her husband's mental health, huh?

They shared their sad stories the other night at an informal gathering of Dating a Banker Anonymous, a support group founded in November to help women cope with the inevitable relationship fallout from, say, the collapse of Lehman Brothers or the Dow’s shedding 777 points in a single day, as it did on Sept. 29.

In addition to meeting once or twice weekly for brunch or drinks at a bar or restaurant, the group has a blog, billed as “free from the scrutiny of feminists,” that invites women to join “if your monthly Bergdorf’s allowance has been halved and bottle service has all but disappeared from your life.”

Who expects to get a shopping 'allowance' from their husband or boyfriend? Is this guy your daddy, doling out pocket money, or your life partner in a relationship of equals?

Answer:

Once it was seen as a blessing in certain circles to have a wealthy, powerful partner who would leave you alone with the credit card while he was busy brokering deals. Now, many Wall Street wives, girlfriends and, increasingly, exes, are living the curse of cutbacks in nanny hours and reservations at Masa or Megu. And that credit card? Canceled.

Wow. So that's why some women aspire to be nothing more than a pathetic, poorer version of Carrie Bradshaw, like a beauty writer, until someone rich who ticks all the boxes that allow them to keep up with a particular social circle, comes along to sweep them off their feet. They aspire to be trophy wives, i.e. nothing more than a certain class of prostitute.

Some women in the group said the men in their lives had gone from being aloof and unattainable to unattractively needy and clinging.

So your partner goes through an incredibly tough time at work, people being fired left, right and centre- it may be him next- and you complain when he needs emotional support. Oh, I forgot- that's not what you signed up for...

Another, though, seemed chagrined, after her boyfriend told her to “grow up” and stop “complaining about vacations and dinner” since he had to “fire 20 people by the end of the week.”

Shallow, inconsiderate, greedy, lacking in empathy and perspective.

Then again, what does this say about the guys who choose to date these bimbos? Talk about a wake-up call for some of them...

Andrew Roberts, Dumbest Man Alive

This chimpanzee would show more foresight and thoughtfulness in using its firearm than George W Bush showed running an entire country. Quite frankly I'd feel safer with it pointing the gun at me than Bush running the US. At least I can be sure that it isn't drunk, dumber than a 6 year old or being gently fondled by a short bald man with bushy eyebrows.

Sarah sent me a link to an article in the Australian by 'Andrew Roberts' (surely he can't have used his real name) entitled "History Fairer to Bush".

I won't bother linking to it, but dear reader, it is an orgy of stupid. A massive stockpile of dense, radioactive, weapons grade stupidity. At a time when only lobotomy victims, chronic illiterates, and Liberal Party senators (oh but I repeat myself) still support Bush I seriously thought this was a spoof.

After all, anyone who could say this:

"The conspiracy theories believed by many (generally, but not always) stupid people - that it was "all about oil", or the securing of contracts for the US-based Halliburton corporation, and so on - will slip into the obscurity from which they should never have emerged had it not been for comedian filmmakers such as Michael Moore.

Instead, the obvious fact that there was a good case for invading Iraq based on 14 spurned UN resolutions, massive human rights abuses and unfinished business following the interrupted invasion of 1991 will be recalled."

Is demonstrably not in control of their mental faculties. What next? History will show John Howard was a six foot tall Aryan superman who spent his days not in parliament as a surf lifesaver? Brendan Nelson just needed a little more time? Britney Spears was actually a good mother? Ivan Milat was just misunderstood?

We're talking about events that precipitated probably the greatest global collapse of one nation's economic and political power, prestige and influence. In eight years Bush did what took Vandals, Goths and a succession of profligate emperors to accomplish. In human history I dare you to find one man who has brought so many so low so quickly. Mission Accomplished, Bring em on, heck of a job Brownie PEANCE FREEANCE!!?? Take heart, at least this absolute nitwit is British, not Australian, thank God. Only the Australian would publish this. Everyone else probably thought it was a joke.

Today a Texan village gets its idiot back

When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental — men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost... All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.' The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

H L Mencken - Baltimore Sun (26 July 1920)

So, they tortured him.

The shoe-chucker Muntazer al-Zaidi, Iraq's new hero, has apparently written a letter saying he is very sorry for throwing his shoes at outgoing US president George W. Bush.

The man who, only a few days ago, yelled at Bush:

"This is a farewell kiss from the Iraqi people, you dog! This is for the widows and orphans and all those killed in Iraq."

The only reason Zaidi is sorry for speaking the truth and warming millions of peoples' hearts by humiliating George Bush on his final visit to the site of his biggest human catastrophe, is because the 'free' Iraqi government has tortured him into doing so. I wouldn't be surprised to learn they've made threats on his family, either.

The Sole of Freedom

This man is a hero. During George Bush's final attempt to grandstand in front of a pile of Iraqi corpses, Muntadar al-Zeidi, a correspondent for Al-Baghdadia television, an Iraqi-owned station based in Cairo, Egypt, stood up and threw his shoes at W. W ducked, exhibiting quite good reflexes for a man who can't eat pretzels Muntadar shouted: "This is a farewell kiss, you dog!" Security goons jumped on him, at which point he screamed about W killing Iraqis. He was dragged off by said goons, probably to be beaten up for embarrassing the emperor. His news bureau are demanding his release along the lines of freedom of expression and right to protest that the US claims to have brought Iraq. Good luck with that guys. Soles of shoes are considered the ultimate insult in Arab (and Mediterranean) culture. After Saddam Hussein's statue was toppled in Baghdad in April 2003, many onlookers beat the statue's face with their soles. Apparently some Iraqi journalists apologised to W after the incident, which is more than you can say for W who hasn't apologised for anything.

Thanks Muntadar, a lot of people wish they had the chance to do what you did to thank W for invading their country/destroying their global hegemony/losing their city/wiping out their global financial system. The only question is, why are our journalists so tame? Forget throwing a shoe, how about asking some difficult questions now and then and y'know, investigating shit? Pick up some Nancy Drew books or something if you have to. Failing that, throwing shoes would be acceptable too.

Helen Coonan backs Howard's offensive anti-Obama statement

Can you believe this?

Senator Coonan agreed with Mr Turnbull that Mr Howard's remarks were unfortunate. But she also suggested that the former prime minister's assault was justified at the time because Mr Obama had supposedly not renounced terrorism.

I could call this bimbo every name under the sun and it still wouldn't do her justice. Where do you begin? I don't believe I have ever heard Helen Coonan declare that she's not a terrorist either- are we to presume that she is until she says otherwise or does it seem, you know, reasonable to assume that she isn't?

Despite the lunacy of idea of a US presidential candidate having to declare that they're against terrorism (do they need to state that they're against murder and drunk-driving as well? Littering? Jay-walking?), Obama had indeed made clear his opposition to terrorism, at the moment he announced his candidacy:

Contrary to Senator Coonan's claim that Mr Obama "hadn't made it clear his very strong opposition to terrorism" at the time, he did that very thing when he announced his candidacy.

[...]

Later yesterday, Senator Coonan went into damage control, telling Sky News she disagreed completely with Mr Howard

Duh... oops!

Australia would be mightily benefited by the invention of a lipstick that could superglue Helen Coonan's stupid trap shut.

Pearls of Wisdom

If I were running al Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008, and pray, as many times as possible, for a victory not only for Obama, but also for the Democrats.

As a gesture of goodwill to the new US administration, I suggest we airfreight ol' eyebrows to Washington for the Democrats to dispose of as they see fit. I'm sure they could use another valet at Obama's inauguration.

It's OK Angela

He'll never touch you again.

Hope

CNN just called the election for Obama... sure it was 'inevitable', but I couldn't bring myself to believe in America's capacity to repudiate the politics and the policies that their country has espoused for so long.

I've never been happier to be wrong.

America, you just redeemed yourselves. You'd better give this guy 8 years, because he's going to need it to undo all the damage you inflicted by the way you voted last time.

I feel the same kind of elation and relief I felt when Australia turfed out John Howard last year. But this is bigger. This is more than about us, and more than about America.

Just think, electing Obama must be one of the first times in history where America's actions have been backed by the entire world. That's really something.

I hope to god Obama lives up to the promise he has displayed.

The world just got a little bit better.

Things to look forward to in an Obama presidency

I hear Greg Sheridan's wife has booked a flight to DC for the 'inauguration'

1) Never having to hear Sarah "Caribou Barbie" Palin's voice ever again.

2) An end to the idiotic, constantly wrong and eternally clueless coverage of the race by the Australian media. They. Have. Not. Got. A. Clue. In their defence, the story doesn't involve trawling Facebook for peoples' pictures so we should try and understand how hard things are. Most of them don't seem to have a clue that early voting has been going on for about a week already, a significant proportion of eligible voters (compared to last election) have already voted, and that the early voters are trending towards Obama. This is important because early votes have typically trended Republican.

3) An end to the constant racist reporting on black people. Here's a hint, if you do stories on black voters that always involve a hip talking black person on the street and black people singing soul songs, you are a racist motherfucker. No, black people won't vote for someone because they are black, no it doesn't matter. These are the same people who voted for Bill fucking Clinton and every single other white Democrat president since they were allowed to vote. Obama didn't even have a particularly high level of support among African Americans when he started his run. Why? Because he's half African and half American and some African Americans had (and some idiotically still do) a problem with that. He had to fight for their votes too and the media would know that if they weren't blinded by racism and incompetence.

4) Australian wingnuts having to eat shit everytime president Obama is mentioned.

5) The tantalising possibility of the Murdoch sleaze empire fading into irrelvance everywhere except the UK.

6) The inevitable contradictory reactions of the cruise missile left when Bush's wars become Obama's wars.

Best. Analogy. Evah.

Who hasn't thought along these lines when it comes to the 'undecided' voters?

I don’t know that it was always this way, but, for as long as I can remember, just as we move into the final weeks of the Presidential campaign the focus shifts to the undecided voters. “Who are they?” the news anchors ask. “And how might they determine the outcome of this election?”

Then you’ll see this man or woman— someone, I always think, who looks very happy to be on TV. “Well, Charlie,” they say, “I’ve gone back and forth on the issues and whatnot, but I just can’t seem to make up my mind!” Some insist that there’s very little difference between candidate A and candidate B. Others claim that they’re with A on defense and health care but are leaning toward B when it comes to the economy.

I look at these people and can’t quite believe that they exist. Are they professional actors? I wonder. Or are they simply laymen who want a lot of attention?

To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?”

To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.

-Dave Sedaris at The New Yorker, via AmericaBlog.

So long, suckers!

I had to share this, just in case anyone missed it. Bloody hilarious.

Andrew Lahde, the hedge-fund manager who quit after posting an 870% gain last year, said farewell to clients in a letter that thanks stupid traders for making him rich and ends with a plea to legalize marijuana.

Lahde, head of Santa Monica, California-based Lahde Capital Management, told investors last month he was returning their cash because the risk of using credit derivatives - his means of betting on the falling value of bonds and loans, including subprime mortgages - was too risky given the weakness of the banks he was trading with.

''I was in this game for money,'' Lahde, 37, wrote in a two-page letter in which he said he had come to hate the hedge-fund business. ''The low-hanging fruit, i.e. idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking. These people who were (often) truly not worthy of the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and all levels of our government.

''All of this behavior supporting the Aristocracy, only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other sides of my trades. God Bless America.''

Lahde, who managed about $US80 million, told clients he'll be content to invest his own money, rather than taking cash from wealthy individuals and institutions and trying to amass a fortune worth hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars.

''I do not understand the legacy thing,'' he wrote. ''Nearly everyone will be forgotten. Give up on leaving your mark. Throw the Blackberry away and enjoy life.''

Request for Soros

He said he'd spend his time repairing his health ''as well as my entire life - where I had to compete for spaces at universities, and graduate schools, jobs and assets under management - with those who had all the advantages (rich parents) that I did not.''

He also suggested that billionaire George Soros sponsor a forum in which ''great minds'' would come together to create a new system of government, as the current system ''is clearly broken.''

Lahde ended his letter with a plea for the increased use of hemp as an alternative source of food and energy that segued into a call for the legalization of marijuana.

''Hemp has been used for at least 5000 years for cloth and food, as well as just about everything that is produced from petroleum products,'' he wrote. ''Hemp is not marijuana and vice versa. Hemp is the male plant and it grows like a weed, hence the slang term.''

'Innocuous Plant'

He added, ''The evil female plant - marijuana. It gets you high, it makes you laugh, it does not produce a hangover. Unlike alcohol, it does not result in bar fights or wife beating. So, why is this innocuous plant illegal? Is it a gateway drug? No, that would be alcohol, which is so heavily advertised in this country.''

Lahde said the only reason marijuana remains illegal is because ''Corporate America, which owns Congress, would rather sell you Paxil, Zoloft, Xanax and other addictive drugs, than allow you to grow a plant in your home without some of the profits going into their coffers.''

Here's a link to the letter in its entirety. I highly recommend reading the whole thing- it's hilarious, blunt and very pertinent. Here's another excerpt:

I will no longer manage money for other people or institutions. I have enough of my own wealth to manage. Some people, who think they have arrived at a reasonable estimate of my net worth, might be surprised that I would call it quits with such a small war chest. That is fine; I am content with my rewards. Moreover, I will let others try to amass nine, ten or eleven figure net worths. Meanwhile, their lives suck.

Finally, here's a link to some predictions Lahde made back in September 2007- 100% likelihood of a recession in the US, anyone?

I honestly don't see Lahde's vision of a government based on meritocracy being achieved, but it's a worthy sentiment. Good on him, and good luck to him.

FiveThirtyEight

Where to go to find out what's happening in the US general election polls. Don't tell me you trust the media.

DId they have Heinz during the bronze age?

Reading this article in the New York Times you would think that the US has just discovered the concept of introducing non-commercial baby food to babies... gasp... they can, and will, eat real food!

The author even contacted nutrition experts to make sure that feeding (appropriately pureéd) normal family food to babies was 'safe'. No, really:

To be safe, I consulted two pediatric nutrition specialists. Dr. Jatinder Bhatia, a member of the committee on nutrition for the American Academy of Pediatrics, liked the meal sharing idea. He said feeding a child a range of foods encourages the child to be more adventurous at the table as she moves into her second year.

“This is how you teach your baby to develop likes similar to yours,” he said. “Otherwise, how would an Indian child eat curry or a Mexican child consume salsa?”

No wonder the NYTimes Health section is always filled with articles on how to convince children to eat something other than chicken nuggets or macaroni cheese (from a packet too, I bet). They're weaned on bland shit and they develop a taste for bland shit. It's like food isn't food unless it's heavily processed and wrapped in plastic/canned/jarred/whatever. Scary.

When I was a baby my own parents brought me up on whatever they were eating- they joke that the second thing I ever learned to say was "Don't mash it!!!". What do people think humans did before the invention of canned baby food?

Palin for President, and other horror stories

Sarah Palin with the Wasilla 'City Council'.

Wow. After a week of blowing Sarah Palin, it's as if everyone at the New York Times has woken up and smelled the moose shit. Let's begin with Paul Krugman...


Paul Krugman: Blizzard of Lies

The Bush campaign’s lies in 2000 were artful — you needed some grasp of arithmetic to realize that you were being conned. This year, however, the McCain campaign keeps making assertions that anyone with an Internet connection can disprove in a minute, and repeating these assertions over and over again.

[...]

Why do the McCain people think they can get away with this stuff? Well, they’re probably counting on the common practice in the news media of being “balanced” at all costs. You know how it goes: If a politician says that black is white, the news report doesn’t say that he’s wrong, it reports that “some Democrats say” that he’s wrong. Or a grotesque lie from one side is paired with a trivial misstatement from the other, conveying the impression that both sides are equally dirty.

Hmm, well the New York Times was engaging in the 'fair and balanced' technique of pairing a grotesque lie with a trivial misstatement as recently as yesterday, so we haven't come so far as I thought...



Jo Becker, Peter S. Goodman and Michael Powell: Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes (Or 'What happens when the highschool prom queen gets elected to high office: a cautionary tale').

WASILLA, Alaska — Gov. Sarah Palin lives by the maxim that all politics is local, not to mention personal.

So when there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as a qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency.

Dimwittedness may prevail

I’ve gotten the scary feeling, for the first time in my life, that dimwittedness is not just on the march in the U.S., but that it might actually prevail.

To hear this from the mouth of an American, despite the rest of the world having thought along these lines for the entirety of at least the last 8 years, is quite shocking.

That it came from New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, that it was published in one of the big names of the mealy-mouthed, limp-wristed mainstream media, makes it all the more jaw-dropping. I don't think I have ever seen such strong language, such perceptiveness of the reality of the situation in the US, in any mainstream publication in that country.

I'm starting to like Bob Herbert.

Lest anyone claim that Herbert is engaging in hyperbole, try arguing with what he has said after reading this:

With most candidates for high public office, the question is whether one agrees with them on the major issues of the day. With Ms. Palin, it’s not about agreeing or disagreeing. She doesn’t appear to understand some of the most important issues.

“Do you believe in the Bush doctrine?” Mr. Gibson asked during the interview. Ms. Palin looked like an unprepared student who wanted nothing so much as to escape this encounter with the school principal.

Clueless, she asked, “In what respect, Charlie?”

“Well, what do you interpret it to be?” said Mr. Gibson.

“His worldview?” asked Ms. Palin.

Later, in the spin zones of cable TV, commentators repeatedly made the point that there are probably very few voters — some specifically mentioned “hockey moms” — who could explain the Bush doctrine. But that’s exactly the reason we have such long and intense campaigns. You want to find the individuals who best understand these issues, who will address them in sophisticated and creative ways that enhance the well-being of the nation.

The Bush doctrine, which flung open the doors to the catastrophe in Iraq, was such a fundamental aspect of the administration’s foreign policy that it staggers the imagination that we could have someone no further than a whisper away from the White House who doesn’t even know what it is.

[...]

I feel for Ms. Palin’s son who has been shipped off to the war in Iraq. But at his deployment ceremony, which was on the same day as the Charlie Gibson interview, Sept. 11, she told the audience of soldiers that they would be fighting “the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans.”

Was she deliberately falsifying history, or does she still not know that Iraq and Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 attacks?

[...]

To burnish the foreign policy credentials of a vice presidential candidate who never even had a passport until last year, the Republicans have been touting Alaska’s proximity to Russia. (Imagine the derisive laughter in conservative circles if the Democrats had tried such nonsense.) So Mr. Gibson asked Ms. Palin, “What insight into Russian actions, particularly in the last couple of weeks, does the proximity of the state give you?”

She said, “They’re our next-door neighbors. And you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska. From an island in Alaska.”

Mr. Gibson tried again. “But what insight does that give you,” he asked, “into what they’re doing in Georgia?”

John McCain, who is shameless about promoting himself as America’s ultimate patriot, put the best interests of the nation aside in making his incredibly reckless choice of a running mate. But there is a profound double standard in this country. The likes of John McCain and George W. Bush can do the craziest, most irresponsible things imaginable, and it only seems to help them politically.

In my mind, I'm constantly cheering "Come on America! Prove me wrong! For god's sake, prove me wrong this time."

But with the polls sitting pretty even, and with the Republicans getting a bounce after selecting Sarah Palin, I know I'll probably be disappointed. That despite what I'd really like to believe, really like to see, American voters really are, for the most part, unfathomably stupid. That so many could really be ready to vote Republican again after eight years of the global disaster that was George Bush... I find it incredibly hard to get my head around.

Sometimes I feel like perhaps we should be getting ready to offer asylum to all those poor souls who are sick of living in an Idiocracy and will reach a stage of ultimate disillusionment with their country when John McCain is voted into office with Sarah Palin as his Vice President.

Are the Democrats too gutless for Obama to win?

Lately I've been having the same sinking feeling in my stomach regarding the Obama campaign as I had for the Kerry campaign in 2004. Kerry was a pretty shithouse candidate, but what really did him in was the Democrats' 'play nice' strategy. Extending the hand of friendship at the same time as their Republican opponents were kicking them in the nuts.

Like, oh, the entire world, I'm rooting for an Obama win. So it galls me to witness the Dems blithely going about and making the same mistakes that lost them the '04 election.

I guess I'm not the only one suffering that frustration- New York Times columnist Bob Herbert has written a column that asks why liberals, i.e. the Democrats, are such nutless wonders when it comes to responding to Republican smears.

Why?

I've seen it written that Obama doesn't want to get too nasty for fear of being accused of playing 'traditional politics'. Well that's clearly not going to be the case, whatever the 'liberal' media's accusations, because the tradition for Democrats is playing nice and losing elections. A 'strongly-worded' response by Obama to ridiculous Republican smears consists of accusing his opponents of being 'phony'. I know that the majority of Americans are pretty stupid. Their current government is evidence of that (don't feel bad, guys, Australia isn't that much better). But the Democrats are running against the party whose current president is surely the worst in the entire history of the United States, and one of the most disastrous leaders of a country in modern history. They are running against a doddering old man with a history of cheating on his wives, who called his current wife a trollop and a cunt, and whose recent political history consists almost entirely of uncritical endorsements of every policy produced by the Bush administration, and a woman who believes the earth is only 6000 years old. The McCain-Palin pairing is a gold-mine for all sorts of potent political attacks. If the Democrats can't win what ought to be a dead-cert (even if you count the substantial impact of racism on peoples' voting decisions) they ought to be shut down altogether. Put out of their fucking misery.

While a celebrity isn't usually the sort of go-to guy any sensible person would approach for some political comment, Matt Damon has some very pertinent questions for shrill creationist/pro-forced-pregnancy/pitt-bull-mom Sarah Palin:




Clip from AP, via Defamer Australia.

USA. War criminals

It's probably just as well that the US conveniently exempt themselves from the jurisdiction of the laughably-named International Court of Justice. Because by any measure, some of their actions in Afghanistan, including the ones described in this article, surely amount to a crime against humanity.

Worse still are the lies, and the default position taken in the western media that everything the US government and Pentagon says is the truth until proven otherwise. They have proven themselves liars. Again and again they murder civilians and lie about it, claiming only 'insurgents' have died. Again and again, the media reports this as the truth, and again and again it comes out weeks later that the families, friends and neighbours of the dead, and the local authorities, were telling the truth all along.

But despite the incredible scale of the slaughter, the murder, no-one is ever held to account. The US military 'investigates' and typically absolves itself. If enough evidence of their culpability has leaked out into the mainstream media they issue a statement proclaiming how very sorry they are for the 'accidental' killing of scores of innocent people. And that is the end of it. It's times like this that make me want to believe that a god exists, or karma exists, because it seems that the possibility of justice for the innocent people killed is so remote that it would take a deity or divine force to bring it about.

Dumb and Dumber: Palin and McCain on sex-ed

Further to what I raised in my post last night, this morning I saw the first article I've seen so far in the mainstream media linking the Bristol Palin pregnancy with her mother, Republican VP nominee, Sarah's position on abstinence-only sex education.

Palin herself said she opposes funding sexual-education programs in Alaska. She has supported abstinence programs in schools.

"The explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support," she wrote in a 2006 questionnaire distributed among gubernatorial candidates.

That's to be expected.

What I didn't expect- and call me naive, seeing as we're talking about a 72-year-old old man, was John McCain's incredible level of ignorance, even outright stupidity, when it came to issues of safe sex and contraception. It's not that he knows the facts and chooses to ignore them: he's completely and utterly uninformed. He literally has no frigging idea:

McCain's position on contraceptives and teen pregnancy issues has been difficult to judge on the campaign trail, as he appears uncomfortable discussing such topics. Reporters asked the presumptive Republican presidential nominee in November 2007 whether he supported grants for sex education in the United States, whether such programs should include directions for using contraceptives or whether he supports President George W Bush's policy of promoting abstinence.

"Ahhh, I think I support the president's policy," McCain said.

When a reporter asked McCain whether he thought contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV, he replied: "You've stumped me." McCain said later that he was sure he opposed government spending on contraceptives. Asked whether he would oppose condom distribution if he knew that condoms stop the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, McCain said he had never got into those issues before.

Honestly, in this day and age, running for what is pretty much the highest political office in the world, after the disaster of George W. Bush, how can it be that there are Americans who will accept that kind of outright ignorance on such an important issue?

Stupidity begins at birth: The Palin Pregnancy

The family of 44y.o. Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin, including her pregnant 17-year-old daughter Bristol (right).

Hard as it is to believe, I haven't seen a single mention in the media of how the pregnancy of John McCain's Vice Presidential candidate and running mate Sarah Palin's 17-year-old daughter relates to the Bush administration's, and Palin's, position on sex education for teenagers. Or rather the administration's promotion of sexual abstinence as the only reliable form of contraception and safe sex.

Plenty of the news and discussion has centred around Palin's so-called pro-life beliefs, but honestly I think this is of little relevance given that it's comparatively very easy for a rich kid to afford to make the decision to give birth and raise a kid, especially when 'grandmom' has a political point to make and therefore every incentive to provide the financial assistance needed in such a case.

Whether or not 17-year-old Bristol Palin and boyfriend (no-one's willing to contemplate that it might have been a one-night stand!) were really ready to commit the rest of their lives to each other has become a secondary consideration to Sarah Palin's political career. Just like Britney Spears' little sister wound up pregnant at 16 and engaged to some clearly non-committal teenage alleged father just so Lynn Spears could continue with the release of her book (after a quick re-write). So now Bristol Palin and 'Levi' are stuck, because Palin's voter base is happy enough to accept that a teenager can 'make a mistake' by having sex outside of wedlock (when the only real mistake was the failure to practice safe sex), but not to contemplate that she should have the option not to be wedded to her sexual partner as an additional consequence of said 'mistake' for the rest of her life. Or at least until a divorce from her partner in bad timing will not hold ramifications for Palin's political career.

It's pretty despicable to see this kind of manoeveuring around the lives of two teenagers, whose lack of sex education and failure to practice safe sex are instead being held up as vindication of anti-abortionist political views.

In the end, it's not hard to envisage America taking one step closer to becoming a fully-fledged Idiocracy, and putting a 44-year-old proud northern redneck grandmother as second-in-command in the White House is a giant leap in that direction.