Remus is smiling in the corner.  I wanted to discuss fundamental hard-core low-level living for the budding wealth-maker in harsh economic times ... in other words how to live below your means now, so that you can live rich later. 

Instead, he wanted to talk about politics.  He says we have a responsibility.  He really wants to kick it up a notch ... my brother.  Anyway, I'm giving in.  Let's talk Republican Vice Presidential Candidates.

She looks great!  She's electrifying! She can command the stage!  According to some she is the most popular governor in the country.  When her supporters see her she makes them feel proud.  This is a wonderful feeling.  It's like making friends with the high school cheerleader, except this cheerleader was a basketball player nicknamed The Barracuda.  Honestly, that's alright.  She was an aggressive athlete ... a real go-getter.  She is the Republican nominee for Vice President of the United States of America.  She is ...


SARAH PALIN




Sarah Palin has jump-started the Republican party's core.  She is a galvanizing force that has united the Republicans.  She has ... stage appeal, as well as the other, just ask any red-blooded American male out on the range.  She's hot.  And you know what?  That helps.  People should stop denying it.  However, let's take a closer look at the situation.  I want you all to pay very close attention.  Some of you will not care for what I have to say, but I ask you to simply be open-minded. 

Sarah Palin will be one step away from the Presidency.  John McCain is the oldest candidate to ever run for the Oval office.  She could very possibly become our President.  A few weeks ago I had never heard of Sarah Palin.  This is fair.  Just because I never heard of her does not mean she should not be given the opportunity to run as her party's nominee.  Once announced, she was aggressively vetted by the media. 

POINT OF ORDER GOT-DARNIT!!!
Critical thinkers please take note that some elements of the media have not been very nice to Sarah Palin.  However, I want you thinkers to rationalize and spread the truth to those spoonish sycophants that tend to regurgitate the asinine spewings of the right-side media.  I mean really, they're the media just as much as any so-called left element.  People dug into, and still dig into, Hilary Clinton's life.  People dug into, and still dig into, Barack Obama's life.  These days it's become common-place to write whole books about the candidates both gracious and cruel.  There are elements out there still calling Barack an evil Muslim that wants to teach sex education to kindergartners.  Nutbags like Republican Psychamok Sean Hannity would have you all believe that the anointed one Barack Apollo Obama, as he refers to Barack Obama, has been given a golden pass by all media outlets, excluding himself of course, as if his word doesn't make it to the people who spoonishly sop up his ignorance.  At the very least I can keep my distaste in check for someone like Karl Rove, who even though he is a shrewd critical thinking criminal, recognizes the truth and acts on it to justify his own ends.  The man is a political mastermind.  Sean and his ilk are just ... broadcasting spoons.  Obama is still being called a Muslim by people in my own community.  Some think he's evil.  HELLO?!?!?  Yesterday while listening to Neal Boortz I heard him say people would be outraged if the media were doing to Obama what they've done to Palin.  HELLO?!?!?  THEY ALREADY HAVE!!!  HELLO, THEY'RE STILL SAYING HE'S EVIL!?!?  THEY'RE STILL SAYING HE'S ALLIED TO A MAN THAT WAS AN AMERICAN TERRORIST WHEN OBAMA WAS 8 YEARS OLD!!!  HELLO!!!  HELLO!!!  HELLO!!!  EIGHT YEARS OLD?!?!  WHERE ARE THE CRITICAL THINKING POLICE?!?!?  I remember some conservative pundits stating clearly during the Jeremiah Wright debacle that Obama needs to buck up and except the fact that people are going to dig into his life.  He needs to just toughen up.  If he can't take it he needs to just quit.  Critical thinkers, do you see the double standard here?  Everyone, understand that if you're running for high office, you're gonna see yourself dragged through the mud in some areas.  It's unfortunate, but that's how we, all of us, do it.  Psychamok, please, please get over it and just move on. 


Back to Sarah.

Sarah Palin is a game-changer.  She has made such a tremendous impact on the race that the democrats were completely derailed for a moment.  The campaign had shifted.  People were comparing her to Barack Obama, and they're still doing it, as though she were running for the Presidency, and not McCain.  Amazing isn't it?  The Republican party is once again thinking critically about their options and how they can further their agenda.  I'll tell you this, they're really good at it.  You have to give them credit.  They have studied the American people, and they know the fine art of mass manipulation.  They know that if they can control the message and direct you all to some truly insignificant cultural point (lipstick on pigs) for at least 2 days then they can control the direction of a given election.  They make the majority move away from the issues and focus on the popularity contest.  This is not how you should vote. However, as usual I'm digressing.  I'll explain to you how you should vote in the next entry. 

Back to Palin.

She's a mother.  She's a hockey mom.  She's a hunter.  She's a beauty queen.  She's a PTA mom.  She's a mayor.  She's a governor.  She has a winning smile.  She seems quite friendly.  I'll be honest.  I like her.  I think she's a good person.  However, I also think she's just as human as the next person.  I think she can be protective of her family, just like I would.  I think she might have used the system to inflict damage upon the man who might have threatened her family.  Honestly, I would probably do the same thing.  Come on, think about it.  If someone threated your father and your sister-in-law, wouldn't you do ... something?  I think she can be vindictive, if the information coming out about her is correct.  However, how many people do you know hold grudges against individuals that stand in their way?  This is very human behavior.  She's a moose hunter.  Her husband as a hard driving champion snow machine racer.  They're bandying about the name First Dude!  We won't talk about what people are calling Michelle Obama in some circles.  We won't even talk about a rally for John McCain back during the Primaries where a kindly old woman asked him how they could stop THE BITCH, referring to Hilary Clinton.  John McCain just laughed.  People, people, people, we are so sad. 

Sarah Palin is a human being.  She's well-intentioned, I believe.  However, she's also a creationist.  Does she believe dinosaurs walked the Earth 4000 years ago?  I think knowing this is important.  She also wanted to ban some books from a Wasilla public library.  This is unconscionable, and unacceptable.  I think she would be in full support of a Fundamentalist Theocracy, forcing regime change in our own nation.  Now, this might be extreme, but it's still a possibility, one that many creationists fervently embrace.  Personally, I have no desire to live in a Theocracy.  That is infringing upon my personal freedom.  This is not Iran, and the Fundamentalist would do well to remember this fact.  People, she is not the sharpest knife in the drawer.  Neither is John McCain, who is without equivocation a hero.  The Presidency should not be a popularity contest.  Unfortunately, we know all to well that it is. 



Elections are indeed popularity contests, and the majority of people voting are the uninformed masses.  They vote for who they like, not who may be best for them.  They don't think rationally about the choices, or what those choices represent to them now, and their posterity in the future.  The unfortunate truth is that most people are spoons.  This is harsh medicine, but the majority of we Americans are woefully ignorant of our political landscape, me included.  We don't take enough time to think critically about the power of our ballot, and we certainly don't clearly engage in understanding accountability, or at least not until damage has been done (see articles regarding congressmen taking kickbacks, favors, engaging in elicit behavior, and all manner of ridiculous trash)

You know?  In regard to personal morality, I'm not even trying to be demanding.  I'm not trying to dig into any person's personal life.  If you like having threesomes that's your business.  However, I would ask that as a representative of the people you hold yourself in higher regard (which is why you won't see me running for office). You have to at least try to keep it clean!  If you can't keep your personal life clean, then understand that you must reap the whirlwind, and we the people should make sure you do! 

Personally, I have made an effort to be critical thinking about how I exercise the franchise.  I try to study when I vote.  I have voted both Republican and Democrat.  I want to try to make this very clear to all of you.  I would ask that each and every one of you reading this become critical thinkers. I would ask that you take the time to try to explain critical cognition to everyone you know.  I would ask that you bring up the following points to everyone you know.


Critical Talking Points:
- Americans enjoy voting for who is popular.
- Americans, all of us, are lackadaisical to some degree regarding our government.
- Americans are being very spoonish with our laziness, considering our nation is the most powerful in human 
    history.  Still, there are parallels in said history.  We must decide how we will move forward, or rot.  
- Americans have elected a C student to the White House twice.  Again, since the Presidential contest has 
    always been a popularity contest, we have precedent for electing spoons to the office of Commander in Chief.
- Americans must realize that we have entered a new era of remarkable global dynamism where we will need our
    best and brightest in our leadership roles.
- We had a Rhodes scholar in the nineties, despite his lack of moral judgment.
- We had Bush H.W., the elder who was a WWII vet, graduated from Yale in two and half years, was a successful
    Oil Man, was ambassador to the UN, envoy to China, Director of the CIA, Vice President, and then President.
    I like his son as a person, but as my President he gets a failing grade.  I'm sad to say that the fruit has fallen
    very, very far from the tree.   
- We have a Harvard grad who was President of the Harvard Law Review as a nominee
- We have another C student who graduated at the bottom of his class at Annapolis as a nominee
- Ask yourself, do you really want another C student running the most powerful nation in history, especially at this
  time? 


I know very, very, very sharp knives that seemed to revert to spoons when we discussed the concept of a first Bush Presidency.  They couldn't get past the taint of Clinton.  Many didn't like Gore, and honestly couldn't state why.  He was just some silly immoral democrat that is dumb enough to think he invented the Internet.  Now, I'll be honest, I considered voting for Bush the younger, because I HATE TAXES!  However, after critically assessing the options, I couldn't do it. 

I have said this time and time again in the intervening years.  People loved the C student that could lean over a podium and look you in the eye and say, "Hey, I'm just like you."  Which of course, wasn't true.  He's rich, went to private school, and is an Ivy League graduate ... just barely.  My friends were saying, hey D.S., he's  just a regular guy like you and me.  I would stand there dumbfounded.  I don't want to be President.  I don't think I'm smart enough.  I'M NOT QUALIFIED.  They weren't being knives.  They weren't being sharp.  They were being Knoons! 

By the time it came to the second go-around, Bush the younger had become a war-monger in my eyes.  He's torn and fractured global treaties.  He's acted unilaterally, destroying our national credibility.  He's left us exposed.  He authorized the development of nuclear bunker busting bombs, a weapon that could have been developed utilizing a non-nuclear alternative.  This is a man that needed to be a Waffle House Flapper in the worst way, but just couldn't change his mind.  People, that's not critical cognition.  That's a C student at work in your White House.

Say all the above to your friends.  Help them become Critical Thinkers.  Tell them to vote using their minds as well as their hearts ... but definitely their minds. 


Lastly, let's discuss how some people are outraged at how Sarah Palin is being perceived and compared.  A friend of mine emailed me the following information.  It's being passed around on the Internet.  I don't want to debate the veracity of the statements, or whether it is right or wrong.  As a person strongly opposed to spoon culture I oppose the dissemination of this type of information in order to influence people, and make change.  However, I have to acknowledge the truth.  The following is a truly emotional response, and I will delve into the truth of it later this week.  However, just read it, and think about it.  It's not about whether or not you think it's groundless, or just the weak-willed complaining.  These are human sentiments, and carry weight, just like when someone feels attacked because of their faith.  We should stop, and think.   


From the Huffington Post: