My Bill and speech

I'm doing JSA, which is basically the best thing ever, except maybe science bowl. In JSA, we write bills. My group's bill repeals the 26th amendment and makes it so that you have to pass a test in order to vote rather than be a certain age. I'm only posting this, because I wrote the best speech ever, which is as follows:

As we all know, our former president, George W. Bush, had an IQ of 20, while his vice president fabricated 9/11 in an effort to get Oil.

Our current president, a Kenyan national who is hiding his birth certificate, is, of course, a communist who is hell-bent on destroying America.

I know that it’s hard to vote for a warmongering man with anger management issues, but you know, voting for John McCain can be justified, because Sarah Palin is hot.

Believe it or not, there are people who actually will make decisions based on those ideas. The idea of popular sovereignty exists so that people are able to pick who is best suited for the job. Unfortunately, some people will forget that the popular sovereignty involved in government actually does have higher stakes than those involved in American Idol. While some of us might feel very strongly about our favorite singer on American Idol, whoever wins will not be setting up your death panels, which leads me to my other point.

As we all know, John McCain is senile, and Barack Obama wants to raise taxes. John Kitzhaber thinks that Oregon is ungovernable, and Dino Rossi is a hypocrite who hates the poor. Every politician seems to be slammed for having negative campaign ads, and we all hate them. The sad truth, though, is that they work, true or not. As a result, politicians will often hide behind negative ads and they won’t talk about their actual beliefs. What if there was a way to make misinforming the public disadvantageous and making it an advantage for politicians to tell the truth? In addition, we have somewhat of a demagoguery problem. We hear about the 9/11 conspiracy theories, the birthers, and the death panels. As much as I’d like to believe that the average thinking American wouldn’t believe a second of it, but sadly, I’m not so sure that I can say that definitively. Sadly, demagoguery is serious. Those people who subscribe to these outlandish ideas then proceed to vote based on these lies. What if there were checks on that? What if we made it so that people could not vote based on lies? What if we made it so that people couldn’t vote for people because they’re attractive? Well, here is a constitutional amendment to do just that! Currently, the 26th amendment says that the only thing that can keep people from voting is young age. Now, I’m sure that I’m not the only person in here who is unable to vote because of age, and feels that it’s somewhat unfair that we can’t vote, but the nation’s least informed adult can. Having phonebanked for a political candidate, I’ve talked to a lot of voters, including one who thought that the other candidate was his niece, Christa Lee. The fact that he didn’t even know so much as the gender of one of the candidates shows that he probably shouldn’t be voting (and, by the way, he did decide to vote for the right guy when I told him that Chris Dudley was a man, but he still shouldn’t be voting). Wouldn’t it be better to allow people of any age to vote, so long as they know what the candidates stand for?

Some may accuse this idea of being elitist, unfair, or even anti-American. Well, if you’re saying that, you might want to take a look at yourself, because you are the exact reason that this bill exists.

Snow, Thanksgiving, and various other things (or I was guilted into writing a post this thanksgiving break)

I was guilted into writing a post for Thanksgiving break. Thanksgiving break doesn't officially start until Thursday, but tomorrow is a furlough day because Ted Kulongoski is the worst Democrat to ever happen to Oregon and thus, the schools have no money. Today was a snow day, which is kind of lame, because we were watching this movie in Spanish class, and it was really good, and we probably won't get to finish it. And she left off at a ridiculously suspenseful part. And in any case, I really hate snow. It's stupid. We didn't get much, which is good, just the eighth of an inch that Oregonians can't drive in, so they cancel school. We'd better the hell not have to make this day up.

Now, why would we get 2 or 4 days off of the week this week? Thanksgiving, of course! Thanksgiving is a day to give thanks. Oh, who am I kidding. It's a day to eat, and eat a lot. We're actually going to two houses (both in the Portland area). At the first house, they don't really like turkey, so we're having lasagna and Cornish game hens instead. At the second house, we're actually having turkey. I also made molasses cookies the other day. They're ridiculously good. I also used 3 sticks of butter. Maybe that's why they're so good. In any case, they're doing their part in expanding my stomach for thanksgiving.

Another thing I like about Thanksgiving is that it celebrates the pilgrims.

The pilgrims were the only colonists in America who weren't basically Nazis. The puritans (or, as my history teacher calls them, the American Taliban) were all about religion over person and stuff, and they were not tolerant people. I could go on, but basically, the pilgrims believed in a separation of church and state and tolerance. The quakers were good too, now that I think about it, but the

American Nazi party tends to obscure them. The pilgrims were also one of my favorite parts of our summer reading for AP US. In fact, that whole page which went from Bacon's rebellion to Anne Hutchison was the best page of notes ever. That page of notes can be seen to the right. They're pretty awesome, I know. I even drew a picture of a turkey next to the pilgrims.

Now, I guess I haven't updated my blog in so long that I haven't talked about the gubernatorial situation here in Oregon, or at least how it turned out. I did talk about how John Kitzhaber is freaking awesome and that Chris Dudley is terrible. What I have not yet mentioned on here, is that John Kitzhaber won it! It was a terrible night, though... As we know, the Democrats got massacred in the house, although I thought we would do worse in the senate, so it can't be that bad. Better than both the house and the senate, though, is the west coast! I don't know much about how things went in California or Washington, except that Barbara Boxer, Jerry Brown and Patty Murray won. I can tell you, though, that in Oregon, We didn't lose either houses of the state legislature. Not a single one of our federal representatives lost his job. Our senator absolutely dominated. For governor, that was really exciting. The night of, I went to John Kitzhaber's party. We went in knowing it would be close. Kitzhaber took the first few votes, but Dudley started climbing quickly. A teacher from my elementary school was there and saw those numbers. She then went on to describe Oregonians as "fucking idiots," which is completely true. That night, I was pretty sure Dudley would win. I totally couldn't imagine Governor Dudley, so I was running that through my head. At 11:00, John Kitzhaber made a speech. Not only did he say that he was optimistic, he did what he's great at: he explained why. That could be because he's a doctor, or maybe just a really good politician, but in any case, you could tell he wasn't just saying it. He explained quite clearly that the only real set of votes left was in Multnomah county, which is hugely democratic. I went home not knowing what would happen. I didn't think Kitzhaber was going to win, but I didn't think Dudley would either. I went to bed that night, but I didn't sleep much. The next day, I had AP US, and we went to the computer lab. Since it was an AP US class, instead of going on Facebook to screw off, we all went to the New York times or Oregonlive or whatever to screw off and look at election returns. By that point, there were no significant voting centers left other than Multnomah county. Kitzhaber was still behind by about 25,000 votes, but by then I was feeling pretty optimistic. I had C++ third period, and so my AP US friend and I were looking at the results. The numbers hadn't changed much, but we extrapolated the numbers, and found that, unless the only part of Multnomah they hadn't counted yet was Dunthorpe or something, there was really no way that Kitzhaber could lose. With that knowledge, I was fine for the rest of the day. I went home after Orchestra and went to check the results. Sure enough, Dudley was still ahead, but I kept watching. When Dudley was still about 5,000 votes ahead, KPTV, none other than our local FOX station, called it for Kitzhaber. At that moment, I felt so relieved that I was able to go up and get the mail. As I was doing that, my mom called out the door that Oregon live called it for Kitzhaber. By then, I knew it was a done deal. As other stations started calling it for Kitzhaber, I felt that I would be safe going to Jew school. So I did. And I made a lot of Jews happy with that news. After dinner, I checked the numbers, and much to the satisfaction of many of my Jew friends, Kitzhaber had pulled ahead. It was done. As I was leaving, I saw that my mom had texted me that Chris Dudley conceded. I remember, I was walking up the stairs, but they weren't the stairs I normally use, for some reason. So, that's how my election went here... Yesterday, I learned that my rich-ass and fairly conservative suburb of Lake Oswego, home of former NBA player Chris Dudley, ended up voting for Kitzhaber by a margin of about 200 votes, which was quite surprising but extremely satisfying to me.

So, I guess that's all I have to say, but now you can't be mad at me for not updating my blog...

Excuses, excuses

So I haven't posted in a really long time. I have been doing much more important things, but that still does not rectify my absence. I hate poetry, so I will punish myself by making myself announce the more important things I was doing in Haiku form (some may be 7-12-7 haikus since the usual 5-7-5 isn't badass enough. There may also be more than one haiku for each occurrence).

1) I went to Florida

Yes, Florida's two syllables

You got a problem?

We visited their Club Med

It sounds dumb but it was actually very fun

I played poker quite a bit

No web access there

Although I had my iPhone

You can't update blogs

2) I finished learning

All of the world leaders

Since I have no life

3) I hate poetry

So I am going to stop

writing these haikus.

Random rant: Formspring character limit

I tend to piss and moan quite a bit about "the man" and how "the man" is changing things just for fun and for no benefit whatsoever. What can I say, I'm a social liberal. But I complain about the government enough, and that's why I'm kind of sad that all of my current elected officials are democrats: I have nothing to complain about. Well, I could complain about Ted K., but he's not socially conservative, so not about that. Well, actually (TANGENT ALERT), I don't really know what he is, because he's never made his own decisions until we were co covered in shit that his only real decision as governor was to cut cut cut. ANYWAY, I was thinking, what if "the man" wasn't the government at all, but a social networking site, and what if they're doing something that's not particularly dangerous, yet sufficiently pisses me off? So, my next rant will make you think that Formspring is killing grandmas or something, but it's mostly just for fun. But, you know, if someone from Formspring does so happen to read this (and I did send a question to their CEO, but if he wants to read this too, you know, that's cool, because the question I sent him could only be 255 characters), that would be fine...

The question I would always (rhetorically) ask government (not that they were listening or anything) when I was still ranting about government is, "What are the consequences of enacting this law, and what are the consequences of not enacting it?" For example, my feelings about Gay Rights (I did promise a post on gay rights, so here's something) are that, if you allow gays to marry, basically, gays will be able to marry and, you know, have the same rights as everyone else, but rednecks in Alabama will be sad because some people they've never met in their lives are slightly happier. If we don't let them marry, then we'll have entire group of people discriminated against. Now, you have to ask Formspring the same question. With a character limit, people will get short, to the point questions. You also can't ask long questions if you so choose, and it discriminates against people who tend to use good spelling and grammar, and people who tend to be pedantic or loquacious. If there isn't a character limit, then people who really don't like getting long questions will be forced to press the delete button. Oh, the humanity! It's just another instance of "the man" intervening where he shouldn't be. I can see why somebody wouldn't want long questions, and that's all fine and dandy, but that's not Formspring's problem. Of all the types of questions that people don't want, I don't think that the long questions are the most bothersome. & if u rite lyk ths, it mite b ezr 2 rite shrt q's, but who wants to read that? Besides, I think it's fair to say that the kinds of people who write longer and more intelligent questions do not write like that, so it is punitive on two levels. I don't understand why Formspring has specifically chosen to intervene on this issue. There doesn't seem to be much of a benefit. They tried it, perhaps for a good cause, but it looks like it has made more people mad than it has made people happy. I don't know anybody who actively believes that the character limit is a good thing, but I know plenty of people who actively believe that it is a bad thing. That's okay, because that's how we make progress. Now we know that it didn't serve its intended purpose, or perhaps it did, but it caused a bigger problem. In other words, we now know that it's a bad idea. That's life. Now it's time to change. It's time to move on. It's time to take a break from our past mistakes. It's time to stop dragging our feet, and fix the problem.

Still not convinced? Which of the following is the best question?

What is your opinion of Lao Tzu's quote? (40 characters)

LT 1ce sed go 2 da ppl lrn frm dem live w/ dem start w/ wat dey no bild w/ wat dey hav da best of ldrs win da jobs done win da tasks acomplshd da ppl wil say weve dun it rslvs wat do u think

(190 characters)

Lao Tzu once said, "Go to the people. Learn from them. Live with them. Start with what they know. Build with what they have. The best of leaders when the job is done, when the task is accomplished, the people will say, 'we have done it ourselves.'" Do you agree with that quote? Why or why not? (294 characters)

Random rant: Chris Dudley and Oregonian ignorance

Okay, so I may have lied about writing another post yesterday, but don't worry, I also lied about writing a rant about gay rights. Well, I'm 0 for 2 in correctness, but at least I'm consistent in lying, right? So, anyway, I am ranting today about the gubernatorial race in Oregon. If you're not from Oregon, good; you might learn something.

There was once a time of economic prosperity and great times for Oregon. From 1995-2003, Oregon was doing very well. This was due to a great governor who was a forward thinker. During that same time, at varying times, the Blazers, Knicks and Suns missed a lot of free throws. The reasons behind both of those situations are meeting for the first time, in an Oregonian gubernatorial race. John Kitzhaber was a former governor who led Oregon into a huge economic boom. He has written more budgets than anybody in Oregon's history. Chris Dudley was a former basketball player who was (apparently) the head of the NBA player's union, or something to that effect. He has missed more consecutive free throws than anybody in NBA history. John Kitzhaber has excruciatingly detailed, very strong, very public stances on the issues. Chris Dudley has no real stances on the issues. John Kitzhaber welcomes any opportunity to debate and make known his stance on the issues. Chris Dudley decided at the last minute that he had a "commitment to go on vacation with his family" during the first gubernatorial debate. John Kitzhaber will be attending that "debate" by himself. John Kitzhaber has been in government, on and off, since 1985. Chris Dudley has never had any government position, but he became the VP of M Financial Wealth Management (Ever heard of it? Me neither.), and in late 2008 became a wealth management partner with Filligree advisors. John Kitzhaber has stood up for gays, schools, the environment, and small businesses. Chris Dudley has stood up at about 7 ft. tall. John Kitzhaber boasts that he was a doctor before he was a politician. Chris Dudley brags that he has diabetes.

I mentioned earlier that Chris Dudley flaked out of a debate. Because of my poor ranting organizational skills, I will cover details of that topic now. Since 1984, the beginning of the gubernatorial campaign season was this first debate in July. Apparently, Chris Dudley isn't taking the campaign seriously enough to so much as be in Oregon for this debate. Seriously, if you are going to be on vacation while you're running for governor, it might not be a bad idea to check out the date first, and it would especially not be a bad idea, even if you did have a vacation, to mention that earlier on in the campaign so maybe it could be moved or something. I have nothing against Mr. Dudley's family, but I don't think that it's too much to ask that he takes his campaign seriously enough that he shows up to the most important events. I mean, I would rather be in Hawaii or Mexico or whatever too, but if we can't even trust him to show up to a debate, how can we trust him as governor? I would feel so bad if a gubernatorial run would force Chris Dudley to have to say in his multi-million dollar Lake Oswego house for an extra week. Oh, the humanity. Honestly, though, he's probably making a very smart decision. As I mentioned, Dr. Kitzhaber has an excellent grasp on the issues. At best, people will see Mr. Dudley as a family man, and at worst, people will see him as a lazy, inconsiderate jerk who doesn't care about his gubernatorial run. If he did debate, people would realize that he has no idea what he's talking about.

Now, you may be asking, why are you so indignant? John Kitzhaber is so clearly the better candidate that there is no way that he can't win! Unfortunately, this is not the case. The race seems to be a dead heat, and the Dud has a slight edge, because apparently, some people would prefer a 7 foot tall basketball player as their governor than an real life governor.

Special post: 23 things about me

I have been rather lazy lately. I know. So I'll try and do 2 posts today (but only one rant. 2 rants in a day could be overkill, and it could make me hurt someone). To be honest, I'm not really in a rant-y mood at the moment, and my rants tend to do better when they're reactive, and I don't have much to react to at the moment, so I'll instead introduce myself with 23 random facts, similar to Lizi's, mostly because I'm copying her idea due to my semi-momentary uncreativeness.

1. I currently work for John Kitzhaber's campaign for governor. I mostly phonebank. It's not a particularly fun job, but I manage. Apparently, though, everybody in Oregon so strongly dislikes talking on the phone that they can't stand to have a 30 second conversation with a phonebanker.

2. I have almost every word of "Blazing Saddles" and "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" memorized, though I'm falling behind on the latter. I watch the former religiously (every Saturday), but I haven't watched the latter in a while.

3. I loved Sophomore year. To be more specific, I loved second and fourth quarters. First quarter I was insecure for some unknown reason, but by second quarter I'd come to grips with life. At the end of second quarter, one of my best friends moved to Hawaii completely out of the blue, and so that sent me into a mild I don't know what for most of third quarter, but by the time fourth quarter came around, I'd made plenty of new friends and I was quite content.

4. I am a hypochondriac. If I ever have chest pains, I must have a clogged artery. If I ever have digestive problems, it must be colon cancer. If I ever have to ask someone to repeat themself, I must be going deaf. If I'm ever thirsty, or my feet are cold, or I feel slightly weak or dizzy, I must have diabetes (I thought for years that I was a diabetic). If I have any weird mannerisms, I must be autistic.

5. I am incredibly cheap. So much so that I don't even bring money with me unless I specifically plan on buying something. I have a mild panic attack every time I spend more than $5 in one sitting. My history teacher once made $10,000 in 20 minutes though investing. I plan on beating him.

6. I do not believe that 9/11 was a government conspiracy. However, I would not be surprised if Dick Cheney and/or Donald Rumsfeld had some knowledge that something was going to happen and they kept that knowledge from the president.

7. I don't post pictures of myself on the internet. I don't know why, but I just don't.

8. I have an opinion on everything. Except soccer (even then, my opinion is that it is silly and unamerican).

9. I am a die-hard Texas Longhorns fan. I watch as many of their games as I can, and I advertise the fact that I'm such a huge fan quite liberally. People have been known to call me "Texas." My marketing teacher took it a step further and called me "Colt McCoy."

10. Almost everyone thinks I was born in Texas. I was not. Everyone thinks that, since I'm apparently from Texas, I must be a redneck conservative. I am not.

11. 23 is turning out to be a big number!

12. I don't have my drivers license or permit. I have not decided yet if I am going to want one.

13. My favorite type of food is Barbeque. Speaking of which, barbecue is a process of cooking meat slowly over an indirect source of heat, or the apparatus used to do that. It is not the same as a grill. If you're cooking your meat quickly over direct heat on something that you're calling a barbecue, congratulations, you are using a grill.

14. In the same vein, I am very particular about chili. Chili con carne literally means peppers with meat. I don't see where beans come into that. And if you want to make it with ground beef, then you are lazy and have no reason to live.

15. I hate bananas. They taste strange, and they have a revolting texture. The banana a fruit that is trying to be a dessert, but fails miserably.

16. I play the cello. Badly. I also play the ukulele. Very badly.

17. I don't usually eat breakfast. I also don't always eat lunch. My mom thinks I'm anorexic. I'm not.

18. I enjoy memorizing world leaders. As of now, I can name at least one of the leaders of 173 countries. One of my favorite blogs is "Hottest Heads of State," though it hasn't been updated in a while.

19. I like almost all music, but my current favorite is bad, old people 70's-80's-90's stuff like Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty, and U2.

20. I wouldn't say that I don't have any friends, but most of my friends don't have any friends.

21. I love Oregon, but I love to complain more. And I don't want to stay in Oregon for college, even though Lewis and Clark is a very good school, I don't know if I could mentally cope with the fact that I'd be going to college 10 minutes from my house.

22. If you have any questions about me, or any of these, or anything else, comment or ask on Formspring. I will answer them embarrassingly quickly.

23. I just wasted an incredible amount of time writing 23 things about myself.

22.

Random rant: Double Standards

When Obama was elected, liberals far and wide were accused of thinking that Obama was a superhero, all-powerful, godlike figure. I don't know how many conservatives said that all the time. Now, I don't know how many conservatives are whining about why Obama hasn't cleaned up the gulf yet. I don't know of a single conservative who is saying that he isn't really capable of doing much, which is a fact. So, conveniently, he suddenly gained super powers once BP spilled a bunch of crap into the ocean. It makes perfect sense.

Now, I am sorry to say that that isn't my only grievance. You'll have to listen to me complain more. We're going to take a trip down memory lane to about 2 months ago. Remember that healthcare bill that every single republican hated? Well, Mitt Romney, that Mormon guy who's way too conservative for everyone outside of Utah, passed a nearly identical bill a few years earlier. But now that there's a Democrat's name on it, it's suddenly evil Nazi communism. What happened?

Then there seem to be a lot of GOP politicians having affairs and infidelities and other things. Democrats do too. It's mostly because they're idiots, but GOP politicians are both idiots and hypocrites. Only one party preaches family values and moral law.

By the way, liberals can have double standards as well, but since I am a liberal, I plan to completely ignore those.

"Evil will always triumph, because good...is dumb." -Rick Moranis as Dark Helmet