Copacabana

Okay, I'm in the ring...

I have many things for you today my peeps. First and foremost, a friend of mine -- who, like pretty much everyone else I've met in the past four or five years, likes to bait me into fighting (by the way, WTF is that? I'm pretty ugly when I'm angry but if you wanna go there fine. I'll drive...) has started a blog that is largely a vehicle for his thoughts on politics. Cool enough. He and I differ on these matters for the most part and he challenged me by saying his last post was just for me. So my bespectacled school mate, here's my response -- not so short but still totally sweet.

I appreciate your opinion on the need to define what exactly pork barrel spending actually is. However, I disagree with your definition. I think pork barrel is more appropriately defined as spending that seeks to support an ideology and, more egregiously, a candidate and his cronies. Government contracts do not necessarily fall under this heading. My guess is McCain is actually referring to huge amounts of money thrown around on pet projects to attract rich donors so candidates can have a flashy campaign (as I was reminded of this morning by a work mate who noticed how sad McCain's recent rally looked when compared to Obama's when promoted on that bastion of non-bias-ness The Daily Show -- and how that is the real goal of pork barrel -- promoting McCain as sad and old while associating Obama with confetti and lots of screaming people). You make a good point that reducing the pork in the barrel is not enough to balance the budget but it is a start.

The rest I'll have to think on but I will say one more thing -- making a statement like "We spent almost four times as much on the war in Iraq ($101 billion in 2006). End it." is exactly why the rest of the world thinks we're arrogant and self-involved -- it takes two to fight my friend. We can end nothing without agreement from those on the other side of the field. Respect for your enemy -- and more importantly, remembering never to underestimate them -- is the first rule of the game. Most liberals ask at this point, "But why do you consider them our enemy?" Because I've been around long enough to recognize that past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior. And from what I've recently heard from Iran's tiny little President, he's not so much interested in ending anything. (Did you think that our presence over there was about a country and not an unstable region of the world? I'm sorry if you did...) He continues to throw the gauntlet. Just like you threw the gauntlet at me by telling me that your post was "just for me". Do I roll over and end it? Would you have any respect for me if I ignored your challenge? It's all just a macrocosm with crazier, much more dangerous results.

For the record, McCain was not my first choice but I'll vote for him over Socialism every day of the week and twice on Sundays. There is a place for the bureaucracy, I agree. But its place is not to prop up a single ideology. Rather, to get the work of government done so that people can take it off their plates as something they need to worry about and are free to live protected, with liberty and justice for all. Government for the people, not the other way around.

Okay, enough. Here's some lighter stuff:

According to Facebook, my life is defined by the movie Say Anything, which is absolutely fair. So, here's my favorite scene from that movie because the college kids and I knew the background rap by heart.



Speaking of the college kids, another friend mentioned that he found the use of the Pixies song Gouge Away in the Lost season finale very cool. I did, as well because it makes me think of the Lassiter kids who introduced me to the band. So, for you Jiggy -- I think a mini-reunion is in order, don't you? -- here's the song and the one photo I could find until I can get to my parent's storage space in Atlanta:



Also, the Help Desk, for like the past six months, has been holding the National Candy Bar Championship. The rules were simple -- come up with all the candy bars they could think of, randomly buy each one, split it among those voting and then advance the winner. Somehow or another, the citrus drink Tang became a filler when they couldn't think of another candy bar. It won.

They've changed their menu sign to reflect the win. And if you don't know what a rickroll is by now, you lose. (And, because it's a major source of pride for me, I made it on their whiteboard. My contribution is Captain Morgan, just under King Kim Jong Il. I'm officially Help Desk cool...)









Never gonna give you up this weekend...

posted by Lola @ 10:53 AM