84-year-old Robert Mugabe, president of Zimbabwe, is holding a birthday party, and to celebrate, he’s going to run for a 6th term in office. Of course, when your country has been suffering for years from inflation (now 100,000% annually), unemployment (80%) and mass emigration to South Africa, that doesn’t mean you’re unfit for office–it’s obviously the fault of the West.
There will be some token opposition from those like Morgan Tsvangirai and former ZANU-PF finance minister Simba Makoni. (Mugabe derided Makoni as a political “prostitute”.) Of course, most voters will “see the light” and determine that Mugabe is simply bringing the country the long way around to economic prosperity. Or Zimbabweans have long been convinced of the mantra that “might makes right”.
In other news, a bunch of Saudi men were arrested for flirting, “accused of wearing indecent clothes, playing loud music and dancing in order to attract the attention of girls”. Now this seems harsh, but there are some men here who probably deserve to be arrested based on some of the pick-up lines they use.
All the female LEPers I’m aware of are already attached, so unfortunately I will not be able to try some of those lines here.
February 23rd, 2008
6 comments
Posted by Donnie
Filed under In the News, Weaksauce Losers
For those of you who use this site as their primary news source, please note Fidel Castro has resigned and has handed power to his much younger brother Raul. It’s not a joke this time.
For all the faults of the United States, at least we have term limits.
February 19th, 2008
6 comments
Posted by Donnie
Filed under In the News
My parents and I got a chance to listen to portions of speeches by Clinton, Obama, McCain, and Huckabee tonight.
Clinton: Certainly not a bad speaker, but trying far too hard to smile all the time. A lot of “I”’s and usual promises.
Obama: Pushed the usual promises in better wrapping, actually said he’d have a tough time achieving his goals. As good an orator as advertised. Too much “hope” talk.
McCain: Was obviously reading his speech, and was completely laughable.
Huckabee: At least he didn’t use cue cards, but he was mainly talking about how he wasn’t mathematically eliminated. Not a good sign.
Oh, yeah, Obama and McCain swept the primaries tonight.
Prediction: Obama will be the next president. I’m confident enough to wager small amounts of money on it. This means that he will defeat Clinton, then McCain.
1. Why Obama will defeat Clinton
- The Clinton campaign expected to have the nomination wrapped up by Super Tuesday so spent a lot of money quickly. Hillary will be at a relative disadvantage in money the rest of the way.
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People tend to like Obama the person, and not everyone knows him. As more time goes on, more people will find out about him, increasing his strength.
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Clinton now seems to be relying on March 4, when Texas and Ohio go to vote. While she won’t be embarrassed, Obama’s momentum in carrying many smaller states will give him enough votes in these larger states to maintain an advantage. (Something like how Giuliani’s Florida strategy was a failure.)
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While Clinton currently has a large advantage in superdelegates, it’s hard to see her increasing her percentage of this group. Obama will steal some.
- Obama’s younger, a better orator, and is more likable. Yes, this stuff counts.
2. Why Obama will defeat McCain
- People like image. Reading from cue cards in an obvious manner just isn’t going to cut it.
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Conservatives are sabotaging McCain and will suppress the turnout he needs to win. Liberals have no such beefs with Obama.
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Bush gave his stamp-of-approval for the poor guy.
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Just being Republican will lose some votes this time around.
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McCain will be painted as “old Washington”, which will hurt more than Obama being portrayed as too inexperienced.
February 13th, 2008
16 comments
Posted by Donnie
Filed under In the News
Do you remember in 2000 how virulent the battle was between Bush and McCain for the GOP nomination? Well, Bush STILL harbors bitterness over that fight.
You see, Bush has giving a ringing endorsement of McCain, calling him “a true conservative”. McCain probably spit out his Cheerios and snorted milk out of his nose when reading that headline. Who wants an endorsement from someone who has a 35% approval rating? And the true conservative label would really have helped during the primaries, not before they were practically decided. It’s not like being labeled a conservative is going to help capture the center in the general election.
(By the way, are you someone who generally approves of the current president? Please let me know why! I promise not to make fun of you, but I can’t say the same for Blunderprone.)
Oh, and by the way…we just got out of 8 years of a conservative regime that didn’t exactly make the top ten. And there are people telling me they want ANOTHER conservative in office? (Hi, Mr. Hannity.) Not to be crude, but when I want to be bent over again, I’ll let you know.
Fortunately, Bush is talking out of his behind when he says John McCain is a “true conservative”, and even if McCain is elected, it will be an improvement.
February 10th, 2008
12 comments
Posted by Donnie
Filed under In the News
“Winning” is not the exact term…but he now has 861 pledged delegates to Clinton’s 855. I don’t know how the other states are expected to fare, so it may be one or the other has a bigger advantage in reality.
It may have been Robert Novak who noted this, but the Clinton campaign would have preferred to have things wrapped up by Super Tuesday–not only to have time to work on the GOP, but Obama will get stronger as time goes on. There’s more time for people to get to know his name and be infected by his charm.
Side note: There’s an interactive map on MSN of the primary results, which ironically worked for me in Firefox, but not IE7. This is unexpected because it’s Flash, but I’m curious if anyone has similar results.
On the GOP side, Huckabee did well, but it’s not going to matter.
February 10th, 2008
no comments
Posted by Donnie
Filed under In the News
Tacticus Maximus brought this story to my attention earlier today, about some dude who used a plastic egg as part of a WMD.
While I will not give my personal opinion on the situation, the good people of EETE posted an official release on their website today in the “News” section of eetecares.org.
February 4th, 2008
8 comments
Posted by The Mascot
Filed under In the News
See, this is why some people think the ACLU is kinda nuts. They went and filed a friend-of-the-court brief arguing on behalf of our friend Senator Larry Craig, 2007 Liquid Egg Product on the Face Award runner-up, claiming his arrest was unconstitutional. The argument is that soliciting sex in a public restroom is protected 1st amendment speech. Even if they are technically right, it isn’t doing wonders for their image.
“[If the police really wanted to stop people from having sex in public bathrooms], they should put up a sign banning sex in the restroom and send in a uniformed officer to patrol periodically.” — ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero
This is absolutely going in the quotes database.
Who the deuce is Brad Renfro? He was found dead this morning and this is the most popular story on CNN.com this morning. [EDIT: He's some actor.]
Some convenience store robber shot himself in the nuts in the midst of a heist. What is up with these copy-cat criminals, trying to one-up the guy who stabbed himself in the stomach?
January 16th, 2008
27 comments
Posted by Donnie
Filed under In the News
BBC: Bush urges Israeli occupation end
Al-Jazeera: Gaffe overshadows Bush visit
The BBC didn’t mention Bush’s checkpoint joke, while Al-Jazeera barely touched on Bush’s advocating a Palestinian state.
BBC: Mentions Iran’s video response to the Strait of Hormuz incident, and indicates the four-minute video doesn’t appear to cover the whole incident.
Al-Jazeera: States the video’s 5:20 long, and mentions the Pentagon claims it doesn’t show the whole thing. (And we know how much they trust the Pentagon.)
January 12th, 2008
3 comments
Posted by Donnie
Filed under In the News
Last night, Barack Obama won the Iowa caucuses for the Democrats and Huckabee for the Republicans. Some are concerned about Obama’s electability, partly because of his skin color. I think it won’t be much of a problem for the following reasons:
1. He sounds like a white person. He doesn’t come to the podium shouting “Yo, wuzzup home boyz!!!” Noticing the lack of an Ebonics accent, American whites might be able to convince themselves, “Hey, this Obama guy is kinda like me!”
2. He’s a light-skinned black. Think about a lot of the popular black celebrities. Beyonce’s considered hot. Actors like Will Smith and Denzel Washington are popular. Tiger Woods has endorsements out the wazoo (yes, I know he’s more Thai than black; he counts as black in this country). What do they have in common? They could all get into a paper bag party.
Dark-skinned black athletes can squirm into the “popular black” category, but that’s because we don’t have much of a choice of who’s a talented athlete.
Besides, if you squint your eyes and turn your head sideways, you can almost convince yourself Obama’s white.
3. In fact, he’s not even 100% black. His father was a black Kenyan, his mother a white American.
These factors lead me to believe that Obama can help the United States ease into being comfortable with a non-white president.
January 4th, 2008
9 comments
Posted by Donnie
Filed under In the News
The Brits–yes, those same Brits whose colonial chains we threw off centuries ago–have usurped a role in the world I thought was solidly in the United States’ grasp.
They are more addicted to fast food than us.
45% of the Brits claimed they liked fast food too much to give it up, compared to 44% of Americans (we were second, if that’s any comfort).
For lunch today, I’m going to run out to Jack In The Box and chow down on an Ultimate Cheeseburger. And if that’s not good enough, I’m going to keep on eating at different fast food places until I find one that I get addicted to.
How will you help restore the pride of your country? (If you’re British, hold off on stuffing down some of that fish and chips, if you would please? They don’t taste as good as you think.)
You vegetarian reader(s) have no excuse; Burger King offers some sort of black bean burger.
January 2nd, 2008
9 comments
Posted by Donnie
Filed under In the News
