Fellow blogger Kenton Ngo has brought to my attention that one of my favorite people, John Edwards, is still on the ballot in West Virginia. So this contest is to see how many votes he gets in the upcoming primary, without going over. Whoever wins gets…winning.
My guess is 2. I’m quite the pessimist.
I have a bit of a dilemma. I’m a John Edwards fan, and even voted for him in the VA primary. Obama and Clinton both drive me crazy for their own respective reasons, and it’ll be a cold day in hell when I vote for insane John McCain. I like Nader, but think he may be hurting his causes more than helping them by running, and I throw away my vote far too often in elections for my liking. To the chagrin of many of my friends, he is probably who I would end up voting for if the election were today. I think Obama and Clinton would both do decent jobs–I just can’t bring myself to vote for candidates that I feel are hypocrites–and I feel at times that Obama is a greater hypocrite than Clinton (because she seems to not care about the things she does that are corrupt, while he seems to make more of an attempt to mask them). So I’m trying to think of what I would do in the general election–the democratic candidate, or someone else? Perhaps for once in my adult life, I will not vote at all, due to what I feel is a lack of a real choice.
This was in today’s El Paso Times–I think it’s a great example of how short-sighted many of our policies are:
Stealing fence
When they started building the fence along the border, my dad told me that they were doing the ironworkers in Juárez a favor. He told me that the cuts along the fence were not so much as attempts to cross into the U.S., but attempts to secure raw materials.
He told me that there were many chicken houses in Juárez built from material taken from the fence. He took me to see where ironworkers were making barbecue grills and window guards using materials from the fence.
I now see that someone with native ingenuity has found a new use for material taken from the fence.
I hope that those in charge of securing the border with fences will see the futility of the exercise. As long as people yearn for a better tomorrow for themselves and their families, it will be an exercise in futility, no matter if they are Mexican, East German, Chinese, Ukrainian, etc, etc.
Maybe a better use can be found for the billions of dollars slated for fence building. How about some bridge building?
Fernando Peña Jr.
East El Paso
And then there’s this:
Air National Guardsman Arrested For Stealing Border Fence
Posted: May 7, 2008 09:11 PM
by Leasa Conze, KOLD News 13 Live at 5 Producer
A Wyoming Air National Guardsman is under arrest for stealing government property while he was deployed here in Arizona.
Investigators say Master Sergeant Robert J. Kelley of Carpenter, Wyoming, was working on the border fence near Sonoita in December, when he began stealing scrap metal, selling it, and pocketing the money.
The complaint claims Kelley was in uniform, driving a government-issued truck when he took five loads of the scrap metal from the project and drove it to a scrap metal company in Tucson.
Investigators say he received five checks from the various sales from December to March. Amounts ranged from $1,046 to $2,265.
In all, the sales totaled more than $8,000, which he used to buy personal items, like a gun, cowboy boots, tools and a garage door opener.
Kelley was arrested Wednesday in Phoenix. He’ll be in federal court in Tucson on Thursday.
If convicted, he could face up to 10 years in prison and a fine up to $250,000.
Dear crazy people:
Please make something crazy/funny happen in Congress. It’d make my day a lot more interesting.
KThnks
Aimee
The Family Research Council, a group founded by Dr. James Dobson to lobby for Dominionist principles tax-free, has endorsed Delegate “Sideshow Bob” Marshall for U.S. Senate.
As I said earlier today on a blog of ill repute, in Harrisonburg yesterday Mark Warner took the stage in light drizzle, spoke to the Almighty, and in a few minutes the clouds left and the sun came out and shone down upon him.
Apparently someone upstairs called Dr. Dobson on his special direct line from heaven and told him what happened, prompting the quick endorsement. This can only mean that the Republicans’ last hope of retaining divine support is to nominate Marshall.
Republicans must now choose between Jim Gilmore, who did not receive the FRC endorsement and must therefore be in league with Lucifer, or Marshall, who was prevented from meeting the pope last month in order to prevent two densely righteous people from colliding and instantly casting into damnation the entire population of Arlington, a known sanctuary city for unnatural and un-Biblical behaviors.
Will the FRC endorsement affect the GOP Senate nomination? Cast your vote for how many votes Bob Marshall will receive in our May Madness competition!
I’m starting an internship on the hill on Monday, so it’s likely you’ll be hearing about my experiences with Metro, which is and always has been my enemy. It’s attempted to stop me from going to a protest as well as charging me twice the fare on multiple occasions. It is inefficient and costly, and there’s not really a good option to get from Franconia/Springfield to Capitol South weekly or monthly either than paying the full fare–from what I can tell the weekly pass would only save me $5 or so a week if I’m commuting during rush hour five days a week. An unpaid internship that provides no stipend means that I’ll be spending a few hundred dollars over the summer to sit in the gross metro cars for 45 minutes every morning and afternoon. If anyone sees something I’m missing here, let me know.
Who’s your nanny? has an argument up for the privatization of metro, which also criticizes Tom Davis. Seems to me like privatization might make metro be at least tolerable, or at least make more sense. They note that Davis says:
Metro’s virtually the sole means by which the nation’s capital could be evacuated in case of manmade or natural disaster. And it could be the only means by which federal workers could reach their offices keep the government functioning with another 9/11-type event.
If metro’s how we’re all getting out, we’re screwed, even if we fund it more.
I do seem to get targeted by the religious folk more than most. Last time I was being told I needed to be saved around the April 16th anniversary. This morning, on my way to my 7 AM final, there were Baptist ministers on campus. A whole group of them. There was no getting by them–even after telling them no thank you, they shoved a flyer at me anyway. And of course, I couldn’t resist reading it 
It’s not that I find any of this offensive–though I do think in some ways it’s a bit silly, especially coming on campus without a permit to hand out things (as permits are only given to student groups). I’m just not entirely sure they are spending their time wisely on me. The military also does this, which I find even more amusing because 1) I know they’re desperate for warm bodies, but I’m pretty sure I’d do them more harm than good. I’m kind of pathetic, and 2) I’m one of the most anti-militaristic people I know. My mother gets the phone calls when I’m at school and she keeps trying to tell them it’s probably not a great idea to keep calling me because they will inevitably get me on the line and get screamed at, but they don’t seem to be deterred.
The other thing that amused me about this latest religious flyer was it combines a “fun end of year bash” on the front with telling us we must repent and believe in God or go to hell on the back. Sort of dampens the mood a bit….
“You must Repent. You must realize you are a sinner before the Holy God and there is nothing you can do in your own power to get to heaven. You must be willing to turn from your sins to God, ask Him to forgive them, and to help you fight the war against sin in your life.”
Anyway, the fun bash is during my last final tomorrow. Too bad I can’t make it. 
That’s right folks, welcome to May Madness, where you guess how many votes Delegate Bob Marshall will receive at the May 30-31 Virginia Republican Convention! The winner gets to be listed as the “Dictatorial Blogmother” for a week and will have the opportunity to make a blog post on Daily Whackjob.
Thanks to whackette, who totally deserves a full night’s sleep and should have her husband take care of the baby so she can get it, and Matt Gray at RPV, we know that there will be 6,586 4,000 delegates at the convention at the end of the month.
Leave your guess for how many votes Delegate Bob Marshall will receive in the comments. The winner will be the closest without going over. You may not guess a number that has already been submitted. You may not change your answer.
Bruce Roemmelt has started things off with a guess of 43%, or 1,720 votes.
Comments will be closed May 30.
That’s right folks - in just as long as it takes for someone to let me know how many votes will be cast at the May 31 Virginia Republican Convention, we will have ourselves a little contest.
(Seriously, I looked all over and I couldn’t find an exact number of delegates. Gilmore has claimed to have enough to win, and I’ve seen the number 6,000 floated, but I couldn’t find anything authoritative.)
Please leave the number of delegates at the May 31 Virginia Republican Convention in the comments and you’ll get a karma boost. If you don’t believe in karma, this good deed will erase the damnation you will suffer due to that sexy thought you shouldn’t have had last week. If you didn’t have any sexy thoughts last week, check your pulse and use Google Image search, then leave the number of delegates to atone for what you did.
Okay, maybe this time he didn’t do anything I’m too upset about…but I love a good Tom Davis bashing. So I was really excited to see this:
http://westernstandard.blogs.com/shotgun/2008/04/congress-did-wh.html
I have strange dreams. I have for quite some time. Perhaps a bit of insight into a disturbed mind. Considering that many of my dreams find me hanging out with well-known people and celebrities, a convincing argument about the ill-effects of television and radio on the subconscious could likely be made. I’ve been backstage at Hendrix concerts, played on stage with Phish. Had a drink with Andy Warhol. I’ve been asked advice from Obama. I have even gone shopping with both George Bushes.
See, strange.
Click to continue reading "I dream of Hannity"
I have a hard time believing that this hasn’t already been posted at DWJ, but Maury deserves a Nobel Prize for the contributions he made to world peace when he produced this gem of a segment!
This ad paid for by Peter Piper’s Pickle PAC.
Shouting each other down, changing rules, disputed elections, challenges to the status quo—the similarities are simply astounding.
In a country that asks so much of its military, there really is no excuse for what the following video details.
The following is an adorable letter written by a second grader whose class Sen. Hillary Clinton recently visited on the campaign trail:
dear miss clinton
thank you for coming to our school. you came and read to us! my mom reads to me. i have a dog. his name is spot. you would like him. i also have a friend named billy. me and him play baseball sometimes and he always catches better than me so coach davids gives him the best positions. i think i deserve the best positions even though i don’t catch as well as billy. what should i do?
from: jeremy
Sen. Clinton was such a fan of this particular letter that she responded personally. Here’s the text of her reply:
Jeremy,
Thank you so much for your thoughtful letter. I’m glad you remembered my visit and hope you’re learning a lot in school! I was happy to get your question, because it’s a very good one, and you should be proud of yourself for thinking to ask it. Sometimes, there is something that we really want, and we think that we really deserve to have it.
But, sometimes, other people get it instead of us and we think it’s unfair. Just because somebody else gets something that you think you deserve, it doesn’t mean than they’re better than you. It just means that they’ve racked up an insurmountable delegate lead and a nearly-insurmountable popular vote advantage.
Jeremy, the most important thing you can remember in your situation is that you shouldn’t feel sad. You should hold your head high, keep on going, and, most importantly, destroy Billy. If Billy is hogging positions that you think you should have, he’s not your friend and must be terminated. You should tell everyone at your school that Billy wets his bed, and then come up with unsubstantiated theories about why he spent Tuesday of last week in lunch detention.
Lastly, you should spread a rumor about a strange hand disease that Billy is developing that will progressively erode his ability to catch baseballs. If you do this effectively, Coach Davids will keep Billy on the bench all season out of fear of losing. Once Billy’s position is empty, you should be able to take it over by force.
Unfortunately, I have to end this letter now, because I’m always really busy with my campaign, but I want to thank you again for writing. It’s a joy hearing from kids your age, and I hope I’ve done a good job answering your question!
All the best,
Hillary Clinton
Andrew Sullivan on the Democratic race:
[…] what is striking in the exit polls is the polarization on three lines: gender, race and age. It was dead even with men; but a massive advantage for Clinton among women. The racial difference is obvious as well. But what really leaps out is age. Obama lost every cohort over 40; Clinton lost every cohort under 40. Race also affects the generations in turn: 67 percent of whites over 60 voted for Clinton - a massive 24 point advantage. Among the younger generation, there is much less racial polarization: under 30, whites split evenly. This is a fascinating result. It appears to me as the future struggling to overcome the past. On the process, I stick to my view that she needed double digits to have reason to stay in. Right now, she doesn’t have it. But she won’t leave. She will never leave. Ceding to someone younger is unthinkable to her. It’s a form of death for her.
But here’s what she does have: total shamelessness, and an absolute belief that she is the rightful nominee. Shamelessness: the appropriation of the message and even the words of her opponent; the portrayal of one of the most privileged and advantaged candidates in memory as an insurgent underdog; the eager embrace of the tactics - and message! - of the Rove right if it could help in any way; the picture of a candidate who saw a 20 - 25 point lead dissipate into single figures as a candidate for momentum. What sustains her is this deep, deep sense of entitlement and an absolute refusal to let the next generation take over. She will take this to the last day of the convention if necessary.
If Obama thinks he has a right to actually be nominated by the Clinton Democrats because he has won more votes, more states and more delegates, he is sadly mistaken. They will never let such a person win without a death struggle. And that is where the Democrats are now headed.
Do I think a Democrat has to win working-class votes to win a general election? Yes. Do I think America is more racist than sexist? Yes.
But am I 25 years old and convinced the baby boomers have to get off the stage before we can fix anything? Absolutely. Go Obama.
Dear Pennsylvania Voters,
Today is my birthday. A quarter-century ago I was born in Lancaster, so I’m a native of the Keystone State. And I’m asking you, those who stayed, for a big favor today.
Make it end.
Only an absolutely crushing defeat for HRC will end this campaign. You can make it happen. Vote for the tall skinny guy with the funny name. Make the craziness end.
However, if you absolutely have to vote for HRC, be sympathetic to the birthday boy and give me some beer money* to cope with the crushing realization that we’ll be fighting until Denver.
Thanks,
Adam
*It’s Paypal, so send it to politicl(dot)animal(at)gmail(dot)com. No guarantees, but the karma bonus should be enough to upgrade your next life from a polar bear to Paris Hilton’s chihuahua.**
** I prefer receding necklines to receding ice shelves. If you differ, you can still be a polar bear. The breaststroke will be larger part of your routine, but I’m sure you’ll manage.
Hey there, everyone! Johnny Camacho here.
Many of you - if not most of you - already know me. I’ve been a contributing member of the Virginia blogosphere via my personal blog since September of 2006, and have gotten to know many of my readers and fellow bloggers on a personal level since then. Of all the bloggers I’ve had the honor of meeting in person, few left as vivid an impression as the good people of Daily Whackjob.
That’s why it was such a thrill to be officially invited to blog among them here at the site. To be honest, though, I had to think hard about the decision, since there will be many who will see my addition to the blog as a means of filling the void left by the recent retirement of Whackette. Let me quell such confusion right now.
Megan (A.K.A. Whackette) was (and still is) widely recognized by Whackjob contributors and readers alike as the classy and sane one whose posts were typically substantive, level headed, and thoughtful. That’s a tough act to follow for a guy whose typical posts deal with things like politician haircuts, President Bush’s shoes, and Joe Biden fanboy-ism. Still, I decided to answer the call of duty by becoming a contributor to DWJ. Why? Well, for a number of reasons:
Click to continue reading "The newest Whackjob: Yours truly."
