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Dec. 26th, 2011 07:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwydion* The government of Syria slaughtered 17 people yesterday. Today they flattened opposition neighborhoods and shot people as they tried to flee. According to the government the crack down stopped almost two weeks ago, but there is no lessening of the government murder of unarmed civilians. This latest massacre is thought to be intended to hide dissidents from Arab League observers that arrived in the evening by simply killing everyone in the district.
* I am told the protests in Moscow are the biggest and most vigorous in years. I wish there was better coverage, as I am genuinely interested.
* I don't care how stressed out you are, there is no excuse for beating a seventy year old woman into the hospital on Christmas Eve for trying to do her crappy minimum wage Wallmart greeter job.
* Iowa Caucuses are next week. For those of you in sane countries, let me give a little background. Basically instead of a normal vote that gets a broader and more representative sampling of what ordinary party members want, they hold meetings with not enough parking that are a pain in the ass to get to. Then you sit through some boring speeches and eventually you get to sign a vote sheet, then hike back to your car. Since it's a major pain in the ass, the folks that go tend to be those who are the "most passionate." This goes double for people willing to hike for miles in the middle of Winter in the midwest. The result is that in Iowa, the first primary state, generally mostly the most extreme right rabid fringe bothers to go to the Republican Iowa Caucuses. Every cycle, the Iowa caucus gets less and less representative of what will happen in a general election. As a result, people don't expect the Iowa Caucus to pick the winner. Instead, it weeds out the weakest candidates, as the folks at the bottom of the polls will have trouble fund raising if they don't do well in Iowa. Mainstrean candidates, like Mitt Romney, focus on New Hampshire, which is the second primary state, and which has a normal voting process; the rabid right candidates like Perry, Bachmann, Santorum, et al. focus on Iowa, since they must win or pull a close second to continue. Ron Paul generally does pretty well there, as pretty much the main representative of the Libertarian branch of the the far right, and you will notice, he's been really campaigning there. To give you an idea, last time around, Huckabee won Iowa.
Anyway, you'll notice I'm not that worked up. Iowa is mostly a launching pad for things like future speaking gigs, book tours, FOX "News" commentator gigs, lobbyist jobs, influence peddling gigs, and what have you. It may or may not give us a vice presidential candidate, depending on how much the top couple candidates piss off the actual winner of the primary, geographic calculations, and other factional considerations.
* I've been making more progress on bookshelf related unpacking. I'm weeding the books, always a painful process.
Hector continues to have a bad brain chemistry episode. I figured out where I put his meds today, and if this dose doesn't work, I'll zap him again tomorrow.
Marine Rob comes for me soon, so I'm off.
* Cake: http://www.cakewrecks.com/home/2011/11/20/sunday-sweets-my-favorite-things.html
* The Clutch
* I am told the protests in Moscow are the biggest and most vigorous in years. I wish there was better coverage, as I am genuinely interested.
* I don't care how stressed out you are, there is no excuse for beating a seventy year old woman into the hospital on Christmas Eve for trying to do her crappy minimum wage Wallmart greeter job.
* Iowa Caucuses are next week. For those of you in sane countries, let me give a little background. Basically instead of a normal vote that gets a broader and more representative sampling of what ordinary party members want, they hold meetings with not enough parking that are a pain in the ass to get to. Then you sit through some boring speeches and eventually you get to sign a vote sheet, then hike back to your car. Since it's a major pain in the ass, the folks that go tend to be those who are the "most passionate." This goes double for people willing to hike for miles in the middle of Winter in the midwest. The result is that in Iowa, the first primary state, generally mostly the most extreme right rabid fringe bothers to go to the Republican Iowa Caucuses. Every cycle, the Iowa caucus gets less and less representative of what will happen in a general election. As a result, people don't expect the Iowa Caucus to pick the winner. Instead, it weeds out the weakest candidates, as the folks at the bottom of the polls will have trouble fund raising if they don't do well in Iowa. Mainstrean candidates, like Mitt Romney, focus on New Hampshire, which is the second primary state, and which has a normal voting process; the rabid right candidates like Perry, Bachmann, Santorum, et al. focus on Iowa, since they must win or pull a close second to continue. Ron Paul generally does pretty well there, as pretty much the main representative of the Libertarian branch of the the far right, and you will notice, he's been really campaigning there. To give you an idea, last time around, Huckabee won Iowa.
Anyway, you'll notice I'm not that worked up. Iowa is mostly a launching pad for things like future speaking gigs, book tours, FOX "News" commentator gigs, lobbyist jobs, influence peddling gigs, and what have you. It may or may not give us a vice presidential candidate, depending on how much the top couple candidates piss off the actual winner of the primary, geographic calculations, and other factional considerations.
* I've been making more progress on bookshelf related unpacking. I'm weeding the books, always a painful process.
Hector continues to have a bad brain chemistry episode. I figured out where I put his meds today, and if this dose doesn't work, I'll zap him again tomorrow.
Marine Rob comes for me soon, so I'm off.
* Cake: http://www.cakewrecks.com/home/2011/11/20/sunday-sweets-my-favorite-things.html
* The Clutch