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lancebigpants
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Name: Lance
Interests: yhwh. thrifting&garage sale-ing. US politics. social justice. self-betterment. beaches of lake michigan. debate. photography. art. health food. people watching. learning from others. the detroit red wings & osu buckeyes. recycling. reading. YOU.
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AIM:  lancebigpants
Member Since:
4/29/2004
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| I never really ever held a teary, emotional retirement conference announcing my leaving of xanga-land. It just slowly died inside of me. I wrote somewhat consistently on here since 2004, well, actually I was pretty sporadic for the last year+. For a while, when all the bandwagon xangans came on board in 2005, this place was blowing up with comments. Good times. Anyway, the point is that it was good while it lasted.
I now have (had for while) a new permanent home over at WordPress, [which, by the way, is infinitely better than xanga and beats the pants off of blogspot/blogger too.]
You can read my thoughts and share your comments over there:
http://onlymomentalone.wordpress.com/
I still drop by here now and then to read and comment. Also, I am going to work on putting back up a handful of my older posts for history's sake I guess.
That's all.
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| On March 17, 2003, President Bush gave Saddam Hussein a 48-hour deadline to give up power and then on March 20, 2003, the U.S.-led invasion began. That was five years ago. Hmm, I guess time flies when your country is in perpetual war.
After five years we have seen nearly 4,000 American deaths, tens of
thousands of Iraqi deaths, hundreds of billions of dollars spent, and an announcement of mission accompished and an end to combat missions over four years ago. Furthermore, just four days ago even the spotless and infallible General Petraeus acknowledged a complete lack of progress by the Iraqi government.
However, yesterday, Vice President Dick Cheney in a visit to Iraq declared that the Iraq invasion has been a
"successful endeavor ... and it has been well worth the effort."
Also happening yesteday in Iraq:
- A female suicide bomber killed at least 40 people and wounded 71 in an
attack on a cafe near the revered Imam Hussein mosque in central Kerbala...
- Five persons were killed and twelve were injured when mortar shells hit a football playground in Eastern Baghdad...
- A roadside bomb killed two U.S. soldiers when it struck their vehicle in a district north of Baghdad...
- A minibus packed with explosives killed three people and wounded eight others in Karrada district in central Baghdad...
- A roadside bomb killed one policeman and wounded another as they patrolled Mansour district in western Baghdad...
- A separate roadside bomb wounded one person in Mansour district...
- Three bodies of U.S.-backed neighbourhood police were found two days after they were kidnapped in the town of Udhaim...
- A roadside bomb targeting a U.S. convoy injured four civilians in Baghdad...
Cheney also said yesterday,
"It would be a mistake now to be so eager to draw down the force that we risk putting the outcome in jeopardy."
For the first time I think I find myself in agreement with the Vice President... We absolutely shouldn't jeopardize all of this success and progress we've been seeing.
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| Warning: This blog is about politics so please stop reading if you hate reading political opinions and rants or are just bored by politics in general. Or if you have a short attention span you can skip to the end and try the USA Today quiz.
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It was not the most brilliant idea when Michigan Legislature decided that it wanted a more prominent role in the presidential nomination process a la the New Hampshire's and Iowa's of the world, and in turn succeeded in establishing a new, early date for their open primaries. (From an incompetent bunch that can't agree on anything, to band together to ignore the rules and make a decision like this one should have been met with a bit more skepticism and criticism, I say.) Anyway, this successful achievement was not looked upon as very successful or as much of an achievement by the Republican party as they responded by taking half the state's GOP convention delegates away for breaking the rules. The Democratic party took it one step further and stripped away all of the delegates and just to be sure they cancelled all of the hotel room reservations allocated to Michigan delegates in Denver as well. Adding extra insult, John Edwards, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden removed their names from the Democratic ballots here in Michigan.
 So today, Tuesday January 15, those of us in the state of Michigan are waking up to a bit of an embarrassment. Actually this primary is turning into more than a bit of an embarrassment. Republican's are going ahead and voting for whichever of the party's amazing! breathtaking! spectacular! candidates suits there particular fancy. Mitt Romney and John McCain were tight in the polling lead heading into today with Mike Huckabee behind in third place. I think Ron Paul is still leading in random signage, and his eight supporters seem to make a lot of noise, but nobody really cares, and Fred Thompson should just drop out, he is not even worth discussing.
However, the real story is on the Democratic side. Democratic voters are left with four choices.
1. Vote Hilary Clinton.
2. Vote Dennis Kucinich!
3. Vote "Uncommitted" as a way to show support for John Edwards and/or Barack Obama.
4. Vote Mitt Romney and try to screw things up on the Republican side.
   
First it should be noted that there are rumors that Michigan will be able to smooth things over and still have delegates in Denver at the convention in August. This seems very much absurd and very unlikely since the Democratic party went so far as to cancel the freaking hotel rooms.  But just to play it on the safe side in preparations that something very unlikely might happen and delegates might actually matter, Democrats might go with options 1-3. Option three might also be appealing just to make a quiet statement against Hilary Clinton. But any way you slice it, her victory today will mean nothing. Lastly, and most intriguingly is the prospect that many Democratic voters will hit the polls and vote on the Republican side for Mitt Romney. (Because Michigan is an open primary, this kind of shenanigan is not only possible but it happened as recently as 2000, when McCain was bumped ahead of George W. in the primaries.) The prospect of pushing Romney to victory in his native state and effectively keeping his campaign alive while simultaneously denying John McCain the title of "Republican front-runner" has energized a few of the Michigan Democrats who are set on creating mischief today after being effectively disenfranchised in this moronic scheme to push Michigan to the forefront of the political process.
sigh. this whole situation is LAME.
"I always belived in futures... I hope for better in Novermber."
Lastly, this is a quick, easy and fun little quiz to see whose ideas you match up with most. I'd be interested to hear who your top 3 candidates are. Link here.
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