Happy to join

So firstly I would just like to introduce myself for all you native Chicago'ans who don't know me. My name is Jeff, I went to Tufts with E-Diz as we call him and am damn good at the Alto Sax. Well, the last part wasn't true but it's always been a desire of mine to either be good at the sax or drums.

Now that that's over with, I wanted to comment on Ethan's post. I don't know if it was my background in Chemistry or just my lack of understanding of the topic but much of that post flew right over my head. I did want to say, though, in response to the possibility of us going to Iran is that it seems in times of war the country just follows the President much more than the President ever follows the will of the country. The people's will, which does fluctuate a lot, is a product of what we see on the news, hear on the radio and talk about in our homes and to our friends/family. That is all based off of the small amount of information that we get, much of which is most likely edited or at least filtered in some way by the government. So when the President says the American people want to go to Iran and so he will go, I believe it's because of a prior decision he has made to go to Iran. And how much can the President really follow the will of the people? What do we know? Not much, it seems, and I bet so many decisions are made for reasons that we have no idea about and circumstances/deals that will never come to light. So how much do I trust my own decision about whether or not to enter Iran, besides the little I can relate it to history (Iraq) and the little common sense that I have?

Secondly, I wanted to respond to the post about McCain. I don't understand why we should trust McCain over everyone else. In fact, if the Republican nomination was about trust, it feels to me that more American's trust Huckabee and Walker Texas Ranger than McCain. I feel like people would vote for McCain because of his experience and global leadership.

I also love seeing ya'll's youtube links, so here's a video that blends the old school with the new skool: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KU3N5c2Kxnw. I don't know how to link the video to the blog so you'll just have to cut and paste like back in the day.

Bush is a Motha Fucka

Another step on the road to Iran:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/world/middleeast/13cnd-prexy.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

What is really truly amazing to me is that they actually -- for real -- think that they can use the same line as in '02-'03 to get everyone on board. And what is even more truly amazing is that I am totally convinced that there is absolutely nothing we can do, except by a change of administration, that can stop them from pulling it off. The power of the Executive is, simply by the nature of our government's institutional construction, capable of getting this country to follow in its step if it actually wants the country to.

"ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — President Bush urged wary Persian Gulf allies on Sunday to rally against Iran “before it is too late,” even as the International Atomic Energy Agency announced that the country had agreed to answer outstanding questions about its nuclear programs within four weeks.

All the departments support the message of the executive or of the particular party in power -- which is a distortion of the people's will. All structures are a distortion of the peoples' will because the will changes too fast for structures to keep up with. So the question is whether it is "better," somehow -- perhaps in individual survival terms -- for us to have a governmental structure that leads to distortions of the peoples' will or not.

Which leads to better overall outcomes: The peoples' will, or distortions that benefit from the advantage of being able to attempt very long term goals?

There are perhaps some things that could be nice to achieve that would take a long time and require very long term goals to structure behavior. But there is a cost to these types of goals: local political backlash.

Which is worse: The consequences of local backlash, or the limitations of goals and the likely volatility of private politics?

These days, with nukes and bio-chems, and nano-tech and bio-engineering advances, along with proliferation of missile technologies and asymmetric military tactics, I'm leaning towards local backlash.

Sweet

Dope.




But really, not so dope.

President John McCain

Better get used to that title. Apologies for the unedited rant, but hopefully you'll get some small sense of beginning, middle, and end.

Around the beginning of the last presidential election campaigns, I knew for a fact that Bush would win reelection. It was obvious. No opponent even had a chance. However, once I began to listen to what each of the Democratic contenders had to say, I began to develop confidence that not only would almost any of them make a better president than Bush, but that a few of them even had a chance to defeat him in the actual election. When Kerry was nominated, I wasn’t sure what to think. I certainly did not think he was the strongest Democratic contender, but I did place John Edwards in my top two (along with Howard Dean), and I thought his Southern heritage could play a big role in helping to change the hands of power. For the most part, however, I still believed that Bush would win reelection. He was simply too popular at the time. When Kerry performed magnificently in the first debate against Bush, my attitude changed entirely. I thought here is a man who could actually save us! After the second debate, his momentum only took a minor hit, as most believed Kerry won again, but not as terrifically as before. After the third debate, the national polls were showing that the two candidates were evening out, and Kerry’s support began to slide, and the rest is history.

I’m not sure when I first realized it, but I think I have known since about the time of the 2004 election cycle that John McCain would be our 44^th president. The only thing is that I somehow managed to forget this fact over the course of the past few months of campaigns. Once again, I have seen the promise of several Democratic contenders, and have been encouraged by the support they have garnered. Once again, I am as disappointed with the prospect of a Republican president—not because of partisan favoritism, but because of the lack of quality candidates on that side. Where am I going with this? Though I cannot remember well enough the details of the presidential elections of 1996 and earlier, I can say that the constant in the elections since 2000 (and I suspect probably every election back to the birth of the union) has been the importance of one key factor: not positions, not values, not even likeability, but trust. Whomever the people trust most, wins. It seems to me that throughout history, one party over the other has always managed to collectively build a level of confidence in the people that it ceases to matter what the candidates say at some point. For the past eight years, that trust has been placed in the Republican Party, and there is no indication of change in sight. McCain is the ultimate nurturer of this trust right now, and that is why he will win. How do I know it is the Republican Party which will win, and further that it will be McCain to lead them to victory? Nothing he does is wrong. Not even supporting President Bush (which he continues to do in his campaign speeches), despite Bush’s dismal level of support, or popularity among the people. There is an unshakable trust which Americans have placed in McCain, which I think would be impossible to break, short of a homicidal rampage carried out by McCain himself against his own supporters at a campaign rally, and caught on film. That is why Republicans will vote for him; it is also partially why most independents and even some Democrats will vote for him. The other half of the story is that as I said before, one party has always dominated the nation in the category of trust. While McCain’s is unbreakable, the Democratic contenders seem very unable to even garner the trust of their own party. Whereas McCain might not be every Republican voter’s first choice, every Republican voter trusts him, and would happily vote for him. On the Democratic side, Obama supporters don’t trust Clinton; Clinton supporters don’t trust Obama; and no one really trusts any of the others. She’s a woman. He’s black. She’s unemotional. He was raised in a Muslim country. She’s a phony. He’s a robot. She’s too similar to Bush. He’s too different. In order to get elected, the people need to believe in you, and no Democrat will be able to compete with that type of support which McCain will rely on to win the presidency.

During the 2004 cycle, I got wrapped up in the excitement of the possibility of a new president, a Democratic, and more importantly sane, president. No doubt I will forget this rant, and nurture the false hope once again that we may have a sane, Democratic president come 2009. My only wish is that McCain will turn out to be more level-headed than we now think, because really the only thing standing between him and the presidency is that same old false hope for change.

Caliente Pockets son muy delicioso.

I saw a gorilla eat its poop live at Lincoln Park Zoo. It was an experience. Its pee, too.

But yeah, moving on, clearly Gaffigan has never actually had a hot pocket, because everything he says is a lie. Well, most of it. I don't know about the lean pockets, or about the breakfast pockets, but I'm down with the calzones. Although, admittedly, today for the first time I did experience the frozen-in-the-middle phenomenon. UNpleasant.

And on an entirely different note, tonight I spent the majority of my time at my friend's place playing Rock Band, which if you haven't played you need to please do that now. Or fork over 500 dollars or whatever it is and get the thing. It's unbelievable.

Can you imagine what video games will be in 20 years? In our lifetime, I remember shitting my pants with excitement over the original Nintendo. I actually shot a duck with a plastic gun, and a dog came and fetched it for me. That was amazing. Now, only... what... 14 or so years later we can simulate being on tour as a rock band, with a drum set, guitars, and vocals. Or we can bowl or play tennis in our living room. Seriously... in the next twenty years we're going to see some crazy things developed.

Video game tester. That'd be the job, right?

big ups

oh yeah, we got ross and barfy contributing. as a reward here is the hot pocket video for ross:



and here is a sweet music video for el barfo:

That video is disgusting

Ethan's previously posted video is absolutely disgusting. I'm over this monkey theme. I think we can all agree that Snoop still has it though. The sensual seduction video is incredible:

Darwin's Proof.

Nature's Greatest Achievement

I think we're well on our way to having the best blog of all time.

Hos, Monkeys, Guns, Robots. What else could we ask for?

I suppose if our lame friends contributed it might be better...

But in the meantime, here's another classic of monkeytainment:

on this amazing theme.



ps, monkeys and guns, hilarious

what happens when you search ethan monkey robot

this is the first image you get.

First one

Here we go i suppose. This is my first foray into the blogging thing.