12/22: Oh, Bama, What An Excuse
8 p.m.
• I'll take the Cowboys to win by 10+ points.
• Atari Porn. That's all I got to say.
10:15 a.m.
• So the primary car needs its annual inspection along with some brake work. We turned it into the gas station/mechanic’s place yesterday, and I had to wait 10 minutes for the poor cashier to get done ringing up some guy with a shitload of instant lottery tickets. Ugh. I’ve stated several times before that I hate lottery people, especially at a Quickie Mart. The point of a convenience store is to get in and out fast, and wanting to cash in a dozen lottery tickets, along with buying a dozen more, defeats this purpose. It’s like paying for 13 grocery items in a 10-item express lane via check. Oh well. I really wasn’t annoyed by this, but it was sad to see the poor cashier with the deer-in-headlights look because her line was growing due to this douche in front of her hoping to hit it big with government-sanctioned gambling. Where was I going with this? Oh, yeah. So I got the call this morning from the mechanic about the brakes needing replaced, which I figured. It was sad to hear the bracing-for-the-total-cost tone in his voice because I just don’t get how people will flip out over the cost of auto repair. Don’t like the cost? Don’t get the work done at that place of business. The price given to me was fine – my only requirement is that I don’t want to come back for the same problem a week from now. Then I will turn into my asshole state.
• I actually went into this article with a somewhat open mind because I was curious to see how much of a commie Barack Obama was a decade ago.
If he wanted, the Barack Obama of today could have a pretty good debate with the Barack Obama of yesterday. They could argue about whether the death penalty is ever appropriate. Whether it makes sense to ban handguns. They might explore their differences on the Patriot Act or parental notification of abortion.
And they could debate whether Obama has flip-flopped, changed some of his views as he learned more over the years or is simply answering questions with more detail and nuance now that he is running for president…
Oddly enough, many times I don’t care about the “OMG he said this 10 years ago~!” gotcha game. Before he became House Minority Leader in the ‘90s Dick Gephart seemed like a decent enough person. Problem was he was now the representative for all the crackpot liberals so he had to turn up the wacko-notch a bit. Even Al Gore seemed to start off as a conservative Democrat while in Congress before becoming the enviro-weenie he is today. So let’s see what Obama said back in the day.
In 1996, when he was running for a seat in the Illinois Senate, Obama's campaign filled out a questionnaire flatly stating that he did not support capital punishment. By 2004, his position was that he supported the death penalty "in theory" but felt the system was so flawed that a national moratorium on executions was required.
Today, he doesn't talk about a moratorium and says the death penalty is appropriate for "some crimes—mass murder, the rape and murder of a child—so heinous that the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage."
Then there's another crime-related issue, gun control.
That 1996 questionnaire asked whether he supported banning the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns in Illinois. The campaign's answer was straightforward: "Yes." Eight years later, he said on another questionnaire that "a complete ban on handguns is not politically practicable" but reasonable restrictions should be imposed.
His legislative record in Illinois shows strong support for gun restrictions, such as limiting handgun purchases to one a month, but no attempts to ban them. Today, he stands by his support for controls while trying to reassure hunters that he has no interest in interfering with their access to firearms.
Whatever. I know the guy’s full of shit, but at least he’s saying the right things to convince the stupid among us that he’d actually be a so-called moderate voice. Hello, what’s this?
Obama's presidential campaign contends that voters can't learn anything about his views from the 1996 questionnaire, which was for an Illinois good-government group known as the IVI-IPO. Aides say Obama did not fill out the questionnaire and instead it was handled by a staffer who misrepresented his views on gun control, the death penalty and more.
You’re blaming a STAFFER for not giving accurate beliefs you are supposed to hold? And you never bothered to correct the record when it went out? Hell, you didn’t even bother to LOOK OVER WHAT THE STAFFER WROTE? OK, I’m done.
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