#WhyImNotVotingForRomney

I saw the hashtag on Twitter and just had to use it. But since I didn't want to issue a bunch of individual tweets, I decided to put it all on here...well, maybe not everything, but as much as I can think of right now.

I'm sick and tired of the Republican party in general.

I'm sick and tired of the extremist, racist segments which have taken firm control of the Republican party -- the Tea Party and the religious right (aka the American Taliban). Even if Mitt Romney is not in fact a racist or a religious extremist, he has encouraged and emboldened the racists and religious extremists with his words and actions, making him no better.

I'm sick and tired of the wealthy and the large corporations getting more and more tax breaks that they do not need, and reduced regulation in so many areas, while the rest of us find our lives becoming more and more of a struggle every day. Mitt Romney will continue the tax cuts for the wealthy. In fact, as it was reported yesterday, it seems that Mitt Romney may not have paid a single penny in taxes for the years 1996 through 2009. NOT A SINGLE FUCKING PENNY. FOURTEEN YEARS.

I'm sick and tired of not having the same rights as everyone else because of my sexual orientation, and of having a woman's right to control her own body being restricted or completely removed, and having Planned Parenthood and other agencies that provide quality health care services threatened, all due to the influence of the American Taliban. Romney has thrown in with the American Taliban on these issues.

I'm sick and tired of the lack of affordable quality health care for everyone. I'm sick and tired of the efforts to stop health care reform, when we've finally begun to make progress after decades of failure. Not only has Romney thrown in with the Tea Party extremists, he's going against the health care reforms he pushed for while Massachusetts governor. This is not leadership -- this is hypocrisy and gutlessness.

I'm sick and tired of hearing about how jobs aren't being created because taxes aren't low enough, and how Barack Obama didn't do anything to fix the economy. Taxes for the wealthy were cut during the execrable George W. Bush presidency and somehow we ended up with many fewer jobs and the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression. Why didn't the "job creators" create jobs with the windfall profits they received then? Why does anyone think they'll do it now? And while the economy is still in bad shape, all the indicators show it's beginning to recover. And it would have begun sooner had it not been for the Tea Party extremists in Congress who have spent the last four years doing nothing but blocking any legislation supported by Obama, because their ONLY goal for the last four years has been to do everything possible to make sure Obama wasn't reelected.

I'm sick and tired of the GOP still trying to paint Barack Obama as weak on foreign policy and terrorism. If the death of Osama bin Laden isn't enough evidence to the contrary, Mitt Romney proved with his blundering excursion to London during the Olympics that he has about as much expertise in foreign affairs as Paris Hilton.

I'm sick and tired of the Tea Party extremists and American Taliban's complete repudiation of science. Whether in fighting against stem-cell research or regulations to improve the environment and lessen the effects of climate change (unthinkable, especially after the unprecedented strength and path of Hurricane Sandy) or teaching "creationism" instead of evolution in schools, there's no excuse for this utter stupidity.

And, because it just seems to need to be said, I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired.

It's very simple: unless you're a wealthy, white, heterosexual male, or a racist, there is simply no reason to vote for Mitt Romney. He is NOT on your side. His policies will NOT make your life better. Only a complete moron would think otherwise.

Phila. Daily News Update

I previously outlined some problems I had with my newspaper, which were enough to make me consider not renewing my subscription. I ended up renewing it, so I'm still a Daily News subscriber.

Although (and sorry in advance for this digression), every time I see the right-wing garbage from one of their editorial board members, Christine Flowers, I want to vomit. I don't even read it. I just see her name and wonder why she's allowed to spew her filth. I mean, there was an editorial in the paper regarding the teenage girl who wore her Mitt Romney t-shirt to school and was harrassed by her teacher, leading to all kinds of stupidity, media whoring, etc. The editorial says, in part:

The T-shirt flap and the resulting hostility that had a high-school student afraid to return to school because of obscenities hurled at her parents and rumors that students were going to attack her is a sickening indictment of an uncivilized society that has become increasingly intolerant of differences of opinions, political outlooks, religious beliefs and beyond.

Whether it takes the form of blatant questioning of, say, the current president's love of God, country, or his supposed lack of a birth certificate, or nasty commentaries on non-Christians, or distorted political ads with both sides accusing the other of lies and worse, or even Rush Limabugh calling a Georgetown legal student a slut and a whore for speaking out about birth control, the rise of the political echo chamber that has replaced useful and thoughtful debate that is grounded in respect is the real culprit.

Quite the thing, except these words are a near-perfect description of Christine Flowers. The only area where she has anything but an extreme right-wing view is on immigration. She has stated that, as a practicing attorney, she represents immigrants trying to stay in the USA. I can't help but wonder how she'd feel about it if she weren't making money off these people. I also can't help but wonder, considering the stance taken in the editorial, why the paper continues to employ her, thereby contributing to this "uncivilized society."

Anyway, that's not why I'm writing this post. Regarding one of my post's criticisms, there's good news: starting in January, home subscribers of the Daily News and Inquirer will get the digital version of the paper for free. I'm very happy about this because if I'm out of town I'll be able to read the paper on my tablet. I don't know why it can't start right away, but that's a minor quibble.

Speaking of minor quibbles, this centerspread appeared in last weekend's Sportsweek edition. There was a feature story on the Eagles' time at the Vet as this season marks the 10th anniversary of their last season before moving to the Linc. This photo begs the question...

...why did they use a picture taken during baseball season?

Money's Too Tight (To Mention)

If you know music of the 1980s then you know this song by Simply Red, although a couple of things seem to have slipped my memory. First, I didn't really remember the direct jabs at Ronald and Nancy Reagan near the end of the song. In addition, according to Wikipedia this was the band's first single, released in 1985, with their first big smash "Holding Back The Years" not coming out until 1986. Somehow I had them reversed in my mind.

At any rate I think some artist should cover it now, updating the lyrics to refer to Mitt Romney and some other GOP frauds instead of the Reagans.

A Fox-"Bones"-Romney Conspiracy Theory

I present to you a still image from Monday night's episode of "Bones." Here we see a map on a screen at the Jeffersonian, the fictional institution where all the forensic evidence in the murder cases on the show is analyzed. This map displays an area from which came some of that evidence, based on...well, a bunch of scientific jargon that I usually can hardly keep up with. No big deal, right? But when I watched it, a name on the map caught my eye. In fact, it jumped out at me immediately. So I paused the DVR and took two pictures. Look closely...

If you can't tell what I'm talking about, here's a closeup...

WTF, you ask? Why is Mitt Romney's name on screen? Is it a devious form of subliminal advertising by Fox, or by the show's producers, or a conspiracy planned by both?

Well, I did a Google search and found that the map is of an actual town -- Romney, West Virginia, not all that far from Washington, where the show is based. Still, I can't help but wonder. Can it really be a coincidence that the map used in an episode airing a month before the election is of a town that shares the same name as the GOP candidate for President?

Wait -- on the other hand, we all know that Hollywood is dominated by liberals. So maybe another plot was devised. Maybe the producers threw his name on screen just to rile up the Romney opposition -- maybe Barack Obama even gave them the idea!

What do you think? Should we demand an investigation by the Senate or something?

Political Chess (Inspired by Ben Franklin and a singer!)

You should know that this post has been quite a while in the making. Well, actually, it was a couple of hours or so in the actual making and the rest of the time was spent on other things. But the inspiration for this came way back in February 2011. I procrastinated, as I often do, and then time would pass, and then something would happen to make me think of this again, and then I'd procrastinate some more, lather, rinse, repeat. I'd think that it would be good to finish this to coincide with certain events, and then I didn't. Until now.

So, back in Febuary 2011, on my Twitter feed I saw a tweet from Mike Furey, lead singer of what was a duo called Dangerous Muse (the other guy went off to do his own thing; Furey is continuing the group using other musicians as needed). I discovered them through a music video played on one of Logo's music shows a few years ago, and I've been a fan ever since.

It was a fairly simple query.

Now and then, I like to reply to the celebrities I follow, though I think most of them, even if they tweet personally and everything isn't handled by a publicist, probably don't even see my tweets. But sometimes they're kind enough to acknowledge my existence. So, that night, I replied...

A short time later, I found this in my feed:

This intrigued me.

Why The Mayan 2012 Thing Needs To Happen

I saw an article online today and the title of this post came to mind. I thought that maybe the whole end-of-the-world event supposedly predicted by the Mayan calendar should actually happen. Then I kept reading, and found more things that solidifed my view. What were these things? Did Mitt Romney get caught saying something stupid again? Did another pro athlete say or do something homophobic? Did the NFL's scab referees make another bad call? (Oh wait, they're gone now. Our long national nightmare is over.)

Not quite. Just sample the headlines:

Honey Boo Boo Declares, 'Everybody's A Little Bit Gay'

Ke$ha: I had sex with a ghost

50 Cent tweets four-step plan to stop masturbation

Now, far be it from me to discourage Ke-dollar sign-ha from having ectoplasmic orgasms. I just dislike her and don't want to see her or hear about her. But for 50 Cent to cite the Bible as a reason to not masturbate while he's probably out banging groupies every night, well, that's unacceptable. Sorry, man-whore, but masturbation is all some people have. (Looks around nervously, walks away slowly...)

And the simple fact that my sacred blog has now been tainted by the inexplicable phenomenon/unadulterated mess that is Honey Boo Boo is reason enough. Come on, Mayans, put us out of our misery!