Political Cartel

This is almost too good to be true. John Manlove is a conservative Republican running for Congress in Texas’ 22nd district. I would have assumed that this was a joke, but the site is extremely well designed and it turns out that this is a real guy.

I can already picture a couple of awkward bumper stickers:

“I support Manlove!”

“Congress needs Manlove!”

I really don’t have much substantive to say about this, but I just thought that more people should see this. Mr. Manlove should be careful to always include his first name to avoid some of that awkwardness.

(Thanks to jkkuwitzky for sharing the Manlove!)

To respond to David’s question: Yes, this is the new logo I had in mind. I may tweak it a bit — I kinda think its too big. Perhaps not. Give me some feedback, anyone.

I thought that a new template would do the blog some good, because I was getting tired of the blue. Besides the new logo with the old template didn’t work too well.

I like the austere look of the “plaino-white.” It depicts simplicity with a poignant title and good writing. But I am willing to compromise. I just think it looks best with the logo. We can work with it.

Feedback is welcome.

This is worth a look if you haven’t seen it yet. I’m sure this clip is somewhat out of context but it’s hard to imagine a context that would earn him any forgiveness from fiscal conservatives.

[YouTube]

In calling a spade a spade, Pervez Musharraf has just declared martial law in Pakistan. Musharaff, who rose to power in a bloodless coup in 1999, has surprised many Westerners as being cooperative with the United States and Great Britain. Though there are many terrorists in his country who cross from the border of Afghanistan, he has certainly made bold moves in ridding his country of known terrorists. Enough that many Westerners give him the benefit of the doubt as to his intentions. And this includes many people who are not George W. Bush.
About a week from now, the Supreme Court was expected to unfavorably rule on the constitutionality of his reelection, which would allow Bhutto to reclaim her place of power. Under the guise of “emergency powers,” Musharraf surrounded the Supreme Court with paramilitary troops, enforced a curfew, and has arrested over five-hundred protesters. Needless to say, Musharraf will never have the influence he desired or even once had.
Musharraf’s actions leave me with very little optimism for that part of the world. There are so few good leaders. If you think about it, losing control of the military is a very scary thing for someone who once ran it, and was protecting you from people who want to kill you. Unfortunately, Musharraf is resorting to the same kind of fear which ruins every kind of society, in every part of the world, in all people. Sometimes, its revealed in martial law, sometimes its revealed in wire-tapping political opponents, sometimes its revealed in racism. A fearful society is without a chance.

This is what happens when you tick off the gay community. Your name gets a new meaning, and it might not be something you like.

Senator Santorum essentially said that gay sex, incest, polygamy, and zoophilia are all the same because they are all deviant sexual behaviors that threaten society and the family. Santorum also said that he believed consenting adults do not have a constitutional right to privacy with respect to sexual acts. Wow. Pretty harsh…

So, in response, Dan Savage led an effort to coin a new term: the “Santorum.”

I also hate my former Senator because of his blatant deception when he told people that we had found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that justified the war.

(All this happened a long time ago, but I just found out that the Santorum site is the number one Google result for the search term “Santorum.” How embarrassing.

This photo has always been awe-inspring to me and aparantly to Greg Kendell-Ball as well. Good opt Greg.

One thing that bugs me to death about the right wing is the absolute insistance on lower taxes and smaller government. Back in the days when I was a Republican (the dark ages) I would go to conventions and listen to people preach this stuff over and over like they read it from the Bible and that nobody had ever said it before. I found it very hard to relate to those people.

I have a lot more in common with a Teddy Roosevelt than I do a Ronald Reagan. In general, I like low taxes and small government because I want citizens to be able to chose to do what they want so long as it doesn’t harm others, but you can only go so far. There is a lot of economic regulation that the government does that I believe is good. And anytime the country or a state goes into a recession, what is the eternal Republican cure? Lower taxes! Good grief!

Most people are familiar with the concept of the seven wonders of the world. However, most people probably could not list them all. Or let alone most of them. The fact is, all but one of them don’t exist today. They’ve either been destroyed by earthquake or fire.

The current list of seven wonders is as follows:
1. Pyramid of Giza
2. Hanging Gardens of Babylon
3. Temple of Artemis in Ephesus
4. The Statue of Zeus at Olympia
5. Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus
6. Collosus of Rhodes
7. Lighthouse of Alexandria

The New Open World Corporation (NOWC) in 1999 began a project to establish a new list. They started with 177 monuments, reduced that to 20 by 2006 and now you can go to their website and select what you want the seven to be. The deadline for voting is 07/07/07. I’d be interested to see what you guys vote on should you decide to.

Foreign Affairs has a special sneak peak of their upcoming issue on their website. Barack Obama and Mit Romney each give personal essays on their respective takes on the international scene and what they would do if they were elected.

The big problem I have with both of them is they leave the question “how?” unanswered a lot. Sure, that would be great to create peaceful relations between Israel and the Arab world. But how? A lot of it is a bunch of politician mumbo jumbo that has been said for twenty-five or more years. But if you read closely, there are some telling things. I definitely recommend reading this.