Conveniently Misplaced

Meet the 1977 Ford Grenada.

It’s not sexy, edgy, or by any stretch of the imagination, something you want to admit that you are affiliated with let alone own (or let anybody else know that you own for that matter). This is a car that few ourside of Ford are willing to admit that they liked. As a matter of fact, I hadn’t even seen on in person until a year ago when some mexicans were selling a serious beater. I spend a couple hours looking up this car because I couldn’t find a whole lot on it or anybody in person willing to talk about it. I was literally beside myself when I saw one in mint condition in the movie No Country for Old Men.

However talks about the fabled Ford Grenada made the front page of the business section of the Detroit News last week, which I noticed as I was cleaning the papers up. Of all the important things to cover in the world of business, this is not it. For whatever reason beyond my understanding, staff writer Manny Lopez wrote a column titled Obama’s rip on auto infamy is a clunker. For even more reasons beyond my understanding, editors approved and printed it.

Now it’s not uncommon that as Americans we read things that we find rediculous. Same for stuff on TV, the radio, internet, etc. However this article is something that’s beyond pointless and absurd.

The article blasts Barack Obama’s claim that the Ford Grenada was “the worst car Detroit ever buit”. The article flow looks like this

1. Claim that no matter how bad the Grenada was, Detroit has made a lot worse cars.
2. France and Yugoslavia have made worse cars.
3. Quote Obama again re: how much the car sucked and he thought it would fall apart.
4. Say that all cars suck compared to what Obama drives.
5. Mention that few cars from the 70s were good enough to survive.
6. Talk about how almost ALL cars from the 70s sucked and were a pain.
7. Talk about how Ford is a different company now.
8. Claim that this is a failed campaign tactic by Obama.

That’s if you don’t feel like reading the article, and I don’t blame you. I’m not a fan of Obama’s, however I don’t see the point at all in writing this article. The grenada WAS a bad car. So how is anybody, be it the next guy on the street begging for change or the guy running for the presidency begging for change at fault for making this statement?

Not only that, but the article is all over the place and doesn’t really even make sense as there isn’t real sense to it. The right defense to “your car sucks” is not “we’ve done worse and I can prove it”. There’s even a quip in there attacking Obama’s environmental views because at once point in his life, he drove over 80mph by his own admission.

The article is pointless drivel that goes all over the place and doesn’t accomplish anything. I know that the Detroit News tends to be a little more right leaning than left, however if you want to make a point about a presidential candidate, actually make a point.

Make it a good point.

And don’t make it a point about the Ford Grenada.

And if you do, at least write a decent article about it.

So yesterday I got myself up early in the morning to make it to Oakland University for John McCain’s town hall meeting. I got up specifically just so I could ask some questions, I’ve seen enough of him on the news to know how he stands on most things. Some of it I like, and some of it I don’t. I’m not going into specifics, but I’m not exactly a support of his (and you all know how I stand on people like Obama). Anyways, I had 2 questions I wanted to ask regarding:

1. The value of the dollar
   and
2. If his temper would be an issue as president

Apparently the rest of the meeting was so boring that my temper question raised a few eyebrows over at places like MSNBC, FOX, CBS and was even a featured story on CNN. Google news even gave it it’s own section. City newspapers such as the LA Times and the New York Times also had their say.

The Libby Quaid of the Associated press picked it up as well, so it’s been popping upon all sorts of places from Yahoo! News to every other news palce you can think of. The blogosphere also started reacting, placed including the Pensito Review, Hot Air, and Weasel Zippers (although I’m sure there’s others).

I’m working right now on getting the full question(s) up on here so I can respond with my reasoning in a better fashion, but for now we’ll have to do with the CNN / WDIV video (which is better than the youtube one), which they don’t let you hotlink so you have to go HERE to view it.

Now, I don’t like the video at all. It completely cuts off the first part of my second question, initially adressing the issue, and hearing a response from him. However it starts with my response from what he said which was something along the lines of “I get angry because I have passion”. It makes me look like I opened my statement praising his passion, which I didn’t do. That was not my intent.

I do however, respect the fact that he is passionate about what he does. I feel if you’re going to be one of 2 people representing a state, you damn well better be passionate about it.

I also highly respect the fact that he is actually taking audience questions, which has monumental potential for catastrophe. But I think it’s something that every politician should do, and the audience should not discourage that. Which is why I asked the question I did in the manner that I asked it. He’s giving us the chance to talk to him one on one, no reason why we can’t do it like civilized people. (That, Trish at the Pensito Review is why I asked the question nicely. And for the record, no, I didn’t lose a bet).

Besides, I did a good job of seperating myself from the protesters who I hung out with before we all went over in a group to the meeting. I didn’t want to spoil my assimilation by attempting to make an ass out of McCain and instead make an ass out of myself (which I’m sure some will argue I did anyways).

There were tougher questions I could have thrown at him. About the war, the economy, how he always votes party line when things matter. I could have gotten into an argument with him about his response, as it wasn’t exactly what I was referring to. I don’t care that he gets angry about a bridge to nowhere. That’s not special, so do I. But I don’t get into it and scream “fuck you” to show how angry I am with other senators of the same party. That’s just rediculous, and he knew damn well what I was talking about and chose to ignore the basis of it and talk about how he’s angry with the status quo.

The more I sat there contemplating asking this question, the more I thought it would end like this. His straight talk is more of a straight and narrow line for what he wants to address, which I think he proved very well yesterday if you listen to his responses on a lot of these questions. But that’s neither here nor there.

It also identified me in the papers as a “concerned republican voter”, which I did say. Which was more of my way of identifying myself as someone who does not support Clinton or Obama, as with a question like that you can almost hear the crowd under their breath go “here’s more liberal hippie bullshit”, so I had to put that to rest quickly.

So in all, I felt the answer was unsatisfactory, and of course he played politics with it. If your essential response to “Will you temper be a problem” is “I’m an angry guy”, then you’ve raised more questions than you’ve answered.

Dear 9/11 Truth Movement,

I would like to start out by commending you for standing up so harshly for what you believe in, despite the amount of political opposition against you. That takes balls, and I can respect that. I also feel that your argument even has some merit to it. I don’t trust the government in any way, shape, or form, and there is not a thing that I wouldn’t put past them. Am I sold on the argument that the government blew up the twin towers? No. Do I think it’s possible that they had a hand in it? Sure.

I am not an expert on explosions or demolition, and odds are you aren’t either. I don’t care how many experts you have lined up to support your cause, because there’s just as many experts on the other side. You are not going to win me over, it is not worth my time or effort. I’m not interested in hearing about melting points of steel or temperatures of kerosene. I’ll agree, it’s very suspect. A lot of things about it don’t make sense about it on the surface. I’ve heard all the arguments before, and don’t really need to hear about how “impossible the whole thing is” again. I work with computers, I see things that shouldn’t happen, don’t make sense, are irrational, etc. on a daily basis. This is nothing new to me.

I do however, support you and your right to continue to investigate and find out the truth, if that is what you are really interested in.

I have supported many theories in the past. I’m a firm believer that we are not alone in the universe. I believe that genetic engineering has all sorts of interesting (and potentially comic book-like) things in store for us. I can even find some logic in some parts of scientology’s dianetics (although that’s another thing that I will not completely research. There are much better things to do with my time).

But I have some big problems with the 9/11 Truth movement. Here they are:

I remain completely and entirely unconvinced that you are after truth.

I look at many of you and see people that are just as bad as those on the other side.

There are three different kinds of passionate people on this issue.

To get this out of the way, there are the conspiracy Muslims, who feel that the Jews hijacked the planes on 9/11 to frame and destroy them.

On another hand, you have your patriotic American who is convinced that Muslims are his sworn enemy. He is completely behind the US military action and believes that everything happened the way the MSM (mainstream media) has reported it. He doesn’t see any merit in the 9/11 truth argument, and all of his arguments are completely one-sided, without any kind of respect for the other side, and if it was proven that his government was involved, he still wouldn’t believe it.

Then you have the people that claim to seek the truth. However much like their mainstream counterparts, they take a completely one-sided look at things. They don’t believe anything the MSM says could ever be true and sees no merit in the argument that things happened the way that was reported. All of his arguments are completely one sided, without any kind of respect for the other side, and if it was proven that this was the work of terrorists and the government was not involved, they still wouldn’t believe it.

Never have I encountered a group of people who have claimed to be about truth and been so one sided at one time. You say you pursue truth, yet you advocate only one theory. That is was makes you lose credibility and makes nobody want to listen to you. To the rest of us, you become no different than the hacks on Fox news, rambling on about the same tired shit that you’ve been rambling on about for years now that most people have been uninterested in.

Saying the same things over and over again isn’t going to drill the idea into our heads, just use the example I gave above. Watch Hannity and Combs for a week straight and see if you’re over on their side about anything. Odds are you will just become more pissed off and anything you might have seen eye to eye on them with you will now completely appaul. Welcome to the world of the rest of us.

I have concluded that you are more after proving that the government was involved than anything else. I can see why you call yourselves a truth group, it makes you seem less crazy. But it’s not true. You are not a truth group, you are an anti-government group. Please stop bullshitting us.

If I am uninterested, please leave me alone

Even the people who protest the abortion clinics just yell and move on. You guys just keep trying to chat me up as though you are only inches away from converting me, which I haven’t given you the impression that I am nor was I interested in talking to you to begin with. Yet you continue to walk up to me, handing me business cards for Alex Jones or a flier discussing the “Fall of Babylon”.

The conversation is tired enough, but everyone in viewing distance flocks away, leaving me and you pretty much alone, me victim to what you have to say. Why do they flock? There’s all sorts of people handing things out, so how to they know that you are the one handing out 9/11 propaganda.

Gee. Let’s think. Maybe you’re not all that hard to spot in ANY crowd.

That picture was taken last tuesday, April 15th 2008 at the Freedom/ Anti-Tax rally in Washinton DC. I know, I took the picture. Dress like a normal human being (or even normal for the event) and maybe I’ll be more inclined to talk to you. See the other 2 highlighted people? Ernie Hancock is a well respected radio personality. As such, he dresses like a well-respected guy.The dude in the back is demonstrating what a patriot he is, and obviously there to support the Freedom movement and the Ron Paul movement.

Your argument would have more merit if you didn’t think you were in bladerunner, or some other tangent alternative universe where you are the ones saving the day.

Stick to your own damn movement and leave mine alone

Everyone that is anti-government should not band together. We all have different goals, different aims, and different messages that are very different from everybody elses. Just because we share one similarity does not mean we want to listen to everyone else’s problems. We all have our own brand of crazy, and what doesn’t seem crazy to us is batshit crazy to everyone else.

If we had everyone speak at these rallies and protests that was anti government, here’s a small list of who might show up to speak

• The Ron Paul people
• The 9/11 Truth people
• The mormon/pro-polygamy sects
• Scientologists
• White Pride Worldwide
• The Black Panthers
• The Grey Panthers
• Communists
• Anarchists
• Militia Movements
• The NRA
• Anti-Abortionists
• Pro-Abortionists
• The Libertarians
• The ACLU
• PETA
• Rage against the Machine
• Even Anonymous might show up

Is the point I make here pretty clear? There are a lot of organization that feel the same way on some of these issues, but they shouldn’t mix.

For example, the 9/11 Truthers Support Ron Paul. The Ron Paul people support Ron Paul. The white supremecists support Ron Paul. Yet when the 9/11 Truthers come to Ron Paul rallies, they don’t do it to talk about Ron Paul, they do it to talk about 9/11. Yet I’m sure you would be just as pissed as the rest of us if White Pride World Wide showed up at a RP Rally talking about the strength of the white man. Seriously, go check it out. Go to their forum and search for Ron Paul, see what comes up. Even better, they support the 9/11 conspiracies as well.

Here’s a poll taken from their site, click it to go to the page.

The only thing that truely upset me about the Freedom Rally on the west lawn of the capital on April 15, 2008 was that towards the end there was a pretty lengthy speech from a man talking about 9/11. This pissed me off for a number of reasons.

This is NOT why we were protesting. This is not why we came here, and this is not what we want to hear. Stay on topic at least to a point or say something that will help us.

I don’t want to be seen on youtube.com in a video watching you spew this stuff. Sorry, but I got up and walked over to a “We the People” booth after a few minutes, I’m just sick of hearing it all.

The timing of the speech couldn’t be any worse. We were out there since 11am, yet it was around 5 that the person started talking. Right when people are getting out of work, kids are getting out of school, etc. And what do they all see? A bunch of Ron Paul signs and a guy talking about the mysterious explosion of Building7. That is not the kind of press we need.

Worse yet, giving this speech was pointless. It has literally 0 chance of doing any good. Everyone involved with the Freedom Movement has already heard all the arguments on 9/11 at some point, just from hanging around. So you’re not introducing any new points to us or getting any new converts out of us. Instead, you’re preaching to the world at large. The people walking by aren’t going to stop and listen to you, they’re going to think you’re nuts and keep going. Meanwhile, I’m seen publicly at such an event, listening to all of this.

If I want to be part of your movement, I will join your rallies, come to your protests and hear your speeches. I am proud to join the freedom movement, and if I cared to join the truth movement, I would be proud of that too, as I’m sure you all are. But I’m not.

Don’t damage the Freedom Movement or Ron Paul any more by doing this. You do a substantial amount of harm and very little (if any) good. Stick to your own flock and I’ll do the same.

I very much hope you would take this into consideration in the future. I wish you all the best of luck and hope that if you are after truth, you discover it. No matter what it ends up being.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely, On behalf of the Freedom Movement,

John Carlos Cruz

In the spirit of the Spitzer scandal, here is Ashley Alexandra Dupré aka “Kristen” the high-priced call girl who inadvertently brought down New York Governor Eliot Spitzer aka “Client #9″. The most interesting part of her myspace (EDIT: I’ve discovered another myspace page here. Can anyone verify the validity of this? And someone started a facebook group for people that went to school with her, man this is getting rediculous pretty quick.) is this little segment right here:

“I have been alone. I have abused drugs. I have been broke and homeless. But, I survived, on my own. I am here, in NY because of my music.”

Her music, is, well, a little less than inspiring on itself. She sounds like every other generic female R&B singer, I guess if this was my best I might turn to prostitution too. And because I don’t want to flood the main page of my site with these images that I’ve compiled from various sources on the web, this is only a preview with a .zip folder link at the bottom. Note that I had to digitally enhance most of these because the pictures needed a bunch of photo correction (red eye, bad color/flash, and 1 pic looked like a really bad scan with white specs all over it, etc).

Enjoy.

Download the all of these and the other ones (there’s 18 in total) in the zip file, including an emperor’s club screen shot and what looks like a high school year book picture.

Click here to download the ZIP file

So after watching something on the History Channel about a month ago about Area 51 (this is what you do when you’re sick of movies and have to sit there for 6 hours a day), I started to really wonder why this whole thing is completely secretive. What the real motivations are behind it all.

A few popped to mind. First would be the panic that would be caused by the entire ordeal. People would immediately freak out over the thought of aliens among us, and the conspiracy theorists would run rampant with “Who is an alien” commentary. But that could ultimately be supressed by the government assuring the people that it is no big deal, we have nothing to fear, etc. That in itself could be taken care of.

Then there was the threat of World War from other countries, say China for example, looking to get their hands on alien technology, but ultimately, this isn’t much to fear either. These are some of the most top secret facilities in the world, and it’s hard to imagine a world superpower going after this technology not knowing what it is, what the capabilities are, or what you can do with it. It’s hard to start WWIII on just a hunch, even if it is about this. So that is something that I doubt we would really have to worry about.

The biggest problem would be resulting in a massive world panic. I’m talking BILLIONS of people immediately thrown into hysteria. And it won’t be the fear of the aliens that does is. It’s the fear that they could be wrong about everything that they have believed in their entire lives.

Have you ever known someone who years after being a religious person who all of a sudden wakes up one day and says “What if there really is no God”? It’s not usually a pretty sight to watch someone come to terms with the fact that everything they’ve supported their entire lives may be complete hogwash.

Many will attest that religion and morality go hand in hand. The thought, simple enough, that “if you live a horrid life, you will go to hell” just might be eradicated if there is no eternal punishment for those who commit evil deeds. As such, the typical orthodox perspective on it is that without religion, we would be a bunch of sinning sods who will do as we please without care for the consequences. Now, I personally feel that as a society we have evolved to the point where we can act on our own moral convictions without 10 commandments and a list of sins to guide us into what is right and what is wrong. I think we can figure it out.The government, however, I’m sure has some reservations. The US government was founded on many Christian ethical practices.

As a people, we have been slow to adapt to new things. In the 1530s, we still believed that the Sun revolved around the Earth until Copernicus said otherwise. Yet today, 20% of Americans still believe that.  Yet still, as a society we are on the fence about Evolution, regardless of the age bracket, gender, or race of those we ask about it.

Now, the existance of Aliens would mean that any and everything could be thrown into the hat as far as religion goes. Did they create us? How many more of them are there? Are there infinate worlds and universes? What does this mean for the story of Genesis? The questions go on and on, but the bottom line is this: The existance of a being from another planet opens the door to question our very existance and destroy the fabric of many of the world’s religions. Once you question the very core of someone’e belief system, the whole system starts to crumble. How would the Pope, the Dhali LLama, and other religious leaders react to the presence of these beings? The whole thing would unravel as there would be too many questions and nowhere near enough answers, leading to panic worldwide.

Panic means that people do stupid things spur of the moment. Religious panic, menas there will be really stupid things supr of the moment. Don’t think so? Think of the last time you saw someone on the news doing something immensely stupid for a religious cause.

A worldwide panic of people coming to terms with the fact that their religion might have been nothing all along.

Or wose yet, you bet on the complete wrong horse and the Raelians were right!

Can you even fathom this? The world war following it all would be inevitable. Fundamentalist governments would  be put in an interesting place, from Northern Ireland, to Tehran, to Washington DC and Mexico DF, anyone that has ever run for office touting their religious background or running on a faith based platform would have an interesting time coming up with a way to figure things out. Assuming we don’t decend into anarchy in the meantime. Because the first thing I mentioned of aliens freaking out among us will come only after the religion argument fades into play.

The sequence of events looks like this

1. Public knows about aliens
2. Disbelief
3. Governments prove aliens
4. More disbelief
5. Real life examples of aliens
6. People start questioning things
7. Start to accept it as a possibility
8. Start to question faith
9. Start to panic
10. Conflict begins, confusion ensues
11. People do some really stupid things, like war, random violent acts, etc.
12. Civilization as we know it crumbles

There we go: the 12 steps to destroying society, in all of it’s glory. Balance the people’s right to know with the fact that there are billions of people who can’t handle the truth and tell me what we should do about it.

I’m not making an speculation on the existance of ETs, flying saucers, etc. But if there is, I can understand why we will never know about it until the invasion. Which I highly doubt we will be able to adequately prepare for anyways, so I’m not too worried about it.

There’s a lot of talk going around about possibly doing a re-vote in Michigan and Florida. This, is one of the most moronic things I have ever heard. First and foremost, the DNC already said that they will not seat the delegates at the convention. That’s it. End of discussion right there. There is no reason why we should change our minds now because the race is close, it just does not stand to reason. If the Democrats change their mind on all of this now, it will just go on to prove how spineless they really are. If the party itself is unable to stick with what they said, why do they think they can command respect from people?

In addition, we already went into this knowing that the delegates would not be seated. So why set a dangerous precident for states that break party rules and change them halfway through the game? If you do this, then you set out the image that things could change at any time. Maybe if things had gone on normally, and Obama won Michigan and Floriday, Clinton would have already dropped out. Who knows what might have been different with the election as is.

Everything else like cost, the fact that the race has dropped to 3 candidates (Let’s not forget Mike Gravel), and the current political situation shouldn’t even matter. You said you wouldn’t seat the delegates. That’s all there is to it. This could be the only chance in history you could disenfranchise your vote by allowing votes to be counted. Be reasonable. No delegates. No votes, move on. Can we talk about something important now, please?

Every once in a while, I get a video sent to me that isn’t complete crap. This one is called “Pete is Pissed 2″, you can check out all of his stuff on YouTube.