I'm Back!!!

It has been quite awhile since I last posted and an awful lot has happened in that time span. Recently, I have had people coming to me stating that they had checked this blog to see if anything has been posted only to be disappointed by having to view stupid videos made by people who have too much time on their hands. Like who really has time to super impose Star Wars warships onto the streets of San Francisco? Then I had to ask what the hell is wrong with me that I would looking for such a dumb video? Then I thought...I am wasting too much time on this blog. I was missing out on sporting events, sex, booze, work, and living with a North Korean dictator. I started to also have doubts that I know what I am doing. My football picks are terrible. I went 37% on pro football picks last weekend. My cat can do better than 37% by merely taking a leak on the helmet of one of teams playing the game. So I doubted that my picks and thus my knowledge of sports was badly suspect and that I was not a good enough writer to make this piece of shit blog interesting. So I went on a hiatus in order to figure out what to do next. There were several days that I thought that I would log-in and shut the site down. There were other days that I was going to state that this thing was going to be shut down because Dippy was killed in a biker bar outside of Portsmouth. By the way, Dippy was indicted on federal drug charges for running a drug ring through the pool locker room at the Virginia Beach Wyndham hotel. However, there were many people who came to me asking when I would return including the individual that calls himself Kidnapper #47 who kidnapped and drugged up Dippy a few months back because I was turning into a sports fan hypocrite.

Other things that have occurred in the last three weeks:
1. I went to Minnesota for four days, partied excessively, ate excessively, listened to everyone who talked like Sarah Palin, partied more excessively, and spent most of the week saying "Yeeeeeah."
2. The economy is in the toaster and it's stuck there turning black as the thing won't pop up again. The stock market is about to turn into the biggest looting grab bag for our oligarchs in two decades. Trust me when I say that the rich will get enormously richer in the midst of massive lay-offs and lost lives. It's also strange that the cost of everything else is creeping up slowly right now except for the cost of gas which is falling...right before the elections. Hmmm...
3. The Falcons are 4-2 going into the bye week. People are ragging on me for not believing in my team. Sure I have picked against them six times in a row. How is that believing in my team. Matt Ryan is playing out of his mind and over everyones expectations in his first six games. Of course, I pleaded with porn star Arthur Blank to not draft him in favor of Dorsey. And where is Dorsey now? I have no clue.
This proves I probably should not be let out of the house ever. Not even to buy food for the North Korean dictator living at my house.
4. I went to my high school homecoming weekend (yes, I am a loser) for the eighth straight year and ran into a friend of mine that I have not seen in over ten years. One of his first words to me: "I check for your blog from time to time."
5. The same weekend that my significant other and I were at the homecoming weekend she was dreadfully sick and kept us up all night every night...for all the wrong reasons.
6. I found a wonderful set of beers from a brewery out of all places Fredrick, Maryland called Thirsty Dog. They have a lager, a stout and several other genres. All extremely good. Try the Imperial Stout that is the most bitter stout I have ever had and packs the biggest punch of any beer I have ever had. By the way, the stout is 8.9% alcohol. Try out their website: thirstydog.com

7.   The election is almost over.   Thank God.  Either way it turns out I am happy that it is almost over.  I do not believe that McCain will win.  The most reliable projections that I have seen shows Obama winning the electoral vote fairly easily.  I do not know if he is indeed the best person for the job.  I have no idea how well he will do in the Oval Office, but I have to say that Obama is better than the alternative.  The alternative is a third Bush term and a vice president who is also likely going to be pretty loose with a gun and is being called the possible new face of the GOP.  That would be great...if the GOP wants to resemble the trailer park association of western North Dakota.  

8.   I have been approached with multiple new professional opportunities that I am strongly considering.  Obviously, none of these people have ever read this blog.

So I feel like I have just got of prison after several years and the whole world has changed.  Instead of that old guy in Shawshank Redemption I am not going to freak out and hang myself, but it's going to take something to get used to.  I do not know how often I will write in the post or what it will be I will write about, but I am back.

Medvedev Wins!!!!

The only English language independent newspaper in Russia tonight splashed the headline that Dmitry Medvedev was headed to a landslide victory in the Russian presidential elections held on Sunday. According to the Moscow Times, Medvedev had 68.5 % of the vote with about 70% of the votes counted. The closest candidate to Mr. Medvedev was a ultra-nationalist Communist who has run for president more times than Brittany Spears has wigged out in front of cameras. He had 18 % of the vote. So, Vladmir Putin's reign as president of the new Russia ends. But wait, it is not truly over. Is it?

Mr. Medvedev indicated during the campaign that wasn't that he was going to name Mr. Putin as his new prime minister if elected. Medvedev did not undergo a gauntlet of campaigning a la Clinton and Obama. He made a few appearances, but did not debate his opponents and did not go cross country holding any babies. Nonetheless, the image of Putin and Medvedev was seared into the hearts and minds of Russian voters. Children who were sending art projects depicting the election were clear in their choice of Medvedev. The main reason for this is that there were numerous statements made by school teachers to parents that if they did not vote for Putin's hand-picked choice that their children would get bad grades. The pictures sent by school children also paired the two love birds together. They depicted Medvedev and Putin holding up a map of Russia wearing a weightlifting outfit and a judo uniform respectively. Another picture of the married couple showed them coming off an airplane in a foreign country. The picture was entitled "Medvedev and Putin together on a trip to a foreign country." You have to love the imagination of Russia's impressionable and coerced children. Imagine when young Ivan came home from school with a teacher's note saying that if they didn't vote for Medvedev that young Ivan would be getting a "F" in "Revisionist Russian History." In that class Putin becomes the new Stalin and wages war against the Nazis. Putin himself then finds Hitler in a Berlin bunker and kills him with his bare hands just like he did with that 5 ton bear in the woods in Siberia.

Children were not the only ones used as pawns to control the elections. Their teachers were also threatened in many places with being fired if they did not cast a ballot for Medvedev. A story in the Moscow Times illustrates the group think of Russian politics. The story depicts a mother of two living above the Artic Circle getting into her best clothes with her aged mother and going to the polling station to place a vote for Medvedev as he represents the "only true future" for Russia.

Election monitoring agencies throughout Europe decided against sending their agents to Russia to monitor the election. The reason was not because they felt the Russian election were going to go as well as let's say--in Cuba. It was because the Russian government was going to place too many "restrictions" on their ability to their jobs. Classic Russian paranoia. One has to remember that the Russians are the most paranoid people in the history of civilization. They expect bad things to happen. They expect that someone out there is out to get them. It will be either another country, their neighbor, their lover, the KGB, or their dog. It does not matter. They are paranoid and refuse to open their windows for fear that sunlight will somehow shine through--and give them skin cancer. It does not matter that they have had democracy for 17 years and Communism is relegated to 18% of the vote. The Russians are paranoid and the idea of getting people to guess the answers is part of their DNA. Just like watching reality TV is in our DNA. So what all this means is that if the monitors had come to Russia they would have been made to stay in their hotel rooms drinking vodka watching the results just like everybody else. Then they would have been drugged, put in a car, driven out to Gorky Park, shot in the head, and their bodies would have been found in a staged scene back at the hotel with fifty year old hookers.

There have been outcries of fraud from many in the country. Reports indicate that bosses in factories forced employees to vote for Medvedev for fear of their jobs. People in Moscow report seeing ballots marked for Medvedev were already in the ballot box prior to the polls opening. These allegations will be quickly squashed. It will not matter if they are true or not. Medvedev will be the new President--on paper. Soon after Putin will be named as the new prime minister. This insures the obvious: Putin will always be in the background. He will be pulling the strings on his hand picked successor. He will continue to be the centralized head of the Russian state long after Medvedev takes the oath of office. He will remain as czar. This is what the Russian people expect. It's in their DNA. They can't help themselves.

President Asterisk Has A Man Crush On Putin!!!

Time magazine named Vladimir Putin their Person of the Year in 2007. I had not known this until I was walking through my local bookstore and saw a face that could only remind me of a bad vampire movie. The face of the current and future Russia: Vladimir Putin.

For most people, I imagine that Putin being named as a Person of the Year in the U.S. was a curious choice and I was albeit surprised myself. Not at Time's choice, but by the fact that they were able to get a picture of the man in perfect cold icy death stare mode. Completely stereotypical Russian. Perfect man crush material for President Bush.

I believe that it should be noted that there are significant comparisons between Putin and our current President Asterisk. It should also be noted that Putin has managed to do things that our President would simply love to do, but probably could not get away with it. Both Putin and * hate any known opposition to their rule. They refuse to listen to any dissenting voices within their own government and populace. Putin has taken it one step further by shutting down TV stations and newspapers that have had the audacity to challenge his leadership. This is an arena that I am sure that Bush would love to be able to do, but would never get away with it. Putin has gotten away with it by systematically destroying any political party or individual that openly or secretly has cried a dissenting voice. He has done this by arresting, harassing, and threatening anyone who could possibly challenge him. Gary Kasparov, the former chess champion has been arrested numerous times for speaking out. Putin has been accused of even having real or imagined opposition leaders killed. Anna Politkovskaya, the opposition writer was murdered in her own apartment building and there has been no suspects or an investigation of any merit by authorities. Bush, on the other hand, manipulates the media by giving them propaganda to read to the Paris Hilton crazed masses. He and his cronies attempt at every turn to conduct smear campaigns to discredit their opposition as "non-American" or "anti-our military" when a different course is suggested on Iraq or the War on (the Wrong) Terror. Putin is more obvious, but Bush does the same things in a more subtle fashion and less noticed by most of the populace. President * and Putin have both launched a vicious and randomized war on terrorists-and failed miserably. At great loss of time, money, and most importantly, lives, Bush has waged a war on Iraq and Afghanistan that has not greatly reduced the threat of terrorism to America but, in many ways increased it worldwide. He has increased it world-wide by ignoring and angering the international community by initiating the war with Iraq for his own personal reasons (avenging Daddy Asterisk). Now, America is scorned throughout the world for showboating it's superpower status and simply being ignorant and arrogant. As a result, the world is not safe for Americans anywhere. Putin, on the other hand, has launched a vicious war on his own turf against the Chechens who only want their own independent state. Putin has labeled them terrorists (to garner popular opinion) and has launched his own brand of terror against them. He has used the same tactics against them as they have used against the Russian people. Random attacks, death squads, and bombings have been the norm for the Russian military and security services. It has been even rumored that Putin ordered his own security services to blow up Russian apartment complexes in order to blame the Chechens for terrorizing the motherland, enhancing the fear of the Russian people, and increasing support for his Stalinist measures. There have been similar conspiracy theories about Bush's role in terror activities on U.S. soil so one wonders what he is capable of (particularly if he thought he could get away with it). The result for Putin? Hundreds of people killed in a theater in Moscow, hundreds of people killed at a school in Ossetia, and at least one airliner shot out of the sky killing hundreds.

Putin made the following statement at his annual New Year's speech two days ago:

"We not only restored our territorial integrity but also we felt united. These years we worked together in order to preserve our country and turn it into a modern, free and strong state, which may be convenient and comfortable for citizens' life...We see that Russia has been strengthening every year. We see that our economy is growing and new opportunities are opening for the people...Let us wish each other new success and raise our glasses to the health and happiness of our relatives and to those we love and take care of most of all, and to whom we give our warmth and to whom we will be close...Let your longest dreams to come true."

Doesn't this sound familiar to the numerous President Asterisk speeches where he has told the American people that we are safer, the economy is better, and the war has been won?

Another similarity that people are looking forward to is that this year Russia and the U.S. will elect a new President. In two months, Russians will take to the polls in a general election that has only been held four times in Russian history. The problem is: there is only one viable Russian candidate (We may not have any when all is said and done here in the U.S. if Iowa is any indication). Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev has been hand selected by President (Head Vampire) Putin to head his party into the next election. The other candidates have been harassed and arrested into oblivion. This is a move that Bush dreams of. In another move that I imagine our own President * would love, Putin has named himself the future Russian prime minister in order to stay involved in Russian politics. An important thing for Americans to understand about Russia is that in over a thousand years Russia has never had a leader or leadership that was not significantly authoritarian in nature. For centuries, Russia has had heavy handed czars, Party leaders, and Presidents. One could site Yeltsin and Gorby as exceptions, but both landed in exile in their own country-on house arrest. The Russian people are comfortable with leaders who are heavy handed and aggressive in their leadership. They actually feel safer and have more pride in their country. The opposite is true for America.

To Putin's credit, he has done a few things that Bush ("*") has not in his years as President of Russia. The economy in Russia has grown by at least seven percent every year in the last four years. Russia has paid off all of their debt. Russian workers salaries are on the average double than what they were in 2003. Even without opposition, Putin would likely have huge support in his own country for these reasons. These reasons coupled with Russia once again harassing their weaker neighbors, enhancing their military, and sending nuclear fuel to everyone's favorite party country Iran make Putin a major force to be reckoned with. More so then his admirer Bush? Yes. To the world, Bush is a joke. To the world, Putin is the head vampire of a rising power. This is where each man goes their separate way despite the "man crush" each has for the other.