I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling legitimately raped by nearly everyone participating in the freak show that has overtaken my country’s political process.  Sure, it’s always had its idiotic and smarmy parts.  It is, after all, a contest of false promises by falser promisers seeking jobs, the descriptions of which are seldom carried out by the winners.  But I’m old enough to remember many, many, many election campaigns and we have, without question, risen to an entirely unprecedented level of whackiness supported by a seemingly inexhaustible cache of whack job cash.  So, get ready for conventions with funny hats, asinine sloganeering and speeches by cartoon characters; debates peppered with buzz words and phrases, the outcomes of which will be determined by powerfully appropriate costuming, presidentially applied make-up, the ability to naturally, (or through the use of drugs or strategic powdering), minimize perspiration and a moon-walkingly smooth back-pedaling ability rather than an intelligent grasp of factual information; advertising, advertising and more advertising; and, (though not mutually exclusive from any of the above), piles and piles of bullshit.  When all is said and done and the votes have been summarily miscounted, we will still be at war, (although there will be no one who knows why), the economy will still be in the shitter, (because of something the loser’s side has done), unemployment will remain at an obscene level, (see previous parenthetical insertion), and we will continue our real national pastime of being irrationally suspicious and mistrusting of one another to the detriment of our societal evolution.  And the balance of power will be, more clearly than ever, a tug-o-war between those who would rely on science, history and factual analysis and those who insist that such blasphemy goes against their much stronger commitment to FAITH.  I can only HOPE that meteorological science will provide some CLARITY as Isaac, (that’s a Jew name, isn’t it?), comes barreling down on them in Tampa.

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 A few words about Lance Armstrong:  I get that he lied about being superman and that’s disappointing to anyone who needs to believe in superman.  But let’s put into perspective that his sin was lying, not doping.  Professional athletes are altered human beings who need to embrace every advantage, (natural or otherwise…mostly otherwise), to compete at levels that we, the public, demand of them.  If the real outcry against doping is the message it sends to impressionable children, we need to rethink the expectations placed on gladiator events requiring bigger, stronger, faster and begin to provide some better role model choices…personally, I’d line up for a bitchin’ pair of Air Wozniaks.