As if we needed any more proof that the only reason Democrats support items on the “Gay Agenda” is so that we’ll vote for them, give them power and let them take our money, we have this new little tidbit just in from planetout.com demonstrating that even their own staff members really don’t care about us.

Dateline, somewhere in Iowa—

Just confirming that Democratic politicians are co-opting the gay community just like they do everyone else, we get this ludicrous little piece of “news”:

“On Tuesday the campaign manager for Howard Dean accused a Dick Gephardt campaign worker of pushing a Dean staffer and calling him a ‘faggot.’ The next day, a Gephardt spokesman countered by saying the incident was fabricated for political advantage.

“The flap between the presidential campaigns was widely covered in the press by Thursday, and neither side is backing down, causing a “he said, he said” impasse.”

I love this stuff!

It just goes to prove my point that the Democrats and other assorted liberal apologists don’t give a damn about gay people any more than anyone else does. They talk out of one side of their mouths—the side that accepts volunteer support and campaign money—while it’s “business as usual” out the other. Go ahead and deride the Republicans, Conservatives and religious people for giving us a hard time if you want—at least you can see how they feel because it’s out in the open—but realize that it’s still rampant on the other side of the aisle. Scratch the surface and you get the same thing. Not that they don’t throw us the occasional bone, but just realize the cost and that they’re only doing it to stay in power, not because they care about us.

Of course, I confess that this stuff makes me secretly giddy because I thoroughly detest the left because of the social, fiscal and moral destruction they’re leading us all into. I’m a self-descirbed “Libertarian-leaning Republican with a heavy infusion of Randean Objectivism”. I’m not exactly thrilled about the Republican mess nor their infighting and political games. But I sure as hell won’t give in to the liberal morass no matter what they’re promising me. The price is too damn high. I’ll never vote for Howard Dean, because I’m not a Socialist.

It’s obviously too late in our corrupt political environment for the great unwashed to seriously believe in individualism, libertarianism, personal responsibility and laissez-faire. People are no longer people, they’re “focus groups”, “special interest lobbies” or “demographics”. Everybody wants somebody else to pay for them, take away their responsibility or consequences of their actions, make everything work and let them continue their lives of rampant consumerism, social irresponsibility, narcissism and television-induced hypnosis. Nobody thinks—or does—for themselves anymore.

Enough of a rant, because now I’m rambling. All I want from my government is to be left alone as much as possible and be able to keep as much of my own money in my own pocket as I can. I don’t need someone in Washington telling me how to live my life, no matter what their party, desire for power or secret agenda.

This week has seen the worst fires in California in decades, and certainly in my memory. Acrid, choking smoke filled the air; ash and cinders fell like a dry, eerie snow. But it’s our own fault—and it needed to happen.

The whole thing is a tragedy of epic proportions, to be sure. Nobody likes to see such loss of life, destruction of property and—above all—ruination of our beautiful mountains and hillsides. But it proves a few very important things:

First, Mother Nature does what she wants. No matter our technology, our determination or our prayers and entreaties, the earth is a self-regulating system. I didn’t need to be on the fire-lines and see the roaring flames firsthand to understand their power—I got enough of a taste through the non-stop television coverage.

Second, it points out how idiotic we humans are in our dealings with nature. We’ve know for a long time that the bark beetle has chewed through huge swaths of our forests, killing all trees in its path, turning them into match-dry tinder. We didn’t do anything about it. ALL that deadwood should have been removed, or more to the point, burned out when weather was calm and we had the chance. But no—we let either the environmentalist wackos or the exclusive cabin-owning mountain residents dictate the situation. Mother Nature has showed them the utter folly of their decisions in a big way. Burning is natural and MUST occur periodically. Just ask anyone who really understands nature, forestry and ecology. We should listen to them scientifically rather than the others politically.

Thirdly, it amply demonstrates the stupid optimism of mountain residents who prefer to maintain the “rustic” qualities of their tree-surrounded, wooden vacation cabins rather than follow fire prevention best practices, bring buildings up to code, or adequately prepare for such eventualities. In addition, we’ll CONTINUE to let them do so while they force our collective insurance rates ever higher so we can all share in their stupidity.

Finally, it demonstrates the extreme lack of moral direction our society is experiencing when people out on a joyride can so callously start such a conflagration just for the hell of it. Of course, with our horrendously corrupt liberal judicial system and a complete lack of backbone on the part of society, even if the perpetrating arsonists are ever caught, nothing much will likely happen to them. Certainly nothing like the death penalty, which they—in my opinion—so richly deserve.

So then. While I’m sad that everything went up so spectacularly and so many people suffered damage in one form or another—including myself, healthwise, from the fetid air—I think we deserved it and the forest needed it. While we as humans will have to endure the slow re-growth and rebuilding process according to our time-clocks, to nature that process will be but the blink of an eye. Maybe somehow we’ll come to better understand that living in and with nature means we have to let her do what’s right, regardless of what we’d rather see.

It’s a GREAT DAY for California! We’ve used the democratic process to remove an ineffective and dangerous politician from the Governorship and replaced him with someone who’ll hopefully get something done. I wish I could say the saga is over, but it’s only just beginning.

WOW!

What a resounding message from the people of my state: 55% to recall Davis and 50% to elect Schwarzenegger—that’s more voting for Arnold than voted for keeping Davis. I was absolutely delighted with the result, and it just shows how sick we are of the outrageous politicking in Sacramento and how much we yearn to get something done. It also shows the electorate being fed up with politicians to the point that we’d put our faith behind a total outsider. However—isn’t that what populist American politics is all about? In the Jeffersonian ideal, statesmen should be regular people who serve for a time then return to private life—not career politicians whose only point in life is winning and keeping their phony–baloney jobs.

Of course, now we can look forward to the court challenges, the recalcitrant California legislature chock full of vindictive, left-wing obstructionists and the chaos ensuing from a no doubt cantankerous transition, despite what Gray Davis said in his concession. Everyone says they hope to put things behind them and move forward, but I’ll believe it when I see it. With such an extremist, diametrically opposed makeup of our political establishment, it’ll be a miracle. Of course with an election coming up next year and an angry population, I’m hoping that ineffective politicians will get something done for fear of being ousted themselves (which we should probably do anyway).

One of the best lines I’ve seen in the press coverage is that if it were constitutionally possible, we probably would have removed the entire legislature by recall as well as the governor. Sounds like a good idea to me…

Stay tuned!

Another pet peeve of mine that I of course have not seen in the mainstream media: is the allegedly womanizing Arnold Schwarzenegger fit to be Governor of California? Yep…

To some, the late-campaign allegations probably seem damning and shocking. For us in California, though, it’s exactly the type of dirty campaigning that Gray Davis has committed over and over to help prop himself up for the past 30 years in California politics. There’s nothing new about it at all.

I was getting my haircut yesterday and my usual stylist (whose name is Page) said something that’s probably so true (and I paraphrase). “You just know that all those women used to sit around at parties and whisper to their friends ‘Guess what! Arnold touched me and it was so cool!’ Why didn’t they complain sooner instead of the week before the election?” Page is my kind of lady.

To me, that’s bang on the money. The knowledge of having been touched by a big star had probably always been something they were secretly proud of—if it even occurred at all—but never did any good for them. Now, however, they can make political hay and get their names all over the evening news—maybe get some big lawsuit money out of it. What bullshit…

I am not in any way condoning misconduct toward women or anyone else—everyone needs to be treated with a modicum of courtesy and respect. But by the same token, people need to realize that everyone’s got some skeletons in their closets. What does a last-minute smear campaign have to do with leadership or governing or trying to get the state of California out of its effective bankruptcy? Nothing—just more partisan political games.

For the rest of you, just remember this:

Does the fact that Arnold may have inappropriately had dealings with women mean that he’s not qualified to be a Republican candidate for governor? Maybe not—but it does make him the perfect candidate to be a Democratic President of the United States.

At least we haven’t had to endure stories about blowjobs under the Lincoln Desk, and it’s nice to know that Arnold seems to know the proper thing to do with a cigar, i.e. smoke it…

I went to my polling place this morning at 7:20 AM—I’ve never seen so many people out voting in my entire life. Maybe we should recall the Governor more often if it means people get out and vote.

I have to admit that I was absolutely delighted to go and pull the lever—or, more accurately, punch the card—to throw Gray Doofus out of office. I was equally excited to punch candidate number 50, Arnold Schwarzenegger, onto my card. The pollsters are saying everything from “He’s outta there” to “it’s too close to call”, though most acknowledge that Arnold is the leading replacement candidate. I’m just hoping to wake up tomorrow knowing that democracy works, and that the people have the right and responsibility to remove from office their elected officials who are not performing. One of the guys I worked with doesn’t understand this concept, and in fact didn’t vote at all as a “protest”. Fine—more chance for the recall to succeed.

The other thing I’m anxiously awaiting is for Governor Schwarzenegger to repeal the auto registration fee hike with a stroke of the pen—mine’s due on October 24th, and I’d sure appreciate not having to cough up $663.00 in the next two weeks. Call it “enlightened self-interest” It’s not my job to bail out the state of California by shelling out three times what I normally do to register my car. Let Gray Davis take it out of his outrageous campaign war chest—let him start paying for some of the damage he caused.