He's a loser, baby

This is just mind blowing to me. Why in the hell would CNN, one of the most respected names in journalism, hire a psychotic right-winger like Glenn Beck? One example of his rampant bullshit is how he recently said we should nuke Iran.

I couldn't tell if he was joking or serious, but even so, it's alarming that CNN would be willing to hire someone and put them in a position to exert enormous influence in the journalistic sphere, and then he calls for nuclear warfare. Even jokingly, it's not in good taste. This is like getting Howard Stern to replace Anderson Cooper; it just isn't a good idea.

I do have a question for those of you who might happen across this tiny piece of blog and would like to (perhaps) comment: Why is CNN slowly moving towards sensationalism? First it was Nancy Grace, who in her own way is worse than Bill O'Reilly (at least O'Reilly's kind of fun to watch because he's so psychotic; Grace just makes me cringe). And now it's this Beck shmuck. What the fuck is going ON?

Seriously, if anyone has any ideas, aside from simply "Sensationalism sells and news is a business and so they have to up their bottom line," please clue me in. I would love for that to not be the real reason.

Hey, that's my refinery!

Aside from having unilaterally kicked every foreign energy company out of Bolivia, now president Evo Morales has appropriated all the equipment they left behind.

The biggest noisemaker of the bunch is Petrobras, the Brazilian company that lost the most when Morales nationalized Bolivia's resources. But in the fine print at the bottom of most articles, you will notice that ExxonMobil also was expelled.

Not only that, but Morales has firmed up ties to both Venezuela's Hugo Chavez as well as Fidel Castro, and the three have been trading money, energy, and politics.

I'm not sure what's going to happen with this, but I'm fascinated by the left-wing movement growing in Central and South America that Morales and Chavez embody, especially because most of the stories that run in the mainstream media don't talk about how incredibly popular both men have become in their own countries because of their socialist agendas and all they've done for their people.

Still, I give Morales about six months til there's a coup attempt. Most likely backed by the CIA. I'm serious. They tried it with Chavez in 2002, but he was only out of office for three days before a popular movement forced his successor to step down. The same might happen with Morales, or the CIA might figure it's too dangerous a move, but given our history of treating Latin America like our own personal backyard, I doubt it. They'll probably at least try something.

And the reason I say six months is because that's about how long ExxonMobil has to get out of Bolivia. Cheers, matey!

I feel like some fish 'n chips. Thanks, BBC, and grab me some extra tartar sauce, will you?

After a brief respite...

Ah, faithful readers, thank you for your patience. At long last, I have returned. Sorry about the unplanned sabbatical; for a while there I was swamped with finishing up the semester and working. But no more. So, back to business.

First of all, a brand new poll from the Wall Street Journal has found that Bush's approval ratings have dipped into the twenties for the first time ever. The poll found that a mere 29% of Americans think shrub is doing an "excellent or pretty good job" as president.

Yup, that's right. The Roaring Twenties. As in, that's the roar of pissed-off commuters ready to vote Halliburton out of office.

What's more, this new poll comes just on the heels of a New York Times/CBS News poll two days ago that found Bush's approval rating to be a then-new low of 31%, which tied " the low point of his father in July 1992, four months before the elder Mr. Bush lost his bid for a second term to Bill Clinton. That is the third lowest approval rating of any president in 50 years; only Richard M. Nixon and Jimmy Carter were viewed less favorably."

What I've been wondering recently is exactly where his numbers would've been in the summer of 2004 if 9/11 hadn't happened. As far as I can see, it's not as though his administration or the neocons in general are doing anything radically different from when they first entered office. They're still pushing the same kind of stupid cold-war agenda that's going to lose us our place at the top of the international food chain, and they were just as willing then to ignore public opinion as they are today in the face of these numbers.

Oh, and it's worth noting that both of these polls were taken BEFORE the USA Today report about how the NSA wiretappedmillions of Americans who have no direct link to ANY terrorist organization.

I'm guessing his numbers will sink even lower before long. It's almost becoming a game, to see how far he can fall and how fast. Can Bush reach a zero percent approval rating? Damn, that'd be cool.

And this is what Ann Coulter would look like without hair:



Man-Coulter, they call it.

Ew. That actually made me lose my appetite.