The Political Mock 5 11.26.07

Posted by Cedric King on 11.26.2007

The death of poll position! The rise of Barack Obama! The razing of southern California! All this and more on your weekly installment of last week's news!



5. Maybe We Shouldn't Have Built So Close to Hell?
So Southern California is on fire again. It's not just the Lakers anymore (although having a Lake in the area sure would make these things a little more bearable), the second big fire of the season—first of the holiday season cut Thanksgiving dinner a little short and left a few turkeys extra crispy last week. Seriously? Is this place built near the gates of hell or something? Is there some reason why these people haven't heeded the warning of Smokey the Bear? Just last weekend I went up to Eureka (the top of the state) and you know what I saw?!? Control burns so we wouldn't become Southern California. It's just sort of absurd how often these places seem to be catching on fire, and even crazier that the fires seem to last forever. At some point you just have to consider moving don't you? I mean eventually you just have to cut your losses and realize you'd rather live in a place that didn't get engulfed in flames every other month.

4. Seriously Guys, Hillary?
Barack Obama appears to be finally showing some of the drive that we all hoped he would from the beginning. Barack asked the question that we've all been thinking since this whole election thing started out "Do we really want to replace Bush with Hillary?" The answer for most Americans has always appeared to be no, the biggest reason for her strength being that she's much more "electable" than Obama. How ironic is it that a candidate that no one really supported was considered more electable than the guy we all wanted to vote for from the beginning? I mean all this talk about "is he black enough?" and "does he have experience?" it was always just sort of our way of convincing ourselves that he couldn't win and therefore shouldn't be worth our vote. It appears when Obama decides to call us on that "well…at least we'll win" logic that the guy jumps to an Iowan lead! Although Iowa is the state where apparently Ron Paul can be taken more seriously…so who knows how indicative Iowa will be of national opinion anyway. But hey, it's nice that Obama is making things interesting again!

3. Please Excuse My Dear Pakistani
I have a good friend from Pakistan. He's actually from an upper class family that owns a successful business. He came here to go to college and his brothers are in the UK, but with all this talk about coups and suspended elections it makes me wonder where he stands politically here. I mean former Prime Minister Sharif returned to Lahore—claiming that he'd register for the January 8th elections in Pakistan and also threatened to boycott them. They've got judges being de-judgified and a silenced media. I mean long story short this place has more issues than I ever would've thought from talking to the guy. Perhaps it's just the way I'm seeing everything portrayed on the television—or maybe his description of life in Pakistan is a little skewed. I mean, perhaps everyone in Pakistan doesn't watch The Simpsons as religiously as he does, but they can't all be downtrodden citizens constrained by a third world dictator can they? Is Pakistan third world? And yes, that chick is still under house arrest.

In The Pits: Hillary Clinton
I guess it has to go without saying that Hillary Clinton had a pretty rough week. I mean, Barack Obama showed some signs of life and now her sure thing may be in jeopardy.

It's not like she's been without challenge, but mostly it's come from the right side of the aisle. Republicans have attacked her because she's the front runner for a long time and it seemed as though it would be just a waste of time to give attention to any of the lesser candidates. With Obama coming into his own in Iowa it opens up a whole can of worms that she may have brought on herself with her last debate appearance.

You may remember her whole "they're picking on me because it's an all boys club" attitude earlier in November, I think it is doubtless that the comment did more to hurt her than help her. It seemingly lit a fire under one black candidate's (no, not Joe Biden) ass!

While as I've already pointed out, Iowa may in fact be one of those fluke states that doesn't mean anything--I mean for some reason Ron Paulers think they have a chance there. Hillary definitely has enough reason to find herself In The Pit just based off the Obama surge in itself. God forbid this guy starts convincing people he can win. But hey, I think her husband was on Oprah last week!

2. American Terrorist...
So I have a friend, he has an uncle (like many of us do) that I'm not allowed to meet. Said uncle was apparently beaten, robbed and stabbed by a black guy and now he can't get past it. He's horribly racist and hates us niggras to death! Do I mind? Ehh… I don't know what the point of telling me there was a relative that I could never meet would be, but hey—I think we're all capable of making similar assumptions in the face of a large trauma. I think Giuliani has this too—the difference between my friend's racist uncle and New York's racist former Mayor is that one of them is running for president, and actually might win. Giuliani recently took potshots at the Demos because of their unwillingness to respect the existence of an "Islamic terrorist war". Seriously? What the f*ck happened to this dude? It's not like the Dems have denied the existence of terrorism, I think there's a danger in labeling it as purely Islamic—because after all Timothy McVeigh, FEMA, and Albert Einstein were all Catholic.

1. From Chess to F*cked in the Ass: The Gerry Kasparov Story
Fearless Leader Vladimir Putin has drawn some criticism for his recent use of riot police to break up protesters in St. Petersburg, apparently taking some of his frustrations about his small penis and lack of a Star Wars missile defense system to call his own out on the voting public. At least George W. Bush never let his baby dick get in the way of democracy! I mean sure voter error, Supreme Court intervention and other things that were less dirty tactics than "politics as usual" sometimes got in the way— but he never sent out his storm troopers to beat on us. Or at least he never sent storm troopers to beat on me. Maybe some of you have been beaten on by storm troopers. Apparently Gerry Kasparov made the insinuation that Putin's efforts in Russia have been more geared towards solidifying his own role as dictator than fulfilling any campaign promises. Kasparov got a few days in jail for his trouble and for protesting his imprisonment the Russian people got a few whacks in the head. God bless democracy?

Last Week On 411
While Ashish did give the Poll Position the "OK" to continue despite the recent crackdown on polls in 411 articles, the segment was getting a little boring. Thank you everyone who participated and in case you were wondering...Giuliani went out on top! I'll try and come up with something new and creative to add to the Mock 5, but for now I'm gonna test drive my own version of 411 pimping.

Mark Radulich came with an open letter to supporters of Ron Paul, also known as the second most annoying assholes on the planet. That's not to say that I dislike Ron Paul, I just dislike people that mark out for him in the way that Mark Radulich so clearly outlines. There's also a lovely video of an undressing girl at the bottom, I went to her website in an effort to see more--found out she actually made "serious" videos and quickly clicked away. I was in search of Naked News-esque porn and ended up with a bunch of college film projects.

I'd feel like a jerk if I didn't direct you to The SIXAXIS Report for last week. I'm not really any good at picking out games or staying on top of the whole "gaming industry" but I do own a Ps3 and the SIXAXIS report has been one resource I've used to stay up on all the Sony gossip. Mark Salmela has kept me moderately relevant in any discussion I have about the Ps3 and allows me to at least sound like the Sony nerd I long to be. Although longing to be a nerd probably makes you more of a nerd. Dammit... Just read this guy every week.

Feels kind of awkward to end it like this... Umm, I guess you can e-mail me anytime you're feeling lonely? I'm available at [e-mail]. Happy Monday!