[J m HofMarN]

http://www.msnbc.msn...nt-celebrities/

So, Levi Johnson is going to pose nude in playgirl. I assume to be truly nude they'll have to shave him of the thick coat of fur that defines the hockey players of the northern frontier. Seeing stuff like this, I'd be proud I voted for Obama even if he spent his time in office just sitting behind a desk getting pleasured by interns. That is at least a common Washington past time and the public is in some fashion used to it. Can you imagine what it would be like if the Palins got in the whitehouse? Can you do so without using the words "dystopian nightmare"?

There'd be, I don't know, one or two disabled babies trundling around and gnawing on things or foreign dignitaries, her daughter is huffing something in one of the fallout shelters underneath, and meanwhile a half naked Levi is round back drunkenly pounding on the gates and demanding custody of his son, and a new hockey stick. Only he can't get in because by this time the Palins would have barred the gates with some disused vehicles or appliances set up on cinder blocks. The matter is settled on live TV when COPS shows up. John McCain is sighted occasionally wandering around Georgetown in a dimentia induced daze and muttering about being a maverick. Sarah by now has "gone rogue" and decided she could do more for the people at her new job: doing nothing but issuing retarded statements. Quickly realizing this doesnt pay she opens a mooseburger stand on capital hill. Todd's off at congress pushing legislation to allow Alaska to secede from the union and change its name to The Peoples Republic of Hockeytania.

Then Canada starts a war to get its name back.

....Damn I need to find someone to make a flash series based on this.

This post has been edited by J m HofMarN: 08 October 2009 - 02:31 AM

[Spoon Poetic]

I don't like Sarah Palin either - I think she's ignorant, not very bright, and a whole slew of other insults.

However I don't see what the big fucking deal is that her daughter's son's father is posing for Playboy. Who gives a shit? He's got nothing to do with politics except he just accidentally ended up tied into a politician's family. Besides, how is this any worse than what actual politicians get caught doing? (their interns, lobbyists, secretaries, Argentinian soulmates, little boys, etc.) To me, making a big deal out of this is like making a big deal out of "Obama's mom's brother's ex-girlfriend's cousin smokes pot." These people have nothing to do with the way the country is run, plus it's not like it's murder or slave-trading. It's a penis in a magazine only a small percentage of the country buys. A penis belonging to no one important anyway. Big effing deal. This kid is lucky anyone even knows his name.

This post has been edited by Spoon Poetic: 08 October 2009 - 01:18 PM

[Otal Nimrodi]

JM, look, I get it, you don't like Palin. I don't care for her either. But really, this is entirely irrelevant. She has nothing to do with Levi posing in Playboy.

And really, making of her children for being disabled? Look, I appreciate a little humor, but I have a cousin who's autistic, and for a while my job involved a lot of dealing with disabled children. That really hit below the belt there.

Edit: And you misused the word distopian. If you were gonna claim it'd be a fascist religious state, that'd be distopian. The country being a mess is something else.

Edited Edit: Honestly, though, JM, I'd be proud of voting for Obama in general, but what does this specific incident have to do with it?

This post has been edited by Otal Nimrodi: 08 October 2009 - 02:12 PM

[Ninja Duck]

Otal: How do you get that definition of dystopian? It's the oppositie of utopia (which I haven't read but I've been meaning to I swear), which is a perfect society, regardless of religion or structure.

I think JM is saying that the antics of a politician's extended family reflects on their career, and I think the reality is just the opposite: it's things they do in office (INTERNS) that people remember them for.

[Otal Nimrodi]

Ninja Duck, on 09 October 2009 - 12:13 AM, said:

Otal: How do you get that definition of dystopian? It's the oppositie of utopia (which I haven't read but I've been meaning to I swear), which is a perfect society, regardless of religion or structure.

I think JM is saying that the antics of a politician's extended family reflects on their career, and I think the reality is just the opposite: it's things they do in office (INTERNS) that people remember them for.

Ah, you are correct. I have confused dystopias with anti-utopias. Blame my English teacher, he got it wrong. Comment cheerfully withdrawn.

And while the antics of the extended family may REFLECT on the career, I don't think that's a good thing.

[Gobbler]

Aye, I for one sure wouldn't like to have all that military and law enforcement background reflectin' in my current job. Business just isn't fun when people adhere to laws.

[J m HofMarN]

Spoon- Its different when someone in a politician's extended family is accused of something, but if I'm not mistaken both Levi and Bristol have gleefully admitted to drug use, and the city Palin was mayor of is known as the meth capitol of Alaska. Levi may be the silliest of the bunch, but her husband actually was a member of an Alaskan separatist group, and Palin quit the governorship for no apparent reason. I don't dislike Palin, she hasnt had the chance to do any damage to the country, which is kind of my point. Pretty much every single time Palin or her family come up in the news, it just makes me so glad I worked to get Obama in there. All political differences put aside, Palin and her family seem like a representation of America's mobile home communities rather than the American community as a whole. Had Palin/McCain won, rather than reading about our president claiming the Nobel Peace Prize, we'd be reading "Guy who knocked up president's under age daughter poses naked"

Otal- Meh. Fair enough, but she's the one who hopped around pointing it out because, I guess, having a disabled child (or two, I really cant remember) makes her an expert on education by the same logic that being not so far from Russia makes her an expert on international relations.

Ninja Duck- I don't think it reflects on the career, but it surely would make us look like a bit of a joke to the rest of the world if we had elected someone, and then some guy shows the entire world his wang, which is famous for being in the elected person's teen age daughter.

I'm actually considering trying to base a flash animation off of this premise. More on that later.

[Spoon Poetic]

Mmkay honestly to be considered the meth capital of Alaska you probably need like, 3 people doing meth...

I agree that Sarah Palin is a joke and her family kinda too. But I think it's stupid that people are making a big deal out of this Playgirl thing. Since Palin was NOT elected, why the hell does anyone care what Levi, or any of them for that matter, does? Is there really so little to report on that a big deal has to be made about a non-elected nobody's daughter's insignificant ex-boyfriend's penis, oh and also about Miley Cyrus deleting her Twitter, that's SRS BSNS too of course.

And I really don't understand how Palin's book is doing so well.

Also, since you brought it up: While I have nothing against Obama himself for this, I think giving him the Nobel Peace Prize was stupid. I mean he'd been in office for just a couple weeks when he got the nomination. He should have been given a chance to carry out those grand ideas of his, instead of getting an award just for having some good ideas.
I personally think the Nobel Peace Prize is a joke. Jm, you'll probably agree with me if you look at some of the people that have been awarded it: Yizhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, Menachim Begin, Yasser Arafat (well you might actually like him, but the fact remains that he's a terrorist and that's not very peaceful, and the only reason he got the award with a couple others of those guys is because they took a break from bombing each other made a really shitty temporary agreement uh, that Oslo thing).

This post has been edited by Spoon Poetic: 10 October 2009 - 10:15 PM

[Gobbler]

I think the Nobel Prize was given to the right one this time. What use has that dustcatcher of an award had before anyway? Recognition? Yeah, shiny, but useless.

So now the committee actually took a pro-active stance and placed the hopes of the whole (peace loving) world on the person most likely to actually do something effective about things. It's pretty risky, considering the current situation with Iran and North Korea, but still the very best they could have done, in my opinion.

[Spoon Poetic]

I guess it's better than some other choices they could have made. At least Obama's not a terrorist or directly responsible for lots of deaths (well he did send more troops to Afghanistan, but anyway)...

I still think the whole idea of the Nobel Peace Prize has become a joke.

[Gobbler]

Let's just hope that enough people will take it seriously enough for it to actually have any real influence in real situations.

And that Afghanistan thing, well... still better than letting the area destabilize further. I'm all for peace, but some actions simply are necessary. It's like that whole war on Iraq thing - the actual reasons and the methods used weren't chosen well, but generally it wasn't such a bad idea to finally do something about Saddam. What's really got me worried now is that this Ahmadinejad fellow over in Iran is even more of a nutcase. This time the situation's a bit better in the way that part of the population seems to be trying to openly oppose him, but the spark that was meant to fire up their revolution got quenched very quickly. Nutcase, yes, but he sure did his homework on crowd control. All in all everything just appears way too volatile, might be that the use of more violence will really become a necessity again soon, and even then I'd probably still say that Obi deserves the price.

[J m HofMarN]

Spoon- I think the deal is that she could have conceivably been our vice president and, most likely, our president not long after. If the Republican Party had had their way she would have been. People dont realize just how close we came.

As for Obama's Nobel, let me spell out the obvious subtext.

Dear United States, we know that we have no reason to give you any candy, but after spending the last decade starting senseless wars and spurring bloodshed, coups in Venezuela, East Timor, so forth and so on, well, we're very glad you havent killed anyone lately, so here's a treat. Continue to behave decently and perhaps there will be more!

One of the Republican people, in their typical divisive fashion, pointed out that no Republican has been offered the medal lately. As though it were based upon party instead of on their largely reprehensible deeds.

As for Arafat. I think he was a man with some great ideas, who fought for his peoples freedom against impossible odds but failed due to a lack of commitment to the struggle. He died essentially in prison, providing a threat to future Palestinian leaders which is the impetus for Abbas' cowardice. Arafat should have stuck to killing Israelis til they left every inch of occupied Palestine. True, in the end he was largely helpless as the enemy hemmed him and his guards in at his HQ in Ramallah, but even then there is the option of trying to fight and dying as a martyr. He chose to die a prisoner rather than a free man,but I feel bad for criticizing an old man for not taking the proper action. When he was younger I am sure Arafat would have made the right choice then. Anyone who could make the Zionists leave would be worthy of the Nobel peace prize. I think Obama's timid, incontinent prodding at Israel to maybe stop blatantly stealing land, that that is a step in the right direction and far more than any other American leader has done lately.

Gobbler- I have to agree. The fact that Obama has embraced multilateralism once again is a good sign internationally, and as for creating peace, I've seen the climate in other parts of the world to America change literally overnight. Even in the Islamic world. I do hope he can produce actions to justify all this good will, I admit thats a concern. But he has allowed the Attorney General to start looking at trials for war crimes under Bush, which is, as far as I know, pretty well unheard of in the US since Vietnam.

This post has been edited by J m HofMarN: 12 October 2009 - 12:19 AM

[Otal Nimrodi]

But the whole idea of the Nobel Prize I thought was to award people, and not just for NOT blowing up people, but for actively working to stop people from being blown up. You don't get it for a zero-sum win. Now, I don't doubt Obama will do some pretty great things. But even if he brings peace to the whole world and gives everyone a free puppy with every tax rebate, the point remains that he still hasn't done it YET.

Obama's a pretty good guy, and I'm sure that next year, and certainly by the end of his term, Obama WILL have accomplished some pretty amazing things. As it is, though, he barely sat down before he got nominated. He still hadn't done much when he won it.

I understand wanting to award the American people for electing Obama. So they could go ahead and do that. There's precedent for giving an organization the prize. They did it in '63 and in '69, and it certainly makes more sense, because the American People had actually DONE what they were being awarded for. I don't think you should give an award to someone for "Inspiring" people to make peace. Give it to the people who actually make peace, or your prize is as good as a doorstopper.

Quote

One of the Republican people, in their typical divisive fashion, pointed out that no Republican has been offered the medal lately.

Could you clarify for me, is that "Their" as in "The typically divisive fashion of Republicans" or as in the typically divisive fashion of that particular Republican whose name and gender escapes you?

And if its the former, isn't disparaging a good percent of the country for being divisive a little ironic?

[Gobbler]

Otal Nimrodi, on 18 October 2009 - 09:31 AM, said:

I understand wanting to award the American people for electing Obama. So they could go ahead and do that.

Eh, that would imply that all of the American people are in support of Obama and gave him their vote. Also, rewarding political choices like that... would always be a pretty moronic thing to do, and especially when you look back at those two previous whoopsies that led to Mr. Bush's repeated election.

It's not about that stuff, they gave it to Barry because he, uh, let me quote that...

Quote

"Very rarely has one man drawn the attention of the world towards himself and given his people hope for a better future like Barrack Obama did. His diplomacy is founded on the vision that those who would rule the world should do so on the basis of values and attitudes which are shared by the majority of the world's population."
Translation of a German translation of the original announcement

[Otal Nimrodi]

Making people want to do something isn't worth a prize. I'm not saying he's not a great president. But when you consider what he's done so far with what he's going to do in the future, I think it really won't compare. They got the right guy, but the wrong year. I mean, the guy gets a Nobel Prize for being elected. What do we give him when he's actually done something beyond making peace?

My comment about divisive statements deriding people for being divisive stands, though.