Week In Review

I guess the biggest story of the week might be the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan. What I found shocking was how many people found it shocking. Let's look at the situation. Pakistan is a backwards-ass country with the hinterlands (and a good chunk of the state intelligence apparatus) pretty much out of control of the central government. Radical Islam has moved out of said hinterlands to the point that half the country gives Osama Bin Laden a big thumbs up. Bhutto was more pro-western than President Pervez Musharraf who has been targeted for assassination several times by extremist groups. Add to that the fact that she's a woman and the people who didn't like her followed an extreme misogynistic form of a religion that is pretty misogynistic to begin with. She didn't have a chance the moment she made it back to Pakistan.

So, who killed her? She had been receiving lots of threats from Islamists. Al Qaeda has claimed credit because chaos in Pakistan is in their best interests. While assistance in the murder by Pakistani intelligence isn't out of the question (as I said, they've been heavily infiltrated by Islamists), it seems pretty ludicrous to accuse, as some are doing, Musharraf of being behind it. The uproar that came from it doesn't help him at all. He may not have liked her or wanted her back in the country, but he traded immunity for her (her last time in elected office was very corrupt) in exchange for her (and her party's) support for his re-election bid. Musharraf was better off with her alive. So, obviously her supporters showed the rationality inherent to that region by blaming Musharraf. Which happens to be the same rationality of some presidential candidates here. I've got to love the responses from Barak Obama and Bill Richardson who want to withhold aid to Pakistan until Musharraf quits and "full democracy is restored." Brilliant. Let's get rid of one of our few allies in an Islamist heavy country with nuclear weapons and hope an election leads to something better.

I'm not really surprised that those two said something like that. As much as I hate to agree with John Edwards, his belief that Obama was ridiculous was spot on. I've found a lot of pronouncements from Obama to be rather silly. On the other hand, Richardson just wants some attention. Any attention. That guy is such a panderer that he told a bunch of pig farmers (commonly referred to as Iowans) that having the first caucus in Iowa is the will of God. Now, I don't claim to be a biblical scholar, but I did take Bible history in junior high (it was in the deep south) and in college. I don't remember a specific passage mentioning Iowa, but maybe it was one of the Songs of Solomon.

Unfortunately, the Iowa Caucus brings out a lot of stupidity in people. I've said it before. There is no way that a caucus in a podunk state like Iowa should get this much attention when it comes to nominating a presidential candidate. To begin with, a caucus is stupid. Unlike a primary election, voters have to register and sit through all day meetings before voting. Gee, I wonder if that depresses turnout? Plus, contrary to popular belief, Iowa doesn't tell you crap. Look at the winners since the caucus began in 1972 (1976 for Republicans). It looks like it picks a bunch of eventual nominees, but compare the years when it's competitive. By competitive, I mean there isn't an incumbent (ie Reagan, Clinton), a reigning VP trying to replace a President (ie Bush 1, Gore) or a party ordained nominee (Dole). That leaves three years (80,88,2000) that were competitive for Republicans and six for Democrats (72,76,84,88,92,04). Only once (2000) for Republicans and twice for Democrats (84,04) did the eventual nominee win Iowa. That means in a competitive year (like this year for both parties), there's a 66% chance the eventual nominee won't win Iowa. In fact, out of nine total competitive races for both parties, four eventual nominees (44% of the time) finished third or worse there. Tell me again why this friggin' state is so important?

However, there are still concerns about this election. Some people are so concerned that Obama will be assassinated (presumably because he's black) that they won't support him. Interesting. Wasn't Bill Clinton the first black president? No one took a shot at him. Well, outside of Hillary (and the rumor was she just used a lamp). Actually, if anyone shoots Obama, it will probably be Hillary if it looks like Obama is going to get the nomination.

On a lighter note, I've found out why women don't like the Three Stooges. A new study found that humor is a product of testosterone.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I give really crappy Christmas presents. I've found someone who does worse than me. A customer at a hot dog stand gave the proprietor a lottery ticket as a Christmas gift (or a tip) which showed she won $25,000 when she scratched it off. It was a fake.

Speaking of Christmas presents, a man in Tennessee is claiming that an MP3 player he bought for his daughter at Walmart was preloaded with porn. Now, when I saw he was waiting to talk to a lawyer, I figured it might be a scam. But, then I realized this is probably a common problem. My computer came preloaded with tons of porn on it. So much that I decided against trying to erase all of it.

Some may have read how a tiger escaped from it's enclosure at the San Francisco Zoo to get some payback at some taunters (maybe). It killed one person and seriously injured a couple more. Then the cops shot it because that probably seemed like a good way to stop the tiger from finishing off the other two. So, how does one of the moronic locals react? She protests that the cops should have waited for tranq guns before shooting the tiger. Strangely enough, my guess is her opinion may have been a bit different if she was the one being eaten.