ammon.azza.org

Today my alarm played some weird stuff to wake me up. Voices. I was confused, because usually it's an annoying beep. As it turns out it was NPR. I had accidentally turned my alarm to radio instead of... beep. So I shut the boring guy up and rolled back over. But he came BACK! In my mostly still asleep state, all I made out was something about how boring the paperwork is in Iraq in the red zone... What? Who cares. SNOOZE Let's just just say I ended up sleeping in an extra hour and a half.. which I'm in danger of doing again if I don't type faster.

So I'll take this opportunity to talk about politics (i.e. break a promise). First, I officially support presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. Exciting, eh? I was leaning towards him all last week, but today was the tipping point. I won't go into it, that's not what this blog is about.

It's mostly just a vent so I can move on with my life. Public radio playing any story they can find about how the war is bad, even the boring paperwork, reminded me of the (expletive) annoying conversation I had in a downtown bookstore with an extreme leftist nut bar. Myself, Nathan and Julie had the unfortunate experience of being stuck talking to this guy for near an hour about everything from the war, to socialized health care, to terrorism being a direct result of the state of Israel being formed, to me not being in school because the government won't pay for it (I politely suggested I wasn't in school because I bought a jeep instead). Let's simplify this. He was a political science major (I think it's a requirement for graduation that you are liberal), and I am a 20 year old photo editor that has been active in politics for... a year with about a 6 month break in the middle. Let's just say, he should have had every advantage. I would like to say I held my own though. I made plenty of points, and hopefully came off at least intelligent. Not that it matters... he came off as a moron.

The interesting this was how he tried playing us. It was like he had the whole thing worked out beforehand. He probably took a "how to annoy conservatives in a bookstore" class last week. He would ask a question and say "interesting" to our answer. To which I would think "Stop saying that!" He wouldn't answer any of our questions (a quintessential liberal move), and made personal attacks, such as "Are you even Christian?" (also a quintessential liberal move).

So, in the long and short of it, I offer this advise to avoid such a situation.

First, don't go to the political section of a book store, especially in a liberal city such as Salt Lake.
Second, if you do, don't speak out loud. Or just mumble nonsense so they'll be afraid of you.
Third, If someone talks to you, try and end the conversation quickly, either by being a complete jerk, ignoring him, or just mess with his head (preferable).

"So you're a conservative, eh?"
"I saw you"
"What?"
"I saw you practicing"
"Practicing what?"
"Practicing talking to me. Is it going as good as you had hoped?"

Or say things that make no sense that he's never heard before...

"We are in Iraq because we had SOLID intel that it was the Dread Pirate Roberts base of operation."

"Universal healthcare wouldn't be nearly as good as Touchstone or Fox healthcare. Then again, Fox did kill firefly and Universal picked it up. Maybe I do support Universal."

"Hillary Clinton's pant-suits need to be in more flamboyant colors for her to have my vote"

Okay, it's getting late if you can't tell. If you are a conservative, check out Mike Huckabee and tell your friends. I think he'd be the best president for this country right now. If you want, Check out my last blog (the blurb) and watch his interview with Glenn Beck, or play it in the background and just listen like I did. He's a good man. I especially like his view on taxes and the second amendment.

The End

I wanted to watch the Glenn Beck interview of Mike Huckabee, so I got on youtube. It's there by the way. There was this comment in there though:

voteMikeHuckabee (12 hours ago)

Mike will not be swayed. He is a hard core conservative. Romney is a member of a cult. He also flip flops on abortion. Glenn Beck likes Mike and so do I.

Um... I'm not going to go into whether or not Mitt Romney is in a cult or not (he's not by the way)... But if you're going to label Mitt a cultist, then you'd better do the same for Glenn.

I made a new category of blog called a blurb. Basically I'm too lazy to make a real blog, or I just want to say something quick. Just like this.

Blurb

Just a quick blog because of something funny.

"Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix author J.K. Rowling has shocked fans of the boy-wizard series by stating that character Albus Dumbledore as gay. The writer revealed the truth of the Hogwarts school headmaster's sexuality at New York's Carnegie Hall on Friday as part of her American book tour. When asked by an audience member if Dumbledore had found "true love," she replied, "Dumbledore is gay," adding he was in love with his rival Gellert Grindelwald, who he once beat in a battle between good and bad wizards long ago. She says, "Falling in love can blind us to an extent. (Dumbledore was) horribly, terribly let down." "

source

I have received 2 emails in the past 2 days about school vouchers. Frankly, I hope tomorrow doesn't make 3. Seriously, I don't care. I'm not in public school any more, I don't have kids, and after Glenn Beck's exposure of "The Perfect Day" (Al Queida saying they will deliver Beslin 100 fold on America), I think I'm inclined to home school my kids when I do have some. So, vouchers don't affect me positively.

The CEO of the company I work for is a vocal supporter of vouchers. He has been on the radio doing his vocal supporting. I heard it.... Anyway, he made 500 signs available for employees to take home and put in their yards. He's that into this.

A friend of mine I haven't really heard from in a few years sent an email (looks prefab to me) That goes like this:

I believe that children and our schools should be Utah's top priority. I found a website that provides information about education issues in this year's election.

Please visit
http://www.utahnsforpublicschools.org
to learn more about how you can support public schools with your vote in November.

I like the ambiguity of the email... turns out it is against vouchers.

So, now that I've demonstrated how annoyed I am, I will give my opinion:

I don't see how vouchers are bad for schools ("Since Utah is spending $7,800 (per student), if someone leaves and takes a voucher for only $500 - $3,000, more money is left behind for those who stay. Per-pupil funding goes up without a tax increase." -Patrick).

I don't understand how this fits on the Liberal <--> Conservative political spectrum. It's supported by conservatives and not by Liberals. It makes no sense. I would have guessed it would be over in Liberal territory with the rest of the government welfare programs.

Which leads me to the fact that it is government welfare. I know, you're saying "No, we pay taxes for public schools, and we're just getting it back". No you're not. I will give one good argument why it is welfare. Poor people get $3000, rich people get $500. If it was simply a tax reimbursement, rich people would get a LOT more back, because they pay a LOT more taxes. Thus, poor people are getting money they didn't earn. Hence; WELFARE.

I hate welfare. Perhaps it is because I don't really enjoy selling my life away an hour at a time (like you couldn't tell that by my previous blogs). So, I sell away about 36% of my waking life, then the government takes 25% of that. I'm too lazy to figure out the math right now, by the goverment takes 25% of 36% of my life and gives it to lazy welfare whores. I guess I have no reason to be upset.

Please get your grubby hands off my life... I digress...

So, I am philosophically against vouchers, but really don't care. So.. leave me out of it. I'm not voting anyway (still haven't registered... oops. I guess I get one more year safe from Jury Duty).

I promise, no more political blogs.