That's A Lot Of Mitt

If Newt Gingrich was just a little more sarcastic and a little more childish with some of his statements and retorts, he could put his campaign headquarters in a playground somewhere. The man is one step away from going down to a "I know you are but what am I?" level. And in case you haven't noticed, Newt is not a big fan of Mitt Romney. Newt would seem to see Mitt in the same light that I do, that of a phony tool. But since Newt is the one trying to run for President, he put a little more effort into pointing out Mitt's toolishness by making a video of some of his more memorable statements. And don't get me wrong. I don't think that either one of these numbskulls should be President. But that doesn't mean that the video isn't amusing. Behold! (And if it doesn't load, please click here.)

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You Can Pay More If You Want

OK. That's it. I don't know exactly what all of you Occupy Wall Street folks think you're going to accomplish, but I'm pretty sure you're barking up the wrong tree. Why these people are not occupying the spaces in front of places like the Capital or the House is beyond me. If they want regulations to change, I don't think that protesting in front of the people who are not making the regulations is going to do a lot of good. But that's just me. Then again, since I'm not really all that clear on what they want to begin with, maybe my thinking on the matter is just off. I am, however, disappointed that all of the signs are spelled correctly. Then again, how else are they all going to put those liberal arts degrees to good use?

But this is what really irritates me: All of the people who are in the "one percent" that are constantly saying that they want their taxes to be raised. Yep. Those people irritate the crap out of me. See, when you pay your taxes every year, there is a little section at the bottom where you can opt to pay more than you owe. That's right. There is a section on your 1040 where you can volunteer to pay more money if you want to. Get a refund? You can give it back if you want to. It's right there. Now, I haven't heard one, not ONE of these people (I'm talking to YOU Warren Buffett, Russell Simmons, Al Sharpton and the insufferable Kanye West) mention that they have been paying MORE than they have been required to because they feel like it is the "right" thing to do. Not ONE. Maybe they have been. I really don't know. But I kind of think that if that is what they'd been doing that they would have mentioned that right away. But they haven't. So here's my proposal: When those people want to start paying MORE than what they're required to pay, THEN they can talk about how they want their taxes raised. In the meantime, they need to pipe down.

And as long as I'm on this subject, I don't see how raising the taxes on 1% of people who make a truckload of money is going to do any good. Do all of these occupiers realize that approximately 50 percent of the country pays NO income tax?! NONE! And I understand that they're "poor". I get that. But I also get that they're not only just not paying taxes. They're also getting some sort of benefits on top of that. Whether it be food stamps or a rent reduction or Medicare or Social Security checks or whatever. Am I sorry that there are poor people? Yeah. Do I realize that every society has tiers and that's just how society works? Of course I do. But that doesn't change the fact that you can't alter the disparity in a society by simply asking for more money from a select 1 percent of your population while ignoring what is almost a freaking majority who contribute nothing to that society.

I just want people to understand that there are so many people out there who aren't paying their fair share. Hell, they're not even paying A share, let alone a fair one. But yet, these people get to vote on how tax dollars are spent. MY tax dollars. And when more and more and more people just want and want and want, then what happens? I'm guessing you end up with a bunch of people across the country protesting in front of financial institutions and pooping on the sidewalk! At least, that's what San Francisco looks like. (I had to navigate my way through an obstacle course of fecum the other day. It was like an Olympic event that no one wanted.)

I really want to know who all of these people voted for, if they even voted at all, in the last election. I also really want to know (if they did vote) if they're going to vote for someone different this time around (especially in elections for senators). I'm also dying to know if they're going to vote for President Barry again. (And don't get me wrong, I want to like the guy as a President. I really do. But I just don't. He doesn't DO anything. NOTHING has gotten done.) Statistics would have me believe that only 49% of those protesting actually voted (assuming they were eligible). Huh. That might explain a lot, actually. It doesn't explain the poop on the sidewalk, but I think it does explain an awful lot about other things.

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What Was That?

I realize that the next Presidential election isn't for about seventeen months, but that doesn't mean that people aren't already starting to declare that they're going to run against President Barry. That also doesn't mean that people aren't already starting to talk about people as if they are full-blown, nominated candidates. It's not even CLOSE to nomination time! And really, I'm still kind of recovering from the 2008 election. Seriously, when did that start getting coverage? 2006? Yeah, I knew I was exhausted for a reason.

I don't think that you need a fancy ad to announce that you're going to seek the nomination from your party. Just announce it, already. But wait. If you're going to just announce it already, have it make some freaking sense, would you? Take the ad from a one Jon Huntsman. If this thing makes any freaking sense to you, I'm ready to hear all about it because I am stumped. Seriously, watch this: (And if it doesn't load, click here and watch that.)

6 Days from Jon Huntsman Jr. on Vimeo.

See what I mean? What the hell was that?! "In 6 days." I got that part. "Did not become famous with his band 'Wizard'." Wait. What now? His band Wizard? He's 51 years old and he's still touting his high school band? That NO ONE has ever heard about or knows about? And what's with the motocross racer? Was he in the band, too? Why does the motocross racer who may or may not have been in a band 35 years ago have anything to do with announcing that you want to make a run for a nomination to run for President? I don't know what I just watched. I hope that Mr. Huntsman hones his communication skills "In 6 days". And he might want to ditch the motocross guy. And for the love of God, don't talk about your high school band when you're 51. (Also, if you're IN high school, don't name your band "Wizard". Wizards are cool, but naming your band after them is not.)

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She Won't Win, Old Man

Well. Pretty much, I can't stress enough how glad I am that we did not elect Old Man McCain as President and instead went with now-President Barry. Who knew that McCain would turn out to be as delusional as I think he might have proven himself to be yesterday? (Don't get me wrong. I don't think that the guy is senile or anything like that. But I was never fully convinced about how in tact all of his critical thinking faculties really were. I have a much better idea now and the answer is "not entirely".)

It's pretty easy to see. Here's what went down": McCain was on something called "Fox News Sunday" yesterday and was asked if former almost-half-of-a-term governor of Alaska, the super hot Sarah Palin, could beat Barack Obama in a 2012 Presidential election. Let's not forget that Palin was McCain's running mate in 2008. Let's also not forget that they lost fairly handily. President Barry won with about 66% of the vote. I know that from all of the pre-election hooplah with how he was supposed to be our savior and all that you would have thought that it would have been around 96%. But still, 66% of the vote is a pretty good ass-whooping.

According to the Political Ticker blog over yonder at CNN, McCain responded "Of course she can. She can. Now, whether she will or not, whether she'll even run or not, I don't know...But she certainly is a major factor and I believe she can be very competitive." Wait. Those...those are just a bunch of words and I'm not sure that they make a lot of sense. Let's break that down a little bit and try to figure out what's going on there.

So he starts out stating "Of course she can. She can." Sooo...is he saying that it was HIM who was the problem in 2008? Because if I had to pick an office for Sarah Palin to be in, I sure as hell would rather have her as a Vice President than the freaking President. It's nothing personal, but she just doesn't have the knowledge that she would need to be President. You could have someone who is comatose for your Veep and it'd be all right. Look at Joe Biden. He looks barely conscious most of the time and I'm perfectly OK with that. If he was President though, I'd be moving to Canada, America's Hat.

So McCain has just stated that Sarah Palin can win against Barack Obama. Then, in the very next sentence, he says "...whether she will or not... I don't know." What does that even mean? He's not even a sentence removed from saying that she can win before he says that he doesn't know if she will win?! That's not flip-flopping. That's putting your opinion in a blender and watching it go 'round and 'round really fast and when it stops, it ends up resembling nothing like what you shoved in there in the first place. He JUST said he thought that she could win! I guess it's the little things that start to go first.

And what's all this about her being a "major factor"? A major factor in...what? Yeah, a lot of people like her. I get that. She's very likable. (Even if you don't personally like her, you can't argue that she's not likable. She is. You might not agree with some of the things that she says (like if she insists that it's Tuesday when it's really Friday), but she's likable.) But what is she a major factor of? An election? Her own candidacy? I don't know what that means. Could her endorsement of a Republican candidate help boost that individual to a victory over President Barry? I doubt it. If it could, then Old Man McCain would be President right now. If you can't boost the guy on your own ticket into office, good luck doing it with someone else.

Seriously, if McCain is this delusional, not just about Sarah Palin becoming President, but about Sarah Palin beating President Barry in the next election, then we really dodged a bullet with that guy. Again, I like John McCain. But it won't take many more statements like that one for him to go from being the aging Senator of Arizona to that doddering old man in the desert. I'm just saying.

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She Won't Be The President

Sarah Palin's back. I don't know why, exactly, but I have the feeling that it has something to do with trying to run for President in an election that she will surely lose. And truthfully, I don't know how much of her I can take. Don't get me wrong; I think that I like her as a person. I think that she'd be a swell neighbor. But those people that are just so gung-ho about anything that she does need to be realistic. She's not qualified to be President. Do I think that she was qualified to be Vice President had Old Man McCain won? Let me put it to you this way: When was the last time you heard about Joe Biden doing anything? That's my point. She would have been fine as Vice President because the Vice President doesn't DO much. The President? He's got stuff to do.

She currently seems to be on some sort of a schizophrenic bus tour. She doesn't appear to really have a list of the states or the places that she is planning on visiting. She kind of just seems to be showing up at things as they happen. I guess that's one way to do it. And due to the lack of letting anyone in on where she plans on going, I find it hard to make a guess as to what she's really doing. I mean, I could guess that she's seeing how much support she might be able to drum up from the various places that she visits. But I would think that if someone was being genuine about something like that that they would go to places where they aren't sure if they are loved or not. It's one thing to do a book tour and know that everywhere that you go the people that are there want to see you. It's a completely different thing to just show up to someone's house at dinner time and see if you'll be invited in.

And while I can't judge what she's doing, I can assess the bus that she'll be traveling in to do this little jaunt. You know how rock stars always have those enormous tour buses? OK, now imagine Thomas Jefferson doing one of those tours. This seems like the kind of bus that he'd be riding around in. Behold!
Well, it's very patriotic. And gaudy. I guess it's a pretty good way to announce yourself, but only if people know that you're coming. Look, I really don't understand the point of any of this, so I'm going to keep making fun of her ridiculous bus. And here's a close-up picture of it to aid me in that goal:
That's a mighty fine lookin' Constitution you've got there. Can I just ask a question that I haven't heard anyone ask? And I'm sure that I'll sound incredibly un-patriotic, but I'm willing to risk it. When did the Constitution get so darned popular? How many of those folks who are Sarah Palin lovers (not literally, I hope) who go around spewing all the time about the Constitution and our rights have any idea as to what they are talking about? Is it even that important to mention when you're running for President? I suppose some aspects of it are. I don't know. How about more bus pictures? Behold! See, that's why I don't give to any sort of political person. That's quite the bus. Paid for by her PAC. She made about $20 million in the six months after she bailed out of being the governor of Alaska. I know that it's all fine and good that donations to a PAC can be used for something like this. I guess my issue is more with folks who donate to these things. You want to give you money away, you hit me up instead. It would probably be about as well used. Well, I just hope that she figures out that she isn't going to be President any time soon and disbands this little project. It's over 500 days until the Presidential election. I can't have all of those days being taken up with talk about Sarah Palin. I can't. Do you hear me? I can't.

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South Carolina, What Are You Doing?!

What is going on over there with the voting populous of South Carolina? Seriously. The guy that they elected to be the Democratic candidate for the Senate seems to be only vaguely aware of what is going on around him. Not to mention that he didn't mount any sort of campaign what so ever and still managed to win with sixty, yes sixty, percent of the vote! How is that possible?! South Carolina voters, how low is your bar, exactly? Well, if Alvin Greene is any indication, there might not even be a bar.

Meet Alvin Greene. He won the primary election in South Carolina on Tuesday with sixty percent of the vote to become the Democratic candidate for one of South Carolina's Senate seats. How he won is still in question. He's unemployed (though he was honorably discharged (though not voluntarily) from the military nine months ago and lives with his parents) and has no previous political experience. I'm fine with the no political experience. Sometimes, I think I would prefer that candidates don't have any political experience. But I would prefer that they appear to have the capability to form complete sentences. Oh, and to not stare blankly after being asked a really simple question by Keith Olbermann, too.

Alvin Greene claims to have had no donations. He claims that the $10,400 that he had to pony up in order to be on the ballot was his own money. Now, I'm not saying that it isn't. I am saying that I find how incredulous the media is toward the notion that it was his own money. They act like because he is unemployed, he should have no money at all. Never mind the fact that he was in the military for about 13 years. If he was living with his parents the entire time, he could have saved quite a bit of money. Even if he hadn't been living with his parents, it's not like people can't save money or anything like that. Granted, I do find it a little odd for an unemployed guy to spend ten grand just to be on a ballot, but I don't think it's as strange as the media is portraying it to be.

Speaking of things that are strange, from what everyone can tell, this guy didn't even do anything on his "campaign". I have that in quotes because I'm not so certain that if you don't actually go out and campaign (as a verb) that you have a campaign (as a noun). I'm not running for anything, but if I don't do anything and I win, does that mean that I've run a successful campaign. I don't think that it does! I really don't.

What I find more strange is that this guy seems to be of a limited intelligence quotient. He seems vaguely aware of what he is doing. He's one step away from the freaking Senate. He sure doesn't act like it. Then again, he also doesn't really act like he knows what year it is. Let's take a look at some of the dialogue between him and the abhorrent Mr. Olbermann. Keep in mind that Mr. Greene's responses to the questions are always followed by a pause of about 5 to 7 seconds. I don't know why. It could be a tape delay thing. It could be a low mental processing speed. I'm just saying. Oh, and let me just warn you. This guy is not one of our nation's most gifted speakers.

Olbermann: What was your campaign like? Did you hold a lot of meetings?

Greene: Say that again.

Olbermann: What...was...your...campaign...like? Did you have a lot of campaign meetings?

Greene: I have just a few meetings. Not many.

Olbermann: Did you have campaign rallies?

Looking awfully perplexed Greene: Nothing...formal. Just...informal rallies. (What in the world is an "informal rally"?!) Informal meetings...rather.

Olbermann: Did you go door to door to meet the voters? How did they find out who you were?

Looking like Olbermann is speaking Chinese Greene: I just conducted a...simple...old-fashioned campaign. You know. All...all across the state of South Carolina.

Olbermann: Did you have campaign advertising of any kind?

Pondering the question Greene: I had...campaign literature. Yes, I did.

Olbermann: Many...

Not quite done Greene: I had campaign literature.

Trying to finish the question Olbermann: Many first time politicians get surprised by how much fundraising they have to do...How much fund raising did you do?

Really confused Greene: Not much....I raised...I used my own funds up to this point...in the primary...and...up until right now....and.... (Then his voice just trails off and he look blankly ahead. I guess that's how we know that he's done.)

Olbermann: Um, how do you think the people who voted for you on Tuesday knew who you were or even that you were running?

Still staring ahead Greene: I think...that...you know, I think that they....saw...I think that they...no, I just think that they recognized...they heard of my name...when I was campaigning...across the state...you know to pass the word on. Just by word of mouth! (Eureka! A complete sentence!) But I just got the word around. (Judging from this interview, I find it difficult to believe that he could get the word around. He can barely get a word out of his mouth.) You know. I had sixty percent of the vote....I had sixty percent of the vote. Sixty percent of the vote is not luck. (I'll agree with him with that. It's not luck. It might not be legitimate, but it most certainly is not luck.) You know...that's a decisive wins. (Yes. He said "wins". That's a decisive wins. Good Lord...) Sixty per....(And then he just stops and starts nodding! That's twice that he's done that. I guess it's his "thing" or something.)

There's more, but I'm going to stop here. You get the point, right? The guy seems dumber than a box of hair, that is correct.

Now, some people are claiming that Mr. Greene is a "plant" by the Republican party. That theory would have more weight if it weren't for some glaring problems. Problem one is that the guy is far from the brightest bulb on the tree. (And while he could still be a "plant", houseplant would be more like it.) Problem two is that "plant" or not, he still won with sixty percent of the vote and from what I can tell, no one has ever heard of the guy because he didn't even go out and campaign. You can plant whoever you want into whatever race you want, but if it's an election, people still have to vote for him. So that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Then again, none of this does. It does seem to have the air about it of something not being just quite right. Can you ask for an investigation based solely on the impression that the guy who won couldn't find his ass with both hands if you spotted him the left one? I don't know if you can or not, but it might be a good idea. It might also be a good idea to go out there and find folks who voted for this guy and ask them what in the world they were thinking. No, wait. Show them some of the interviews of this guy and then ask them what they were thinking. I have the feeling it would be highly entertaining!

The video of Mr. Greene and Mr. Olbermann is supposed to be below. If it doesn't show, you can try watching it here. At that same link, you can watch a different interview with something called The Root. I'm not saying that you're going to learn much more by watching that interview or anything, but I am saying that you'll see that Mr. Greene's demeanor with Mr. Olbermann was not because he was having a bad day or anything. That's how the guy seems to come across with everything. Perplexed. And in a race for a seat in the United States Senate. What could possibly go wrong?

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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It's Not Change If It's The Same

Continued unrest going on over yonder in the sand country of Iran after the incumbent "President" Mahmoud I'm A Dinner Jacket likely had a hand in or some sort of knowledge of the election being rigged to end up in his favor by "defeating" the opponent, a one Mir-Hossein Mousavi. Thousands of folks are protesting in the streets. Iranian government is freaking out and doing absurd things like shutting off access to Facebook and Twitter. (Oh, no! They won't be able to update their status! How FB rude!) Journalists are confined to their hotel rooms. It's not good. But the more I heard about how their whole system works over there, I became rather confused as to why what is going on is actually going on.

OK, so the throngs of people protesting in the sand are upset because they believe that their candidate, ol' Mousavi, was robbed! They're acting as if he was going to be the President Barry of Tehran. Um, not quite. See, this will come as a HUGE shock to you, but they don't do things in Iran the same way that they are done in the United States. The US has processes of electing a leader that are actually like electing a leader. Anyone who meets the requirements can run and can theoretically be elected. And the requirements are pretty basic. You just have to be a certain age and have been born in this country. (And by the way, for the very reason that someone who has been born in a foreign land cannot be President is the exact same reason why it is going to mean eventual disaster by the US continuing to ignore the illegal immigration problem and allowing folks to not only live in this country illegally but to provide them with services as well! But no one is screaming that it's "anti-immigrant" to not let an immigrant become President. Hmmm.) Not so in Iran.

In Iran, they have what they call the Council of Guardians which consists of 12 clerics who sort of vet the folks who apply to be a candidate. Usually hundreds of people apply, none of which are women because of course, they're forbidden in Iran from running for President. God, could you imagine how great that would be if they were allowed to run and one of 'em won? It'll never happen, but I do think it has pretty good Hollywood crappy comedy movie potential. So the guys who are running for President have been approved of by this Council of Guardians who seem to be kind of like the Paula, Randy and Simon of the Middle East, only there's twelve of them.

And the position of President of Iran is not as it is in the United States. It's not even how it "used to be" in the United States (because now the President of the United States is some sort of travelling rock star who wows us with his ability to swat flies and eat burgers all at the same time as he saves the world from utter destruction.). Iran also has something called the Supreme Leader. NOT Diana Ross. The Supreme Leader is a one Ayatollah Khamenei. I don't think he's the same Ayatollah Khomeni from a few years back, so I can just assume that they recycle the names of their leaders in the same way that they're all named Mohammed. But his title is just as it sounds: Completely made up and the supreme leader of the country.

The President of Iran has very little power that he himself can assert. You wouldn't know it the way ol' Ferret Face is always shooting off his mouth, would you? The Supreme Leader is the one calling the shots. The President of Iran can appoint people to his cabinet, but regardless as to what they do or they decide, the Supreme Leader can reject anything he wants to. He also the commander-in-chief of the armed and police forces; the head the state ministry in control of television and radio; and he's in charge of the country's judiciary. Oh, yeah. And he gets to be Supreme Leader for the rest of his life. It's like a tenured dictator. Nice.

So the guy will have not a lot of ability or influence for change unless that sort of change is OK with the Supreme Leader. Seems strange that people are as gung-ho as they are for what would appear to be the status quo. But what kind of a guy is Mousavi? According to a one Robert Baer over yonder there at TIME Magazine, Mousavi, who was the "Prime Minister from 1981 to 1989, almost certainly had a hand in the planning of the Iranian-backed truck-bombing attacks on the U.S. embassy in April 1983 and the Marine barracks in October of 1983." Hmmm. Soooooo....he's an alleged truck-bombing planner. Well, maybe that was just a one time thing? Um, probably not. Remember, the 1980s were when Iran was wanting to go all terrorist on the United States' ass. And there he was, leading the charge from the Prime Minister throne or whatever it is they have over there to sit their sandy asses on.

Remember when Iran took all of those US folks hostage back in 1979. When interviewed in 1981, Mousavi's take on it was "It was the beginning of the second stage of our revolution. It was after that we discovered our true Islamic identity." I see. Oh, and he also appointed a guy to be the ambassador to Damascus who was the main truck bombing planner guy and who coordinated the taking of Lebanese hostages in his spare time. (And one of the coordinators of the whole 1979 hostage taking fiasco over there in Iran? Allegedly and assumed to be none other than I'm A Dinner Jacket himself. Birds of a feather, these folks are, I'm tellin' ya.)

Those sorts of extra curricular activities got him noticed by Mousavi who then put him in charge of the Interior Ministry which seemed to be rather down on democracy. He also has referred to the US as "The Great Satan". Hey, at least he knows we're great, so I can't really complain about that content. Oh, but I can complain that he's just like I'm A Dinner Jacket in that he has publicly stated that he would like to see Israel annihilated from the map.

Yeah, I'm not so much thinking that this Mousavi guy is the Changey McOptimism that he's been portrayed to be in the media. He sounds almost exactly like Dinner Jacket. Only not so much of an overt and blatant jackass.

So this is all where my confusion lies. I don't understand why everyone thinks this Mousavi guy is so great. I don't understand why people seem to be acting as if the President of Iran actually wields any real power. I don't understand why this has been portrayed as an injustice of a democratic election process. The Supreme Leader has final say over who the Council of Guardians approves to even RUN for President, so doesn't that kind of give everyone a hint that the result was fixed before it even started? I can see folks being upset that it's not the democratic society that Iran wants to say that it is. But this election is nothing new as it's been like that for a while. But why all of the support for Mousavi? He's not different, he's not change, he'd have no power, so who cares who is President? It certainly doesn't seem like anything to go out and get yourself killed over because at the end of the day, what the Supreme Leader wants is what the Supreme Leader gets. So if anyone can shed some light on what I"m missing here and why the swooning masses over the Dinner Jacket twin there, I'd really appreciate it.

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I'm A Dinner Jacket and the Fraudulent Election

If you're going to rig a country's election or if you're going to orchestrate a completely fraudulent election (custom made to look like an honest-to-goodness, real election), you're probably doing so for more than one reason but with likely only one goal. That goal would be "to win". Wait. Actually, that goal would be "to be declared the winner" as you haven't really won anything. And the reasons that you're doing that are because a) you're an a-hole and, b) you knew you were going to lose. Regardless of the reasons, if you're going to go ahead and fake the whole thing up so that you can stay in power, it would probably be a good idea to at least wait a reasonable amount of time after the polls close before you declare yourself the winner. I mean, after all, when there are almost 40,000,000 paper ballots to be counted by hand, your saying, "I win!" only 12 hours after the polls close is going to draw some scrutiny. A little bit.

Welcome to Iran! Meet the President of Iran, a one Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Behold! That name is obviously a mouthful, but the correct pronunciation comes easily if you can remember that it sounds strikingly similar to "I'm a dinner jacket." (It was recently pointed out to me that "Aqua dinner jacket" kind of sounds closer to the real thing. It's still kind of a toss up, but I'll concede that "Aqua dinner jacket" is closer sounding. It's also quite a bit gayer sounding.) If you still can't remember how to pronounce it, you can always go with the reliable ol' standby: Ferret Face.

I'm a Ferret Faced Dinner Jacket was believed to be trailing in the polls to his most formidable opponent, a one Mir Hossein Mousavi. (You can attempt to pronounce that with some clever little mnemonic as we've done with Dinner Jacket, or you can just go with another ol' standby: Mr. Completely Unpronounceable. Or just MCP. Your choice. Both refer to the same guy, the seemingly actual winner who is now the seemingly designated loser.) There was a pretty large turnout at the polls as well. Usually when people are going for the status quo, they don't turn out in droves to support that. Usually a high turnout at the polls means that folks want change and they want it bad enough to get up off of their sandy rear end and go vote for it en masse.

So you can imagine the "surprise" when only 12 hours after the polls closed, final results were announced by authorities who do that sort of announcing and they said Ferret Face wins. For the sake of something to compare the timing of that announcement to, in recent past elections, it has taken at least twice as long to count up all of the votes. Oh, yeah. Did I mention they count them by hand? They do. Did I mention that the ballot counters have bionic limbs? Yeah, they don't. So there's pretty much no way that 39,200,000 ballots were all counted in about 12 hours. That's about 3,266,666 an hour. 54,444 per minute. 907 per second. I was previously unaware of the speed at which Iranians can count election ballots, some of which had write-in candidates which are also supposed to be counted. Has someone contacted the Guinness Book of World Records because I'm pretty sure that this is one. The Fastest Ballot Counting Nation. It can go in the section next to all of the miraculous achievements by the platform shoe wearing, porn loving, ladies glasses donning dictator of North Korea, Kim Jong IL. His feats include hitting a hole in one the very first time he ever swung a golf club and making eleven, yes eleven, eleven hole in ones in ONE round of golf.

Correct. All of those achievements will be found in the fiction section.

What's the hurry, Dinner Jacket? I mean, if you're going to rig your election, you already know that you're going to win. YOU were the one who rigged it. There's no need to be nervous that you might end up losing when you've fixed the outcome. So why not pace yourself a little bit more? Why not drag the ballot counting out for a while so that there wouldn't be so much distrust and suspicion about whether or not your really rapid results are even real? Because now you've got a mess on your hands. You've got people rioting in the streets (and I'm not talking some wussy rioting like the losers down in LA were doing when the Lakers, led by Kobe Bryant, the rapist, won the NBA Championship), you've got 100,000 people marching through Tehran in protest. It all has a very Tiananmen-y Square-ish feel to it, which worries me.

The Iranian government (if that's what you insist on calling it) has different levels and it makes it difficult to really know who is making the decisions that are made. Dinner Jacket is the President. But they also have what they call a "supreme leader". Behold! A Supreme leader!

Of Iran! The Supreme leader of Iran! For cryin' out loud. Behold!

That's better. That's a one Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. As his title implies, he is the leader and a supreme one at that. His say is final when it comes to all matters in Iran. He didn't seem to think that there was a problem with having the candidate that he endorsed win the election. He said it was a "divine assessment." No word on who or what was responsible for that assessment, but I'm just going to assume that it's him. He has just announced that there's going to be a recount. And for some reason, people seem to think that this is a good thing. (And actually, it would be if it were in any way real or genuine.)

Let me spell this out for those who think that something is going to change with a recount. The Grand Poobah over there, that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei guy (who I shall begin referring to as AAK), he supports Dinner Jacket. If he thought that Dinner Jacket was going to lose the election, what do you think he'd do as someone in the position of Supreme leader? Yes! He'd make damn sure that his guy won! He wouldn't take his time doing that or anything, but that's what he'd do and it would appear that is what he has done. So why anyone would think that a ballot recount by a guy who had to have been in on the (alleged) fraudulent election results fiasco is going turn out any different the second time. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if they do a recount and then say "Oh, we made a mistake. Dinner Jacket didn't win with 62.6 percent of the vote. Yeah, he won with EIGHTY. Thank you, come again!"

Unfortunately, I don't see the outcome of this election changing. Remember, Aqua Dinner Jacket is a Holocaust denier and when he spoke in the US last year he declared that Iran "does not have homosexuality. I do not know where you heard that we do." All I'm saying is that his credibility is right around a little bit less than zero. And as I write this, seven people have been killed so far. Of course the story is that those 7 tried to attack a "military location", but if you believe that then perhaps you might want to start wearing some of that riot gear that the Iranian authorities are wearing. You know, just to protect your melted ice cream soft head from your own self! I have the feeling that the number of folks killed will hit double digits today and only go up from there as it would seem that a Tienanmen Square like debacle is entirely possible.

Good luck, you guys. While I commend your standing up for the democratic process and what is right, don't do anything dumb that's going to end up with your body being riddled with bullets. This is one of the instances in which I don't think that the 'safety in large numbers' strategy applies.

And this story wouldn't be complete without mentioning how much the media sucks. This is a huge deal. CNN used to be the leader in breaking news. Not so much anymore. The folks over there at ReadWriteWeb wrote a piece (which you can view via that link) stating that "Hours after Iranian police began clashing with tens of thousands of people in the street, the top story on CNN.com remains peoples' confusion about the switch from analog TV signals." But you know where you could find up to date, breaking information on the story? Twitter. Good Lord. We're as doomed as the Iranian election is.

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