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January 25th, 2008
10:54 pm
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Waffles and Terbos*
Amusing Craigslist post. Which I'm just linking because it's amusing. I have no interest in its outcome. Nope. None whatsoever.**

Meanwhile, back here in the hinterlands*** of California, the race is heating up in the primaries for the CA-04 House seat. Rep. John Doolittle, who is a venal, obsessive, science-hating, greedy shell of a man, finally threw in the towel on his lengthy congressional reign. The stink of the ongoing Abramoff-related corruption investigation was definitely a factor. Good riddance; he's been an unrepentant embarrassment since I moved here, and even replacing him with another rubber-stamp Republican would be a huge step for basic political decency.

Now the question is coming up: Who will run for his seat this year? The Democratic field is settled -- and Charlie Brown has my unqualified support in the general election -- but in the Republican primary, the horse race is just heating up.

The biggest names ready to jump into the fray -- Oller and Ose -- are carpetbaggers. Gaines, who was one of the few local Repubs willing to call Doolittle out over his scandals (and who got excoriated as a "weasel" for his efforts and nearly got censured by the county GOP), isn't running despite early speculation.

But, fortunately, there is someone in the GOP primary who I can wholeheartedly endorse.

I am not a Republican. But, while I often disagree with their principles, I respect what the GOP is supposed to stand for. One CA-04 candidate is a proud, sane Republican -- a man who knows that conservatism is about sane foreign policy rather than belligerence; that our goal is to prevent terrorism rather than simply "fight" it in the drunken bar brawl sense; that hating taxes isn't a license to run up record-breaking debt; and that the First Amendment isn't just for fundamentalist Christians who whine about oppression because they can't proselytize on government time.

At their best, conservatives rein in excess spending, ground discussions from theory into science, and slow runaway social upheaval. They serve a necessary function in government. But today's national GOP has come completely unmoored -- the party of legalized torture, endless war, soaring deficits, faith-based policy, and corruption and incompetence. George Bush's GOP is fundamentally scary; a direct threat to everything America is supposed to stand for. So, even if it meant continued GOP dominance, this liberal would much rather see sane, principled Republicans ascendant than watch the GOP drift further into fascism and/or irrelevance.

Nationally, the best candidate to reclaim the GOP is Ron Paul. And in CA-04, one candidate clearly comes from the same mold.

I am proud to offer the Nevada County dragon community's endorsement for the GOP primary to ...


Ted Terbolizard.


... In other news, a guy named Ted Terbolizard is running for political office. Which is just freakin' cool.****

--
* This would probably make an awesome song name. (Hey, it has precedent.)
** I also did not write it. Which, unlike the non-footnoted protestations, is actually true.
*** What a nifty word!
**** Not to mention ... Charlie Brown vs. Terbolizard. TUUUUUUR-BOOO-LIZARD!***** That's Pay-Per-View GOLD right there.
***** For full effect, scream "TUUUUR-BO!" in the Trogdor voice.

Current Location: ~spiral
Current Mood: amusedTUUUUUUR-BOOO-LIZARD!
Current Music: Shpongle, "Behind Closed Eyelids"
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From:baronlaw
Date:January 26th, 2008 06:52 pm (UTC)
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Doolittle should have been run out of town on a rail. The fact they let him "resign" is a travesty.

Anyway...

TUURRRBOOO LIZARD!

hehehehehe
From:tropism
Date:January 26th, 2008 07:30 pm (UTC)
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Nationally, the best candidate to reclaim the GOP is Ron Paul.

While I agree, I still have to say that Ron Paul would, IMO, be a horrible thing to happen to a significant portion of the US. I love his support of constitutionalism, but on the other hand, the virulent anti-abortion sentiment and the idea of getting the federal government out of regulating education are two things that make me run screaming. His weird bi-currency system is just that -- weird, unwieldy, and unlikely to work. His environmental policies don't exist. He takes the long view -- and I think his long view is halfway decent -- but I think he's grossly wrong on how to get through the middle.

...On the other hand, I like him as a person, which is more than I can say for several of the other candidates.
(Deleted comment)
(Deleted comment)
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From:baxil
Date:January 28th, 2008 08:41 am (UTC)
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Thanks - I read Orcinus, but it's good to have the topical links collected.

I hadn't meant for this post to be as much a political screed as it turned out to be -- it started out as a way to giggle over "Terbolizard." :) But I mean what I say -- despite his faults, Ron Paul is honestly the best chance to turn around the GOP's scariest excesses.

He's no liberal. Anti-abortion, crypto-nativist and social-program,-regulatory-department-killing are not good things to be. But I mean every word of what I said, that I would rather have a hundred Ron Pauls in national government than 50 BushCo kool-aid drinkers. Once we've stopped rattling the Middle East hornet's nest, stopped ferchrissake torturing prisoners, ended the Drug War ... we can argue over the rest. Baby steps.

Also n.b. I have no intention of voting for any Paulites, except in the absence of a good liberal candidate. Charlie Brown's got my vote locked up in November, and even if Paul somehow won the GOP nomination, the only circumstance in which I'd even have to think about it would be if Hillary wins the Dems. (Budding authoritarian tendencies, has sold out on health care, is guaranteed to polarize the country due to the way the GOP froths at her name, and on top of that would be continuing the Bush/Clinton dynasty that's lasted since I was 10.)
From:skipperofarc
Date:January 27th, 2008 05:47 am (UTC)
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I can't believe these are real people's names...
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From:joysweeper
Date:January 28th, 2008 05:21 pm (UTC)
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I already know where my vote's going. I'm finally old enough to vote! Childish glee!

Turbolizard?

*reads again*

_Terbo_lizard.

That's... not much better.

My roommate saw me shaking and thought I was crying. Terbolizard. Terbolizard. Terbolizard.

It doesn't _get_ any better. I'll need to avoid using pronouns for Terbolizard, because... because. Poor Ted Terbolizard, with a name like Terbolizard, Terbolizard must have been really mocked in grade school. What kind of linguistic reasoning is behind a last name like "Terbolizard"? Usually surnames are related to occupation, son-of-X, or something descriptive, in whichever language they are.

The only thing I can think of is that a) There was a civilization before this one which was far more advanced than ours and yet spoke a Latin-derived language, or b) people in the far future discovered time travel and some folks liked to live in this future. Either way, there was some rather odd technology, and Turbolizard is descended from people who raised/built/cared for and/or raced giant reptiles with attached jet engines. Or possibly people who _were_ giant racing reptiles with attached jet engines. Which is awesome.

I'm going to go lie down now. Thanks Bax.
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