Kucinich Withdraws from Presidential Race

Good night, sweet prince, And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!

(Okay, a little overly dramatic.)

In order to focus on his Congressional re-election in November and due to very little in the way of voter support, Dennis Kucinich has pulled his name from the hat that is the Democratic Race for President. The only candidate who staunchly and always opposed the war and funding for the war - strength through peace, the only candidate who understood the evils of insurance company rule and pushed for the only not-for-profit healthcare plan, is gone from the national stage.

I'd tell you what he said in his speech, but he barely touched upon Iraq on Headline News - about 20 seconds into speaking - when they cut away. No other news station was carrying the speech or announcement.

I'd like to give you a link, but none of the news stations are reporting it, even though CNN had it's "World's End" red banner up half an hour before Fred Thompson dropped out.

No more media outlets have to vigorously work with lawyers to silence dissenting opinion, but even as he pulls out, the media have to be dicks about it.

I hope one of the three still running learned something from him, but their silence on his exclusion raises no hopes of that. And now I have to pick one of them before Ohio. This is going to take a lot of wine.

When Google's Parents Leave Home

Here's a bit from Cracked about the internets! Yay!

Military Misses Recruiting Goals Again in 2007

From NationalPriorities.com:

For the third consecutive year, the Army missed DoD benchmarks set for educational attainment and scores on the Armed Forces Qualification Test. The DoD has a goal that 90 percent of new recruits have a regular high school diploma or better.

...The proportion of active-duty Army recruits in tier 1 has dropped from 83.5 percent in 2005 to 70.7 percent in 2007. While the benchmark of 90 percent was also missed in 2005, the percentages have not been this low for at least 20 years. In 2006, the result was 73.1 percent.

Nevada with 54.1 percent, Montana with 58.2 percent, and Mississippi with 59.2 percent had the lowest percentages of recruits that were tier 1.

Considering that a high school education is the single greatest predictor of whether the investment we put in these young men and women will stick, perhaps we should take a good, hard look at the reasons people don't want to go: they're entering an endless war without the right equipment where Bushie can write "As long as I want" on their contract, regardless of what they signed. If they get physically hurt, they'll get poor care, and if they're psychologically affected by killing and seeing friends and enemies die, you'll be ignored.

Hey, maybe if we stopped feeding the military industrial complex our young men like logs into a wood chipper, fighting a war we can't win for the benefit of corporations, then maybe we wouldn't have this problem. Maybe we could focus on getting the young man or woman a GED instead of worrying that they don't have one before giving them a weapon and tossing them in the shit. Just a thought.

Notes on the Democratic South Carolina Debate, Jerry Springer and All

Honestly, at the beginning of the debate when Wolf declared that they were going to "get a real conversation going," I laughed out loud. If I only knew.

As we get down to brass tacks and Kucinich is left in the silent dust of the media deciding who we need to hear from, this review of the debate is a little more critical, especially when it comes to sunshine and roses promises and ideas.

Here's your bullets:

• Hillary's repeated call for a "moratorium" on foreclosures for 90 days: I'm calling BS. She's not going to get anything done any time soon, so it's a short-lived call for false hope for the very few people that would benefit from it; you can give a horse 90 days but that doesn't mean that they'll work things out to keep their house. Part of this foreclosure issue is that some people are not responsible enough to simply pick up the phone and try to work it out with the bank. Feeding someone 90 days will not stimulate responsibility. Some people simply shouldn't own a home.


• Someone who has and in with the Edwards campaign, please direct him to take off that eyesore of a watch; it distracted me from the already-minuscule time he was able to get his mug on screen.

Item! Upcoming Notes from Ricky Shambles

It's always good to have something to look forward to. Actually, the posts are upcoming, not the notes. Sorry for the disappointment. Well, the notes are technically upcoming, but right here. Now. Really, just below this sentence.

1. More Debate Notes Just because you can't stomach it doesn't mean you can't enjoy the gems that fall from the verbal feces on both sides! I, your loyal reporter, will be constantly monitoring the schedules, vigorously viewing the Democratic and Republican debates, and coming back to you with only the essentials. Next installment: Tomorrow. Enjoy and thank the higher power you are not me.

2. World Net Daily's January Witch Hunt I was floating about the WND site - because I'm a romantic and I need pain in my life - when my eye spied a wonderfully fey, made-up woman looking something out of A Midsummer Night's Dream or Legend and the heavy title "Witchcraft in America." It's WND's WTF January Whistleblower. Looks like some of the basic conservative rhetoric explaining that Christians think Wicca is the devil while leaving out the part of Christianity's devil-ing of anything pagan starting some 1900 years ago while only flirting with aspirations of becoming an imperialistic religion. Seems it's even more terrifying now, though, because soldiers - God help us, soldiers - are worshiping overseas (implied: Christians > Muslims > Pagans). Anyway, I'll be chipping in my $7.50 for you, yes, you, so I can read it, become outraged, and you, too can be outraged and save almost $10. That's the kind of guy I am.

3. Best to Come: Creation Museum Holy crap, I found out in the last month or two that, here in Cincinnati, I live a river crossing from one of the biggest and bestest and well-funded Creation Museums in the region. I giggle at the prospect and get butterflies knowing that in the next 3 weeks, I will be attending, and I will be blogging. There will be snark. There will be pictures. And we can we can all have a good laugh at Intelligent Design as notScience.

I'll keep knocking out the posts until the last of you lingers nevermore. Thanks for your time!