Today is confession day.

1. I like Boston.

I wanted to hate Boston because of all the meatheads who come to Baltimore when the Red Sox are in town and act like jackasses because of a game. But after making my first visit there over the long weekend I discovered that not everyone there is a dickbreath. In fact, the vast majority of people were friendly and helpful and their accents were actually more charming than grating. Granted, I don’t think I saw anything every tourist doesn’t see (aside from running on local streets during a half marathon), and I’m sure I was in places where no local would be caught dead other than to fleece out-of-towners, but even so the people working there were a lot cooler to be around than the dipshits who work the tourist traps of Baltimore. The half marathon I ran was well organized and nicely mapped out and the city was a great host. I’m looking forward to going back.

2. I wear Wal-Mart clothes.

I’m not a very fancy lad, but I do have standards when it comes to clothing. Everything I buy is usually name-brand, although that’s mostly because of quality than status and almost always last seaon’s goods on clearance. I’d rather buy one shirt that lasts a year or two than three than last a few washings. And I’d never ever buy the crap they call clothes at Wal-Mart. Even the socks there suck. Or so I believed. I was there buying some other stuff and walked past a rack of men’s golf polo shirts that caught my eye. They were sharp looking and very cheap ($15 in a material that would cost at least $50 with a big label on it). I tried it on and it fit great felt good, features a collar that does not roll, and is pretty well constructed. It’s probably my favorite polo now. They had other colors and designs and I might go buy more.

3. I really am mellowing in my old age.

I’ve finally come to accept the fact that nothing matters. True, you have to instill character and values into your children and that’s very important, but little things just don’t matter. And everything outside of raising children just doesn’t matter. Lose a $20 bill? Doesn’t matter. Your favorite team loses a big game? Doesn’t matter. Got fired from your job? Doesn’t matter. Girl cheats on/dumps you? It just doesn’t matter. Even the stupid things my kids do, in the grand scheme of things, don’t matter. They’re dumb kids. They’re not supposed to know everything right off the bat. No matter what happens or however tightly wound we are in life, once we’re dead we’re not going to have any control over anything aside from maybe a few legal orders. And 100 years after we die we might be a picture on someone’s holodrive, but no one is going to really know what were about or what we affected in life. So there’s no sense in worrying about stupid shit now. It took me nearly 40 years, but I get it now.

Answering the call of nature before you wet your pants kind of matters though, so see ya.

The more I learn about Barack Obama, the less I like him. It has nothing to do with who his pastor is, or who his wife is, or the color of his skin or anything else meaningless. It has everything to do with his voting record, his policies (which are virtually identical to Hillary Clinton’s), and his rhetoric. How can anyone hear a speech of his, listen to him say something like this and not be scared shitless:

Pitching his message to Oregon’s environmentally-conscious voters, [Barack] Obama called on the United States to “lead by example” on global warming, and develop new technologies at home which could be exported to developing countries.

“We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK,” Obama said.

“That’s not leadership. That’s not going to happen,” he added.

I have nothing against the U.S. developing and exporting new technologies to help combat whatever problems there are in the world both real and imagined, but for a president to hold our country to a standard that others set for us is just plain frightening. And this was Obama in his oratorical pre-written speechifying glory and not him off-the-cuff, where he usually stumbles.

Why can’t we drive SUVs? Why can’t we eat how much we want? Why can’t we set the thermostats to whatever we want? I pay to drive and maintain my vehicle. I pay for the food I and my family eat. I pay for the energy to heat and cool my home. Is Obama saying that the government should dictate to me what to drive, eat and set my thermostat to just to keep Europe and the rest of the world happy? And if so, how can any Obama supporter be ok with that yet bitch about the supposed loss of liberties suffered under the Bush presidency? To be honest, I’d much rather have the FBI tap my phone line to discover I’m not a terrorist than have it knock on my door to check that I’m putting the correct amounts of government-approved chow on my dinner table.

And why does the world only look to the U.S. for leadership when that leadership will cause to weaken us as a world power? And how in the hell can Obama fall in line with this? Why do countries like China and India get free passes when it comes to “global warming” because they’re emerging economies (although I’d argue that China’s has emerged) rather than control their emmisions before they get out of hand? The world is against us in any matter that will benefit us and I will not vote for a candidate who will sit down with other world leaders and let them tell us how to run our affairs.

(on a side note, check this out:

In 2004 the total greenhouse gas emissions from the People’s Republic of China were about 54% of the USA emissions. However, China is now building on average one coal-fired power plant every week, and plans to continue doing so for years. Various predictions see China overtaking the US in total greenhouse emissions between late 2007 and 2010, and according to many other estimates, this already occurred in 2006. [Citing can be found on the wikipedia page.]

Both China and India were exempted from the Kyoto Accord, which the U.S. rightfully refused to sign off on because it would have weakened our economy significantly. BTW, the Kyoto Accord set China’s exemption based on production of greenhouse gasses at 1999 levels. Based on the above that 1999 number is completely irrelevant, yet still in force. But that’s ok because whenever the world tells China to do something anyway China tells the world to go fuck itself and the world says ok and goes harder after the U.S.A.)

This is an extremely shitty year for presidential candidates, and if people think it’s been bad for the last eight years, they ain’t seen nothing yet. Regardless of who emerges victorious.

But god help us especially if it’s Barack Obama.