I went to California in December to go through my storage unit. I donated most stuff, threw some stuff away, sold some things and shipped 4.5 cubic meters of my belongings to Croatia. Those things arrived yesterday and I should be picking them up soon.
Being in LA was hell. I hate it there. It was nice to see my friends, though.
Since returning, work has been pretty steadily heavy. I bought a new Wacom Cintiq 12 inch and have been warming up to my new toy. It's pretty great. For those who don't know, a Cintiq is a tablet for painting that has a monitor built right into it, so your drawing is directly under your hand. Very cool.
And, of course, I've been absorbed by the primary elections in the States. I don't usually write about politics here as I want this bog to be more about culture and sharing good things rather than arguing over policy or candidates or whatnot. But, I've gotta break that silence.
I strongly dislike Hillary Clinton and feel that if she wins she will be a bad President. People are nostalgic for Bill Clinton. But this is simple because Bush is SO retarded and SUCH a bad president. He's fucked. So Bill, by comparison seems amazing. But he wasn't. He was nothing stellar and in fact dragged the Democrats to the right by co-opting Republican policies and claiming them as his own. I, for one do not miss him. And for those stating that Hillary is her own candidate, please. Gimme a break. She's the worst kind of disingenuous politician there is. She's full of shit. Her and her husband seek out power for its own sake. They aren't merely seeking to help people out as they so often say.
Barack Obama is by FAR the better candidate. He's shown regularly and consistently that he thinks out issues and makes a decision based on a strong ability to understand the issues and what's best for his constituents.
But, to be honest, I am more against Hillary than I am for Obama. I don't want my entire life ruled by rotating dynasties of bad presidencies. What, we'll have had Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton? Then what? Jeb Bush runs in 8 years? Fuck that. It's already been 20 years of 2 families running the States and that's more than enough for me. Give the next generation a chance.
And, if you doubt that Hillary will do anything to seek out power, check this out:
CLINTON TRIES TO REINSTATE MICHIGAN AND FLORIDA'S DELEGATES.
This is a very, very, very big deal. From the Clinton campaign:
I hear all the time from people in Florida and Michigan that they want their voices heard in selecting the Democratic nominee.
I believe our nominee will need the enthusiastic support of Democrats in these states to win the general election, and so I will ask my Democratic convention delegates to support seating the delegations from Florida and Michigan. I know not all of my delegates will do so and I fully respect that decision. But I hope to be President of all 50 states and U.S. territories, and that we have all 50 states represented and counted at the Democratic convention.
I hope my fellow potential nominees will join me in this.
I will of course be following the no-campaigning pledge that I signed, and expect others will as well.
This is the sort of decision that has the potential to tear the party apart. In an attempt to retain some control over the process and keep the various states from accelerating their primaries into last Summer, the Democratic National Committee warned Michigan and Florida that if they insisted on advancing their primary debates, their delegates wouldn't be seated and the campaigns would be asked not to participate in their primaries. This was agreed to by all parties (save, of course, the states themselves).
With no one campaigning, Clinton, of course, won Michigan -- she was the only Democrat to be on the ballot, as I understand it, which is testament to the other campaign's beliefs that the contest wouldn't count -- and will likely win Florida. And because the race for delegates is likely to be close, she wants those wins to matter. So she's fighting the DNC's decision, and asking her delegates -- those she's already won, and those she will win -- to overturn it at the convention. She's doing so right before Florida, to intensify her good press in the state, where Obama is also on the ballot. And since this is a complicated, internal-party matter that sounds weird to those not versed in it (of course Michigan and Florida should count!), she's adding a public challenge that, if the other Democrats deny, will make them seem anti-Michigan and Florida.
But if this pushes her over the edge, the Obama camp, and their supporters, really will feel that she stole her victory. They didn't contest those states because they weren't going to count, not because they were so committed to the DNC's procedural arguments that they were willing to sacrifice dozens of delegates to support it. It's as hard as hardball gets, and the end could be unimaginably acrimonious. Imagine if African-American voters feel the rules were changed to prevent Obama's victory, if young voters feel the delegate counts were shifted to block their candidate.
Ezra Klein
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