Stickybuffalo.com

so i do this thing sometimes, for perverse reasons i don’t fully understand, where i email spammers back. i doubt anybody ever reads them, but i get some jollies out of it.

i think this is the first time i’ve written one of these emails back to a list that i willingly signed up for.

stimulus:

from Mitch Stewart, BarackObama.com info@barackobama.com
reply-to info@barackobama.com
to josh@stickybuffalo.com
date Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 11:05 AM
subject Now, it’s our turn

On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 11:05 AM, Mitch Stewart, BarackObama.com wrote:

>
> Joshua –
>
> Last night, President Obama called on our representatives to pass health reform that brings stability and security to Americans who have insurance, affordable coverage to those who don’t, and reins in the cost of care.
>
> Now, it’s our turn. After last night’s speech, members of Congress have no doubt about where the President stands. But to win this fight, we must show that Americans from every state and every background support his plan — and we need Congress to do the same.
>
> Click here to call your representatives, and then tell us how it went. According to our records, you live in Iowa’s 2nd congressional district. Please call:
>
> Sen. Chuck Grassley’s Cedar Rapids office at (319) 363-6832
> Sen. Tom Harkin’s Cedar Rapids office at (319) 365-4504
> Rep. Dave Loebsack’s Iowa City office at (319) 351-0789
>
>
> (Not your representatives? Click here to look yours up.)
>
> Call your representatives, and tell whoever answers where you are from and that you watched the President’s address.
>
> Then tell them that you want your representatives to support the President’s plan, ask them where they stand — and thank them if they already clearly support it.
>
> Don’t forget to click here to let us know what they said.
>
> Hundreds of thousands of folks will be calling, so please try again if you get a busy signal.
>
> This movement has brought us to a historic moment where reform is within reach. Now your energy and commitment are needed to get us the rest of the way.
>
> Please call today:
>
> http://my.barackobama.com/CongressCall
>
> Mitch
>
> Mitch Stewart
> Director
> Organizing for America
>
>Donate
>
>
> Paid for by Organizing for America, a project of the Democratic National Committee — 430 South Capitol Street SE, Washington, D.C. 20003. This communication is not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.
>
> This email was sent to: josh@stickybuffalo.com
>
> To unsubscribe, go to: http://my.barackobama.com/unsubscribe

response:

From: josh@stickybuffalo.com
Date: Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 12:39 PM
Subject: No, it’s still HIS turn
To: info@barackobama.com

Mitch,

You guys have some solid brass cojones on you. You follow up the defining capitulation of Obama’s first (only?) term by trying to rally the faithful, mindless beasts of burden that we are, once more unto the breach. For what? You just punted on the one proposal that had a snowball’s chance in hell of addressing the problem he so eloquently outlined last night, a proposal he campaigned and won on — which, by the way, still has broad majority support among the public, despite the summer’s barrage of insane demagoguery that you guys utterly failed to anticipate or respond to.

If the President isn’t willing to fight, or even put up the pretense of willingness to fight, for the public option, where does that leave us? Where does he get off asking “us” to sacrifice more time and energy to help America swallow whatever nuggets of “reform” might be coaxed from the suppurating, campaign-contribution-lubricated asshole of Max Baucus? Maybe if we work real hard we can get ourselves mandated into buying private insurance with no provision for making it affordable — that’s one big bowl of shit I can’t wait to dig into! I’ll be sure to call my congressman right away.

Brass fucking balls. If only you’d show the same testicular fortitude in confronting the insurance lobby and the shrieking idiots, instead of pissing on the people who worked to get you elected, maybe we’d get some real reform. Until that day comes, good luck with this turd of a presidency — I’m sitting out 2012.

Josh

P.S. My favorite touch is how you remembered to include the “Donate” link at the bottom of the email. You guys are friggin’ adorable! Sorry, I need that money to pay my exponentially increasing health insurance premiums.

There’s flip-flopping, and then there’s this. Pheeew.

But in all fairness to John McCain, the disconnect runs deeper in the GOP. How do you premise your entire economic platform on keeping government’s dirty mitts off our sacred financial institutions, then insist the government bail them out when they inevitably succumb to the too-predictable consequences of unchecked, boneheaded, myopic greed? How to reconcile the yawning discrepancy between these two postures? Let me give it a shot…

Everybody knows that free markets are identical with freedom and state planned economies are evil. Taking over an entire industry is about the most evil thing a government can do, but only when that industry is successful. See, when a foreign government dares to nationalize a critical economic resource — let’s say oil — because its private owners — who, just for fun, let’s postulate have their home offices on Wall Street — have failed to handle that national resource in a way that sustains that nation’s economy or benefits its people… well, that’s bad. Real bad. We go to war over stuff like that when other people do it.

But when our own financial institutions get into trouble, the government has to take control in order to right the ship. Otherwise, the economy would suffer! It may seem unfair to expect taxpayers to bail out companies that do stupid, evil things that ultimately lead to their own undoing. But things will be even worse if we don’t. It’s all about the public good!

And so you see, it’s not that Republicans are against government oversight of private enterprise. On the contrary, when the shit happens they advocate the same policies as guys like Hugo Chavez. It’s just that they draw a key distinction between assets and liabilities: when a business is successful, hands off! As long as somebody somewhere can theoretically be making money off it, any form of government intervention would be oppressive. BUT, the moment that moneymaking enterprise ceases to make money and instead creates problems, it’s on the rest of us to dig the moneymakers out of the hole they have dug for us all.

I hope that clears up any confusion. You may now resume voting Republican on the principle that they’re good with money.

[note: this started as a response to charlie's tour de france post, but got a little too long for the comments thread.]

if you think that’s bad, just wait ’til 2012, when gene doping will be in full flower just in time for london.

“It is possible to introduce genes into people and change the DNA of some of their cells, genes that affect the way muscles function or the way that they heal after injury,” he said.

Although gene doping is probably still in its infancy, as techniques become more sophisticated naturally occurring hormones could be boosted or altered to enhance performance.

“In mice and in monkeys and in other tests that have been done, the animals have shown increased amount of blood production,” Dr Friedmann said. “Those mice have in fact become much stronger and much more muscular.”

…and we’re still at least a decade away from developing a test that will be able to detect it. some think it’s already going on in beijing this summer:

Dr Peter Larkins is a former head doctor for Australia’s athletics team and past president of Sports Medicine Australia.

“I think it is happening now,” he says of gene doping.

“I can’t believe that 10 years after gene therapy has been proven and we have mice that grow muscles twice the size of normal mice and mice that are called marathon mice because they run all day, I can’t believe the scientists who have been unethical enough to help athletes cheat for the last 30 years aren’t giving that technology to some people.

” Associate Professor Bob Stewart, a drugs-in-sport expert from Victoria University, is also pessimistic.

“We just have to accept the fact that athletes and biochemists are a jump ahead of the WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) testers,” he says.

“accept facts”??! sounds like surrender talk to me!

seriously, though. the puritans and drug warriors and self-deluded nostalgia mongers who run professional sports (yes, the olympics are a pro outfit) have an extremely simple choice to make: either figure out a way to remove big money from the equation, or deal with the fact that athletes as a group are going to continue doing whatever is required of them to stay competitive. it’s unreasonable — hell, it’s unfair — to expect otherwise from people whose livelihood is competition.

and please, no lectures about sportsmanship and unfair advantages from the olympian sector, when the IOC already sanctions huge technological and economic advantages for certain competitors. why is it that the larger, developed nations always seem to do best in the medal count, anyway? is it because we’re naturally superior, or could it be that our teams enjoy superior training facilities and equipment, better coaches and staff, larger and more competitive recruiting pools, and more all-around institutional support?

drawing the line at drugs seems pitifully arbitrary, especially when the pace of development in the doping sciences is so fast that we can’t even agree on a stable universal definition of what “doping” is in the first place, or in some cases, as charlie notes, how to differentiate between doping and legitimate sports medicine. besides, as long as prohibition prevails and doping happens underground, the aforementioned institutional & economic disparities mean that only the most technologically disadvantaged dopers — the ones who can only afford treatments that the piss police have already figured out how to catch — will get caught.

it seems obvious that the hardline anti-doping stance is more ideological than anything else. but don’t take my word for it: ask WADA chair Dr. Gary Wadler why cannabis is also a no-no:

“Specifically, three criteria are used when considering whether or not a drug should be on the Prohibited List: (a) Does the drug or method have the potential of enhancing performance? (b) Does its abuse represent an actual or potential risk to an athlete’s health? And/or (c) does its use violate the spirit of sport? To be even considered for addition to the Prohibited List, the drug or method under consideration must fulfill at least two of the three aforementioned criteria.

The use of marijuana… is considered to represent a risk to the athlete’s health and its use violates the spirit of sport.”

that is to say, “drugs are bad, m’kay?”