Blog Outsourcing 1.0

There were a shit ton of people downtown yesterday.
And they were all sweating, because for the first time in roughly six decades, not a cloud was in the sky in Western PA. The Hockey Gods have a way of keeping your ass in line.

The "Election Commission" in Iran agreed to do a recount.
Let's hope they have a better sense of fairness than, say, the 2000 United States Supreme Court. It's Iran, so we're not too optimistic about it.

PA State Senator Jim Ferlo wants you to protest during the G20 summit.
We don't love state government here at tRBT, but that was ballsy. Much respect to Senator Ferlo. Now tell them to be gentle; they'll be amongst champions.

As if the Republican Party hasn't done enough in the past few months to look like racist assholes,
They go and pull another one of these moves off. Hopefully this will teach them that things circulate pretty quickly online. Granted a racist depiction of Barack Obama isn't a cell phone pic of Miley Cyrus striking a pose in a bikini top, it still managed to get around the net.

Charles Darwin the art influence?
The scientist and author of On the Origin of Species apparently is also responsible for some pretty sweet 19th Century art. Mr. Darwin was not available for comment, as he is not only deceased but also serving out his sentence of eternity in the dark, fiery chasms of Hell.

**UPDATE**
I did not realize that my two favorite blogs do a very similar segment (Empty Netter Assists and Cheap Blogging Crutch). Since our blog was created as a not-so-subtle rip-off of these two respected sources, suck it.

This looks familiar...kinda...

Okay, let's compare histories here.

We have a relatively young nation, first populated by aborigine natives, then as a colony before its inhabitants revolted and fought for its independence.

Early on, the nation had a spiritual awakening of sorts. There of course was a backlash, followed by a massive influx of religious fervor and fundamentalism that never really left the nation's identity, no matter how behind-the-scenes it got.

Now, this is where the histories of the United States and Iran divide, somewhat. We are not ruled by a group of clerics led by an Ayatollah. We're not conspiracy theorists, so we're not going to even go there comparatively. But we both, at the peak of our societal, scientific and technological abundance, elected crazy, fundamentalist, creepy presidents in a massively divided election.

Mahmoud is to Georgie what Luke is to Owen Wilson.

Both were (and are) people who are preparing for the Second Coming of their respective deities, both made their way into the political spotlight through essentially empty religious and moral rhetoric, and both were presidents wanting to make a name for themselves; especially when taking hard lines against their respective enemies (Israel for Mahmoud, Iraq for Georgie). Both of their respective parties have been accused of serious voter suppression, Mahmoud's being the obvious extreme case.

Both won both of their terms in nail-biter elections, and, again, this is where our histories divide. Tehran has burst into righteous flames; all we did after Kerry lost was threaten to move to Canada. Actually, we were sparked into more protests in 2000 than 2004.

Where are we going with all of this? Well, people are getting bludgeoned by plainclothes militiamen in the street, the youth are absolutely going batshit insane on anything they can get their hands on and Iran in general is on the brink of civil war. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of real reflections and assessments that can be made about how to handle this from a foreign policy standpoint, and what are our friends across the aisle saying?

Mitt Romney, whose creepy religious beliefs and shady past huckster practices not only got in the way of getting nominated a presidential candidate but also made Sarah Palin a better choice for a vice presidential candidate, says it's proof that Obama's "Apology" tour throughout the world is not working.

Listen up, Mitt. For the first time ever, Iranians have disobeyed the protest ban. They know the election, like your career, is a sham. To make a statement like that, to say that this is proof that running around the world apologizing to nations (something that President Obama has not done) is not effective is so asinine, so shortsighted and so blatantly opposed to whatever is "left-wing" that it is actually no surprise that it came out of your mouth and is representative of a (thank goodness) quickly dying political belief. Fuck you.

Okay, I feel better.