I Don't Know What Not To Like

I'm not quite sure why I'm going to take this time to talk about Newt Gingrich because he will never be President. But it does seem like he might be positioning himself for a run at something, so I thought that I'd just get my dislike of him out of the way.

While I know that intellectually, a candidate's personal life shouldn't factor into whether or not the position that they're running for can be performed, I have a hard time getting to that point emotionally. Newt's a cheater. No one likes a cheater. And he didn't just cheat on one of his wives. He cheated on both of them. No one likes a serial cheater. Not even a little bit. Does his being a cheater impact how he would do his job if elected? Intellectually, I wouldn't think that it would. Emotionally? It seems like whatever he said would not be able to be trusted. Especially when he gives lame excuses for why he cheated.

Let's go over to New York Magazine for an explanation of his cheating. "There's no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate." That's right. He was passionate about 'Merika, so that's why he cheated. Intellectually, should that matter? Considering that it's a dumbass excuse and is not very intellectual? Maybe it should!

Then there's the latest dust up that he's answering for. According to Politico, he had "...a “revolving charge account” at Tiffany and Company" with a liability somewhere in between $250,001 and $500,000. At freaking Tiffany's. Tiffany's, known equally for their breakfast as well as their jewelry, is about as uppity as you can get. Now, it could be that he has this account because he buys his wedding rings in bulk. But regardless, does anyone really need over $250 grand in jewelry? I don't think that they do! Should that disqualify someone from being a legitimate candidate for office? I want to say yes, but why does that feel wrong?!

He kind of made a good point on Sunday when he said that "...the spending was his "private decision." He does have a point. He can do whatever he wants with his money, no matter how idiotic I think it may be. (Or no matter how idiotic it just is. And come on! Who needs $250,000 in jewelry? No one! There are SO many other things that one could purchase with that kind of cash! So many BETTER things!) He also claims to be debt free. Should it make a difference if he is able to manage his money to where he incurs a debt and then pays it off? That's sort of the point of having good credit, isn't it? I'm so confused!

Let's review: I can't decide if people who are despicable individuals should be automatically discounted from running for or fulfilling a public office. Emotionally, I say screw 'em. Intellectually, I say it maybe shouldn't matter. Why is emotional me winning?! Why isn't intellectual me dominating this issue?! What is wrong with me? Am I missing something?

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We're One of the Largest WHAT Kind of Countries?!

You know, I don't really know who I'm standing up for here or who I'm defending here. I think that it must just be the truth. Because in the case here, what you're going to hear from other sources is likely going to be wrong, but even the correct version isn't exactly accurate. See why I'm confused? Let's begin.

President Barry felt the need to go over to Egypt and make a speech. Something about bringing the regular world closer to the Muslim world. I'm assuming he means the non-violent Muslim world, because the violent Muslim world, well, there's just no reasoning with those folks. They think that they need to be all bomb-y and kill-y in the name of something for someone. (Or the other way around. I always get confused with my extremist groups, how they like things phrased.) But see, the non-violent Muslim world, I don't think much of the rest of the world has a problem with those folks. I don't. Again, it's the bomb-y and the kill-y ones that I have a problem with.

So he's speech making in Egypt. Yay, President Barry. Or something like that. And during his speech he made an interesting assertion. That assertion being, "One of the points I want to make is, is that if you actually took the number of Muslim Americans, we'd be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world." Um, what?

Yeah. That's what he said. Now, you're going to hear it misquoted from a variety of sources. You're going to hear that he said that the US IS one of the largest Muslim countries in the world. You're going to hear that the US is THE largest Muslim country in the world. And you're going to hear that President Barry wants us to BE the largest Muslim country in the world. All false. All of them.

But back to what he actually said. It's an odd statement in and of itself. "IF you ACTUALLY took the number of Muslim Americans." IF? ACTUALLY? If I actually did that? Well, first of all, why wouldn't I and second of all, why I haven't I been? What in the world is that supposed to mean?

Regardless, it's misleading at best. See, technically, there are 195 countries in the world. I say technically because you can get differing answers on why there isn't only 194 or 19. Answers and reasons which I just can't see getting into right now unless my goal is to bore you half to death. And rest assured, that is NOT my goal. (Hard to tell with some posts, I realize, but I swear, not my goal.) So in order to technically qualify as "one of the largest Muslim countries in the world" all you really need to do is break into the top 97 1/2 countries and you can say that you're "one of the largest" in the world.

Well, if you come in at 97 1/2 (quite the feat considering we're talking about countries, I realize), sure, you're "one of the largest", but you're not larger than the other 96 1/2 ahead of you. (And 96 or 97 of something, when you only have 195 of that thing, that's a lot of that thing!) And that's sort of how the United States stacks up in terms of where it stands as a "Muslim country".

See, I think of a "Muslim country" as one that is just chock full o'Muslims and runs on Muslim. I don't think of the United States as a "Muslim country", regardless as to how many Muslims are living here, mainly because we don't run on Muslim. But even if I wanted to think of the US as a "Muslim country" I'd have to think again because the United States comes in 52nd in terms of the sheer number of Muslims in a particular country and it doesn't even rank in the top 60 in terms of the percentage of Muslim population to the entire population. That all according to Wikipedia. Again, remember that anyone can edit Wikipedia, so you've kinda gotta take it for what it's worth there, but it seems rather inclusive.

The United States, in terms of number of Muslims in the general population, comes in as one of "the largest Muslim countries in the world" at number FIFTY TWO and ranks ahead of only Albania, Malawi (Madonna's foreign nation of choice for adopting children from), Kenya, Eritrea, Serbia and Montenegro (for some reason, those two are grouped together. Not sure why, but feel free to delve on your own!), Lebanon, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates in the top 60.

But ranking ahead of the United States in terms of number of Muslims within a country? Well, that would be, starting at the top, Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Turkey, Egypt, Nigeria, Iran, Algeria, Morocco, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Iraq, Uzbekistan, Ethiopia, Russia, Yemen, China, Syria, Malaysia, Tanzania, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Tunisia, Somalia, Guinea, Azerbaijan, Burkina Faso, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Côte d'Ivoire (which is the Ivory Coast. Since when did the Ivory Coast get all fancy on us and start going by Côte d'Ivoire?!), Congo (Kinshasa), Libya, Jordan, Chad, Turkmenistan, Philippines, France, Kyrgyzstan, Uganda, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Cameroon, Thailand, Mauritania, Germany, and Oman. Holy. Crap.

First of all, I'm not totally sure that all of those are real places. I haven't even heard of some of them and I'm fairly well versed on which nations are on this planet. But not well versed enough, apparently. I know at least one of those places is where Borat is from. Other than that, after about the first twenty I don't know a whole lot about most of them with the exception of France and Germany. Wow. France and Germany, really? Check yourselves. That's all I can say. I'm also thinking about the overall well being of those countries and again after the first twenty and with the two exceptions, I can't really say that it's all that great. Coincidence? I don't think that one really has anything to do with the other, I'm just throwing that out there, hoping to incite some sort of online hooplah or something. But seriously, why not more prosperity in countries with largely Muslim populations? It's a legitimate question.

The United States does not even rank at ALL in the top 60 nations when counting the percentage of Muslim citizens. The top 60, in order are: Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Somalia, Maldives, Turkey, Western Sahara, Iran, Algeria, Mauritania, Yemen, Tunisia, Oman, Comoros, Djibouti, Morocco, Pakistan, Libya, Iraq, Tajikistan, Jordan, Qatar, Senegal, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Egypt, Mali, Niger, Gambia, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Syria, Guinea, Kuwait, West Bank and Gaza, Kyrgyzstan, United Arab Emirates, Albania, Brunei, Sudan, Malaysia, Sierra Leone, Lebanon, Burkina Faso, Chad, Nigeria, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Bosnia, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Tanzania, Macedonia, Suriname, Serbia and Montenegro, Mozambique, Cameroon, and Malawi. The United States, with 2,350,000 Muslims (again, according to Wikipedia), would fall somewhere between 61st and 70th by my estimations.

So what's the actual percentage of Muslims in the United States. With a population of 304,059,724 and a Muslim population of 2,350,000 the percentage works out to be 0.00772874476. That's about 0.7 of 1 percent. And yet President Barry is proclaiming the United States to be one of the "largest Muslim countries in the world." What is up with that?

I don't know. I really don't. I'm really not one for a bunch of ass kissing or playing numbers games. One of my favorite parts of President Barry's inauguration speech is when he said "We will no longer apologize for our way of life." Finally! So now we're not apologizing, we're manipulating the numbers to make it look like we don't have anything to apologize for? (And we don't, but I'm just saying.) Look, we can be a perfectly good country with perfectly good people inhabiting it and still NOT be a Muslim country! And we ARE! We can respect other countries and other religions without being a Muslim country! And we DO! So President Barry, with all respect sir, please just let us stand on our own merits for what we are and please stop trying to make us sound as if we're something we're not so that radical extremists will like us. Because those folks will never like us, no matter what. So why bother trying to make a mold for us to fit into that you think they'd be more willing to accept?

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Confusing Confucius

It took a while, but finally, finally there is some competition for Miss South Carolina Teen USA contestant and subsequent non-winner, umm....you know, I have no idea what that chick's name is. But this is exactly the sort of thing that the Internet is for.(God bless those Google boys!) Thus I can now insert the name Lauren Caitlin Upton and continue by saying that I think she is now officially a pioneer who has paved the way for future beauty pageant contestants to give completely ridiculous answers to the, ummm....now I have no idea what that question-y part of the pageant is called! But again, saved by the Google boys, I now know it's called either the interview portion or the personality portion. Hard to say which one is used when, but I'm sure there's some complicated formula that none of the contestants would be able to figure out (ie, draw it out of a hat).

Whose idea was this and where do they get their questions? Why do I need to know about what opinion or opinions a Miss Eyecandy contestant holds about US foreign policy, starvation in foreign lands, kittens and puppies, world peace and such as The Iraq? It's not like it's going to play a huge role in the year that she will spend as Miss Hotbabe as she is fulfilling her duties by appearing at the grand openings of banks and grocery stores, sporting a ridiculously large pair of scissors and cutting ribbons. She's a Rent-A-Hottie, why do I need to know her stance on Darfur? (Provided, of course, that her 'stance on Darfur' is referring to the country and not to some dude named Darfur.)

Now, as you may recall (and why wouldn't you, as it is hil-arious) Miss South Carolina was 'competing' in the Miss Teen USA Pageant and when it was her turn at the question-y part, she was given this stumper: "Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can't locate the United States on a world map. Why do you think this is?" Well, the reason that she thought that "this is" was rather, um, let's just say, it was complex.

"I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some, people out there in our nation don't have maps and, uh, I believe that our, uh, education like such as, uh, South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and, I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, or, uh, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future, for our children."

If that isn't something that needs a follow up question, I don't know what is! It would be a brief follow up question if I was doing all the asking! "Um, WTF was that?" (And actually, for some reason, she was given a do-over on the Today Show with Matt Lauer (who should really be asking any question with his shirt off. Have you seen this man shirtless? If you had then you'd agree that Matt Lauer being required to be shirtless should apply to any form of speech he's uttering!) and these were her do-over words of wisdom:"Well personally, my friends and I, we know exactly where the United States is on our map. I don't know anyone else who doesn't. And if the statistics are correct, I believe that there should be more emphasis on geography in our education so people will know how to read maps better." Eh. At least she didn't say "such as, the friends".)

So she's the ground breaker, she's the leader, she's the Pied Piper of all future pageant contestants who stumble their way through a question that almost certainly will have zero confuddling elements to it whatsoever. Take a contestant, a one Giosue Cozzarelli, competing in the Miss Panama Pageant, for example. Please. Take her. Far, far away. And take the question that she was asked also. According to Right Celebrity, her task was "...to explain a Confucius quote she (had been given, which) read: “Learning without thought is labor lost.” OK, I think most folks could noodle their way through that one fairly quickly. Did I say quickly? I meant accurately. Most folks could noodle their way through that one fairly accurately. Did I say accurately? And I was speaking of the Miss Panama contestant? Yeah, I didn't mean accurately. I meant hilariously.

"Good evening, Panama! Confucius was one of whom invented confusion. And that's why...ehhh....one of the most ancient his was one of the Chinese Japanese who were one of the most ancient. Thank you!"

Wait. Wait! Thank you for what?! You didn't say anything!! He invented confusion? No, sweetie, you just invented confusion with that answer you just gave! What the hell was that? I know you think you can pull that stuff off on other people, but your audience there actually speaks Spanish! They know what you said and now so do we! The video of this debacle is below.

Yeah, I'm still confused. Thanks to Confucius (apparently)! A couple of things I wanted to point out. One, she sure does look rather proud of herself when words finally finish spewing out of her mouth. I think she must be happy that she didn't hear a gong and that there wasn't a trap door underneath her. I was a little disappointed by that, but I'll be she was thrilled.

Second, it would seem that beauty pageants in Panama are a bit different than those in the United States (or the Universe, according to some pageants) when it comes to the apparel that they wear. She has on a T-shirt and pair of running pants? Slacks? All I know is that it's very casual and very non-pageant-y. Did she think that this was the rehearsal? Let's compare her to the newly allowed to keep her crown Miss California, shall we? Behold!

See, they're a little different. But really, after an answer like "Confucius invented confusion", probably the attire that they're wearing over there in Panama is the least of their worries.

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