Bobby Fischer: 1943 - 2008 - RIP

Bobby Fischer was a divisive figure in American culture. With an IQ believed to be above 185, he was considered a "high genius", and there is little doubt that his superior intelligence was both his greatest asset and his mortal enemy.

Fischer was known first as the greatest American chess player, becoming the youngest player ever to achieve the status of International Grandmaster at age 15. Renown for showing his opponents no quarter, he would literally crush them on the chess board with his devastating style and utterly original strategies. He eventually ascended to World Champion after several hard fought defeats, yet Fischer's national fame came during the height of the Cold War while defending his crown against the Soviet champion Borris Spassky in 1972. The press and the public saw this chess match as a proxy for the international political issues of the time, and Fischer's decisive victory rocketed him and the game of chess to stardom in the US.

In 1975, Fischer refused to defend his championship against Anatoly Karpov because they could not agree on the logistics of the match, about which Fischer had many bizarre requests. He lost his crown by default, and basically disappeared from competitive chess for the next 20 years.
He would only emerge to make incongruous and racist public remarks, and in 1992, to play a rematch against Spassky in the former Yugoslavia. The US Department of Treasury warned Fischer his participation in the event (namely the collection of the winnings) would put him in contention with a UN Embargo against sporting events in that country. Fischer won the match, and then promptly disappeared again to avoid prosecution. Since then he accepted political asylum in Iceland, renouncing his US citizenship.

Throughout his life, people close to Fischer witnessed a man slowly devouring himself. His public life and behavior became more and more bizarre culminating in a lashing out at Jews and comments that America "got what they deserved" after 9/11. His anger, paranoia, and vitriol for his fans, opponents, and his country never ceased. I hope in death, he finally finds peace. RIP.

Romney Report

Genius.


Mitt Romney Defends Himself Against Allegations Of Tolerance

Ron Paul Beats 9iu11ani AGAIN!!!

Yup. Beat him like a 9/11 widow. 6% to 3%.

Jesus. I can't believe 9iu11ani is still considered a 'major' candidate.

Nevertheless, I dearly hope he wins Florida. Nothing would make me happier than to see the Republican race be more convoluted. Iowa? Huckabee. New Hampshire? McCain. Michigan? Romney. South Carolina? I'm hoping Thompson. Florida? I'm hoping 9iu11ani. Seriously. How weakened are each of these fucks by the fracturing of the party. Nobody can claim shit. Nobody wants any of them. Not even their own fucking party.

Go RON! Keep racking up those 4th place finishes, and then release the hounds at the convention....

I love it!

November Prediction

Before things get too settled, I want to go out on a limb and pull a prediction from my well-lubed asshole.

Behold the Candidates for the 2008 General Election

Hillary Clinton / Wes Clark

vs.

John McCain / Joe Lieberman

vs.

Michael Bloomberg / Barack Obama

And I suppose there's the outside chance that we'll have Ron Paul running as well, but I don't know who he might pick for VP.

I'm now re-inserting this fist sized crystal ball back into my ass.

Oooh...ouhhh....Ahhhh.

HOLY SHIT!! Jimmy Carter Throws His Hat in the Ring!!!

Check it out!

Huckabee Spokesman "Accidentally" Endorses Ron Paul

Classic....

31 Votes

Certified.

The Republicans Will Always Have Hillary

I hate to be a Dowd-ing Thomas, but a Hillary Clinton nomination may be the only thing that could sweep the GOP into the White House for another term in November. Hey, don't look at me! Even Republicans say so...

Vermin Supreme

Hah! Check out the Republican Ballot from New Hampshire. I wonder how many votes Vermin Supreme received?

Oh man! He's AWESOME.

New Hampshire District Admits Ron Paul Votes Not Counted

See.
Here we fucking go again!

From Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet:

The head clerk of the New Hampshire town of Sutton has been forced to admit that Ron Paul received 31 votes yet when the final amount was transferred to a summary sheet and sent out to the media, the total was listed as zero. The fiasco throws the entire primary into doubt and could lead to a re-count.

As we reported earlier today, an entire family voted for Ron Paul in Sutton, yet when the voting map on the Politico website was posted, the total votes for Ron Paul were zero.

Vote fraud expert Bev Harris contacted the head clerk in Sutton, Jennifer Call, who was forced to admit that the 31 votes Ron Paul received were completely omitted from the final report sheet, claiming "human error" was responsible for the mistake.

Two or three votes not counted could be a plausible mistake - but 31 votes for one candidate?

I'm sure this is going to make other voter district workers come forward with similar debacles. We'll just have to wait and see. Really makes you wonder even more about that Clinton victory too.

New Hampshire Primary

In response to The Arm's latest post, I just wanted to throw out a few reasons why New Hampshire turned out the way it did, and I don't think it's because it was rigged.

1) Clinton's own internal polling showed her 11 points behind and she was prepared for a defeat. They even cancelled the big hall they'd reserved for election night and moved the event to a smaller venue.

2) NH is an open primary and you needn't be a democrat to vote in the democratic primary, nor need you be a replublican to vote in the republican primary. So the following theories apply:

--If Obama and McCain were competing for the independant vote and the polls showed Obama with a double-digit lead, the Indies decided Obama didn't need their support and chose instead to support McCain and defeat Romeny and Huckabeee.

or

--Republicans were so disenchanted with their candidates they realized that the only way they can win in November is if the Democratic candidate is the polarizing and widely reviled Hillary Clinton. They chose to vote FOR Clinton instead of tussling in a futile republican primmary (as I've written before: We're going to have a brokered Republican Convention...no one will win the nomination outright).

3) And then there's the possibility of the "Bradley Effect". Basically this theory posits that people when polled will say they'll vote for an African American, but when the time comes to vote, and no one is watching or judging them (as in a caucus), they can't bring themselves to vote for a black man.

4) Clinton's moment choking up was the first time she came across as human. I have to admit, when I saw that video, I found I had sympathy for the woman, something I didn't think was possible. If it could have that effect on me, just imagine the kind of effect it had on people who don't have a vast storehouse of negative feelings about Hillary.

Finally, Ron Paul's finish was almost exactly where he finished in Iowa. I expect he's got aroun 8-10% support in the country. Very vocal and well-financed support, yes, but not a majority, and not a ceiling he's likely to crack. 9iu11ani's improved numbers might have more to do with Paul being excluded form the Fox debates, and not a neo-con conspiracy with diebold. Ron Paul still has a big roll to play in this election, because at a brokered convention, if he's got 8-10% of the delegates, he'll be in a position to make some serious demands.

The Fake New Hampshire Primary?

Either the pollsters and the main stream media were grossly miscalculating the results of the New Hampshire primary because the people they polled lied to them over and over (but only on the Democrats side) or something is really fucking fishy with the votes in New Hampshire. I mean how could the pollsters be that wrong. I understand the attraction to the idea that the "media was wrong". Believe me, I think I fell for that trap at first. I agreed with all the douchebags on MSNBC last night saying in perfect unison, as if the script was handed down from the penthouse suite, that "we were wrong" or the "pollsters got it completely wrong".

BAM!

That's it? That's the only hypothesis? I mean across the board from Chris Matthews to Brian Williams to Tim Russert to Keith Olbermann, it was the same thing,"We were wrong". Well what about asking if there was any fraud or vote tampering. Fuck, its not like we've had any experience dealing with that in this country. The results just look a little too perfect for the establishment. Hillary going from a poor third place showing behind Obama and Edwards to a major victory in Hew Hampshire? The Clinton campaign couldn't have gotten a better gift. Everyone was saying they were toast if she lost, so she HAD to win. John Edwards with only 17%? Hmmmm.

And on the other side you got Ron Paul neck in neck with Rudy "9/11" Giuliani at 9%. The one thing the anointed neo-con candidate could not have happen to him in New Hampshire is another loss to Ron Paul. Looks like that didn't happen for him....but barely. He was only above Paul by 1%. Hmmmmmm. All I'm saying here is maybe we should ask what a lot of people are probably thinking today.....was this primary fixed?

Looks like Brad Blog is thinking the same thing...

Star Wars Guide To The Candidates

Trust me. This is worth checking out.
Courtesy of Craigslist SF

Iranian Provocation and the Delusion of Captain's Quarters

I usually consider pieces by Captain's Quarters' Ed Morrissey to be misled, but reasonable. I do not fault him for his point of view, I simply disagree with him. Dialogue and debate make America great. (Kind of catchy, eh?) Today I read Morrissey with much different eyes. I never figured him for a reactionary war monger. Read your history, Ed and the Gulf of Tonkin will ring a bell.

In his analysis of the "provocation" this weekend of an American battle ship by five small craft, allegedly belonging to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Morrissey has jumped the good ship Rationality. Here is the blurb from the Telegraph cited in the CQ story "How Close Were We To War?":

A Pentagon spokesman revealed that five Iranian Revolutionary Guard Navy boats harrassed (sic) and provoked three US ships in the narrow waterway at the mouth of the Persian Gulf at the weekend.

The Iranian craft came within 200 yards of the US vessels, which were sailing in international waters.

The Iranian provocations included disregarding warnings to pull back, dropping mysterious objects in the path of the US ships and a hostile radio transmission.

The Pentagon said a radio message warned: "I am coming at you. You will explode in a couple of minutes."

Morrissey claims that this action by the alleged "Revolutionary Guard" vessels

"cannot be allowed to happen again. The next time patrol boats approach American vessels and threaten attack, one of them has to head to the bottom of the gulf. If the Iranians want a test, we can provide them with one for emergency evac."

Also, without any evidence, he claims

"Undoubtedly, Iran wanted to test American resolve, but could not isolate a small enough vessel to pursue a similar mission. Instead, they basically did a probe to see how far they could go before provoking an armed response. This information could prove useful for Iran's terrorist partners in Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad in the Gulf and elsewhere."

Luckily, Morrissey was not the captain of the American vessel because the crisis was averted. However, the crisis of his vicarious hawkishness will live on in this post.

My questions to Morrissey are these:

If the objects dropped into the sea were "unidentified" what real rationale does a battleship have for firing on a smaller vessel?

If these vessels were in fact the Revolutionary Guard, wouldn't it seem that their intent, based on their actions, was to be fired upon?

It has been reported that the the Iranian Revolutionary Guard is a crack team of highly trained soldiers working at the pleasure of the leader of Iran. Does "I am coming at you. You will explode in a couple of minutes" sound like something a highly skilled warrior would say to warn his enemy?

Does saying things like "one of them has to head to the bottom of the gulf" and "if the Iranians want a test, we can provide them with one for emergency evac" make you feel like a tough-guy? Do you think the idea of warfare is cool?Do you wish you were there "smoking them out of their holes?" I don't HAVE to ask because I know the answer, but have you always been a civilian?

I hate to pan Captain Ed like this. I really do believe he is a reasonable voice resonating through the cacophonous throng that is the conservative noise machine. I am just so let down to see the 8 year-old playing G.I. Joe beneath it all. In reality, those soldiers don't always parachute to safety when their planes are shot down. And Cobra Khan doesn't always retreat in the end. See? I played G.I. Joe too. But I got over it.

Crinch Pin's Late Night Music Club: Immortal Technique, Mos Def, and Eminem