My Promise To You

So while I have somehow become what I would describe as a reasonably rabid follower of politics, which is to say I like to think that I am generally politically aware I find Politicians to be intensely frustrating at times.

Indeed times are when I think I should just run for office and show those assholes how to get things done.

With this in mind I present to you my basic platform.
Premises 1 and 2:
Republicans: Assholish fucks bent on selling America to Big Corporations for personal profit.
Deomcrats: Good intentioned fucks who refuse to accomplish things for fear it would hurt their popularity.

Promises:
In the Event of an affair:
1) I promise that she was either really hot or I was really drunk.
2) I promise that I will not drag my wife and/or kids on the stage to apologize to the nation, and I additionally promise that I shall take full responsiblity for my actions without seeking to mitigate the blame with excuses.

I promise that, owing to my actually doing the work for which I was elected I will be unable to raise enough money to run for a second term and that I will have pissed so many powerful interests off that no one will vote for my second term anyway.

I promise that I will not stop drinking and swearing once in office, nor will I attempt to pretend that I have.

I promise that I will not pretend I am a religious man. Karma is about the extent of my religious beliefs.

Platform:
There are only two primary areas government should be spending real money on.
1) Education
2) Infrastructure

Education: Make our childrens learning. Best books, best teachers, best tools. It'll pay untold rewards in the future.

Infrastructure: In this I blend together several departments under the same heading. Anywhere you go nowadays the roads suck, I want that fixed. Not only do I want high speed rail to every major city in America I want it to be able to travel faster than anywhere else in the world. I want next gen energy, this includes green energy, nuclear, and the long dreamed of and much fabled fusion energy but all of it MUST be Domestic. Dependency on foreign energy is inexcusable.

Naturally there are two secondary funding holes I'd be obliged to pour money into.
1) Deficit reduction
2) Defense

Deficit Reduction: I loathe being in debt so my two pronged primary funding plan should allow the cutting of other programs and free up some cash to pay down debts. We can get more extravagent when we are back to a surplus.

Defense: End the wars, you know the area is going to go to hell as soon as we leave anyway because while the people enjoy their freedom they are unwilling to fight for it and those unwilling to fight for their freedom will always find someone willing to take it away from them. That said the military budget is bloated beyond all recognition and I am going to slash it. We need not be defenseless but we need not wrap the toilet seats on our battle cruisers in gold leaf.

To this I add one personal hobby to fund:
NASA

NASA: It's the final frontier and America is going to be the first one there. I will fund NASA and all its affiliated sciences. America will again see the day when Oppenheimers and Teslas, not Hiltons and Kardashians are celebrities.

Extraneous Philosophies:
-Guns: you have the right to them but unless you are in the military there is no earthly reason you need an assault rifle.
-Abortion: Legal. If you don't like it then don't do it.
-Death Penalty: Legal. Some crimes are beyond forgiving
-Marijuana: Legalize. I am going to tax the shit out of it and you're not going to be allowed to smoke it in public.
-Gay Marriage: Legalize. As if I cared what you did in your bedroom. This is America, so long as you pay your taxes I couldn't care less the gender of the person you go home to.
-Healthcare: For all citizens.
-Tax Code: Simplify. I do not know which model I would pursue at this point but it is so ridiculously cumbersome with so many loopholes for powerful interests not paying their share that it desperately deserves a complete overhaul.
-Money: Modernize. A penny costs two cents to make, a nickle costs six cents. I know it is iconic but it is no longer practical and something must change.

In short, writing this in today's America will ensure that I will never be elected, but I can still dream of an America where I can write my positions honestly and without reservation and still achieve political office.

The Confusing Phone Call

I always believe when I answer the phone after having been woken by that same phone that I do a spectacular job of covering up the fact that I am not operating at full synaptical power. There are however, a number of people I have conversed with in this fashion who beg to differ.

In any event, to understand why the phone call I got was so utterly befuddling one must understand the factors that converged at this moment.

I spent the previous days of this week locked in the windowless basement of a church getting trained as a census worker. In this basement there was a chick who being rather attractive (the shirts she wore were under considerable strain keeping her chest covered) and of a friendly disposition I fancied somewhat. To my detriment, I failed to act and having completed the training who knows if I'll ever see her again.

Last night I got a call from the guy who lead the training class telling me that we were being assigned a leader and that I should expect a call from this person in the next day or so. So I wrote down this persons information, hung up, and continued drinking. Fastforward to this morning where I am happily passed out in bed when I hear my phone go off.

In a flash I am up and leaping like a drunken gazelle across the room to pick up. I notice as I arrive at my phone that I don't know the number. I conclude that this probably the new crew leader calling me.

"Hello?"
A female voice replies "We're meeting at three, can you make that."

Unphased by the abrupt beginning to the conversation my sleep addled mind is on top of this wrinkle in a snap.

"Yes."
"Ok, we're meeting here."
It is somewhere in here that I instantly decided that the woman I am talking to is in fact the hot chick from training.

"...What?"
"We're meeting here."

My brain is forced to confront the fact that maybe I am not as good faking like I am wide awake because there is something going on that I am quite simply failing to understand.

"...What?"
"We're meeting here." she replies slowly.
"The meaning of 'here' changes based on the speaker."
"At my house."

I am blown away by how fast this hot chick is moving though I instantly suspect something is amiss. I talked to the chick a few times but certainly never enough to learn where she lived. Thus knowing that she knows I have no idea where she lives I realize that I am not talking to the hot census chick. By some miracle I mange to instantly figure out that I am in fact talking to my friend Nicole who I am supposed to meet up with later in the day.

Nicole had gotten a new cell phone since last I talked to her and I had forgotten to put the number in my phone. Thus was ended the most confusing phone call in the world.

And just for the record, had it been the hot census chick, you had better believe I would have been at her place in a heartbeat, hang over be damned.