The VP Debates

OK OK I admit - I missed the first Presidential debates.

Yes. Missed them. You see, they were on a Friday. This is a major problem for me. Fridays are "hang out at the Miami Yacht Club" night. It is tradition. And one should not screw with tradition.

So I was busy. Hanging out at the yacht club. Consuming beer. Talking about boats. And so on.

Watching some debates was just not going to happen. But I did record them on the DVR. And no, I did not watch the recording yet.

BUT - the VP debates were on Thursday. Thursday is not Friday. Therefore it is not Miami Yacht Club night. So I was free to watch it.

Now from prior experience I learned there is one good place to watch political crap at. And that place is......

FRITZ AND FRANZ BIERHAUS!

Why not. I watched the final night of the Democratic Convention from this place. There was whole group there just to watch the final night.

And eat some food.

And what the hell - it is the BIERHAUS! The beer house!!! So might as well have a beer. Or two. Or six.

Now if you are going to watch political shit, I highly recommend doing it at a German themed Bierhaus. It makes it that much funner.

And as fate would have it - Thursday just happened to be the first day of the Oktoberfest celebration.

AWESOME! Oktoberfest, in Miami, at a place owned by an actual German immigrant, serving authentic German beer, and I get to watch the debate.

Throw in some schnitzel and we will call it a deal!!!

Anyway - TWO LITERS of beer later, the debates were over and I walked back to my friend's place - where the trusty truck was parked. My friend does not live too far from the beer place, so there was no good reason to drive there. Walking was better.

Anyhow I got to keep the 1 liter glass mug. So I can go back and get refills for $12. Until Oktoberfest is over that is. I might just do this. By my math, I need at least one or two more refills to break even on the whole "buy the mug" thing. After that point I am "saving" money. In theory.

But one could also argue that I would have saved even more by not buying the mug and first liter for $25, and then paying $12 per refill. I can not really argue with that logic either. But what is done is done. So I might as well go back for more!!

I think the beer heightened the whole VP debate experience. Get tired of the talking??? Drink more!!!! Problem solved. Hungry? Order a soft pretzel. Problem solved.

Anyway as for the debates - I got what I expected. There was the expectation that Palin would flop. I did not not expect this. I suspect that her previous comments may have been a setup.

But if I had to judge who made up more bullshit, I think I would vote for Palin. She said a few things I know for a fact are simply not true. It was made up. There were also a few questions that were not answered by Palin.

But I did not expect her to flop. I did not expect her to "win" but I did not expect a total flop.

However, I did some quick research on Alaska. It has a populatin of about 683,478 people (est 2007). I have no idea what the budget of the State is. The populatin density of the state is 1.2 people per square mile.

The City of Coral Gables, one city insde Miami-Dade County, with an area of 37.2 square miles - 64% of which is water so the land area is only 13.1 square miles - has a population of 42,871 (est 2005). That is a population density of 3,217 people per square mile.

If Coral Gables were in Alaska it would account for 6.3% of the population of the entire State.

Miami-Dade County has a population of 2,387,170 (est 2007). Or 350% of the population of the entire State of Alaska. And Miami-Dade is but one county of many in the State of Florida.

According to the McCain camp's logic, Miami-Dade County mayor Carlos Alvarez, who has a County budget that looks a lot like the entire State budget for Alaska (COUNTY BUDGET), woul make a better executive.

But he was not nominated.

I just do not get it. I do not see how the McCain/Palin ticket will change anything. I am not convinced they will do anything different. And since they are the incumbant party the burden of proof if sort of on them. And I am just not convinced.

At this point I do not know if I can become convinced that they will really change anything.

And one more thing. I would have gone about this a whole other way. When some asshole says "tax breaks to business creates jobs" (and yes that WAS said - at least 2 or 3 times) I would have said "well then by your insane economic theory, we should be up to our assholes in good paying jobs - after so many years of such cuts! Governor - would you care to tell those watching where there can apply for some of these great jobs????".

But no. Nobody said that. And I would still like to kn0w - where are all these jobs? 8 years of the Bush economic policy and tax cuts and shit - and what do we have? Where are the jobs?? Where is the prosperity?

I can show you $4 a gallon gas, people filing for unemployment, collapsed banks, and so on. But more jobs??? Nope. Can't find many of those.

It makes me want to have another liter of beer.