Fun Gay Hot Toy

Maybe Ru Paul wasn't running in the New Hampshire primary but that doesn't mean it still can't be a big year for the LGBT community. I'm thinking legalized gay marriage in Obama's second term. FCKH8!

Presidential Social Networks

So I did a little legwork and came up with this graph to illustrate something. It started as pure curiosity of how many Facebook likes and Twitter followers each of the candidates had. Clearly Obama blows everyone out of the water. Left wing spin is "It's because he's that good!" Right wing spin is "He's cheating a la Acorn!" But after compiling this info I started thinking about another trend.

I realize social network popularity is NOT an accurate depiction of the country at large. It merely shows who likes/follows a specific candidate among those who use the internet, who bother using social networks, who bother liking/following candidates. So instead of focusing on who had the highest numbers, I started thinking about what this data reveals about social network users. Looking at the numbers it seems social network users fall heavily into the left side of the spectrum. Even all the GOP candidates added up don't equal 10% of just Obama's numbers.

If this is true, then left-leaning people may also be more open to having their personal information available to the public. I definitely know some folks firmly on the right who stay away from social networking like the plague for specifically this reason. This mirrors the stereotype of lefties being more trusting of government to be capable of solving larger issues and righties distrust of leaving things to other people.

But I guess all this makes sense since Al Gore birthed the internet...gross. I have to go wash my eyes of that image now.

Obama in Asia

Obama is off to Asia, starting with Japan then down to Singapore, Shanghai, Beijing and finally working his way up to Seoul leaving Kim Jong Il in North Korea all in a tizzy (insert cartoon of Kim Jong Il with thought bubble "I know they're talking about me! sob...).

Obama's mission in Japan is mainly focused on the environment and nuclear proliferation. But a lot of people have also been bringing up the number of troops that we still have stationed there. Many Japanese feel it is time for the U.S. to leave these bases, mostly because the residences near then suffer from noisy low-flying airplane syndrome. There have also been some recent controversies involving US troops and Japanese citizens, including a U.S. Marine helicopter crashing into Okinawa International University, a rape of a 12 year-old girl by three U.S. servicemen and several reports of disorderly conduct in the areas around the bases. Residents are frustrated because the servicemen are not bound by local Japanese law and therefore making it difficult to prosecute.

Why do we have so many troop there anyway? I know there was a treaty (or several) that set the whole thing up after WWII for the benefit of Japan but now that Japan has been allowed to create a self defense force of their own I'm not too sure why we still need so many troops there.

I'm going to let you in on a private fantasy. Calm down, not that kind. I always thought Japan was working towards a completely robotic army. Think about it. Honda has been working feverishly to create the coolest freaking walking robots that even walk like they want to sneak up on you and kill you! Add to that Japan's shrinking young population. They couldn't create an army if they wanted to. And if these treaties have set up rules about Japan not being able to create a full fledged military force, maybe creating robots is some technical way around it since they are not human soldiers. Convinced yet? Remember when North Korea was conducting long range missle tests over Japan? I was waiting for a real Godzilla to jump out of the water and deflect it away from Japan. That would have been bad ass! Yes, I eat lots of sugar.