It's good to know that Janet Reno is keeping busy these days...

...at the Grammy's! (wtf?)



ps Note the lovely halo effect. 'Nearer my god to thee... (certainly nearer than Alberto Gonzales).'

Damn that history...

Each day, the United States must borrow billions of dollars from abroad to finance its enormous budget and trade deficits. Without a steady stream of huge loans, the country would face rising interest rates, higher inflation, a dropping dollar and slower economic growth. The lenders want to see less of a gap between what the government collects in taxes and what it spends, because a lower budget deficit always eases a trade deficit. A lower trade deficit also implies a stronger dollar. And a stronger dollar would reassure foreign investors that dollar-based assets remain their best choice.

I've been reading a fair bit of nineteenth-century Latin American history over the weekend, getting ready for a midterm tomorrow. This quote might well have been taken from one of the articles that I've read. A government reliant on foreign investment and foreign loans simply to function day-to-day. The only difference, perhaps, is that the current United States government doesn't face a well-armed populace headed by strongmen waiting for the central government to misstep to pull of a coup in their favour.

Ambassador Cellucci: Canada's tsunami response too slow

To US Ambassador, and former Massachusetts governor, Paul Cellucci, with all due respect, Sir:

Fuck you.

Bill Would Place Homeland Security Above All Law

The provision in the REAL ID Act would expand this waiver beyond environmental law to include all laws. It would thus place the D[epartment of] H[omeland] S[ecurity] Secretary above all federal laws, environmental or otherwise...

Well, democracy was nice while it lasted.

Um. Yeah.

Bad procrastination

You know it's bad when I start clicking around the White House website to procrastinate. Oddly enough, I've discovered that the Office of National AIDS Policy seems not to exist anymore: http://www.whitehouse.gov/onap/

Personality quiz

Wackiness: 46/100
Rationality: 44/100
Constructiveness: 76/100
Leadership: 52/100

You are a SECF--Sober Emotional Constructive Follower. This makes you a Hippie.

You are passionate about your causes and steadfast in your commitments. Once you've made up your mind, no one can convince you otherwise. Your politics are left-leaning, and your lifestyle choices decidedly temperate and chaste.

You do tremendous work when focused, but usually you operate somewhat distracted. You blow hot and cold, and while you normally endeavor on the side of goodness and truth, you have a massive mean streak which is not to be taken lightly. You don't get mad, you get even.

Please don't get even with this web site.

Of the 91978 people who have taken this quiz since tracking began (8/17/2004), 10.4 % are this type.

I didn't need a quiz to tell me this. Check out the link.

And in other news...

My mother just phoned to ask if I planned to watch the Super Bowl tonight. Apparently she hasn't been paying attention for the last decade.

Also, my little brother has begun to use the term 'washroom' instead of 'bathroom'. Score one for the subversive Canadian brainwashing.

Anyone from Boston remember that annoying commercial with the 'Faaaaantastic!' guy selling furniture or cars?

In Omaha on Friday, a divorced single mother named Mary Mornin tells the president, 'I have one child, Robbie, who is mentally challenged, and I have two daughters.'


'Fantastic,' the president exclaims, and he tells her she has 'the hardest job in America, being a single mom.'


Later, the 57-year old Mornin tells Bush that she works three jobs, which the president deems 'uniquely American' and 'fantastic.' He asks her if she gets any sleep.

Aside from the obvious here, I want to know why there isn't more being written about the fact that all of Bush's public appearances are now carefully scripted and ticketed. Only supporters can get tickets. 42 people in Fargo, ND, were blacklisted and refused tickets to Bush's appearance there last week. Coincidentally, they were all members of Democracy for America, the spin-off organisation from Howard Dean's presidential bid.

I (heart) American democracy.

Huzzah

Tens of thousands of gay and lesbian couples who live in New York City are one step closer to walking down the aisle—with a marriage license in their hands.

Today, a New York trial judge handed down an unprecedented ruling that says the state must grant gay and lesbian couples the right to marriage. The court's decision, stemming from a case filed by Lambda Legal, a national LGBT civil rights organization, on behalf of five plaintiff couples, says that the state's constitution guarantees gay men and lesbians the same basic freedoms available to straight couples.

There will be an appeal, of course, but if the higher court stays the decision, then same-sex marriage will be legal in the Empire State.

Slowly but surely...

What will we tell the children?

And Laura, for that matter?

I think we need to start a letter-writing campaign against this kind of sordid behaviour in public. I mean, innocent children could see this and be scarred for life!

This is amazing

Gmail.

I seem to have FIFTY Gmail invitations now. So, um, if you or anyone you love/hate want a gmail account, by all means let me know.

Oh, look, it's working...

Over a third of American high school students believe that the First Amendment goes 'too far' in protecting freedom of speech, press, worship and assembly. Only half believed that newspapers should be allowed to publish stories that were not approved by the government. 83% of students believed that people should not be allowed to express unpopular views. Half believed that the government had the right to censor the internet. Two-thirds believed that it was illegal to burn the flag.

I'm going to go find a corner to cry in now.

What the fuck?

It seems that everyone I went to high school with now listens to country music.

I was ostracised because I listened to country music in high school (there were other reasons, too, but that's beside the point).

It's amazing what you can find out via friendster.

Gawd

We always knew that Americans had no fashion sense, but for chrissake! Doesn't this man have handlers?

(click the link)

Prospectus

*begin dorkiness* I just printed a paper prospectus that I had to write up for today. And, damn, it just looks so professional. As if I were a professor handing out a syllabus or something. *end dorkiness*

Please, continue with your lives. I just felt the need to share that moment of dorkiness.

Start shopping.

You have until 2 June 2005 to buy my graduation gift. It's a Thursday.

Hum-drum

That's about all that's going on right now. Nothing too exciting. School is the usual. Work is the usual and getting worse always.

But the boy comes back tomorrow--finally--after five weeks away. We all know what that means: I get to cook for him again...among other things. (Comments from the peanut gallery are welcome on that one.)

Bush approval at 44%

Can a president make radical, expensive, and unpopular reforms in domestic and foreign policy while sporting the lowest approval numbers of any incumbent president since the advent of polling?

Apparently this 44% is up one point from yesterday.

American Democracy at its finest

Since Bush is all about exporting freedom and liberty now, I wonder if this is the kind he wants to export:



More links to pics here: http://tbogg.blogspot.com/2005/01/i-guess-it-depends-on-which-side-of.html

One down, 1460 to go.

On the first day of Bush's second term, an attack was launched against SpongeBob's presence in a video remake of the Sister Sledge classic 'We Are Family'. The video, which also features characters from Sesame Street and the Muppet Show and Bob the Builder, was put together to promote ideals of unity and co-operation. Focus on the Family, however, is claiming that SpongBob is gay (apparently he regularly holds hands with his friend Patrick) and thus his presence makes the video a 'vehicle for pro-gay propaganda.'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4190699.stm

Also in the news yesterday, the president of the Florida Senate has characterised the Florida Marlins baseball team as 'terrorists'. Apparently the Marlins have been threatening to move to Las Vegas unless they get money for a new stadium to be built in Florida. 'I thought that we already appropriated money to help them move to Vegas,' Tom Lee, President of the Florida Senate said. 'I was very disappointed that they publicly announced the negotiations and discussions with Las Vegas, and I don't negotiate with terrorists.'

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=1970948

The US very quietly--amidst the pomp and circumstance, it's easy to miss a little thing like this--said that it would begin immediately pulling its troops from tsunami relief, handing over their responsibilities to civilian organisations. No word, though, on whether any US civilian organisations will be sent to help the area.

http://www.keralanext.com/news/indexread.asp?id=97036

John Kerry was booed when he stepped on to the dais to attend the inauguration.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24863-2005Jan20.html?nav=rss_politics

Colin figured he should take a little souvenir with him:



And, finally, Jenna (I think that's Jenna), shows off the dental work to the world:



(photos from La Repubblica)

Coronation Day

Outgoing Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage, in an interview with The Australian discussed his regrets about Bush's first term. He had three, the first two that Iraq and the general Middle East situation is not better. His third, and largest, was connected with 9-11.

The biggest regret is that we didn't stop 9/11. And then in the wake of 9/11, instead of redoubling what is our traditional export of hope and optimism we exported our fear and our anger. And presented a very intense and angry face to the world. I regret that a lot.

My question is if this will get any play in the US media. My guess is, um...no. Ah well.

(Although my favourite out-going statement from Bush's first term cabinet was the Secretary of Health and Human Services--whose name escapes me at the moment, Tommy Thompson?--said that he was surprised that the terrorists hadn't tried to attack our food and water supplies, since it would be so easy to do.)

The Coronation is coming up soon. Bush will be sworn in before noon, when his first term is set to expire. I hope that the protests go smoothly. I imagine, given the crowd control measures that I've been reading about, there won't be many people throwing things at the limos this year. Alas. I hope that the turn your back on Bush protests go well. Simple, yet effective.

Wouldn't it be great if Bush pulled a William Henry Harrison? By insisting to deliver a horridly long speech in the cold and bad weather and then dying of pneumonia a month later? Of course, then Uncle Dick would be President, and Condoleeza would be VP. At least we'd get a woman VP. And a black woman at that. It's something, right?

Anyway. I digress.

As I said last night, he may be having a big party, but he's still not my president.

The Guardian: 'World fears new Bush era'

The headline says it all. Click through and read the article.

What kind of professor...

...would discourage a student from taking on more challenging work, to better help him to gain knowledge?

The book assigned for my post-colonial Latin American history class sucks. A lot. It reads like almost like a high school text book. It just has far fewer pictures. It could probably easily be turned into a high school text book with a bunch of pictures, maps, graphs and end-of-chapter questions. Needless to say, I wasn't exactly impressed with it. So I went to see my Latin American history prof from last semester to see if he could recommend a better one. He loaned me one that is much better. I figured, though, just for the sake of maybe trying to get to know this semester's prof--who strikes me as less than great, especially compared to last semester's prof--that I would ask him how important he felt it was to read the book that he had assigned as opposed to a different one. I told him that I found the one that he assigned rather simplistic and a bit too concise. He didn't really like the idea of my not reading it though. He suggested that I could supplement it if I wanted to, but that I shouldn't really not read it at all.

Now, if I were a professor I wouldn't have assigned such a horrid book to begin with, at least not for a 300-level class. I would expect rather more from my students. Secondly, if a student came to me to ask if he could read a larger, more challenging and more advanced book I would probably make an effort to accommodate him. Sure, he might miss out on some of the themes that I was planning to mirror in lectures from the assigned book, but I'd probably encourage him to strike out on his own, so long as it was clear that he was a serious student. I got none of that from this prof.

I still plan to read the better book. But I'm just frustrated.

Um. I don't...I don't get it...

This is what the department of Homeland Security gets paid to do? Apparently making sure that some nice-sounding woman who owns a toy store in Oregon doesn't sell a 'Magic Cube' that potentially infringes on the expired patent of 'Rubik's Cube' is much more important than, oh, I don't know, ensuring the security of the 'homeland'.

Click the link.

Head --> Desk. Repeat as necessary.

So, not only is Bush's claim that social security in imminent danger of going bankrupt complete bunk (this we knew already), but the union that represents the large majority of social security administration employees is opposed to his plan of bringing in private accounts. BUT, the social security administration is being forced to use its own money to issue statements in favour of Bush's plan. Despite the fact that they don't believe it will work.

WHY DO WE LIVE IN BIZARRO WORLD!?

CNN on 'Eraq'

I'm glad that CNN feels it okay to run light-hearted commercials about what's going on in Iraq. Click the link and choose the commercial in the middle called 'Eraq' with Christiane Amanpour, in which she tires to explain to someone that she's telling the news to that it's pronounced 'E-raq' not 'I-raq', just like 'E-ran' not 'I-ran'.

Admittedly, it's a cute commercial, and most Americans DO mispronounce it, including the Shrub himself.

But that's not really the point, is it?

Mississippi libraries ban 'Daily Show' book

GULFPORT, Mississippi (AP) -- Library officials in two southern Mississippi counties have banned Jon Stewart's best-selling 'America (The Book)' over the satirical textbook's nude depictions of the nine U.S. Supreme Court justices.

'I've been a librarian for 40 years and this is the only book I've objected to so strongly that I wouldn't allow it to circulate,' said Robert Willits, director of the Jackson-George Regional Library System of eight libraries in Jackson and George counties.

'We're not an adult bookstore. Our entire collection is open to the entire public,' Willits said. 'If they had published the book without that one picture, that one page, we'd have the book.'

Wal-Mart has declined to stock the book because of the page, which features the faces of the nine Supreme Court justices superimposed over naked bodies.

The facing page has cutouts of the justices' robes, complete with a caption asking readers to 'restore their dignity by matching each justice with his or her respective robe.'

The book by Stewart and the writers of 'The Daily Show,' the Comedy Central fake-news program he hosts, was released in September. It has spent 15 weeks on The New York Times best seller list for hardcover nonfiction, and was named Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly, the industry trade magazine.

Former English teacher Tara Skelton of Ocean Springs said the libraries shouldn't decide what is in poor taste.

'It just really seemed kind of silly to me,' she said. 'I don't think the Supreme Court justices have filed any defamation of character or libel suits. It's humor.'

God bless America. I mean, if there are people who ban Harry Potter, I shouldn't be surprised by this.

Blah

There are six of us at work today. Six. Slight over-kill. I plan to sit in the office all day and do little. This is the first Saturday in over two years that I've worked. And I'm not happy about it.

A morning thought.

Why do sardines have such a bad rep?

Another game.

cnn
Originally uploaded by unspeakable_grooviness.

...but maybe I'm just being cynical. The first image, below, was taken from the same CNN front page just now.

Game time.

Colin Powell touring Aceh Province in Indonesia.

Can we play 'What's wrong with this picture?' in the comments, please?

One of the reasons I hate my job.

Apparently, at work, we are all three years old.

An email sent out today:

Hello,

The schedule for the second week of the rush is out.

Please check your schedule and bring to my attention asap any necessary changes.

Please clock in and out on time, meaning the exact time scheduled not an hour before or an hour later ( because you could not come on time or because you had other things to do) than the time scheduled.

I keep repeating the same thing over and over and every time I try to word it differently maybe the message will be clear to you guys.

If you are not on the schedule on a particular day, you cannot work that day.

Please check that you clocked in and out. It is your responsibility every time you work you check your hours.

If you are accurate in the clocking in and out you will avoid a lot of headaches for yourself.

If you want more hours please check with me or check the schedule I see many swaps available.

I will mention it again, if you cannot fin someone to swap with you are responsible for your shift.

In the near future I will bb sending out a memo with new rules re the shifts and working at the bookstore.

Guardian: 'US plans permanent Guantanamo jails'

The United States is preparing to hold terrorism suspects indefinitely without trial, replacing the Guantanamo Bay prison camp with permanent prisons in the Cuban enclave and elsewhere, it was reported yesterday.

The new prisons are intended for captives the Pentagon and the CIA suspect of terrorist links but do not wish to set free or put on trial for lack of hard evidence.

The plans have emerged at a time when the US is under increasing scrutiny for the interrogation methods used on the roughly 550 'enemy combatants' at the Guantanamo Bay base, who do not have the same rights as traditional prisoners of war.

A leaked Red Cross report described the techniques used as 'tantamount to torture'.

Over the weekend the New York Times quoted a former interrogator as saying one in six detainees were subject to harsh techniques including sleep deprivation, exposure to constant loud music or adver tising jingles, and being shackled for long periods to a low chair.

No comment...but if anyone knows any isolated islands for sale cheap I might be interested.

Thoughts on the new year

2005.

It's a nice round number. We always seem to have an affinity for the round numbers. Five years (four if you want to be technical) into the new millennium, I'm happy that humanity hasn't managed to destroy itself yet. Not that we haven't tried. I watched Les Invasions Barbares yesterday. There's a conversation between Rémy, who is dying, and a nun who works in the hospital. He blows apart the notion that the 20th century was perhaps the bloodiest century on record, even if 135 million were killed in wars, gulags, camps, etc:

In the 16th century, the Spanish and the Portuguese managed, without gas chambers or bombs, to slaughter 150 million Indians in Latin America. With axes! That's a lot of work, Sister. Even if they had Church support, it was an achievement. So much so that the Dutch, English, French and later Americans followed their lead and butchered another 50 million in North America. 200 million dead in all! The greatest massacre in history took place right here, all around us. And not the tiniest holocaust museum. The history of mankind is a history of horrors!

And yet it continues.

There's a comic that I read called 'The Joy of Tech' which is usually technology-based. Sometimes, the cartoonist, though, will use space aliens to poke fun at things. Ah, the ability of outside observers to pin-point the problem exactly and to be able to say just what needs to be said. This week, the first space alien says, 'So, explain this to me again?' And the second, 'They spend most of their time fighting and creating disasters, yet when there's a natural disaster, they help each other.' The caption to the comic reads, 'So are we halfway evolved or halfway extinct?'

Those of you who read on a regular basis know that I was a bit bipolar in 2004--between despair and hope for humanity. I think I'm just about in the middle at the moment. The earthquake/tsunami has both given me hope that the world might come together around the common need of fellow humans, while at the same time I've been utterly disgusted by the US's response--the nation that paints itself as leading the world as a shining beacon of hope and freedom had to be cajoled into giving more than a miserly contribution to helping to save the lives of survivors. Bush never called off his vacation in Texas. He spent most of the week clearing brush and riding his bike and spending time with his family. How nice. Meanwhile, the German Chancellor cut his holiday short and returned to Berlin and President Clinton gave an interview to the BBC in which he gave the first real American response to the disaster.

Personally, 2005 will be a big year for me. I'll know in a few months if I'll be heading to grad school in September. If not, who know where I'll be a year from now? I certainly don't. But, I've decided to take it as it comes. The hopes, dreams and aspirations are all there. I know that wherever I end up, I'll make the best of it. We shall see when we see. Que sera sera.

Every year I resolve to floss more. I've resolved that again this year. Maybe I'll actually do it this year. In fact, I've made it a point to put floss on my desk, right next to my computer, in the hopes that this will remind me to do it. My other resolution is one that I know I will keep: become a better cook. Today is the first time since I started making bread a few months ago that I did it all more or less by eye--and accurately. I used just enough flour and didn't have to add any more for the amount of water I had. The sweet sense of simple accomplishment.

As I was listening to music while eating breakfast this morning (while making the bread, in fact), I was inspired to another resolution based on a Mary Chapin Carpenter song called 'The Long Way Home'. It's a song about seemingly successful people getting where they thought they wanted to go and then realising that there was something missing in their lives. The last verse, though, offers an alternative:

Accidents and inspiration lead you to your destination
Or you could be the one who takes the long way home
Roll down your window, turn off your phone
See your life as a gift from the great unknown
And your task is to receive it
Tell your kid a story, hold your lover tight
Make a joyful noise, swim naked at night
Read a poem a day, call in well sometimes and
Laugh when they believe it

Funny now how it all goes by so fast
One day I'm looking over my shoulder at the past
Now everybody's got to go, got to be, got to get somewhere
Baby don't forget about
You really shouldn't forget about
Baby don't forget what got you there

I was voted 'Most Likely to Succeed' by my high school class, along with the girl who was our valedictorian. I've always felt very strange about that. What kind of success are we talking about here? Fabulous wealth and celebrity? Okay. None of us would mind that. But what about more simple success? What about just being happy where we are in the world? The past years in Montréal have been the first time that I've been able to say that I was truly happy with where I was in the world.

My one personal wish for 2005 is that I'll be able to say the same a year from now, wherever I might be as 2006 begins.

BBC: 'US pledges $350m in tsunami aid'

About frickin' time.

Fred Phelp's take on the tsunami disaster

Fred Phelp's take on the tsunami disaster
Originally uploaded by unspeakable_grooviness.

The Westboro Baptist Church, based in Topeka, Kansas, is headed by a a man named Fred Phelp's. Being a pastor, he is a kind and caring man, sensitive to the needs of his flock and for those in the greater community. Definitely the kind of man who votes Republican based on his moral values, for surely he is against abortion and such, although abortion isn't his main concern. His main concern is the evil of homosexuality. He runs a little website called God Hates Fags. I wish I were making this up. But I'm not. He picketed the funeral of Matthew Shepard, to share his view that he simply got what was coming to him, being a fag and all. Mr Phelps also makes it a point to try to picket as many funerals of AIDS victims as he can. To share his view. The picture with this post is taken from his website. Apparently the tsunami was a good thing. I really don't know what to say. What can you say in the face of such horrible ignorance and intolerance?

PS You can click on the image to make it larger if you want to actually read more than just the headline.

President Clinton Leads While Bush Vacations...

Ah, the Clinton years. How I miss them.

The brief on this one is that Bush still hasn't made any kind of official statement about the tsunami. Clinton has talked about it on the BBC. German Chancellor Gerhard Shroeder cut his vacation short and returned to work in Berlin to co-ordinate Germany's response. Bush is still in Crawford, TX. He spent Tuesday clearing brush and riding his bike.

May he fall off and break his neck.

Update: Apparently Bush has telephoned his support to various national leaders. This NY Times Editorial, entitled 'Are We Stingy? Yes', still criticises Bush for the 'miserly drop in the bucket' of $35m and points out that US promises of aid often fail actually to materialise.

Also. Go here: http://donate.ifrc.org/ I just did. I don't need that other DVD and neither do you.

Update the Second: Apparently Paul Martin is also still on holiday.

Another reason I'm pissed off.

This is a brief little article about a story on 'Good Morning America' about the children-victims of the tsunamis. All of the children featured were WHITE EUROPEANS. Those brown-skinned kids don't count, I guess. Probably a 1/3-1/2 of those affected by this disaster are children. But only the white ones count.

When will people get over their insular little selves? I've realised that over the past four years, I have had many many lines of thought that begin with the words, 'If I were president...'. It finally this morning started to piss me off. I don't want to have to think about what I would do if I were president because the US should be able to elect a reasonable person to hold the job. A horrible disaster like this ought to bring the world together. I don't know exactly what's going on locally in Sri Lanka but I know that the president (of Sri Lanka) has called upon the nation to come together, for the rebels to lay down their arms for the moment, and help to rebuild the nation. Even if the rebels pick up their guns again after the rebuilding is done, it would be a powerful message that they came together to help to rebuild.

This is what the world ought to be doing. Coming together. Obviously nations cannot give unreservedly--it's fair that they need to take care of their own populations first. But the US contribution currently stands at $35 million. Likely a drop in the bucket. The US currently has a population of 293,027,571. 35,000,000 divided by 293,027,571 equals 12¢/person. TWELVE CENTS. Even if it were increased to fifty cents/person, they would then be sending $145.5 million. The annual US government budget is measured in the trillions of dollars. One would think that they could divert some money from less important things like, say, missile defence (whose budget is measured in the billions) to something that actually matters, like human life.

On the topic of presidents, Kennedy once gave a speech in which he pointed out that no matter what our differences, we are all human, we all share the same basic goals and desires. Most simply, we are all mortal. Each life is as precious and valuable as the next. Our own mortality is staring us in the face right now. Not simply because of human stupidity but because of an act of nature. Human stupidity is a painful thing to witness, but acts of nature ought necessarily to be humbling. They should reminds us all just how delicate the entire planet is, how lucky we are to be here at all.

Sadly, in the old guns versus butter debate, guns always seem to win out. I have no reason to believe that 2005 will be any different, but I can always hope. As Harvey Milk once said, without hope, life is not worth living.

Just to continue with the current theme...

Each week, Josh Brown offers up sad but often far too accurate looks at life during wartime.

Wave toll 'could exceed 100,000'

US President George W Bush pledged to set up an international coalition, with Australia, India and Japan, to co-ordinate the relief effort.

The US earlier said it was more than doubling its pledge of funds to the region to $35m.

Does anyone else feel like the international aid coalition should be headed by something like, um, the UN or the Red Cross or something? I guess I'm just silly in thinking that international organisations ought to play the central role in situations like this, rather than individual national governments. It's an international disaster after all. Just a thought.

It's nice to know...

...that the US can spare $15 million for the tsunami victims. Especially when the Chimp-in-Chief's inaugural a month from now is estimated to cost between $30 and $40 million, exclusive of security costs. At least America has their priorities in order. I'm sure they figure that South Asia doesn't give them much but cheap labour. And I'm sure that land will be really cheap now in certain areas and that people will be desperate for work once the rebuilding gets underway. Hey! Let's build a factory and keep them in a cycle of poverty!

Can you tell I'm in a bitter mood?

Christmas Morning

So this is Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
And a new one just begun

And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear ones
The old and the young

A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear

And so this is Christmas
For weak and for strong
For rich and the poor ones
The world is so wrong

And so happy Christmas
For black and for white
For yellow and red ones
Let's stop all the fight

A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear

And so this is Christmas
And what have we done
Another year over
And a new one just begun

And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear ones
The old and the young

A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear

War is over over
If you want it
War is over
Now...

I'm spending my first Christmas morning away from home listening to David Sedaris's SantaLand Diaries and watching the cats play. Later, I'll head over to a friend's place for Christmas dinner and movies. It will be wonderful and relaxing. Not being with my family, it feels like just another weekend. Nothing too special. And I'm okay with that. The only Christmas-y thing that I did yesterday was to keep a long-standing Christmas chat date with a good friend. But without my family there was none of the usual attendant stress. It was just nice. I'll probably call my mother soon since I'm sure that they've been up for hours now. The gifts have been ripped open ungratefully and whines have been uttered over the fact that my little brothers didn't get something they'd asked for. Although that rarely happens--they almost always get everything they ask for. In the grand scheme of things, gifts seem like a silly thing. They're nice, of course, but I could do without them. The overt commercialism of Christmas has always bothered me--at least since I was in high school, anyway, and began thinking about these things.

A final thought on John Lennon: why don't more people want war to be over?

Hallmark

'When you care enough to send the very best.'

I just realised how condescending the Hallmark motto is. Think about it.

Merry Fucking Christmas

From Daily Kos

So, who is to blame for all the deaths in Iraq? Let's mull this one over a bit, shall we?

Bush claims Saddam is a threat. Bush claims Saddam has WMDs. Bush claims Saddam has ties to Al Qaida. Bush and his administration promote questionable intelligence that supports their preconceptions and prejudices, and reject that which counters it.

Bush puts Rummy in charge of the war. Rummy fires general who says 'we need more troops'. Rummy says we can do more with less. Rummy says 'lighter is better than armored'. Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld say we'll be met with flower petals. They say the war will be entirely paid for by oil revenues. They say the reconstruction will be paid for entirely by oil revenues.

Bush says he's giving diplomacy a chance, but he's giving the world a middle finger. Powell says he's showing the Security Council evidence of Saddam's duplicity, but he shows them pictures of warehouses. Bush claims a coalition of the willing, that's really a coalition of the billing -- a mish-mash of third-world nations with token contributions. Only England offers tangible support.

Bush sends the troops into battle, claiming he had no choice. But Saddam had caved on every Bush demand (inspectors were allowed back in, his long-range missiles were being destroyed).

No WMDs are found. No ties with Al Qaida are found. No military capable of threatening Iraq's neighbors is found. Saddam's army collapses quickly and the country's defenders retreat into 'insurgency' mode.

Bush declares mission accomplished. Bush taunts the insurgency. The insurgency kills our men and women. The commanders on the ground scream for more troops. They scream for armor. They scream for protected mess halls. Those screams fall on deaf ears.

More soldiers are killed. 1,320 Americans, 74 Britons, seven Bulgarians, one Dane, two Dutch, two Estonians, one Hungarian, 19 Italians, one Latvian, 16 Poles, one Salvadoran, three Slovaks, 11 Spaniards, two Thai and nine Ukrainians. The wounded number in the five figures.

Nevermind the innocent Iraqis who have been 'liberated' to death. And while we scream about Saddam's torture chambers, we create new ones of our own.

So thousands die, for a war built on false justifications, managed poorly, with underequipped, undermanned, and under-armored forces. And to add insult to injury, we've had to pay for this mess, to the tune of $200 billion.

So who sent our troops into Iraq on false pretenses? Who sent them in unarmored? Who refused to provide enough troops to stabilize the country effectively? Who taunted the Iraqi opposition with 'bring 'em on'? Who approved the American-branded torture chambers? Who has rewarded the secretary of defense who has negligently ignored the armor shortage in Iraq?

And who keeps them there as they continue to die?

Forgot to post this one yesterday...

Your Christmas is Most Like: A Charlie Brown Christmas

Each year, you really get into the spirit of Christmas. Which is much more important to you than nifty presents.

What Movie Is Your Christmas Most Like?

Too much time...?

You Are a Liberal for Life

You've got a bleeding heart - and you're proud of it. For you, liberal means being compassionate, pro-government, and anti-business. You believe in equality for every person, and you consider yourself universally empathetic. Helping others is not just political for you ... it's very personal too.

What political persuasion are you?

Your Element Is Water

A bit of a contradiction, you can seem both lighthearted and serious. That's because you're good at going with the flow - but you also are deep. Highly intuitive, you tune in to people's emotions and moods easily. You are able to tap into deep emotional connections and connect with others. You prefer a smooth, harmonious life - but you can navigate your way around waves. You have a knack for getting people to get along and making life a little more peaceful.

What's Your Element?

You Are Green Tea Pocky

Your attitude: natural and zen Peaceful yet full of life. Deep and thoughtful. You're halfway to tantric bliss!

What Flavor Pocky Are You?

You are 93% Cancer

How much do you match your zodiac sign?

You Are a Pundit Blogger!

Your blog is smart, insightful, and always a quality read. Truly appreciated by many, surpassed by only a few.

What kind of blogger are you?

Okay...I think that's enough for today. Maybe more later! :-P

Praying to the Financial aid gods...

...for a differential tuition waiver. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE! IT'S MY LAST SEMESTER.

In other news, I'm done with the semester...yay! Although still worried about the last paper that I handed in. I may write another one over break to supplement it. Just because I'm an over-achiever like that.

But I haven't started that yet because I've been staying up until 2 every night playing Sim City 4!

Burnt by the usually non-political comic!

Yay.

'Canada "can permit gay marriage"'

How much do you think this is going to piss of our neighbours to the south?

Kittens

Tiggy is SO interested in the pointer on my computer screen. And is also very interested in the text that is popping up as I type.

AWWWWWW!

A Call to Arms

And that's the problem with our coalition: it's mostly made up of leaders counting on rewards, rather than of nations that are really behind us. Tony Blair genuinely believes in the Iraq war as a matter of principle, but the other members of the coalition are mostly opportunists trying to buy good will in the Bush administration.

That's because a White House that proved immensely sensitive to public opinion in Ohio has been oblivious to public opinion abroad. To his credit, Mr. Bush has tried to mend relations lately, but the damage is done: Americans are dying in Iraq, largely on their own, because Mr. Bush's bulldozer approach has so alienated potential allies.

But don't give up. I'll continue my mission on behalf of Mr. Bush by traveling to two more giants in our coalition: Latvia and Lithuania. Will I find more troops for Iraq? Stay tuned.

I wasn't sure if this guy was serious or tongue-in-cheek when I started reading. Definitely tongue-in-cheek. See what happens when a NY Times Op-Ed columnist travels to Estonia to see if he can help drum up some more troops for Bush and the Coalition of the Willing. He points out that if each of the nations sent an additional 5,000 troops, the presence of non-US troops would almost double. Too bad Estonia only has an armed forces with 4,000 troops and 60% of the nation is against being involved.

This is, um...

...yeah.

Back at the beginning of October Bush gave a speech at which he introduced Mike and Sharla Hintz, proud Bush supporters, particularly of his tax cuts and his stance on terror and society/culture. Mike was quoted as saying, 'The American people are starting to see what kind of leader President Bush is. People know where he stands. Where we are in this world, with not just the war on terror, but with the war on our culture that's going on, I think we need a man that is going to be in the White House like President Bush, that's going to stand by what he believes.'

At the end of October, Mike Hintz was charged with the sexual exploitation of a child (a 17-year-old, yes, but still underage in Iowa) with whom he came into contact through his youth ministry at the First Assembly of God Church in Des Moines.

Go Republican family values!

*blink, blink*

So, I just slept for twelve hours.

I think my body is trying to tell me something: Drink more coffee.

Mending fences?

Read the text, or, if you want to be really pissed off watch the video in which Anne Coulter says that Canada is 'lucky we allow them to exist on the same continent' with us and in which Tucker Carlson tells Caroline Parrish, 'Without the US, Canada is essentially Honduras.'

Bonus Link! The Reverend Jerry Falwell says that the Iraq war is going pretty well 'if you watch it on Fox.'

Berkeley/Michigan fiasco update

So, it's going to be okay. They're each going to keep the transcript and writing sample and send each other the letters of recommendation. The woman at Michigan was like, I don't know why no one noticed this when they opened the envelope. There's even this whole extra supplemental application for Berkeley!

Pentagon sending more troops to Iraq to provide security before election

The Pentagon has decided to bolster U.S. forces in Iraq in advance of elections scheduled for late January by sending elements of the 82nd Airborne Division from Fort Bragg, N.C., and extending the tours of duty for other units already in Iraq, officials said Wednesday.

At least two Army brigades now operating in northern Iraq will have their tours extended by about two months, until after the election, an Army official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

But I thought they were ready for elections. Why on earth would we need more troops?

Secondly, I find it interesting/bothersome that the army official talking about extending tours of duty spoke only on condition of anonymity.

In a related piece, apparently serving in the US Marine Corps doesn't count as military duty.

What to say?

I received this email today.

December 1, 2004

Dear Anthony,

Yesterday the Department of History at UC Berkeley received an express package.
The inside  large brown envelope is addressed  to University of Michigan.  Inside it are letters from Bourne and DelBourgo in envelopes addressed to UMI and one from Lewis in a plain envelope with no address.  Also enclosed are two copies of the McGill transcript and a writing sample.

We have not opened the letters and transcripts.  What do you want us to do with this mailing?
We can send it first class to U Michigan or you can call around and see if U Michigan got the package intended for us and we can each  keep our respective items.  What you've sent us inadvertently is also required for your Berkeley application.

Please advise.

Karmic pay-back?

Universities may bar military recruiters from their campuses without risking the loss of federal money, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday.

A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in Philadelphia, found that educational institutions have a First Amendment right to keep military recruiters off their campuses to protest the Defense Department policy of excluding gays from military service.

The 2-to-1 decision relied in large part on a decision in 2000 by the United States Supreme Court to allow the Boy Scouts to exclude gay scoutmasters. Just as the Scouts have a First Amendment right to bar gays, the appeals court said, law schools may prohibit groups that they consider discriminatory.

I believe this deserves a proper and dignified response.


(That's an orang-utan giving the finger to the military.)

Checklist

Independent study paper - check.
Dante paper - check.
Grad school applications - CHECK!

To do:

Paper on élite marriage practices in colonial São Paulo.
Paper on colonial American perceptions of Native American gender.

Then:

Sweet blissful sleep.

Mathew Gross: The Politics of Victimization

Democrats as abuse victims? I'm taking the second half of the post, go read the first half. It's interesting.

First, you must admit you are a victim. Then, you must declare the state of affairs unacceptable. Next, you must promise to protect yourself and everyone around you that is being victimized. You don’t do this by responding to their demands, or becoming more like them, or engaging in logical conversation, or trying to persuade them that you are right. You also don’t do this by going catatonic and resigned, by closing up your ears and eyes and covering your head and submitting to the blows, figuring its over faster and hurts less is you don’t resist and fight back. Instead, you walk away. You find other folks like yourself, 56 million of them, who are hurting, broken, and beating themselves up. You tell them what you’ve learned, and that you aren’t going to take it anymore. You stand tall, with 56 million people at your side and behind you, and you look right into the eyes of the abuser and you tell him to go to hell. Then you walk out the door, taking the kids and gays and minorities with you, and you start a new life. The new life is hard. But it’s better than the abuse.

We have a mandate to be as radical and liberal and steadfast as we need to be. The progressive beliefs and social justice we stand for, our core, must not be altered. We are 56 million strong. We are building from the bottom up. We are meeting, on the net, in church basements, at work, in small groups, and right now, we are crying, because we are trying to break free and we don’t know how.

Any battered woman in America, any oppressed person around the globe who has defied her oppressor will tell you this: There is nothing wrong with you. You are in good company. You are safe. You are not alone. You are strong. You must change only one thing: stop responding to the abuser. Don’t let him dictate the terms or frame the debate (he’ll win, not because he’s right, but because force works). Sure, we can build a better grassroots campaign, cultivate and raise up better leaders, reform the election system to make it failproof, stick to our message, learn from the strategy of the other side. But we absolutely must dispense with the notion that we are weak, godless, cowardly, disorganized, crazy, too liberal, naive, amoral, “loose”, irrelevant, outmoded, stupid and soon to be extinct. We have the mandate of the world to back us, and the legacy of oppressed people throughout history.

Even if you do everything right, they’ll hit you anyway. Look at the poor souls who voted for this nonsense. They are working for six dollars an hour if they are working at all, their children are dying overseas and suffering from lack of health care and a depleted environment and a shoddy education. And they don’t even know they are being hit.

In other news, I wish I could post a poll here. There's probably some way to do so, but I don't have the time to figure out how right now. What do I do if I don't get into grad school? New York? Washington? If I'm as serious as I keep saying I might be about getting involved in politics, Washington seems to make more sense than New York, but who wouldn't want to leave in New York as a twentysomething?

Sigh. Back to the history paper dungeon.

I think this is cool.

I may have mentioned this before. But, if not, I think the Wikimedia Foundation is cool, and that there projects are also quite cool. Although I'm a little bothered by the slogan of the WikiSpecies project: 'WikiSpecies if free. Because life is public domain!' For now it is, anyway. Hopefully it'll stay that way.

I love when...

...historians oh-so-subtlely contradict themselves. For example, in one chapter, the author suggests that dowries were no longer focused on helping the couple to set up shop on thier own, citing the decline in useful, tool-like items that could be used to help the couple subsist. In the next chapter, however, the author suggests that the dowry was still very much about property. What is property if not a way to subsistance? And why don't I get any dowry inventories? I don't care if only 2% of dowries in eighteenth-century São Paulo included a townhouse, as opposed to 40% of dowries in the seventeenth century. This doesn't tell me anything if I don't know what the other 98/60% of dowries were like. I know they had townhouses, but did they tend to include things that might take the place of a townhouse? Did those families have a townhouse to give?

That's all. I know I shouldn't complain if this is the worst of my complaints.

Blog outsourcing...

Communhealth, from Atrios...

Mrs. Atrios and I spent two months in Barcelona in summer 2003. You may remember the good old days when the corrente crowd was posting. While we were there Mrs. Atrios had a wee stomach bug, enough to necessitate a trip to the doctor. After a bit of hunting we found a local health clinic. After a bit of discussion they took her passport number at reception, sat us down, and a half hour or so later she saw a doctor. The doctor inquired about her insurance. My wife explained that we had travel insurance, and the way it worked was that we'd just cover any costs and then submit them upon our return. This troubled the doctor greatly, not because of the cost of the exam, which turned out to be free, but because of concern about the cost of the drugs which were to be prescribed.

We took the prescription, went to our local pharmacy, and had it filled.

Cost?

About 3 bucks.

Spain spends about 7.5% of its GDP on health care. We spend about 13.9%. About 4% of our GDP is spent on a subset of health care called... 'health care administration.'

This raises the obvious question -- why do they hate freedom?

Yeah. Not much to say on that one. Stuffing, anyone?

Results...

You are He-Man from Masters of the Universe! You
take life very seriously, and you should,
considering you are the keeper of all that is
good and right in the universe! However, your
nonstop suspicion of Skeletor and his henchman
can start your friends wondering why you don't
loosen up once in awhile.


Which Forgotten 80s Cartoon Character Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

You Are the Stuffing

You Are the Stuffing

You're complicated and complex, yet all your pieces fit together. People miss you if you're gone - but they're not sure why.

What Part of Thanksgiving Are You?

In other Yanksgiving news, MY DAD IS ENGAGED! I'm so excited for him!

So...

Ukraine has a disputed presidential election, and they're on the brink of a civil war. The US has a disputed presidential election, and...it's life as usual.

There's so much that I could say about this picture...

...but I won't.

Economic 'Armageddon' predicted

This is, um, promising.... NOT!

Stephen Roach, the chief economist at investment banking giant Morgan Stanley, has a public reputation for being bearish.

But you should hear what he's saying in private.

Roach met select groups of fund managers [in Boston] last week, including a group at Fidelity.

His prediction: America has no better than a 10 percent chance of avoiding economic 'armageddon.'

Press were not allowed into the meetings. But the Herald has obtained a copy of Roach's presentation. A stunned source who was at one meeting said, 'it struck me how extreme he was - much more, it seemed to me, than in public.'

Roach sees a 30 percent chance of a slump soon and a 60 percent chance that 'we'll muddle through for a while and delay the eventual armageddon.'

The chance we'll get through OK: one in 10. Maybe.

In a nutshell, Roach's argument is that America's record trade deficit means the dollar will keep falling. To keep foreigners buying T-bills and prevent a resulting rise in inflation, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan will be forced to raise interest rates further and faster than he wants.

The result: U.S. consumers, who are in debt up to their eyeballs, will get pounded.

Less a case of 'Armageddon,'' maybe, than of a 'Perfect Storm.'

'Virgin Mary' toast fetches $28,000

Just thought I'd give y'all the update on this.

This is somehow oddly appropriate...

"it's a small world": The happiest cruise
that ever sailed! Surreal and silly, or sweat
and touching, you are a well intentioned 1960s
homage to the world's diversity that
unfortunatly inspires feelings of sheer terror
in those who can't help but feel something more
sinister lays beneath your shiney surface. But
most cannot deny your charm, even if they
cannot explain it, and leave feeling better
than when they entered. Most overlook the fact
that because of your unique style and design,
courtesy of Disney Legend Mary Blair, you are a
true work of art and you deserve to be
appreciated. You are both worldy and
simplistic, both cosmopolitan and decidedly
middle American. You are a splendid
candy-coated contradiction with a sugary, sunny
song that one never forgets. If the world
truely listened to your never-ending optimism,
it could be a small world after all.


What Disneyland attraction are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

All I want for Christmas

United States Patent 5,983,411

Kittens and Patriarchy

Microsoft Word is sexist. It recognises 'matrilineal' but not 'patrilineal'.

In other news, we have a kitten! My roommate was fairly convinced that Sudra was lonely. Maybe she is. So now we have a kitten. 7 months old. Named Tiggy. Part (not sure how much) Maine coon. We have them segregated at the moment. Sudra hasn't quite figured out what's going on yet. She noticed the meowing from the other room at one point this afternoon. She seemed not quite sure what to make of it and eventually, as is her style, lost interest. We'll see how this develops. Hopefully the kitten will run the extra pounds off Sudra and she won't be Chubby-Cat anymore. Maybe this will bring out hidden maternal insticts in her. Or something.

Back to the patriarchy (in Brazil)....

I (heart) the world

I love when I come up from air from a study break to see the headline on BBC read 'Troops storm major Baghdad mosque'. Because, you know, there were bad people inside. Never mind the fact that it's Friday. There were worshippers inside. Among others, the imam was arrested. The raid was conducted by Iraqi security forces backed by US troops.

Long ago this became a moot point. But let's just all remind ourselves: this is not a war on Islam.

Library Adventures

I would like to re-iterate my frustrated hatred of all McGill Libraries Reference Staff. Not once have I ever actually been helped by these people. They listen to the first three words you say and then tell you they know exactly what you need. And it never is what you need. Then they suggest that you check Muse. Thanks. Did that. That's why I'm asking YOU.

In other news, Bill Clinton is preparing to open his Presidential Library. No word on whether or not the Blue Dress will be on display. Oh the nostalgia. Things were so simple and harmless during the Clinton years.

Let's all move!

Ireland has been named the best country in the world to live in by The Economist. I could live in Ireland. Yeah, I could totally live in Ireland.

Who's with me?

(And no comments about the fact that I'm supposed to be writing papers and yet I've posted three times today. I'm being super-productive.)

Leading Democrat Senator Won't Block Confirmation of Gonzales

'I said jokingly that the president, with the majority he has in the Senate, could have sent up Attila the Hun and got him confirmed,' Mr. Leahy said. 'But Judge Gonzales is no Attila the Hun; he's far from that, and he's a more uniting figure.'

Just fucking curl up and die. If Gonzales is a uniting figure then I am the Second Coming. Wouldn't that be great? If the Second Coming were a gay history student?

bah

I'm listening to the most inane rich-activist-kid conversation at the architecture café. They are preventing me from working on my paper because it's just far too entertaining.

Only in America

'I do believe that this is the Virgin Mary Mother of God.'
Click
here to read the whole story

In real world news, Anthony reading week is going well. I'm four pages away from hitting 30 pages on my independent study paper. And I definitely have more than four pages left to write. This is a good thing. I just hope it's all coherent at the end. Then I let it sit and ferment for about five days until I look at it again, polish it up, and hand it in. In the meantime, I'll hopefully write my latin american history paper. And maybe my Dante paper. Tonight, also, I have to finish up my personal statement.

A busy boy am I.

Now, though, I am going to have a poor law free shower. Woohoo! (At this point, it really is the little things.)

Who's a dumbass? I'm a dumbass!

I HAVE ANOTHER WHOLE WEEK TO WRITE MY PAPERS!

Somehow, I thought that next week was the beginning of December. But it's not. All last week up until yesterday, I thought that I had this week, and that's it. That I would basically have to write three papers and finish my personal statement by Sunday or so (first drafts, at any rate). This is what prompted the panic of taking this week off. I'm still going to take this week off, and I'm still going to try to get two papers essentially written by the end of this week. I really think I can have my 30-pager done by Wednesday--a first draft, that is. Then I'll jump into the 15-20 pager.

*enormous sigh of relief*

In the meantime, go watch the trailer for Un long dimanche de fiançailles, Jean-Pierre Jeunet's (of Amélie fame) new film. Audrey Tautou is even in it!

http://www.apple.com/trailers/warner_independent_pictures/averylongengagement.html

Time off

I've realised that this blog has become less about me and more about posting things that other people have said that I feel you all ought to know about. As you might imagine, there hasn't been a lot of me to go around recently, with school and all. Indeed, I'm instituting an personal reading week next week, so I probably won't be posting much, if anything. Don't worry, it's not likely that I've died. I'll just be trying to write two papers and the bestest personal statement ever seen my a graduate admissions committee. Maybe.

Ugh. Three more weeks and this semester is over. I will be oh-so-glad when it is.

Bizarro World

From Atrios. The sad thing is that these kinds of stories don't even surprise me anymore.

I just heard a report on NPR about a group of Chinese Muslims who have been in Guantanmo. We've decided that they're no longer a threat. The Chinese government wants us to hand them over so they can try them on terrorism charges.

We don't want to hand them over because... yes, you know it's coming...

The Chinese government may torture them.

I (heart) rumours

Especially when the rumours involve the potential new chairman of the Republican Party possibly being a big ol' homo.

Mehlman has REFUSED to answer direct questions from reporters about his sexual orientation. This wouldn't be relevant, except:

1. There have been rumors for years about Mehlman's sexual orientation. Now that he's a very public figure, those rumors gain an importance they didn't have before.[...]

2. Mehlman has already said publicly that the gay issue is fair game for politics. If it's fair game, then the same rules apply to him.

3. Mehlman has publicly defended the president's anti-gay policies, including the federal constitutional amendment. Were Mehlman gay, he'd be guilty of hypocrisy, and that would justify his outing - again, were he gay.

4. The GOP has made it perfectly clear that gays and lesbians and their relationships are a threat to the fabric of society. As American citizens and voters we have the right to know if Ken Mehlman's so-far-undisclosed relationships are posing such a threat or not. The last thing the GOP should be doing is giving a position of prominence in the party to someone who, for all we know, might have a secret agenda of undermining the family. They can't have it both ways.

5. The Republican National Committee is an organization that makes NO BONES about using gay-bashing to help Republican candidates. There is good reason to believe that any RNC chair, were he not 100% straight, would be at pains to effectively run an organization that relies on gay-bashing to get its way. Don't red-state Americans have the right to know if the leader of their party, whomever it turns out to be, actually embraces the party's prefered lifestyle?

6. We have been told that part of President Bush's supposed "mandate" in the most recent election was a vindication of his attack on gays. The voting public has a right to know if the next RNC chair plans on subversively undercutting that mandate or actively supporting it.

[...]

America is in the throes of a culture war, nurtured by groups like the RNC and people like Ken Mehlman. Americans have a right to know which side of the culture war Ken Mehlman is on, and whether, as RNC chair, he would be a fifth column for those very forces that the RNC tells us are out to steal America's Bibles and jam homosexual sex down its throats and the throats of its children.

Now, I've always been one for keeping what happens in people's bedrooms their own business, which, for example, is why I couldn't care less about Monicagate. As for outing people, I've also never been a fan of that--it's their life, if they want to disclose, they can disclose. Sure it would be better in the long-run if everyone just came out so that people would realise that gays and lesbians are everywhere and are quite normal people, but everyone has to do what they have to do.

In this case, though, it's different. Not only is there the problem of hypocrisy, but this would be worse than having Mary Cheney as a paid staffer of Bush/Cheney '04 while completely refusing to acknowledge her existence and most especially refusing to acknowledge her lesbianism.

I think it's clear that the nation is deeply divided and in a very fragile state at the moment. I fully agree with the quote where it talks about the culture war. Imagine the shit storm of Mehlman were to become GOP Chairman only to be outed? Maybe it would be a good thing in the long-run, but I doubt it. It would piss a lot of people off at Bush, but I don't think that it would make them amenable to gay neighbours or the thought that somewhere in the nation sodomy might be occurring or gays might be getting married.

US deficit pushes euro over $1.30

'The euro has now risen by 10 US cents in a month.'

BRING ON THE FOOD RIOTS!

Okay, so I'm getting a little ahead of myself here....

About how I'm feeling right now, on a variety of levels

A thought on the marriage amendment issue

All these people who want to add a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, to add the first restrictive amendment to the US Constitution. Fine. Okay. You want to play that way? Give up your guns. I will gladly give up my (potential) right to marriage--I'll settle for a civil union or nothing at all, even--if you give up your Second Amendment right to bear arms. It only seems fair. If we have to give up one of our rights, you ought to give up one of yours. That's what democracy is all about: sharing. And, remember, sharing means caring. (Of course, democracy isn't as much about sharing as socialism is, but that's beside the point.)

Sorry Everybody

No explanation needed for this one. Just follow the link.

Daily Kos :: Backdoor draft

From Kos:

Jesus, this one hits too close to home:

David M. Miyasato enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve in 1987, served three years of active duty during the first Gulf War and received an honorable discharge in 1991. He remained on inactive status for five more years, until 1996. Since then, the Kaua'i resident has married, started an auto window tinting business and this year, he and his wife had their first child.

But in September, Miyasato received a letter from the Army recalling him to active duty and directing him to report to a military facility in South Carolina on Tuesday.

'I was shocked,' Miyasato said yesterday. 'I never expected to see something like that after being out of the service for 13 years.'

Miyasato is now suing the Secretary of the Army, asking a court to prevent the Army from ordering him to active duty. He is also asking for a court judgment declaring that he fulfilled all his obligations to the military.

This dude has been out longer than I have. This is the first reported callup of a soldier who had already completed his inactive reserve obligations.

The draft is coming.

At least I can claim homosexuality. I'd love to see Bush try to let gays into the military just to boost the draftable population. Heh. But, as Margaret Cho has said, 'How can you fight a war without gays? I mean, if you don't have lesbians, who's gonna read the map?'

Eschaton's view on 'values'

If 'values' are the new battleground, which I mostly doubt, then I say bring it on, Larry Flynt-style. Let the scarlet A's be handed out, the closet doors swung open, and weekly church attendance records of members of congress and the administration be compiled. If sinning godless heathens are the problem, then let's be clear about who the sinning godless heathens are.

Can we riot now?

Those exit poll results have been a problem for reporters ever since Election Day.

Election night, I'd been doing live election coverage for WDEV, one of the radio stations that carries my syndicated show, and, just after midnight, during the 12:20 a.m. Associated Press Radio News feed, I was startled to hear the reporter detail how Karen Hughes had earlier sat George W. Bush down to inform him that he'd lost the election. The exit polls were clear: Kerry was winning in a landslide. 'Bush took the news stoically,' noted the AP report.

But then the computers reported something different. In several pivotal states.

Conservatives see a conspiracy here: They think the exit polls were rigged.

Dick Morris, the infamous political consultant to the first Clinton campaign who became a Republican consultant and Fox News regular, wrote an article for The Hill, the publication read by every political junkie in Washington, DC, in which he made a couple of brilliant points.

'Exit Polls are almost never wrong,' Morris wrote. 'They eliminate the two major potential fallacies in survey research by correctly separating actual voters from those who pretend they will cast ballots but never do and by substituting actual observation for guesswork in judging the relative turnout of different parts of the state.'

He added: 'So, according to ABC-TVs exit polls, for example, Kerry was slated to carry Florida, Ohio, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, and Iowa, all of which Bush carried. The only swing state the network had going to Bush was West Virginia, which the president won by 10 points.'

Yet a few hours after the exit polls were showing a clear Kerry sweep, as the computerized vote numbers began to come in from the various states the election was called for Bush.

How could this happen?

'Kerry Won'

Just for context, the author of this piece is Greg Palast, a 'contributing editor to Harper's magazine, [who] investigated the manipulation of the vote for BBC Television's Newsnight.' In other words, not just some desperate crazy person.

Skanksville

Just in case the image doesn't link, check the link. I really like the look that the Bush twins are going for. One of them is 21st century skank and the other is early 20th century skank. It's a good balance. Of course, Laura is in her usual Barbie doll pink, smelling of Lysol (see the Margaret Cho post below). Uncle Dick is wearing a black suit, appropriate for Darth Vader. Not sure what Lynne was thinking: lime green is hardly a patriotic colour, unless we count Miami and Key West, and we KNOW what kind of people live THERE. And, gasp, could that be? Mary Cheney! Have they let her come out of hiding? I guess they had to move her out of the Undisclosed Location so they could put Dick back into storage. And who's that masculine looking woman standing with her?

Vacation's over, folks! Let's make these next two years hell for Bush.

Impeachment 2006!

Big Brother and the Boss

Winston kept his back turned to the telescreen. It was safer; though as he well knew, even a back can be revealing. A kilometre away the Ministry of Truth, his place of work, towered vast and white above the grimy landscape [...] He tried to squeeze out some childhood memory that should tell him whether London had always been quite like this. Were there always these vistas of rotting nineteenth-century houses, their sides shored up with baulks of timber, their windows patched with cardboard and their roofs with corrugated iron, their crazy garden walls sagging in all directions? And the bombed sites where the plaster dust swirled in the air and the willowherb straggled over the heaps of rubble; and the places where the bombs had cleared a larger patch and there had sprung up sordid colonies of wooden dwellings like chicken-houses? But it was no use, he could not remember: nothing remained of his childhood except a series of bright-lit tableaux, occurring against no background and most unintelligible.

The Ministry of Truth [...] was startlingly different from any other object in sight. It was an enormous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete, soaring up, terrace after terrace, three hundred metres into the air. From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party:

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

On a rattlesnake speedway in the Utah desert
I pick up my money and head back into town
Driving cross the Waynesboro county line
I got the radio on and I'�m just killing time
Working all day in my daddy'�s garage
Driving all night chasing some mirage
Pretty soon little girl I'm gonna take charge

The dogs on main street howl 'cause they understand
If I could take one moment into my hands
Mister I ain'�t a boy, no I�'m a man
And I believe in a promised land

I'�ve done my best to live the right way
I get up every morning and go to work each day
But your eyes go blind and your blood runs cold
Sometimes I feel so weak I just want to explode
Explode and tear this old town apart
Take a knife and cut this pain from my heart
Find somebody itching for something to start

The dogs on main street howl 'cause they understand
If I could take one moment into my hands
Mister I ain'�t a boy, no I'�m a man
And I believe in a promised land

There'�s a dark cloud rising from the desert floor
I packed my bags and I�'m heading straight into the storm
Gonna be a twister to blow everything down
That ain�'t got the faith to stand it�s ground
Blow away the dreams that tear you apart
Blow away the dreams that break your heart
Blow away the lies that leave you nothing but lost and broken-hearted

The dogs on main street howl 'cause they understand
If I could take one moment into my hands
Mister I ain'�t a boy, no I'�m a man
And I believe in a promised land

End of Days

That's it. It's over. Kerry has conceded. George W. Bush has been elected again for the first time.

Needless to say, this is a very difficult moment for me. I wasn't personally involved in any of this. Being in Montréal, I've been able to observe everything from an out-of-body distance. The nation of my birth has troubled me more and more since Bush came into office, and most especially after 11th September 2001. I remember going home for the first time after 9/11, in December 2001. I actually flew home because it was so inexpensive. 45 minutes in the air is a hell of a lot easier than 8 hours on a bus. I was nervous but I had faith. Besides, who would blow up a little Air Canada jet? After collecting my bags, I stepped out onto the curb to look for my parents. Up they drove in their enormous Ford Expedition (Eddie Bauer Edition). Already, it sported an airbrushed vanity plate that declared 'Freedom will be defended' against a background of a bald eagle and the American flag. They had a flag on the antenna. Massachusetts had already released their official vanity plates and there was one of those on the back declaring 'United we stand.'

My mother and stepfather have never claimed to be whole-hearted Bush supporters, but they're the kind of people that worry me the most: they blow with the wind. Although they claimed not to support Bush, they immediately bought into the patriotic goose stepping that was called for after 9/11. Dissent quickly became unpatriotic. That is, perhaps, the most frightening aspect of Bush's America.

The only thing in my mind that can account for what's going on is pure and simple apathy. Although there may have been record turn-out yesterday, the majority--even if it's an ever so slight majority--of the nation just doesn't care enough to question what they are fed. Cheney declared that if Kerry were elected, the nation would almost certainly suffer another terrorist attack. What the nation doesn't understand is that Bush&Co themselves have committed a terrorist attack far worse than that of 9/11. They are attacking the very foundations of the nation. I don't even want to think about what four more years of Bush will mean for the nation or for the world for that matter. It's simply too painful to think about right now.

The nation is clearly deeply divided. This is perhaps surprising considering the amount of pulling together that seemed to happen after 9/11. The problem is, though, that the Republicans now hold control of the entire government. Giuliani was on ABC at one point last night and suggested that whoever won would have to do a lot of bringing together. I simply don't see the Republicans as doing this: why should they? They now have a popular mandate--51% it's true, but that's the first majority mandate that a president has received in over a decade.

I am deeply conflicted right now about my own future--never mind that of the nation. It frightens me to think that I might be moving back to the states in a few months. And yet I wonder if maybe that's where I need to be. The odd thing about this election is that it has, in a way, awakened some kind of patriotism within me. There is great promise in the founding promises of the United States.

The nation survived Nixon.

The nation survived Reagan.

Can the nation survive Bush?

The GOP tried to impeach Clinton because of a dirty dress.

Two years are a long time to wait. And yet if the Democrats can get their act together during the next two years and make decisive gains in the mid-term elections, Bush is impeachable on a lot more than a dirty dress. A lot can happen in two years. A lot.

There has been a lot of talk, particularly over at Daily Kos, about the death of the Democratic Party in its current state. The party is ripe for reformation. It desperately needs to draw itself together and find its base and its message. For the sake of the nation and for the sake of the world. Almost half the nation supported Kerry. It's difficult to know if it was based on support of the Democrats or an anti-Bush sentiment.

I think that this election decisively shows that the US is tacking significantly more to the right than Europe or Canada. Any new Democratic party would necessarily have to run towards centre. I've always been more of a leftist, to be sure, but I'm starting to wonder if I need to return to the nation of my birth to help save it.

I'm too conflicted about it all right now to say for sure. But I feel too strongly about the future not to consider it at all.

No Surrender, II

Everyone agrees that Bush&Co. stole the election four years ago. If they do it again....

As I suspected--and as has been pointed out over at DailyKos--something's not right in FL and OH. The link is to a post explaining the very obvious fact that exit polls for everywhere but OH and FL reflected reality. In FL and OH, though, both of which showed Kerry winning by comfortable margins, something happened. What, did people lie?

Somehow I think not.

I'm going to be very punchy today. Not nearly enough sleep. I stayed at the boy's house last night in order to have access to a tv. (I have to say that I was happy with ABC for not doing stupid things like calling states way too early. They refused, in fact, to call OH. And they called MN and WA quite a while after everyone else had. I guess Peter Jennings still retains some sanity from his Canadian roots.)

Anyway, since I was staying here and leaving for school from here, I had to bring a change of clothes, obviously. I subconsciously made a good choice:

No Surrender

I think I should try to sleep. But I thought I would post these lyrics as an attempt to stay hopeful. I have to admit that my hope is fading, but I don't want to think about Kerry not winning. It's just too horrific to think about what the United States and the world might be like after another four years of Bush.

--

We busted out of class had to get away from those fools
We learned more from a three-minute record than we ever learned in school
Tonight I heart the neighborhood drummer sound
I can feel my heart begin to pound
You say you’re tired and you just want to close your eyes and follow your dreams down

We made a promise we swore we’d always remember
No retreat, believe me, no surrender
Like soldiers in the winter’s night with a vow to defend
No retreat, believe me, no surrender

Now young faces grow sad and old and hearts of fire grow cold
We swore blood brothers against the wind
I’m ready to grow young again
And hear your sister’s voice calling us home across the open yards
Believin’ we could cut someplace of our own
With these drums and these guitars

We made a promise we swore we’d always remember
No retreat, believe me, no surrender
Blood brothers in the stormy night with a vow to defend
No retreat, believe me, no surrender

Now on the street tonight the lights grow dim
The walls of my room are closing in
But it’s good to see your smiling face and to hear your voice again
We could sleep in the twilight by the river side
With a wide open country in our hearts
And these romanics dreams in our heads

We made a promise...

It's 12.47...

...do you know where your next President is?

Margaret Cho

During her recent get-out-the-vote tour, everyone's favourite Asian-American compared John Kerry to an Ent, the tree-people from Lord of the Rings, because he's so tall.

'But wouldn't you so much rather have a tree than a bush?'

She also said that Teresa Heinz Kerry had a Mrs Robinson-like quality about her and was sexy, especially in comparison to Laura: 'you KNOW her pussy smells like Lysol.'

From 'electoral-vote.com'

As I have discussed repeatedly, normally people with a cell phone but no landline are not polled. Most of these are in the 18-29 year old group. Up until now, no one has known how their absence from the polling data might affect the results. Zogby has now conducted a very large (N = 6039) poll exclusively on cell phones using SMS messaging to get a feeling of how they will vote. The results are that they go strongly for Kerry, 55% to 40%, with a margin of error of only 1.2%. If they all vote tomorrow, the pollsters are going to spend the rest of the week wiping egg from their faces. But historically, younger voters have a miserable turnout record, so the pollsters need not yet stock up on paper towels.

Oh, and there's the current prediction, too: Kerry 298, Bush 231.

Special End of the World Edition

This is it. 2nd November 2004. Hopefully it will be remembered for being the day that the United States finally snapped out of its zombie daze, elected John Kerry, who then set about correcting the wrongs that have been propagated over the previous four years.

Appropriately enough, the first song that came on iTunes this morning was Madonna's 'American Life'. I think I need to make a new cd to listen to today, starting with U2's 'Beautiful Day', since Kerry has been playing that a lot at his rallies, but prominently featuring The Boss. It's funny how, when I was a mindless child, I used to sing along with the chorus of 'Born in the USA' whenever it came on, and thought that it was all about how great it was to be born in the USA and how wonderful a country it was and all. Oh, the naïveté of the child.