Sense from chaos

Kettle? This is the pot calling.

2005-11-12T15:50:00.000-06:00

From Bush's Veteran's Day speech:

"The murderous ideology of the Islamic radicals is the great challenge of our new century. Yet in many ways, this fight resembles the struggle against communism in the last century. Like the ideology of communism, Islamic radicalism is elitist, led by a self-appointed vanguard that presumes to speak for the Muslim masses. Bin Laden says his own role is to tell Muslims, "what is good for them and what is not." And what this man who grew up in wealth and privilege considers good for poor Muslims is that they become killers and suicide bombers. He assures them that this road -- that this is the road to paradise -- though he never offers to go along for the ride."

Just as a little intellectual exercise, let's see how difficult it would be to make this paragraph sound like it's referring to Bush...

"The murderous ideology of the [right-wing] radicals is the great challenge of our new century. Yet in many ways, this fight resembles the struggle against communism in the last century. Like the ideology of communism, [right-wing] radicalism is elitist, led by a self-appointed vanguard that presumes to speak for the [American] masses. [Bush] says his own role is to tell [Americans], "what is good for them and what is not." And what this man who grew up in wealth and privilege considers good for poor [Americans] is that they become killers.... He assures them that this road -- that this is the road to [freedom and democracy] -- though he never offers to go along for the ride."

Would you know the difference?

Weirdest. Dream. Ever.

2005-09-10T10:22:00.000-06:00

The pope was sitting on my bed with me and my friends, offering me painkillers, and joking about "Buddha, save me!", "I'm burning [in hell]!" This was just before he toppled backward off the bed from laughing. Don't worry, though, he didn't hurt himself.

Math update

2005-03-03T21:39:00.000-06:00

92% on my midterm - woo!

Oh-kay...

2005-03-03T21:34:00.000-06:00

Anna, Anna, Anna...

She does have amazing skin, though.

2005-02-01T23:44:00.000-06:00

Eep, it's been over a week since I posted anything! Not that I have anything important to say today, either...

I used to consider myself fairly good at math. I like it, I have a good feel for numbers, I thought I might try to fit a math degree in with the computer science one I'm working on. That is, until I took stats. Damn stats. I came this close to failing the final in that class, even though I went into it with about a 90 average. Suddenly the prospect of taking even the three or four other math classes that are required for my current program became a lot scarier.

I guess I didn't really understand just how different separate branches of mathematics are, though. I have a friend with a math degree, and whenever I would ask him to tutor me, he'd say sure, as long as it wasn't stats. I didn't get how you could take a whole class on the intricacies of e = mc² and not be able to work basic statistics problems.

This semester, I reluctantly signed up for a math class because there weren't any CS classes that worked with my schedule. And I am loving it! The hell? It's about logic and proving mathematical statements, which I now remember finding intensely satisfying in grade 10 geometry. Today, we received our second assignment, which is due next Tuesday. My favourite tv show was on tonight, and instead of watching it, I worked on my assignment. Clearly, I love proofs. And, equally clearly, I am a geek.

Oh, also, I am very proud of myself for two reasons today. I got a 90% on my first math assignment, and I fixed my new (used) camera lens all by myself. I just bought it two weeks ago, and had been using it all weekend for an assignment for the camera class I'm taking. It worked fine for about 80 million pictures, but right at the end, the metering didn't seem to recognize a change in aperture while in manual mode. If I switched to shutter priority, it worked fine. Since I just spent $225 that I don't have on this lens, which I bought on consignment (read: 7 day warranty), I was a little worried. But, I am genius. Also, cleaning the contacts can do wonders.

Robert Kennedy, Jr.

2005-01-23T10:57:00.000-06:00

I would vote for this man. He understands what is wrong with both major parties, and recognizes the reasoning behind the White House's tactics for what it is: fascism.

The box said daylight

2005-01-22T09:09:00.000-06:00

Because I'm cheap and lazy, I try to come up with alternative, $2 solutions to $500 problems commonly experienced in photography. Oddly enough, they don't usually work.

For example, there often just isn't enough natural light to create the effect that I want. If I use my on-camera flash, I end up with a completely different effect, a flat and harsh snapshot instead of a photo with subtle lighting and depth. If I turn on an artificial light, it affects the colour in the picture (yellow with incandescent, green with fluorescent). The accepted solution would be to use photography-specific lighting, such as a separate flash and/or freestanding lights and reflectors, but that would cost money and sounds very awkward.

So I was shopping in Superstore the other day, and I came across these incandescent bulbs with a blue coating. The box claimed that the colour of light they gave off was in the daylight range. Ah hah, I said. I can put these bulbs in a lamp to give myself spot or supplemental fill lighting, and everything will be good. I can take pictures of my cats at night to my heart's content.

Well, I'm here to tell you that even though the naked eye is fooled, film is not. The pictures came out still noticeably yellow, if less so than before. But I'm an optimist. I'm thinking about trying out an aquarium grow light next.

Gear

2005-01-19T07:45:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, because I completely can't afford it, I bought a new lens for my camera, and I am so excited! The lens is a Pentax-FA SMC 28-200 3.8-5.6 AL(IF) with hood, which is not the fastest, but it's ok. My camera is a Pentax SF-1. I've really been wanting to get a telephoto lens because I'm starting another photography class tonight. Not that I'll necessarily take any better pictures than I did before, but at least I won't be able to blame it on the gear anymore.

If I take any good pictures, I'll try to post them here, but I'm warning you, they'll probably be cat portraits.

Heisenberg's cat

2005-01-17T08:26:00.000-06:00

My cat, Otto, likes to play in the tub behind the closed shower curtain. I can hear him in there, making a lot of noise, thwap-a-wap-a-wap-a-thwap, pause, thwap-a-thwap-a-wap-a-thwap, pause, pause, thwap...

If I open the curtain to see exactly what the hell he's doing, all I see is him crouched down, staring at me with dilated pupils.

The nerve

2005-01-15T09:52:00.000-06:00

So I went to the optometrist yesterday, and everything was going smashingly, right up until the end, when she pointed out that she measured my left optic nerve at .25 (mm?) and my right one at .15. This wouldn't be a problem in and of itself, except that at my last appointment, they were both .15.

She says that this may be a very early sign of glaucoma, or it may be a difference in the way she and the last optometrist measured the nerve. I get to go back in six months for a follow-up, and if it has continued to grow, then I might be in trouble. Well, trouble thirty years from now, but still, I don't ever want to go blind. In the meantime, "eat right, keep fit," the usual blah blah blah.

Also, for some reason, she was insistent that I was going to get laser eye surgery. The last time I went, 2 1/2 years ago, I did want them to check to see if I was a candidate, but I got glasses then and haven't been back since, so obviously it wasn't a big priority for me. But yesterday, she was all talking about how the glaucoma issue might delay it and she doesn't know how big a rush I am in about it and she can send me over to Horizon and let me put these drops in your eyes that'll dilate your pupils for the next eight hours, and I'm like, I didn't ask for laser eye surgery, and she just keeps going. Either she gets a kickback, or everybody she sees wants the surgery, because holy goddamn crap! Seriously, lady, you just told me I might have glaucoma. I don't want to talk about re-shaping contacts.

My computer just froze - literally

2005-01-13T20:40:00.000-06:00

Do you know how cold it is in Regina today? -47 Celsius, with the wind chill. For you Americans unfamiliar with metric, who are probably thinking that's about -10 Fahrenheit, no. Not even close.

That would be -54 Fahrenheit. That's right. -54. Like 86 degrees below freezing.

It's been like this for a couple of days, and will be for at least one more. In fact, tomorrow's supposed to be even colder.

I park about 2 blocks from my office, and with the snow on the ground, it takes me at least five minutes to walk the distance. Today, I kept feeling my eyeballs start to freeze as I walked directly into the wind. I'd have to look away and blink hard to get the moisture moving again. Then I'd feel the skin around my eyes and nostrils getting hard, just exactly as skin is not supposed to do.

Everybody keeps saying that at least we don't have earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, volcanos, poisonous snakes or insects, or dangerous animals, and how they're happy to stay here and deal with the cold and the snow. And yet, with all our advantages, the northern prairies are some of the least populated areas in the world. Odd, isn't it?

Burnout

2005-01-12T23:52:00.000-06:00

It's not that I'm losing interest, per se, but I just can't keep up the rate of moral outrage I had going in the first weeks after the election. I don't want to read the political websites anymore. I don't want to post and post and post here, not accomplishing anything, just screaming my frustration incoherently.

At the same time, I don't want to stop writing here, so this blog may take a bit of a turn, and become more personal. Hope nobody (heh) minds.

Things that went wrong today, before 10 am:

one pair of glasses, snapped in half at the bridge for no apparent reason
one meeting with a client, forgotten and missed completely
one cup of coffee, spilled all over a coworker and her desk

I also learned that runny yolks and egg sandwiches and clean arms/shirts/desks/cats do not go together, but that was later in the day.

Things that went right:

one boss, taking the meeting for me and not killing me later
one blizzard warning, lifted
one afternoon, full of intensely satisfying spreadsheet diddling (wow, that ended up sounding a lot dirtier than I expected)
one cat, purring in my arms

And Iraqis are better off, and the world's a safer place

2005-01-09T10:50:00.000-06:00

How can they carry on with the farce of calling them democratic elections, when they have decided it is too dangerous for the candidates if their names are made public?

Yay Boxer, boo Bush!

2005-01-07T01:26:00.000-06:00

This time, finally, a senator agreed to back the House's objection to the Ohio vote count. Hee! I can hear Bush's tantrum from here.

Mad cow

2005-01-02T21:48:00.000-06:00

December 29/04 - US re-opens border to live Canadian beef
January 2/05 - Second case of Mad Cow found in Alberta

Sigh. The ranchers seriously can't win. Of course, proving that the decision was always motivated by politics rather than health, apparently the US will not revoke its decision to re-open the border.

What really pisses me off about this is that there is a very simple way to prevent Mad Cow - don't feed cows to cows. They're not even carnivores, let alone cannibals. But that might cost a little bit more, so it's out of the question. Instead, we'll just continue to produce diseased animals. After all, what's a little brain-wasting between friends?

Religion of fear

2005-01-02T19:55:00.000-06:00

For some thousand years in Western society, people were controlled by their fear of hell. Their actions, loyalties, choices, and even their thoughts were governed by the ruling priests, who held ultimate power over their immortal souls. In the last hundred and fifty years, though, this power has been waning, as religion has less and less influence on people's lives. So what's a ruling class to do?

Well, if you're a neocon, the answer is easy: substitute a more earthly fear for the spiritual one that no longer resonates. If people have become materialistic, threaten their prosperity. Threaten their security and their peace and their way of life. Make sure that the people know you are the only one standing between them and disaster, so you are indispensable.

I'm curious why this phenomenon is so prevalent in the US, while Canada seems relatively untouched by it. I also wonder what we can do to prevent its spread here.

Long-term goals

2005-01-02T15:48:00.000-06:00

According to this article, Rumsfeld and Cheney have been at it for decades.

Rumsfeld and Cheney began a concerted effort - first secretly and then openly - to undermine Nixon's treaty for peace and to rebuild the state of fear and, thus, reinstate the Cold War.

And these two men - 1974 Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Ford Chief of Staff Dick Cheney - did this by claiming that the Soviets had secret weapons of mass destruction that the president didn't know about, that the CIA didn't know about, that nobody but them knew about. And, they said, because of those weapons, the US must redirect billions of dollars away from domestic programs and instead give the money to defense contractors for whom these two men would one day work.

Do you know your state flower? How about your state religion?

2005-01-02T15:08:00.000-06:00

According to this article in the New York Times, Clarence Thomas believes that the constitutional separation of church and state applies to the federal government but not to state governments, meaning that individual states could adopt an official religion and use tax money to proselytize for it.

I think the writer of this article is being optimistic if he/she thinks that's all that could happen. In England 350 years ago, people who did not conform to the state religion were prohibited from many jobs including holding public office, persecuted, and even killed. The same happened in Spain during the Inquisition. I've read opinions by fanatic Christian politicians in the States in the last year or so that because the US is a "Christian nation", only Christians should be allowed to hold political office. Do not make the mistake of believing it couldn't happen.

This site will tell you the "Ten Things President Bush Doesn't Want You To Know About Scalia And Thomas."

Lifetime imprisonment without trial

2005-01-02T11:43:00.000-06:00

The US is now considering ways in which they can keep suspected terrorists, whom they can't try due to lack of evidence, in prison for the rest of their lives. Unbelievable. Someone could more or less be snatched up by the American military for any reason, and never, ever be released, with no recourse and no chance to argue his or her innocence. I mean, I guess I understand that it's all in the name of freedom and democracy that the US has decided to become a totalitarian regime...

They have to be stopped. How? And who?

The Fog of War

2004-12-30T19:29:00.000-06:00

I just finished watching The Fog of War, a documentary that combines interviews with Robert McNamara with footage from WWII and Vietnam. Now, I knew nothing of him before seeing this movie, which I find amazing considering that he was a central figure in the last two major conflicts in the US, not to mention president of the World Bank for 13 years. But I didn't. I had heard his name, but who he was or what he'd done, nothing.

I've gathered that he is a hated and reviled figure in the US because of his involvement in Vietnam. I know that, having learned most of what I know about him from this movie, my view of him is biased, but I think it says something about the quality of the current US administration that he comes off as relatively humble and introspective. He, at least, seems to understand that the US and its economic interests are not the only factors that need be considered, and that there are moral consequences to actions, no matter what the reasons for carrying them out. There is ample audio evidence in the movie to show that he was trying to get the US out of Vietnam, so I wonder how much American hatred of him is rooted in their (justified) hatred of the war rather than in him personally.

It's amazing how similar the rhetoric used by Johnson and Bush are, though. The fact that both have a Texas accent doesn't help, of course, but it's like Bush just ganked Johnson's speeches wholesale sometimes. One soundbite in particular that I remember is Johnson claiming that the US was in Vietnam fighting for Vietnamese liberation. Ring any bells? I'm not sure whose genius idea it was to parrot Vietnamese rhetoric in support of the Iraq war, though.

Where McNamara lost me was in his justification of the actions of the World Bank. He talked about attending what I assume was the 1999 Seattle WTO meetings. He walked through the crowd, and most people didn't recognize him. One woman did, though, and confronted him about what the WTO/World Bank/IMF do. His response to her was to ask her why she was protesting that instead of taking action on the fact that infant mortality in D.C. was twice what it was in Cuba. Irrelevant! Yes, one might want to look at why Cuba, the "evil" communist regime, is twice as effective at preventing infant mortality as the US nation's capital. But that in no way invalidates concerns about the economic colonialism being carried out by the WTO. One has absolutely nothing to do with the other.

By coincidence, I was thinking today about the tsunami, and the way that Bush may try to use it to improve his image. I think it's important to remember that if the US is generous with disaster relief, it in no way exonerates them for their actions in the Middle East. They can't be allowed to deflect attention from that by using Southeast Asia as a shield. They're estimating over 100,000 deaths in Asia so far, which is about the same number that have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both are horrible, and one has nothing to do with the other.

Snow day!

2004-12-30T13:46:00.000-06:00

We never get snow day in Saskatchewan! Even with a blizzard going, the most we can usually expect is that people who live in the country can go home early. The rest of us are expected to stay at work and make our way home as we can at 5:00. Not today, though! We're becoming wimps, just like the rest of the world.

Turns out it's a good thing, too. It took me about 50 minutes to drive a mile, and I got stuck six times (only had to be pushed/dug out twice, though). I've parked in front of my house because there's no way I'd make it through the alley to the garage, which means that tomorrow morning I'm going to have to dig myself out before I can go to work. Hopefully they'll have had a chance to clear the snow on the street by that time, though.

My parking job was pretty impressive, too. I knew that if I slowed down at all, I'd get stuck, because the undercarriage of my car was already plowing through the snow. So I drove up the street full speed to approximately where I wanted to park, threw the wheel to the right, and slid to a stop against the curb like a skier. The car is perfectly positioned, and you can see the trail it left behind through the snowbank.

Iraq social subsidies cut

2004-12-26T10:57:00.000-06:00

This article talks about the IMF conditions that are being imposed on Iraq to get their economy on the track the US wants it on. It focuses a lot on changes that will ensure oil is handled the way the US wants it to be, but to me, that was expected and is not the interesting part of the article.

The interesting thing to me is that they will also be cutting back on the social subsidy system that was in place under Saddam. Let me get this straight, the "butcher of Baghdad" was more concerned about the welfare of his people than the US is. It's a damn good thing you went in there and liberated them, then, isn't it? I mean, really, what could go wrong? Just destroy the infrastructure and throw the country into complete chaos, while taking away their control over their main source of income. Anyone who can't swim under those conditions deserves to sink!

Merry Christmas!

2004-12-25T10:20:00.000-06:00

Now, what are you doing here on Christmas? Go be with your family.

King Moon

2004-12-24T14:38:00.000-06:00

Sun Myung Moon, who was recently crowned and robed by congressmen in a ceremony supporters say symbolized American surrender to Moon, is now leading a movement to remove crosses from churches because "mankind's obsession with the cross ... prevents us from recognizing the real "returning lord": Moon himself." Um, okay. It would be funny if it weren't so likely to succeed in the theocratic idiocy that is America today. Apparently this nutcase is a close personal friend of the Bush family. Is this what Bush means when he says that God talks to him?

Syria next on list

2004-12-24T13:09:00.000-06:00

Looks like I was wrong - the US will probably invade Syria next rather than Iran. Presumably there are more reasons than just that there may be Ba'athist fighters hiding over the border, but I'm not sure. One interesting little tidbit I found when googling, though - Israel occupies part of Syria. Related cause? You be the judge.

Of course they did

2004-12-24T11:57:00.000-06:00

According to this article, recently-released hostages were told by their captors that the resistance in Iraq wanted Bush to be re-elected because they would gain more recruits that way. So, you know, congratulations to the republican voters for doing the will of the "terrorists".

My guess is that the right-wingnuts will either ignore this completely or claim that the hostages are lying because they are French.

Team America: World Police

2004-12-24T01:46:00.000-06:00

Did you know that if you do something in your own country that would be illegal in the States, the US believes that they have the right to stop you? According to this article, " U.S. courts have affirmed a right to enforce U.S. laws abroad if crimes affect the United States."

I'm just thinking about the ways that this could affect people in other countries. Right now, they're patrolling the waters around Ecuador, "block[ing] at least 37 Ecuadoran boats and detain[ing] more than 4,575 suspected illegal migrants over the past four years, records show. Then, over the past two years, they've sunk a dozen emptied migrant boats."

If Canada, as it had planned to do a couple of years ago, decriminalizes marijuana, how long before the US is invading our borders to arrest people for selling pot in Canada because they claim it is making its way into the US? Not long, I would venture to guess.

Let's be clear here: they have no right to do this. They've just decided that they're going to because they don't think anyone can stop them. In other words, more of the same.

This is a good example to keep in mind the next time I'm arguing with my boss about why US politics matter to us. He thinks Bush is just a typical politician, lying as needed and trying to maintain his position of power. He doesn't believe that it goes any further than that, and he certainly doesn't think it can affect him.

It's one thing to watch Americans vote away their freedoms. It's another thing entirely to know that they're also voting away ours.

And that's why it needs to be explicit

2004-12-24T01:38:00.000-06:00

The Office of Special Counsel, responsible for preventing bias in the US federal civil service, has declared open season on homosexuality. Because gays and lesbians are not specifically mentioned in national civil rights legislation, the OSC says that they are not protected. There is legislation that "prohibits discrimination against federal employees or job applicants on the basis of off-duty conduct that does not affect job performance", but the OSC says that sexual orientation is not "conduct", not a behavior, so it is not protected. In other words, you can ride in the gay pride parade without risking your job, but if your supervisor decides you are gay and fires you, you're out of luck. Logical.

I remember back in 1996 when Canada's Human Rights Act was amended to specifically include sexual orientation, conservatives argued that it wasn't necessary because the legislation already promised equal rights for all. I remember thinking at the time that they were being disingenuous, and this is a really good demonstration of why.

A little trivia for you: as early as 1967, Canada's soon-to-be prime minister, Pierre Trudeau, declared that the government had no place in the bedrooms of the nation when he proposed legislation to decriminalize homosexuality.

Regrettably omitted

2004-12-23T23:03:00.000-06:00

This article points out that Bush may have condoned by executive order the torture of prisoners in Iraq and Cuba, and mentions that many papers "regrettably omitted the story's biggest bombshell". Two things here: how cowed are the newspapers that they are afraid to report that Bush is directly and demonstrably responsible for the torture? He gets away with this shit because we let him, people! It's time to start holding him responsible for the things he does.

Secondly, if this article can point out that the newspapers "regrettably omitted" the real news in the story, why not go further and examine the media's complicity in all of this? It wasn't an accident or an oversight. It was a deliberate choice by cowardly or biased newspaper editors/owners to protect him once again.

HOLD HIM RESPONSIBLE. It's the only thing that can stop him.

Let's call her Chad

2004-12-23T18:16:00.000-06:00

A dolphin in Japan was given the world's first prosthetic fin. Aw.

Chloe Sevigny

2004-12-19T07:26:00.000-06:00

I watched the clip from The Brown Bunny tonight. Yes, the blowjob was real and visible. I know she likes to think of herself as edgy, but man, I fear she's going to live to regret that particular choice. The world does not deal kindly with "sluts" (she says from personal experience).

It's not torture because they don't count

2004-12-18T19:53:00.000-06:00

In response to the Red Cross's statement that the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo is tantamount to torture, "'We certainly don't think it's torture', Gen Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told an audience in Indianapolis a short time later. 'Let's not forget the kind of people we have down there', he added. 'These are the people that don't know any moral values'".

So it's not torture because the prisoners are terrorists? Leaving aside the fact that these prisoners have not been charged, tried, or convicted, leaving aside the demonization inherent in the statement that these people know no moral values, this argument is like saying that if someone kills a drug dealer, it's not murder.

The definition of torture depends on the actions being performed, not the nature of the victim. There may be an argument (though not one recognized by the international community) that the ends justify the means, but the ends do not and can never change the nature of the means. Moral relativism, indeed.

ABC losing credibility

2004-12-18T18:28:00.000-06:00

Either ABC has dreams of being a tabloid, or some pro-life gremlin is writing headlines for their website.

The eponymous woman is not being charged "over baby cut from womb," as if this were some sort of fetal rights case. The psycho strangled a pregnant woman, cut her stomach open, and absconded with the viable baby. She's being charged with murder and kidnapping, neither of which charges are related to cutting the baby out, specifically. The sensational headline almost seems designed to further the pro-life push to criminalize harming a fetus, which in fact didn't happen here.

The crime as it is should be horrible and sensational enough to report. It's actually kind of disgusting that ABC would misrepresent it to use it as some sort of political statement, if that was in fact their intent.

Voices from Iraq

2004-12-17T22:04:00.000-06:00

This article is written by a man who has family living in Iraq, and it describes how the majority of people in the country are dealing with the war. Hoping for it to be over, and hoping to survive it, that is. He says that he doesn't see any meaningful difference between Saddam's army and the US military, Ariel Sharon and Bin Laden. They "are all cousins in an endless parade of foot soldiers for the same problem: the system of economic dominance we all live under that requires oppression."

Word.

US may have exaggerated North Korean nuclear capability

2004-12-15T02:10:00.000-06:00

Shocking, isn't it? Yet oddly familiar.

I was under the impression that North Korea had actually announced they had nuclear weapons. Either I'm misremembering, or that was another lie.

Undoctored exit polls

2004-12-15T01:38:00.000-06:00

This site is trying to preserve the original exit poll results that projected a Kerry win. You may have heard that late on November 2, the exit polls were "recalculated" to be brought into line with the reported actual results.

They're trying to bully us

2004-12-14T11:08:00.000-06:00

I don't react well to bullying.

No gay marriage referendum in Canada

2004-12-14T09:58:00.000-06:00

Thanks to Wing Chun for posting this link.

Paul Martin has said that Canadians will not be given a chance to vote on whether the definition of marriage should be amended to included same-sex unions. I tend to think that in a referendum, Canadians would agree to the amendment anyway, but I agree that the majority, whether for or against, does not have the right to vote on the rights of a minority.

I am really surprised that Stephen Harper is taking the same position. I fully expected the Conservative party to be officially opposed to the amendment. It looks like most of their members will vote against it, but it is a free vote, and the party is not pushing for a referendum. (Ralph Klein, on the other hand, is. Dick.)

Frank Zappa saw it coming

2004-12-14T01:36:00.000-06:00

IFILM has posted a video of Frank Zappa appearing on Crossfire back in 1986, taking a position against government censorship of music lyrics. About 11 minutes into the video, he expressed concern that the US was moving in the direction of a fascist theocracy, which he defined as "When you have a government that prefers a certain moral code, derived from a certain religion, and that moral code turns into legislation to suit one certain religious point of view". Frank knew what he was talking about, and saw it coming long before most others did. What he described is exactly what Bush is trying to do right now.

The Amazing Statistic

2004-12-13T04:44:00.000-06:00

I just came across this poll on the Amazing Race. When I took the poll, there were 14996 responses, and these were the results:

Love it! Except for Flo winning - 92%
Hate it! It's totally overrated - 0%
Don't watch it - 7%

How amazing (no pun intended, this time) is it that, in a poll of 15,000 people, a statistical zero percent hate this show? Granted, there are many factors that might skew this result, not the least of which is the fact that the article is written by Tara Ariano, one of the creators and co-owners of Television Without Pity, whose regulars overwhelmingly love the show and its recapper, Miss Alli. Nonetheless, this is the internets, where everything and everyone has haters.

The show really is in a class of its own. Unlike any other reality show, the outcome is merit-based (not discounting a healthy dose of luck), depending on the effort, skill, and stamina of the participants; it shows people with a pre-existing relationship who are too busy and too stressed to spend much time worrying about how they come across on camera; the pace of the show is incredibly fast, all the time; the activities and locales are, for the most part, inherently exciting, exotic, and rapidly changing (from climbing a glacier in Iceland to descending some 300 feet into the Great Pyramid at Giza to riding a camel in the Sahara desert); the talented people behind the scenes (producers, editors, camera and sound crews, etc.) appear to be committed to creating a quality, witty show that respects its viewers; and the host, Phil Keoghan, is both pretty AND charming. They've made few, and minor, changes to the rules and format of the show, and only when it became apparent that a weakness needed to be addressed. Unlike some "reality" shows that use rule changes, or "twists" to try to keep the show fresh, this show just is fresh.

There is literally no other tv show like it, and while I'm surprised by the poll result, I also agree completely. I hope we get another six seasons.

Testing

2004-12-11T13:39:00.000-06:00

Trying out the publish-by-email feature. Works better (I hope) when you
get the email address correct.

Identity crisis

2004-12-11T13:15:00.000-06:00

Re-reading some of my posts, I notice that a lot of them are written as though I'm actually an American citizen. Of course, this isn't the case; I'm Canadian, living in Saskatchewan.

I tend to write "we" instead of "they" when I'm talking about liberals because that's the group I identify with most strongly. I spent a LOT of time before the election reading about the issues and the progress of both campaigns, so it feels as though I was actually involved, even though I really wasn't. I also believe very strongly that the election will have a huge impact on me and on the rest of the world, so in many ways it felt like my election, too.

Anyway, if my apparent appropriation of an American voice offends anyone, I apologize. I try to be aware of it, but sometimes, using the third-party "they" makes it seem more remote than it actually feels to me. In those cases, in all likelihood, I will continue to use "we".

Bhopal hoax

2004-12-10T20:48:00.000-06:00

It's almost too sad to be appreciated. DemocracyNow.org hoaxed the BBC on the 20th anniversary of the Bhopal disaster (go to "browse recent shows" and scroll to Dec 6). The BBC interviewed "Jude Finisterra", representing himself as a Dow Chemical spokesperson, who said that Dow was now willing to take responsibility for Bhopal, and would clean up the site and liquidate Union Carbide so they could give the Bhopal residents $12 billion in compensation.

Listening to Mr. "Finisterra" talk about compensating the Indian people, pushing the US to extradite the man responsible for the disaster back to India, cooperating with future legal actions, and funding research on the safety of the chemicals they produce entertained me initially, but about halfway through I started to get sad. In the world I want to live in, this is how companies really would behave. The reality of the world I do live in is reflected in the fact that when this report was aired, company stock dropped 4.2% in 23 minutes, not because stockholders were horrified to find out about the disaster, but because they didn't want to take a financial hit from the compensation and cleanup.

The best part of the hoax is that Dow was forced to publicly state that they would not claim responsibility for the disaster. The worst part is the possibility that some residents of Bhopal heard the report and may have believed that they were finally going to get justice.

Canada likely to OK gay marriage

2004-12-09T16:32:00.000-06:00

I'm not entirely sure how it has been legalized in some provinces when it contradicts existing federal legislation, but Canada's Supreme Court has given the green light to Parliament to change the definition of marriage to be the union of two people, rather than a man and a woman. It could go up for a vote as early as January, and so far at least, it sounds like it will pass. Even our most right-wing (mainstream) party, the Conservatives, are not taking a stand against it. They, along with the governing Liberal party, are allowing their members to vote their consciences instead of by party policy, and the NDP and Bloc Quebecois are expected to vote in favour of it.

If it passes, Canada will be the third country in the world to make gay marriage legal nationwide.

Alabama votes to keep Jim Crow

2004-12-09T16:19:00.000-06:00

In the November 2 election, Alabamians were asked to vote on whether to remove Jim Crow language from their state constitution, and they said no. They preferred to keep language that says “Separate schools shall be provided for white and colored children, and no child of either race shall be permitted to attend a school of the other race.” Apparently, the amendment would also have removed a clause that said that children did not have the right to public (i.e. state-funded) education, and this is what presumably caused the amendment to fail, because some politician mislead state residents into believing that removing the clause might result in tax increases.

What he said

2004-12-09T15:23:00.000-06:00

In this article, Robert Jensen explains that he thinks it's a good thing that the US is losing the war in Iraq because it contributes to the downfall of the empire that they're building. I fully agree with his assessment that their motive for attacking Iraq is not so that they can own Iraq's oil. Rather, they want to control who can access it. Their version of empire is not a clone of the old English or Roman models. They do not want to own and govern other countries; instead, they seek to make the governments of other countries subservient to them so that they can ensure their economic interests are protected and advanced.

This is part of why I believe Canada and other countries need to disentangle themselves from the American economy. I fear what would happen, though, if we did it on a formal, national level. If our government took a stand to impose economic sanctions on the US, I have absolutely no doubt that we would find ourselves "liberated" in short order. It really needs to happen at the U.N. level to prevent any individual country from bearing the brunt of the US's aggression.

However, if individual Canadians boycott American goods and services wherever possible, we can at least minimize their influence in our country. It's not as directly effective as government-imposed sanctions, and it depends on voluntary compliance, but it's at least a step in the right direction.

Green Maine

2004-12-09T04:15:00.000-06:00

I had no idea that Maine residents were so progressive. By 2009, 6% of cars and trucks sold there will be required to "have the newest emissions control technology", and another 4% will be required to be at least as fuel efficient as the current hybrids. If I remember correctly, they also went fairly heavily for Kerry in the election.

Kerik nominated to replace Tom Ridge

2004-12-05T22:20:00.000-06:00

Some petty criminals get sent to jail for 55 years, and some? Some get made the head of Homeland Security.

Can a country have a personality disorder?

2004-12-05T21:09:00.000-06:00

This is a list of the traits of an individual with narcissistic personality disorder.

has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
requires excessive admiration
has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

It sounds disturbingly like the Bush administration and many of its supporters, to me. The posts and comments on this site, and some of the comments on Raed's website, demonstrate an utter lack of empathy and a sense of entitlement that is staggering. I know that the fuckwads posting on Raed's site are trolling, but what kind of person would say, in response to a post about efforts to get emergency aid to civilians in Baghdad, that he hopes Raed's friends "end up waylaid and you find their headless bodies in a ditch along side the road. The naive morons deserve it"?

Ballistic Missile Defence

2004-12-03T17:18:00.000-06:00

Bush is trying to chivvy Canada into supporting the American BMD program, and our beloved prime minister is waffling, of course. He wants to say yes, I think, but knows that it would be political suicide. Since Bush publicly announced that he and Martin had discussed it, apparently liberal MPs' emails and phone calls on the subject have gone from 25/day to 200/day, with not one person saying they support it.

I expect to find out in a year or so that we have signed on to the program without letting Canadians know. Did I mention that I don't trust Paul Martin?

Meanwhile,

A summary of long-range plans for the U.S. Space Command says the Pentagon envisions developing a space weapon that can be used against "a small number of high-value targets" on Earth. (Globe and Mail, Dec 3/04)

It seems like a great idea to me to help the US develop a weapon that would allow them to blast any specific site on Earth without any possible defence. I'm sure they're trustworthy and responsible enough to only use it for the greater good of humanity.

Another Stuart picture - the prettiest cat evah

2004-12-03T02:13:00.000-06:00

I recently started learning how to take proper pictures with a decent SLR camera, and I happened to get this shot. I think it had much more to do with luck than skill, but I absolutely love it. It also doesn't hurt that I have a very pretty kitty.

I don't know about you, but I have 46 chromosomes

2004-12-03T01:43:00.000-06:00

If you've ever wondered why some Americans seem, well, undereducated, this might go a long way towards explaining it:

[T]he Why kNOw curriculum asserts "twenty-four chromosomes from the mother and twenty-four chromosomes from the father join to create this new individual"

I know that it's kind of cruel to point and laugh at their ignorance, but COME ON. I'll tell you, though, this really gives me a lot of confidence in the claims of scientific rigour behind the theory of Intelligent Design.

Divide and conquer

2004-12-03T01:23:00.000-06:00

In an article about the WTO and globalization, Mark Engler advances what I believe is the real reason behind most of Bush's policies:

Rather than being able to advance sophisticated arguments about what sort of international economic system we want to live in, we have been reduced to denouncing blatantly illegal foreign invasions and defending our basic civil liberties.

This is, I believe, why Bush's administration is blatantly attacking education, health care, the environment, civil liberties, freedom from religion, and just about everything else that liberals believe in. It may even be a significant part of the reason the US is at war right now. It's not because they give a good goddamn about abortion or gay marriage (though their supporters might); it's the classic divide and conquer ploy.

People who are busy fighting for their own rights don't have the liberty to fight for the rights of others. While we're distracted, burning up our energy fighting them to hold onto absolutely every bit of progress made in the last fifty years, they're busy pillaging the world's economy. I have absolutely no idea how to turn this around, either. The only way to stop them is to get them out of fucking office, and it seems like we can't even do that.

Those who forget the past...

2004-12-03T01:09:00.000-06:00

Antonin Scalia, heir-presumptive to the Supreme Court Chief Justiceship, told the congregation at an orthodox synagogue in New York a couple of weeks ago that the best protection for Jews in the US would be to have Christianity play a part in the government of the country. He also suggested that the Holocaust was able to happen because Hitler kept church and state separate, when in fact the opposite is true. Scalia also claims that the founding fathers intended for Christianity to be part of the government. This article gives more information, and notes that the story has received almost no coverage.

Bush has said that Scalia is one of his favourite justices. I guess Bush figures he still qualifies as constructionist if he's allowed to rewrite the constitution before he starts interpreting it.

Corporate political donations

2004-12-02T18:10:00.000-06:00

Speaking of boycotting American companies, if you'd prefer, you can just target the ones who supported Bush's campaign. This website lists the companies who made donations, and the amounts that each made to either Kerry or Bush. It's extremely well-organized, too. It's sorted into various different categories, and it has a search function. It also lists each company's parent company. We hear a lot about corporate consolidation, but did you know just how many television and cable tv companies are owned by Viacom, for example? Me neither.

Update: a weird anomaly, pointed out in the FAQ for the site - Rupert Murdoch's News Corp donated more to the Democratic campaign than they did to the Republicans. The hell? Maybe they figured that they'd give propaganda support to Bush, but slip Kerry some cash in case he won. I can't think of anything else that makes any sense.

Halifax protests peaceful

2004-12-02T17:03:00.000-06:00

I can't tell you how happy it makes me that Canadians can protest without violence, without arrests, without hostility between the police and the protesters, without people being rounded up into "Free Speech" zones, without snow-fence-aided mass arrests, and without suppression. Instead of treating protesters like the enemy, and trying to intimidate them into silence, "Officers handed protesters pamphlets advising them of their rights and the duties of police." Just contrast this to some of the things that happened in Boston and New York this summer.

I'm telling you, you could not pay me to live in the US now.

TV news is just a baby

2004-12-01T20:26:00.000-06:00

It just occurred to me that, with the retirement of Brokaw and Rather, we've really only gone through two generations of news anchors since TV became a mass influence on society. Cronkite was the CBS evening news anchor from 1962 to 1981. Dan Rather took over from Cronkite when he retired.

It reminds me of the way that people react when rulers of long standing die. They have been in power so long that many people don't remember anything else, so they can't imagine a world without them. I'm not entirely sure what I think this means, if it means anything. I just find it interesting.

US army using slaves in Iraq?

2004-12-01T03:25:00.000-06:00

According to these articles from the Indo-Asian News Service and the Associated Press, the US army has been "buying" Indian workers who were told they were going to work in Kuwait:

"There were some 20 Indians in the bus. Once we knew that we were inside Iraq, we protested," Faisal said. "But the Americans told us that they had paid a Kuwait agency $1,000 (U.S.) for each man and therefore it was a must that we work for them."

This is an old story (from May '04), but I don't remember ever hearing about it before. Words fail me, here. Anything I can think of to say seems like it should go without saying, and only serves to belittle the magnitude of this atrocity.

The chickens come home to roost

2004-12-01T02:00:00.000-06:00

Noam Scheiber at the New Republic posted yesterday that the Bush administration appears to be having trouble hiring economic advisors since they're not actually allowed to advise, but are instead expected to be cheerleaders. Funny how that works.

Bush, go home

2004-12-01T01:26:00.000-06:00

Bush is in my country right now, being his usual obnoxious self, and outing his discussion with Paul Martin about Norad and missile defense, much to Martin's dismay, I'm sure. It infuriates me that Canada, as a country, is so closely tied economically to the States that we feel we have to placate Bush despite the fact that most Canadians believe him to be a war criminal. People are afraid to offend him. Tonight I watched Lloyd Robertson interviewing some talking head about the visit, and trying to figure out a way to say diplomatically that Bush is a vindictive asshole who will make it his mission to destroy any country that pisses him off.

It's a scary situation for Canada (and Mexico) to be in, being the US's closest neighbour and being completely tied to their economy. Although I understand the desire to be diplomatic right now, I really think it's time we started focusing our trade on other countries. If we don't, we're going to find ourselves giving up more and more to the States. We've already given them, to some extent, control over our natural resources with NAFTA. We're being coerced to shut up and act like we support their illegal war right now so that we can get the border reopened to Canadian beef (the perpetual carrot being dangled in front of us - surprise, surprise, they still haven't come to an agreement).

I recently had this conversation with a friend of mine who has a lot of business ties to the US through her consulting business. I recognize that it's easy for me to say, because I have a job, not a business. But I think I've commented before on how the US likes to loudly proclaim that nobody can stand up to their military. They're right; our only option is to make their actions have economic consequences. Right now, economic support is tantamount to support for the war, and that is just not acceptable to me. That's why I've decided to boycott US-made products wherever I can.

Atrocities

2004-11-28T14:07:00.000-06:00

The US is using (on people) napalm and/or phosphorous weapons that keep burning after water is applied. They are deliberately targeting doctors, clerics, old people carrying white flags of surrender, and the wounded.

Reap what you sow, man. How can they expect anything but the most vicious, inhumane attacks on their own soldiers and, where possible, civilians, when this is how they treat their enemies? And yet, if you asked, they would still claim the right to do this because terrorists targeted civilians in the World Trade Center attacks.

No wonder they are so determined to prevent their soldiers from being tried in the International Criminal Court.

US using uranium weapons

2004-11-27T01:25:00.000-06:00

According to this article from BBC News, the Uranium Medical Research Centre is reporting extremely elevated levels of non-depleted uranium in the urine of Afghanis. In other words, the US is deliberately poisoning the Afghani people with radioactive dust from non-fissioning uranium weapons. That sounds a lot like genocide to me.

Understanding George Bush

2004-11-26T08:59:00.000-06:00

I've heard before, and commented on the idea, that Bush is not as stupid as he would like us to believe. In terms of his IQ, I think it's probably true. But IQ is only one measure of intelligence, and, many argue, not a good one. This article (free registration required) describes how his intellectual laziness and messianic complex have led his advisers to strictly limit the information he hears, and to present it only in ways that support their policies, to prevent him from making a snap policy judgement based on his gut feelings about a person or a situation.

I've worked with and for people like this, and I can (sort of) sympathize with his advisers. You seriously can't get anything done if there is no consistent policy or guiding vision. Given the growing hegemony in the administration, however, I think they're starting to succeed in training him to think the way they want, which means that we're in even more trouble than we thought.

2004-11-25T23:39:00.000-06:00

How many US soldiers have been injured in Iraq and Afghanistan? According to the DoD, about 8500, right? Then why does this article on the Stars and Stripes website say that "20,802 troops have been treated at Landstuhl from injuries received in Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom"?

Looks like the same person who's having trouble counting the number of Iraqi casualties is responsible for tracking US injuries. Makes you wonder what the real number of US dead is, doesn't it?

Oh, the irony

2004-11-25T22:55:00.000-06:00

The US is refusing to accept the election results in the Ukraine as legitimate because "there has not been an investigation of the numerous and credible reports of fraud and abuse." Ha! Hee hee ho ha hoo! Excuse me, that just struck me funny.

Ahem. So, yes, the US wants the Ukraine to make sure that their leader has been legitimately elected. How admirable.

Update: Someone on Michael Moore's writing staff is my spiritual twin. Just found on his website:
In a Decision Fraught with Irony Powell Says United States Can Not Accept Ukraine Election Results "...because there has not been an investigation of the numerous and credible reports of fraud and abuse"

Vietnam vet called to active duty

2004-11-25T22:24:00.000-06:00

They're recalling 53-year-old grandfathers to active service now. Time to start making predictions on the date that the draft is officially reinstated. Let's see. The Iraq election is scheduled for January 30. I expect the US to start withdrawing troops from Iraq on February 10, and to declare war on Iran on February 15. So, no later than March 1, I would say.

Bush approval rating

2004-11-25T01:43:00.000-06:00

Gallup says sixty percent of Americans have a positive opinion of Bush. Fifty-five percent like the way he's handling his job.

I don't believe I have anything to say about this.

Noam Chomsky is a genius

2004-11-24T23:25:00.000-06:00

I've noticed in the last few weeks that it's become very popular to hold Noam Chomsky up as the epitome of a raving left-wing lunatic. I have to question whether any of these people have ever read his writings. Yes, he's extremely critical of American capitalist society, politics, and media, but he's not a socialist: he does not believe that the state should control everything. In fact, if asked, he describes himself as an anarchist. He believes that people need to think and question and make up their own minds, instead of blindly consuming (information, goods, services).

He's also a genius who has had massive influence in practically every discipline I've ever studied (and many I haven't), including linguistics, literary studies, journalism, anthropology, psychology, political science, mathematics, and computer science. He's determined to expose the suffering caused by American foreign policy because he believes it's his moral obligation. This does not mean that he hates America. What could be more patriotic than trying to improve one's country?

If the election has taught me anything, it's that many people don't want to hear information that contradicts what they believe. Nonetheless, before you criticise him, go read his words yourself instead of repeating what someone else said about him. Then, if you don't agree, have at him.

Privatizing social security

2004-11-24T22:32:00.000-06:00

Dave Zweifel talks here about Wall Street anticipating making money off the privatization of social security. I think a bigger motivater for Bush is the idea of injecting billions of dollars every year into the stock market for corporations to play with and earn money off of, instead of having all that lovely money locked away in a trust fund, doing "nothing"

Abortion

2004-11-24T22:26:00.000-06:00

This article explains my views on abortion, the pro-life movement, and why murder is illegal when abortion is not, clearly and concisely in a neat little package, and I didn't even have to do the work of writing it. Thanks, Robert Steinback!

Student funding cuts

2004-11-23T23:57:00.000-06:00

Now this is something I remember from the debates: remember Bush claiming that he had increased funding for students? Apparently, Bush doesn't. Pell grants have been cut in the 1600-page omnibus bill of doom, resulting in total loss of funding for 90,000 students and reductions in over a million other student awards. Say the students, "But Mr. Bush, how will I afford community college on this?"

Iraq may sue US for war crimes

2004-11-23T23:49:00.000-06:00

And I hope they win. Not that it's likely to make any difference to Bush or his supporters. Not that his supporters are likely to hear about it, or believe it if they do.

The media's role in the election

2004-11-23T22:54:00.000-06:00

I think this is a really important article. The author, Jeff Cohen, used to work at Fox News. He says:

To help Bush mislead Americans, Fox News Channel required that the banner "War on Terror" run when Iraq was discussed.

Bush, with the cooperation of much of the media, actively and deliberately deceived Americans to gain their support. Whether or not you believe in his policies, how can that not piss you off? Don't you feel like you've been duped? Are you just refusing to admit he tricked you out of pride? Help me understand, because there's been nothing but bad news out of Washington since the election, and it's looking like my worst fears about Bush's second term are going to come true. What will it take to convince you, to gain your support in stopping him before he destroys everything?

History offends me, I want it changed!

2004-11-23T19:46:00.000-06:00

Fuck. You.

US forces storm mosque, kill four

2004-11-21T13:04:00.000-06:00

I feel like I'm just screaming incoherently here, but how can this be justified? How?

Return to the Dark Ages

2004-11-21T11:41:00.000-06:00

OK, maybe not quite. But I have to keep reminding myself, in light of articles like this, that the US is not the only keeper of scientific thought and reasoning. What will be lost during this period of theocratic rule will be recreated once it ends. The US will undergo a new period of enlightenment. Still, it's disconcerting to have to argue to the "faith-based community" that "human reason could be used to combat ignorance, superstition, and tyranny and to build a better world."

From the linked article:

...[M]any of the intellectual leaders of the American colonies were drawn to the Enlightenment. The colonies may have been founded by leaders of various dogmatic religious persuasions, but when it became necessary to unite against England, it was apparent that no one of them could prevail over the others, and that the most desirable course was to agree to disagree. Nothing more powerfully impelled the movement toward the separation of church and state than the realization that no one church could dominate this new state.
Many of the most distinguished leaders of the American revolution--Jefferson, Washington, Franklin, Paine--were powerfully influenced by English and--to a lesser extent--French Enlightenment thought. The God who underwrites the concept of equality in the Declaration of Independence is the same deist God Rousseau worshipped, not that venerated in the traditional churches which still supported and defended monarchies all over Europe. Jefferson and Franklin both spent time in France--a natural ally because it was a traditional enemy of England--absorbing the influence of the French Enlightenment. The language of natural law, of inherent freedoms, of self-determination which seeped so deeply into the American grain was the language of the Enlightenment, though often coated with a light glaze of traditional religion, what has been called our "civil religion."

We hold these truths to be self-evident...

Who are the terrorists?

2004-11-21T11:08:00.000-06:00

If the US army is trying to cow the Iraqi people into electing a puppet government approved by the US, by making them believe that they have more to fear from the US than they do from the anti-US Iraqi forces, as this article suggests, then who are the terrorists? They have destroyed Fallujah, not to get at Zarqawi as they originally claimed, but apparently just to create an example for the Iraqi people of what may happen to them if they don't cooperate. They refuse to (publicly) count the Iraqi dead, and they're now apparently unwilling to release figures on how many US soldiers are dying. This suggests that the numbers are bad. Very bad.

It's like the US, as a country, is committing suicide, dramatically and publicly. How can they ever function as a credible and respectable world power after this? I would suggest that they can't, no matter who's in charge.

Boycott!

2004-11-21T10:34:00.000-06:00

Time to boycott US and British companies! There may be no nation capable of standing up to the US militarily, but they can't force us to buy their crap. Boycott US and British products and services until they withdraw the last of their troops from Iraq!

If you're looking for more information, here's a site with lots of links to get you started.

What product did you boycott today?

"Protecting" more than just the definition of marriage

2004-11-20T23:49:00.000-06:00

Kevin Drum (via Andrew Tobias) points out something we all missed in the furor over the election - eight of the eleven state referenda banned more than just gay marriage. From Boston.com:

In state after state -- most prominently in Ohio (which Bush barely won) and in Michigan (which he nearly did) -- these referendums went far beyond the question of who gets to be formally married. They also banned legal and other conventions incidental to marriage, which are central to the evolving institutions of civil unions and domestic partnerships.

Incidental things, like the right to contractually arrange distribution of assets, child custody, pensions, and other employment benefits. Basically, civil union rights of any kind.

Colin Powell sics US on Iran

2004-11-20T23:17:00.000-06:00

The LA Times reports that he announced that Iran has missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons, apparently on the basis of one disgruntled Iranian exile's statements (shades of Chalabi). As Marc Cooper asks, how can anyone make a reasonable decision about this "intelligence" after he did the exact same thing with Iraq and turned out to be, not only wrong, but lying through his teeth? I'm starting to think that the Bush administration never read the fable about the boy who cried wolf.

File under freedom

2004-11-19T22:43:00.000-06:00

Some pharmacists in the US are now refusing to fill women's birth control prescriptions because they object to them on moral grounds, and the states are passing laws protecting these pharmacists' "right" to do so. Not only do some of them refuse to fill the prescription themselves, but they also won't transfer the prescription to another pharmacist or give the woman the prescription slip back.

Canadian politicians are a bunch of liars, too

2004-11-19T22:17:00.000-06:00

Fuckers say that Canada won't endorse the Iraqi war, but secretly provide US support. I was right not to trust Paul Martin, who is a LINO (Liberal in name only). This has to stop.

I love Google

2004-11-17T23:29:00.000-06:00

Try the Googlebomb suggested here. May you laugh as much as I did.

Bush makes secret deal to allow oil drilling in national parks

2004-11-17T23:09:00.000-06:00

I'm so frustrated by this, because I know it's going to roll off his back just like every other shady deal and flat-out lie of the last four years. He is truly the teflon president, and the media and Democrat politicians are a bunch of fucking cowards for not attacking him on this kind of scandalous bullshit. So are the Republican politicians, for that matter.

Who killed Margaret Hassan?

2004-11-17T22:54:00.000-06:00

This article raises some interesting questions about her death. Who stands to gain the most?

New link -->

2004-11-17T01:16:00.000-06:00

10 truths about liberals and conservatives - required reading for those who are really interested in understanding the other side. I've permanently linked to it on the right because I think I need to go back and read it regularly. It's really easy to dismiss the other side's actions and beliefs as uninformed, mistaken, immoral. I'm at least as guilty of this as anyone else. But it's important to remember that most people are sincere. It's also important to remember that the other side's beliefs are not arbitrary - they're based on concerns that are valid within their world view.

Never mind what I have to say about it. Go read the list.

Margaret Hassan executed

2004-11-16T23:16:00.000-06:00

I just overheard that she is confirmed dead. I remember hearing that the organized insurgents had avoided kidnapping her because they knew she was on their side, and because they knew that it would be an extremely unpopular thing to do. They said that they didn't know where she was, and believed that she had been taken by a rogue group.

This is very sad. Although I abhor the beheadings, at least there is a political purpose behind most of them. This one served no discernible purpose. She was married to an Iraqi and had lived there for something like 20 years. Kidnapping her didn't put pressure on any government to withdraw troops from the country, and she was well-known enough that they probably knew that.

Presumably she was targeted simply because she was non-arab. In one sense it's nothing compared to the US killing 100,000 Iraqi civilians in this ridiculous war, but I think it's a dangerous road for the Iraqis to go down. Right now, for the most part, they've got the sympathy of the world, but they could lose it easily.

You're kidding

2004-11-16T23:08:00.000-06:00

Yet another thing that everybody but Bush and his supporters knew: U.S. military commanders are realizing that the "insurgents" in Iraq are almost all Iraqi, not foreigners. Of more than 1000 fighters captured in Fallujah, only 15 are confirmed foreign fighters. (free registration required - can also be read here with no registration).

The depths of the Bush administration's misunderstanding of what is going on in Iraq is staggering. Either these people are completely incompetent or completely dishonest (or both), because on issue after vital issue, everybody knows the truth but them.

Selective service updating records

2004-11-16T22:55:00.000-06:00

They claim that it's just routine, but boy, what amazing timing, eh? After Bush flat-out promised in his campaign that there would be no draft.

And is it just me, or does the draft by design target poor people? From the article:

“Back in 1982 a federal law was passed that basically linked federal grants, student loans and federal assistance to students with Selective Service,” Flahavan said. “You had to register with Selective Service with a Social Security number (in order to receive federal assistance)

According to the stats at the end of the article, every male between 18 and 25 has to register, not just those asking for federal funding for schooling, but I wonder what mechanism is in place to ensure the sons of the wealthy are registered.

Surprisingly, even non-citizen male aliens have to register with Selective Service. So presumably a 20-year-old Canadian man could be playing hockey in the States and get drafted? Can that be right?

Unilateral action to stop a dictator

2004-11-16T22:41:00.000-06:00

I bet this would get the troops out of Iraq faster than anything else we could think of. Of course, we might not like where they went next...

Fluids for Christ

2004-11-16T01:46:00.000-06:00

This site is a joke, right? It's awesome, whatever it is. From Roy's very convincing testimonial,

My wife tell me, "Roy, you've been the master of my house for some thirty year, but I'm gonna up and leave you if you don't get that demon blood out of you." I told her, "Woman, you ain't the boss of me."

Awesome.

Hee!

2004-11-16T01:32:00.000-06:00

Thou-shalt-see TV - the new tv lineup under the theocracy.
(free registration required)

Who's likely to appoint activist judges?

2004-11-15T20:51:00.000-06:00

In his blog today, Kevin Drum talks about Stealth Conservatism - his idea that many of the policies the Bush administration pursues, although polarizing (e.g. abortion bans), are in fact red herrings. Bush may have the support of half the population on his stated policies, but how many would support the Supreme Court eliminating Congress's power to ban discrimination or to require safety standards for workers? Likely not too many, yet these may well be aims of the "constructionist" judges that Bush wants to appoint.

Bush threatens mankind

2004-11-15T19:56:00.000-06:00

It's disturbing for me to find out that a Nobel Peace Prize recipient has the exact same fears about Bush that I do.

[Note that the attribution link inside the article is incorrect - it should be www.smh.com.au, and you need to register to read the article there.]

More on change

2004-11-15T19:38:00.000-06:00

This article reinforces my belief that the election was a referendum not on George Bush or even on the war in Iraq, but on change. It goes on to suggest that companies like Fox are deliberately playing on those fears by having one arm of the company produce and promote edgy material like the movie Kinsey, then having their conservative arm, Fox News, blame the decadence on the liberals.

Stepford fucking revisited

2004-11-15T18:49:00.000-06:00

I seriously cannot fucking believe that in fucking 2004 women are still subjected to this kind of demeaning crap. A presidential candidates' wives' baking contest? Are you fucking kidding me? If you were wondering why Hillary Clinton is so reviled, I guess this would be your answer. Presumably, with her own legal and political career, she doesn't have time to sit around coming up with fucking cookie recipes. Man, what if one of the candidates were a woman (or gay - hah!)? Would her husband be expected to participate in this kind of thing? I try to think what I would do if I were in Teresa Heinz Kerry's position. If you don't participate, it makes your husband look bad; if you do participate, you've just sold out all your beliefs. Win-win all around for the conservatives, I guess.

Blood for...

2004-11-15T17:42:00.000-06:00

The idea that the wars in the Middle East are being fought for oil is usually dismissed as being too simplistic. After all, the US imports only a relatively small percentage of its oil from there, and could probably obtain what it needs from other countries, without going to war. It's true; it's not that simple or direct.

But the catch phrase "blood for oil" is based in truth nonetheless. In this article, the author explains how the American economy is dependent on the de facto use of the US dollar as the world's currency, which in turn largely depends on the oil-producing nations, particularly OPEC, selling their oil for dollars.

The only OPEC country that has converted from the dollar to the euro (the only other competitor for a world currency) is, not surprisingly, Iraq. Iran is considering it, and guess who Bush is considering invading next? Venezuela is talking about decoupling its oil from both the dollar and the euro, and Bush is reportedly trying to topple the Chavez government there.

So, if "blood for oil" is too simplistic, maybe we could change it to "blood for oil for dollars".

Rats deserting a sinking ship?

2004-11-15T16:27:00.000-06:00

Colin Powell resigned this morning. Apparently several more are supposed to follow. Is this a sign that they know Bush's second term is doomed and they're jumping ship before they get pulled down too? Or is Bush clearing out any dissenting, more moderate voices? (I know that Ashcroft is hardly a moderate, but it sounds like Gonzales is at least as far right, possibly more).

Also, what the hell is up with this? I didn't see the story at the time, but Jesus Christ! I'm starting not to believe his stupid act anymore. I read right after the election that he loves being underestimated, and I believe it's true, because he can get away with so much more if people think he's too stupid to be effective. It's also very demoralising to us to be beaten by such an apparent moron.

It's long been a secret fear of mine, which I don't talk about too much for fear of being thought paramoid, that Bush isn't planning to relinquish the presidency at the end of his term. Is it possible for the US to end up with a religious dictatorship? The way that things are currently going, I think the answer is yes, absolutely. And to 51% of Americans, I say fuck you, you asked for it. But even though the other 49%, along with the rest of the world, did not, we're going to suffer for it anyway.

I'm on a mission from Gob

2004-11-14T22:41:00.000-06:00

Arrested Development really is the funniest show on tv. If you're not watching it, what's wrong with you? And how can fox be such dickheads with their news, make such terrible reality tv, and yet be so awesome with their sitcoms?

OB/GYNs practicing their love

2004-11-14T15:50:00.000-06:00

I had heard about this Bushism, but I hadn't seen it myself until now. Even funnier than the Bush footage itself is the anchor's reaction.