We live in an age of forgetting.
current events
Week Recap
Jan 23rd
It was a horrible week for liberals. Scott Brown won Kennedy’s Senate seat, a health care bill went from a near certainty to almost dead, and the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to remove restrictions on corporate spending on political campaigns.
But at least we’re going to stop putting references to Bible verses on military gun sights! A victory somewhat tempered by the realization that A CONTRACTOR WAS PUTTING REFERENCES TO THE BIBLE ON MILITARY GUN SIGHTS. IS THERE A CAPS LOCK CAPS LOCK KEY? BECAUSE THE REGULAR CAP LOCKS KEY ISN’T ENOUGH TO CAPTURE MY INTERNET SCREAMING.
I said it before, and I’ll say it again: nothing goes with killing better than the teachings of Jesus. It’s like peanut butter and jelly, except the jelly is made out of thin air by Jesus, and the peanut butter is made with peanuts crushed by dinosaurs, which humans rode when they lived to be 930 years old and an entire human race was started by “Sperm Donor #1″ and “The Baby Machine”.
Link Roundup
Jan 28th
- Guess what? We’re all holograms.
- Jon Stewart is funny.
- This is a really good garlic-potato soup recipe, although the amount for Russet potatoes was mistyped, which I eventually realized I couldn’t fit any more potatoes in the pot (the correct amount is 1 1/2 lbs., not 5)
- Wall St. bankers sure make it easy to hate them.
- No link, but I watched the first episode of Doctor Who, Season 3, and guess what? IT STILL SUCKS.
2012 Already?
Nov 10th
People have been following the campaign for so long that they don’t know how to stop. In fact, I don’t think the media outlets feeding the 24/7 news cycle want it to stop. Barack Obama won the presidency less than a week ago, and I’ve already seen several articles speculating on which Republican candidate will run in 2012.
The whole situation is worse than a reality TV show. Even TV shows go on break after the season finale.
If Barack Obama does as good of a job as I hope he does, do you know what will be the best part? Not having to pay attention every single day. With Bush, I’d wake up, make my morning coffee, and scan the paper to see what he screwed up today. It is going to be nice to only have to check up on Obama periodically. “Hey Obama. You still got this? Cool. See you again next month.”
Early Voting
Oct 24th
There are reports of long lines in many early voting locations. An hour in line is the low end. I’ve heard accounts of people waiting 2-3 hours to vote.
If we are having this trouble now, when an estimated 1/3 of the electorate is voting over a period of days, and in some places weeks, what is it going to be like on election day when the other 2/3 of the country is voting, all on a single day, and often in the same time period because they work 9-5?
Part of the problem is probably that only a fraction of the voting centers are open in the early voting period because of staffing and location concerns, like not being able to use schools as voting centers.
But I suspect that the congestion and registration problems we had in 2000 and 2004 are still around, and we are looking at yet another messy election day. Why hasn’t “the greatest democracy in the world” nailed down the most basic part of democracy yet?
Why do we have 50 voter registration systems instead of one? Why are we voting on Tuesday instead of Saturday & Sunday? Why isn’t early voting implemented in every state?
I like Oregon’s system: voting by mail. But even if we don’t adpot it nationally, there are some simple changes we can make to improve the system. I’m not sure why there isn’t more public demand for things like weekend voting. Maybe because we vote so infrequently that it’s easier to put up with the hassle than work to change it.
Photo Roundup
Oct 1st
Do two photos count as a roundup? And one of them is an illustration, not a photo. You tell me.
Blackwater: We Just Sound Evil
Oct 9th
Rule #1 for corporations: choose a name that doesn’t sound evil.
I call this the Hollywood Movie Test. Here is how it works:
YOU: “Hey, we’re thinking of naming our business ‘MegaCorp.’ “
FRIEND: “MegaCorp? Wasn’t that the name of the evil corporation in RoboCop?”
TEST FAILED.
It doesn’t matter whether the name actually made a guest appearance as an evil corporation in a movie. The fact that the idea easily comes to imagination is enough.
That’s how I know Blackwater, the private military company providing additional security and logistic services in Iraq, is evil. Blackwater sounds like one of the corrupted areas in Lord of the Rings. Make a right at Isengard and head 1/2 a league south of Fangorn. You can’t miss it. The water is black. Huh? Yeah. Completely black. Symbol of the absolute corruption and exploitation of nature.
Why are you heading there anyway? Oh. Okaaaay. No, no, I’m not saying it’s a bad name of a company. It’s just…well…depends what you do. Do you work for Sauron? No? Saruman? No. Okay. What’s your core business? Uh-huh. Yeah. So it’s not polluting the environment and instilling dread in the hearts of men, dwarfs, and hobbits? Maybe you should rethink the name then. Something with more pop. What’s that? “Hobbit Punchers, Inc.”–no, not that type of pop.
If you want any real information about Blackwater and the shooting incident they were involved in with Iraqi police, The Washington Post has a nice repository of information on the company. The House voted overwhelmingly last Thursday to place all private contractors working in Iraq and other combat zones under the jurisdiction of U.S. courts. Which begs the question, why wasn’t this done at the start?
Cancer Ruins Everything: News on RFIDs
Sep 10th
“There’s no way in the world, having read this information, that I would have one of those chips implanted in my skin, or in one of my family members,” said Dr. Robert Benezra, head of the Cancer Biology Genetics Program at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
Oh, how the cyborg future is fraught with peril.
The Associated Press unearthed several studies done in the mid 1990s that show a possible link between cancer in mice and RFIDs, Radio Frequency Identification Devices. I’ll risk cancer for a laser chip or a neural implant, but not for something that is essentially a high-tech name tag. The chips are popular with pet owners. If their robo-puppy runs away, many local animal shelters have scanners that can read these chips and retrieve the owner’s information, making it easier than ever for shelters to return the runaway pooch to a place that he obviously does not want to be.
The FDA approved a product made for human implantation in October 2004, although the product’s manufacturer probably called it a more congenial name than…HUMAN IMPLANTATION (“Who wants a permy-pill? We got three flavors.”).
An object that is cancerous to mice or rats doesn’t mean it will be cancerous to pets and humans. As I mentioned, the devices are popular with pet owners, and one would assume if RFIDs posed a significant health problem to animals, anecdotal evidence from pet owners and veterinarians would have bubbled up by now.
The AP’s story brings up some questions. Was the FDA aware of these studies before approving the product, VeriChip? Did VeriChip’s manufacturer know of these studies and withhold them from the FDA? Guess who’s stonewalling? That’s right, everyone! Read the article for a special guest appearance by a former top-level Bush administration appointee.
Sen. Craig
Sep 5th
I was reluctant until now to comment on Sen. Craig’s arrest in a Minnesota airport bathroom for allegedly trying to initiate sex with another man. It’s a whirlwind of homophobia and denial that isn’t pretty to look at.
It’s hard to believe that the Republican Congressional leadership would have reacted so quickly if Sen. Craig was caught cheating on his wife with another woman. I think the message they got from the Mark Foley scandal wasn’t “Don’t cover up your own who use their power to prey on others” but “gay + sex = bad.” Some of them don’t even need the “+sex” part.
Yet there is news that Sen. Craig is reconsidering his decision to resign and fight his guilty plea. By guilty plea, I mean his homo- or bi-sexuality.
While part of me welcomes the forthcoming amusement from the reinvigoration of a story that was already fading from the nation’s conscience, I don’t think this is what Dylan Thomas meant when we wrote, “Do not go gentle into that good night.” Or in Sen. Craig’s poetry book, “Do not go gentle into that good nightclub on bear night.”
I had my own issues with coming out as a gay man and still have work to do accepting my sexuality. I understand the great fear of shedding your old life and having to reconstruct your whole identity, who you thought you were for most of your life. But damn it man, you got in a public bathroom doing a homosexual Kabuki dance trying to entice the guy in the stall next to you to give you a reach around. It’s time to give it up and put on a pair of hot pants.
I know, gay men don’t wear hot pants anymore. But when your psyche is fractured to the point that when the national spotlight sends your gay side scurrying back into the closet, unscrewing the light bulb, and hanging a sign on the door that says “Out for lunch! Will be back in: NEVER”, you have to start somewhere.
I felt some sympathy for what has to be one of the worst coming out experiences ever. Now that it looks like he’s looking to fight the “charges” instead of starting the difficult process of accepting them, a lot of that sympathy is gone. It just reinforces an idea some people still have that being gay is an albatross that should be avoided and fought at all costs.
On a final note, what spurred this post was a throwaway line at the end of the aforementioned article:
“All three of Craig’s adopted children said Tuesday they believe their father’s assertions he is not gay and did nothing to warrant his arrest.”
Hey, here’s a sign that you may be gay: not being able to ejaculate in a woman. Other signs: actually, there are no other signs. That’ll pretty much do it.
Are We Being Too Hard on Paris?
Jun 9th
A reenactment of the past week:
SHERIFF: “Do you want to finish your sentence at home?”
PARIS: “Really?”
SHERIFF: “Sure. Three days in jail is enough. You can do the other 42 days as home arrest.”
PARIS: “Thank you so much!”
Paris goes home. A few hours later, the Sheriff’s phone rings:
SHERIFF: “Hey.”
JUDGE: “Did she buy it?”
SHERIFF: “Oh, yeah. It was hilarious. Her face lit right up.”
JUDGE: [laughing]: “Oh my God. This is going to be great. Get one of your guys to bring her to the courthouse. Tell her the judge needs to speak with her for a few minutes. Tell her it won’t take long, and to leave her things.”
SHERIFF: “This is so wrong.”
JUDGE: “I know. Isn’t it awesome?”
At the courthouse:
JUDGE: “Paris, I have some bad news. We’re putting you back in jail. Right now.”
PARIS: “What? But he said I could do my sentence at home!”
JUDGE: “Lee, did you tell Paris she could serve her sentence in her house?”
SHERIFF: “Don’t believe I did, Mike.”
PARIS: “You liar! Yes you did!”
SHERIFF: “Hold on a second. Let me think.” [Sheriff strokes his chin slowly.] “Hmmm. Hmmmmmmm. Wait, yes! Yes!”
PARIS: “You remember?”
SHERIFF: “I remember that ‘The Simple Life’ sucked. Now get your scrawny ass back in your cell, bitch.”
JUDGE: “Oh! Smoked!”
[SHERRIF + JUDGE give each other a high-five. An officer shakes his head and escorts PARIS out the courthouse.]
I Know It’s Wrong To Admire Him…
May 10th
…but I can’t help it.
Armless man eludes police in high-speed car chase
The story is even better than the headline. Not only is this guy, Michael Wiley, driving around with no arms and escaping the cops, he is a mean son-of-a-bitch. He has been arrested before drug and abuse charges, and has had his driver’s license revoked. Armless doesn’t cover it. He doesn’t even have two legs. One of them was damaged in the electrical accident that made him armless. You know why he spent time in jail in 1996?
He kicked a state trooper.
An able-bodied person attacking a police officer is wrong. But when an armless, one-legged man kicks a cop, maybe he has a legitimate beef with the police. If you lose three out of four appendages, whatever you do with the fourth appendage becomes real important. Priority 1. This guy isn’t patting his head and rubbing his belly at the same time. He’s making choices.
That must have been embarrassing for the kicked trooper. How did the officer not see it coming? Wiley has one leg. His hand-to-hand combat options are limited. He’s either hopping away or taking a stand. You don’t even need to figure out which leg he is going to use. Cover your crotch and watch for arm bites. Not too complicated.
What I like about this story is that is about a disabled person who is absolutely, completely anti-inspirational. It’s not about challenges that the mundane activities of life pose for the disabled. Wiley isn’t fulfilling a dream of hopping up Mt. Kilimanjaro or grooming rescue dogs with a comb attachment for his big toe.
It’s about a mean, probably horrible man with no obvious redeeming qualities who, when faced with a long, uphill battle to overcome his disability and use the challenge as motivation for life, said: “Screw it. I’m racing cops.” It’s a type of disabled person never promoted in the media, and I’m glad to have heard of him. Even positive stereotypes gets in the way of viewing people as individuals, and not just as a member of a group.
It Used To Be Mr. Devil
Sep 20th
Here is an odd story of Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela, calling President Bush “the devil” on the floor of the U.N. General Assembly. Afterwards, Chavez pulled down his pants, waved his rear at Bush, and said, “You can kiss my brown ass.”
Okay, Chavez kept his pants on, but if you are going to call the leader of a nation “the devil” in front of the leaders of almost every other country in the planet, your pantaloons might as well have wings because they’re flying off soon.
The article points out that Chavez has called Bush names before, but it was “Mr. Devil”. Now, Chavez is dispensing with the formalities.
Mr. Devil does have a nice ring to it. Sounds like something an orphan would say. “Mr. Devil, can I have some more porridge?” And the devil would smile and say, “Well, the devil wouldn’t give you more porridge, but maybe Mr. Devil can help a young, polite man like yourself out.”
Can you understand how crazy this is? It’s like a far-left version of Ann Coulter got elected president of a country. Calling a president a devil in a public forum is something a crackhead would say. How is the President supposed to respond? “You called me what, bitch?”
Whoever gave Chavez the key to the liquor cabinet in his room is going to be fired. Chavez is going to wake up the next day, hungover and groggy, and get a call from his frantic aide: “I said what? Wow. Really? They knew I was drunk, right?”
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