Tuesday, September 30, 2003

Well, it's about freaking time.

Someone has finally taken interest in the Valerie Plame situation...although they've put John Ashcroft in charge of the investigation.

WASHINGTON Sept. 30 — The FBI began a full-scale criminal investigation Tuesday into whether White House officials illegally leaked the identity of an undercover CIA officer, and President Bush ordered his staff to cooperate with the first major probe of his administration.

...Democratic leaders said Attorney General John Ashcroft was too close to the White House to conduct an impartial investigation. "We don't have confidence in John Ashcroft ... and we know without a doubt that somebody broke the federal law," Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle said.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said, "If there ever was a case for the appointment of a special counsel, this is it."


If Valerie Plame sold real-estate or gratified the president orally (tee hee) then there would be a special council all over this situation. But no, her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, only exposed the president as a big fat liar, so that's not a big deal.

Mr. Wilson has publicly accused presidential adviser Karl Rove of revealing his wife's identify. The motive, according to Wilson, was revenge for his own role in exposing as probably wrong the White House claim that Saddam Hussein sought yellowcake uranium from Niger.

Over at Open Source Politics, Mark A.R. Kleiman has a pretty definitive series of posts on this scandal...go read!

And don't forget to register to vote! We can take the country back from these chowderheads!

Friday, September 26, 2003

Okay, so it's negative campaigning

But it's freaking hilarious.

They got the troubled Arnold scream just right, and I like the nipple-tasselled Bush and Cheney....Very, very funny.

Via See The Forest.
I forgot

Today was Talk Like Bill O'Reilly Day.

So...shut up. I'm a big dumb jerk. Al Franken is stupid.

There, that about sums it up.
Comments down

Haloscan has been repeatedly up and down for the past few days. Very aggravating.

Trust me, I'd move to MT if I thought paying for blogging was a worthwhile enterprise.
Oh thank god

Poor yuppies. What will they ride to work now?
Okay, now these people are stupid whiny crybabies...

Some young conservatives completely miss the point at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.

Rushing and other members of his group at Southern Methodist University in Dallas sold freshly baked cookies for a series of different prices based on the customer's gender and race.

The bake sale's sign said white males had to pay $1 for a cookie. The price was 75 cents for white women, 50 cents for Hispanics and 25 cents for blacks.

Rushing, a 23-year-old law student, says he and his fellow bakers meant no offense and were only trying to protest the use of race or gender as a factor in college admissions.


I was just reading in my psych textbook (discussing the higher prevalence of emotional problems in African-Americans than in Whites) that 44 percent of blacks live below the poverty line, while only 5 percent of whites do. So, a better analogy would be to only give the black person a quarter to buy the cookie with. Or, charging everyone the same price but only giving minorities a portion of the cookie.

If there's a white person out there whose life has been ruined by affirmative action, please stop by my house for lunch. You can ride your unicorn over from the 7 Cities of Gold, and don't forget to bring water from the Fountain of Youth for our tea.
Okay, just one little quiz for the road...

According to the SelectSmart.com Belief System Selector, my #1 belief match is Secular Humanism.
What do you believe?
Visit SelectSmart.com/RELIGION


Interesting...via OHS Lions.
Natalie Maines, I love you

I hereby appoint the Dixie Chicks the first bluegrass plucky punk girls.

Read this letter, via Eschaton.

Excerpt:

Oh, I have to go. Keith and Mick are in the limo waiting for me. The five of us have started getting together every Tuesday night. I must tell you, Keith is really getting into his fiddle lessons with Martie. He can already play “Faded Love”. And Mick, well he gets faster at “Dueling Banjos” with Emily every week. I think they are really going to blow everyone away at the rock and roll family reunion next week. But, it's not just about them learning from us. Nope, they help me every week think up new controversial "rock and roll" things to say. Thanks guys…you’re the greatest!

Love, Natalie

PS. I will also be posting this in German so if you don't like what I really said you can just translate it into what suits your agenda.


I wish I had written that!

Now, enough of you, blog, I must study for my psych test.

Thursday, September 25, 2003

RIP, Gus.

I just want everyone to know that someone really excellent died last week. I missed his funeral because it was my anniversary and I'm kind of pissed off about it.

Gus Blaisdell, my favorite film professor, the best teacher I ever had, the person responsible for making me see cinema as an art form, died of a heart attack last Wednesday.

Tall and lean with a full beard and disheveled hair, Blaisdell was teaching Images of Women in Film and International Horror Film this semester, Jaffe said.
"He loved to perform," Jaffe said. "He had a great theatrical flair, a great presence. People just found him interesting to look at and to be with ..."
Blaisdell was considered an intellectual in a broad sense because he had formally studied and worked in a variety of disciplines, including philosophy, literature and visual arts such as painting and photography, Jaffe said.
"He had a passion for a variety of subject matter," Jaffe said. "He could bring them all to bear on a particular film or body of films."
Jaffe said Blaisdell was extremely articulate and had a remarkable memory, including the ability to remember shot-by-shot sequences of films.


Gus was a really, really excellent teacher. I'm pissed off that I'll never get to take his Stanley Kubrick class. (Ha ha, sniff...Just kidding Gus...) I'm sorry I made him keep playing I Spit on your Grave after he was going to turn it off because it was so awful. I'm sorry my paper on The Bicycle Thief was so half-ass. I'm sorry I shaved my Mohawk, I know he liked it. I'm sorry I never took him up on his offer to show him my poetry. I'm sorry I made the cellophane of my candy wrapper crinkle during the movie that one time. I'm really sorry he made us read all that Stanley Cavell (ha ha...just kidding again, Gus).

Next time you're at a movie and someone's cellphone goes off, or their bratty rugrat starts squealing, or their stupid digital watch beeps, throw your shoe at them in honor of Gus.

He would've liked that.
Fidel Castro, and other archaic species

Scientists in Cuba have found a living specimen of a rare insectivore previously believed extinct.

Sept. 25, 2003 | HAVANA (AP) -- With its long snout and tiny body covered with spiky, long brown hair, the worm-munching creature known as Solenodon Cubanus long has been a mystery to zoologists, who believed it to be extinct.

But a farmer in eastern Cuba recently found the first live specimen of the ancient and enigmatic creature seen in four years, local media said.

The find proved conclusively that Solenodon Cubanus still survives, and raised hopes that the curious animal dubbed "Alejandrito" may have other relatives roaming the island.


I looked for a picture of Solenodon Cubanus but could only find one of the Haitian Solenodon. Freaky in a cute way.
Yay!

Okay, so now I play news catch-up. First and foremost, no one in their right mind could think this was anything but a good thing.

KATSINA, Nigeria (AFP) - Nigerian single mother Amina Lawal was cleared of adultery by an Islamic court, releasing her from a sentence that she be stoned to death.

..."Amina is free. Amina has been discharged. Amina can have her life back," she told reporters outside the court, as Lawal and her baby daughter Wasila were whisked away in a police vehicle with a heavily armed escort.


I wish her and her seriously cute baby girl a long life.

Sorry

Been really busy with class and stuff. I've been neglecting you, faithful blog readers. Both of you.

If it makes you feel any better, while watching It's a Wonderful Life in film class today, I cried in front of everyone. Very embarrassing.

Damn that Frank Capra!

Sunday, September 21, 2003

Welcome

To the amusingly titled and exceedingly (and excellently) sailor-mouthed Naked Furniture.
Happy Birthday to Stan...

But entirely too much to drink for me....ugh....

I'm too old for wild birthday parties....

I'm making a sandwich and going to bed....But I could still drink Hans under the table...

...ugh...

Thursday, September 18, 2003

Agent Smith was right...humanity is a disease!

There's nothing like hearing news like this to make you a complete misanthrope.

LONDON, England -- The lion is close to extinction in Africa, a wildlife expert has warned after numbers fell by 90 percent during the last 20 years.

Only 23,000 are left compared to an estimated 200,000 in the early 1980s as a result of hunters killing them to protest livestock, said Laurence Frank, a wildlife biologist from the University of California.


The possibility of lions going extinct in their natural habitat makes me sick to my stomach.

And yes, I know I referenced The Matrix in the title of this post. But I just finished my paper on it.
Why I am a destiny...

So, now I'm going to plug myself. Check out my latest post at Open Source Politics, and my post from last week, too.

Wednesday, September 17, 2003

You spin me right round...

The White House is now trying to say, with straight faces, that they've never ever said there was a tie between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida, and if 70 percent of the American public thinks so, it's not their fault.

President Bush said Wednesday there was no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 disputing an impression that critics say the administration tried to foster to justify the war against Iraq.

...The president's comment was the administration's firmest assertion that there is no proven link between Saddam and Sept. 11. It came after Vice President Dick Cheney on Sunday clouded the issue by saying, "It's not surprising people make that connection" between Saddam and the attacks.


No, Dick, it's not surprising. Let's think about why people might make that connection, shall we?

Cheney, on NBC's "Meet the Press," also repeated an allegation doubted by many in the intelligence community that Mohammed Atta, the lead Sept. 11 attacker, met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official in Prague five months before Sept. 11.

...The administration has argued that Saddam's government had close links to al-Qaida, the terrorist network led by Osama bin Laden that masterminded the Sept. 11 attacks.

On Sunday, for example, Cheney said that success in stabilizing and democratizing Iraq would strike a major blow at the "geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault for many years, but most especially on 9-11."


Emphasis mine. Do they think that we're stupid? Cheney might as well have said, "There are no ties between Iraq and al-Qaida, coughbullshitcough." Now that would be funny.

Seriously, everybody register to vote right freaking now. Are you really going to let them talk to you like that?

Friday, September 12, 2003

Irony? What's that? Oh, it's like goldy and bronzy....

I really like the new spellchecker feature built into Blogger. But, I just had to teach it the word "blog."

Gotta love the modern age.
Ass Kicking

The DNC website now has a blog, most amusingly titled Kicking Ass. Go read! Right now they're taking suggestions as to what cheesy slogan the Iraqi tourism program proposed by Donald Rumsfeld should have.

My suggestion? "Iraq: it's where your oil came from."

My crass, tasteless suggestion? "Iraq: so much fun, you'll stick to us like flypaper."

Go, put in your two cents.
RIP



Johnny Cash

1932-2003


I dressed in black today for the Man in Black.


I hate Ann Coulter

Again, she proves that all "swarthy males" look the same to her. I will not link to her column out of fear of catching cooties, but Eschaton has the link here. This is what she said that so rightly pissed Atrios off.

On the basis of their recent pronouncements, the position of the Democratic Party seems to be that Saddam Hussein did not hit us on 9-11, but Halliburton did.

Uhhh, last time I checked it was Al-Qaida that attacked us, a group led by Osama bin Laden, not Saddam Hussein. You remember Osama bin Laden, right Ann?

Or have we always been at war with Eastasia?

Thursday, September 11, 2003

Hug your kids

I'm not going to post anything today, except to say that everyone should hug a loved one and tell them they're loved.

Screw everything else and spend some time with your family.

Monday, September 08, 2003

Ahhh, College.

I have to write a paper on The Matrix for class this week.

No, I'm serious. The Matrix. My parents must be so proud...

Thursday, September 04, 2003

Habla Espanol*

Via TBogg I find this post at San Diego Soliloquies which gives at least one strike against the claim that MEChA, the organization that California Recall candidate Cruz Bustamante belonged to in college.

So quite a few of the usual suspects are up in arms about Cruz Bustamante having been a member of MEChA in callege. Every single damn one of them translates:

Por La Raza todo.
Fuera de La Raza nada.
as:

For the Race, everything.
For those outside the Race, nothing
This is a common mistake among people who think the ability to order from a Taco Bell menu constitutes fluency in Spanish. The word "por" is almost never used as "for". You almost always use the word "para". "Es para ti" (Sorry about the accents) is "It's for you". Por has many uses, but the first definition is "because of", as in "eso te pasa por crédulo" (That's what you get for being so credulous). When you get a postcard from Spain that says "Por Avion", do you think that someone accidentally gave the airplane's mail to you?


Go read it now!

I was ready to believe that Bustamante might be homophobic. Until I read at Instapundit's post on the subject, of all things, (I won't link to him out of general non-conformity, but San Diego Soliloquies above has a link to the post in question) and found out that the evidence used by everyone in the righty blogosphere to accuse MEChA, and Bustamante by association, of homophobia is an article from Aztlan.net, Aztlan being a completely different organization from MEChA.

Now, I know next to nothing about Cruz Bustamante. But, given the current evidence, it doesn't seem he's a racist or a homophobe.

Show me where he said that if a segregationist had become president, the world might be a better place.

Show me where he said that there should be a law stating marriage should only be between a man and a woman.

Hell, show me where he said he had "no hang-ups about the 'fag' business."

And to be Fair & Balanced about it, you could even show me where he called New York "Hymietown." (Not even the most furious Googling gave me a good link to that, but it was Jesse Jackson that said it.)

Then I'd be more than willing to believe Cruz Bustamante is a racist homophobe. Until then, find some policy or something of his to criticize.

*Sorry about the lack of a tilde.

Wednesday, September 03, 2003

Unmixed feelings.

There's something about this story that made me realize exactly how I feel about the death penalty.

STARKE, Fla. - Still defiant even as he was strapped to a gurney, a former minister who said he murdered an abortion doctor and his bodyguard to save the lives of unborn babies was executed Wednesday by injection. He was the first person put to death in the United States for anti-abortion violence.

Paul Hill, 49, was condemned for the July 29, 1994, shooting deaths of Dr. John Bayard Britton and his bodyguard, retired Air Force Lt. Col. James Herman Barrett, and the wounding of Barrett's wife outside the Ladies Center in Pensacola.


Personally, I feel Paul Hill was a murdering bastard, who deserves what he got and I hope he went to the hell he believed in when he died. The fact that he wants to control my body, and the bodies of my mother, sister, and firend, to the extent that he would kill for it fills me with rage.

But that shouldn't matter. Our personal anger and convictions shouldn't interfere with the delivery of justice. Otherwise, our court system would be nothing but mob rule and a court of popular opinion. Our justice system should be cool, rational, and impartial. Not flaming with the hatred of those who want revenge for the wrongs that have been comitted against them. We're supposed to be penalizing and reforming people, not seeking vengance upon them.

I told someone at work the other day that I was against the death penalty. The responded that I would "sure feel differently if someone killed someone I loved." Sure I would. If someone killed someone I loved I would probably want to tie them to a chair and go at them with a baseball bat.

But that's not what the criminal justice system of a civilized society should be based on.

On a side note, this story also lists several examples of white, christian terrorists. As part of my constant (boring, by now, I'm sure) quest to point out that not all terrorists are Ann Coulter's swarthy males, I quote:

The killings of Britton and Barrett happened during a time of increased violence at clinics nationwide.

Another abortion doctor had been killed in Pensacola in 1993 by Michael Griffin, who is serving a life sentence. Two receptionists were killed at Boston-area abortion clinics in 1994 by John Salvi, who committed suicide in prison two years later.

Earlier this year, James Kopp was convicted of killing an Buffalo, N.Y., abortion doctor in 1998, while fugitive Eric Rudolph was captured and charged with a 1998 bombing that killed an off-duty police officer at an Alabama abortion clinic.

Tuesday, September 02, 2003

Two big days in one...

Today is making me nervously excited for two reasons.

One, today is my first day back at school in several years. I'm having sort of a quarter-life crisis (quote me earlier..."In five years...I'll be thirty!" Quite a humorous moment, really) and am afraid I will stand out amongst the fresh-faced 19 year olds straight out of high school. And yet I've been waiting for today to happen all year, and can't believe it's finally happening!

Second, today is opening day for a new metablog project I've been participating in, Open Source Politics. There's alot of good talent from all over the lefty blogosphere, so go take a look. And especially notice me in the SocialEyes section.

On a semi-side note, I've updated the blogroll again with scads of new links. Go read!