America: Defending democracy to ensure that women don't have the right to vote
Kuwait held an election this week. Women were not allowed to vote. THe only Kuwaiti citizens who can vote are men, 21 or over. Unless they were recently naturalised, or a member of armed or security forces. This makes the country's population that are eligible to vote around 15% of their total population. Out of that 15%, 40% of them voted.

Well, at least I know that America isn't that bad anymore.

Something patriotic for the Fourth
The Shrub has named 6 people to be tried for terrorism. They could be members of al-Qa'ida, but we also will not know their names and we may not know if they ever goto trial or not because all of the proceedings could be secret.

Just something to keep in mind as we all eat hamburgers and celebrate how much freedom we (still?) have.

India or bust (or Canada)
Marching in step with other technology companies, Microsoft may be planning to outsource technical support positions to companies in India or Canada. Right now, other corporations are outsourcing customer service, technical support, and other technical positions to countries like India because the workers are educated and the standard of living is cheaper, therefore you do not have to pay Indian workers as much as you would have to pay an American worker. Of course, the American workers getting shafted hate this, and the CEOs who are lining their wallet with millions of dollars to run a corporation into the red claim that since these departments do not generate profit for the corporation, they must be run as cheaply as possible. So, goodbye American jobs.

There's 46 huge differences, though, between other corporations doing this and Microsoft: Microsoft is currently $46 billion in the black. (Or so BBC radio told me tonight.)

For full disclosure, I used to do technical support for the evil empire. If you called the Microsoft Outlook support line during 1999-2000, you might have talked with me. At that time, Microsoft outsourced support within this country, and the company I worked for had a contract to do support for various Microsoft products like Word, Outlook, Access, Excel, Exchange, Fox Pro, and Windows 95/NT/2000. But at the end of 2000, Microsoft annouced that they were pulling our contracts because they wanted their support to be in-house, ran directly by Microsoft. They said that having most support in-house would reflect better on their products, because they would have more control over their products. On top of this, the company that I worked for just built two large call centers: one in India and the other in Canada. So, all of this added up to me not having a job.

While I worked for a company that Microsoft outsourced to, Microsoft still had the higher levels of support in-house. Most of those in-house techs for Outlook worked in Texas. The linked article points out that 800 Microsoft workers in Texas will soon lose their jobs. Some of these people I met and talked with on a daily basis, so this does not sit well with me.

I guess this blows the theory of taking their support in-house to improve their image. I understand that corporations would like to cut costs in departments that do not generate revenue, and I do not hold any bias or grudge against India because I realize that their economy, with a workforce of well educated people, also needs jobs. However, it's shameful that Microsoft, who has billions in profits, will ship jobs off to a foreign country while America is still in recession and it's tough enough for the unemployed we have now (like me) to find work. I hope the good workers they are laying off are able to find employment soon, but if other companies follow in the footsteps of the software giant, these workers might have to choose a new career.

Meanwhile, the corporate fat cats get richer by not doing their part to help the American economy back on its' feet. Doesn't capitalism suck? In the old days, these people would be tarred and feathered.

To make matters worse, current Microsoft employees fear that the company will look for any reason to fire them so they do not have to pay them a severance package after their eventual layoff. I can believe this for two reasons: when Microsoft canned the Outlook contract for my company, none of the Outlook workers received any sort of severance package; and if Microsoft is reaping huge profits but are still willing to cut American workers to save money, then they are just plain cheap.

Even thouh I worked for the bastards, I'm still proud to say that I have never spent a red cent on any Microsoft products. I suggest that until companies like Microsoft treat their workers properly, you do the same. A recently axed Microsoft employee in Texas has put up a site, goodetech.com, about this situation. The best way we can express ourselves is with our wallets. Hopefully, if Microsoft isn't too busy counting their billions made from corporate contracts, they will listen to us consumers.

I guess...
...God really does exist.

Here's the best part of the article: "Afterward, services resumed for about 20 minutes, but then the congregation realized that the church was on fire and the building was evacuated. " I wonder how they found that out. "Hey Earl, is that wall engulfed in flames?" 'Naw man, just a new paint job.' It's gettin' hot in here...

Legally Dumb
I know it's not just me that thinks "Legally Blonde 2: Red, White, and Blonde" looks sickeningly annoying. Just the movie poster and the way she's dressed.. With that outfit and her starved figure, she mine as well be a Barbie doll. She even looks plastic. The fact that people make movies like this a blockbuster makes me wonder less about why the rest of the world thinks we're idiots.

For some unknown reason, I watched "Access Hollywood" today and they had their film "critic" on (he more resembled a professional ass kisser), and he praised the film because Reese Whitherspoon (if that's spelled wrong, I don't care) is "America's New Sweetheart", and said that people should see the film even though he admitted that it didn't really have a great plot or great script. Great, so the boob tube is now telling me to see a poorly produced movie just because of the lead actor? Blow me. It's great to see that our puveyors of entertainment are holding Hollywood upto standards of intelligence and dignity. Sigh.

Wrasslin'...
Last night, feeling dual needs of hunger and wanting to be disappointed in humanity, I went to Hooters. The all-you-can-eat wings were too greasy even for my well-refined junk food palette, and I sat facing the wall so I didn't get to see how the roomful of men treated the waitresses. I did, however, get to see a 400 lbs mans asscrack for half the night.

At 9pm, Hooters put WWE Raw on all the TVs, it was inescapable. My friend informed me that the 400 lbs man next to us tried hitting on their poor waitress after the wrasslin' started. The first thing he said was, "I like wrasslin'," you can imagine the accent in which he said it in. Surely he must of impressed the scanly clad waiteress with this line, he thought, so he moved in for the kill by telling the waitress that he could a WWE wrestlers ass. I was surprised about this statement, since after giving the man a couple looks, I don't fathom that he could lift his leg to anyones mid-section, nevermind doing it with force.

Meanwhile, I was a polite little man, saying "please" and "thank you" everytime our waiteress bought something out and feeling uncomfortable because I don't want to gawk, even though they bend over the tables and the tanktop doesn't leave much to the imagination.. It's still not polite to gawk, you know.

Back to the hot wrasslin' action. I noticed that on all the TVs in the manly restaurant were men wearing speedos, firm an cut with oiled bodies, grabbing at other like men in a ring in front of thousands of people. I started to wonder just what type of "manly" establishment I was in, but I didn't see any rainbows or pink triangles anywhere. But then WWE Raw got eight or so female wrestlers in the ring to duke it out, so I figured that made sense. Firm, scantly clad, well oiled females are what a group of supposedly straight men should be watching.

But.. The female wrestlers were fully clothed! Sure, it was sexy, tight fitting clothing, but clothing none the less! Unlike their male counterparts, they were not half naked and oiled up. What's up with that, huh? And this "sports" is supposed to be geared towards straight men?

Not that I have a problem with gay men. I don't even mind if one hits on me, at least I know that somebody is looking. But, being at Hooters where the focus is obviously on the titties and their patrons probably use words like "faggots" and "homos" as insults, I would expect some more hetro entertainment. How is history going to look upon this? I can imagine the Discovery Channel 3030 documentary: "In America, a society which was sexually repressed for religious reasons, the average male bonded by going to a restaurant which featured scantly clad waitresses and showed hot, oiled up men wearing only a modern day loin cloth around the crotch, rubbing their hands and bodies against each other." Oh yeah, that's perfectly normal stuff for a straight man to be watching. I think later generations would have at least expected the men to try bribing the waitresses into wrestling each other.

I don't think I'll be going to Hooters again. I need to protect my manhood.

Some lesser court rulings
The Supreme Court isn't the only court in the land busy handing down rulings. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, the same court famous for declaring the Pledge of Alligence unconstitutional (a decision which Loaded Mouth argees with), has handed down rulings which affect bloggers and the hemp industry.

The Circuit Court rejected a DEA attempt to outlaw hemp foods. They did not rule on the constitutionallity of banning hemp foods, simply that the DEA did not follow procedure by not giving advance warning of the ban or allowing for public comment about the matter.

Hemp, for those of you unfamiliar with this very useful and nutritious plant, contains trace amounts of THC. This is not enough to get any sort of high off of, but the US government would like you to believe that this plant is a drug of the same caliber as marijuana.

The DEA tried telling the Circuit Court that "there is no way of knowing" whether or not food products made out of hemp will get a human high. This is bullshit. Does a product with trace amounts of caffine keep you up all night? No, of course not. On the same token, a product with traces amounts of THC is not going to get you high. This is simple logic.

If simple logic is not good enough for the discriminating reader, then maybe studies in Canada are. One Canadian study points out that people who consume hemp food products won't even fail a drug test. Canada has one some extensive research on hemp and marijuana, so it's no wonder they aren't afraid to practically decriminalize marijuana by making small amounts a ticketed offense, and letting their farmers grow industrial hemp.

A seperate ruling declares that bloggers, website operators, and email list editors cannot be held libel for information they republish, protecting free speech of online publishers. This decision also affects internet service providers, under it ISPs cannot be sued for libel, so they can continie to give jackasses like me the right to run a website without fear of legal repercussions. :)

I haven't read the full decision, but I noticed that the article never talks about bloggers and libel for items that are solely by the bloger and not republished, so I'm guessing that if I tried saying something completely false like, "George W. Bush got head from his daughter in the Oval Office while snorting lines of coke of her back," I could still be sued.

From Corporate Motherfucker on what the "homesexual agenda" is: "What exactly is this 'homosexual agenda' Grand Moff Scalia was going on about? ... [I]t is, simply, to have the same rights of inheritance, health insurance, and legal recognition that your ordinary, everyday Russian mail-order bride has." I couldn't have said it better myself. The whole article is pretty funny.

I always wondered why the Volkswagon Jetta was so popular...

Here's a report from Indymedia about protests at the Bush fundraisers. The mainstream media has told us all about the fundraisers and how Bush is aiming to raise $150-200 million dollars to fund his campaign during a Republican primary in which he faces no challengers, but these reports have hardly commented on the mass amount of dissent the resident has faced.

Thousands Demonstrate Against Bush During California Fund Raisers

Late in his second term, Lyndon Johnson was only able to make public appearances on military bases because of fierce public opposition to the Vietnam War. Currently, a similar situation is developing with George W. Bush -- though Bush also ventures out for $2,000 per person fund raisers for his re-election campaign. The absurd notion, propagated by the mainstream media, that 70% of the American population adores the pResident; is clearly belied by the throngs of protesters that appear whenever he travels anywhere in the country that is not a reactionary stronghold. Such was the case on June 27th outside two California fundraisers. First, demonstrators greeted Bush during lunchtime in the Bay Area (photos: 1, 2, 3); then, come suppertime, a larger crowd, estimated as high as 10,000, protested against the Bush oiligarchy in LA, where Code Pink succeeded in dropping a massive banner (a "pink slip") from a balcony of the hotel where Bush was fund-raising (photos: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10). Similarly, thousands of outraged New Yorkers greeted Bush when he stopped off in Gotham to raise $4 million on June 23. Mass Dissent is alive and well in the belly of the imperial beast!

READ: LA IMC's Feature - An IMCista's Report from Century City - CODEPINK on the Day's Events

[ LA Indymedia | SF Indymedia | CODEPINK ]