A revolution in that other Georgia

BBC has a Q&A on Georgia, just in case you have any questions or, well, care. (I mean, you SHOULD care, I'm just not sure how much caring should be involved here... We still have a crisis in Iraq and the Republicans are using undemocratic methods to push their agenda through Congress at home, so Georgia just seems like a blip on the radar screen right now.) What the citizens of Georgia are doin is a perfect example of how the people of a country should react to a fraudulent election. If that happened in this country, the shrub and Ahhhhnald wouldn't be in office.

Source: Ted Rall

GOP Medicare bill passes

Here's my favorite paragraphs from the article about it:

But Democrats asserted that Republican leaders were pushing through a bad bill in the middle of the night. The measure, they said, was laden with giveaways to insurers and drug companies and would shortchange the elderly people it was supposed to help.

Representative John Lewis, Democrat of Georgia, said: ``If this bill is passed, it would be a dagger in the heart of Medicare as we know it. This bill is a backdoor attempt by the Republican Party to privatize Medicare.''

[snip]

But conservatives were restless, and Democrats were furious that the legislation, written in closed-door meetings without Democrat representation from the House, was being pushed through that chamber with little debate, just a day after the text was made public.

Keep in mind that the text of this bill was 678 pages in length, and nobody can possibly read that nd be able to debate it in the time after the bill was released and subsequently passed.

Welcome to "democracy", GOP-style.

In happier news, Senate Republicans can't get past a Democrat filibuster of their energy bill. This is another bill written behind closed doors.. By CHeney and the energy corporations.

When government gets stupid

Cape May, NJ - City leaders want to institute a $100 fine for possession of a skateboard. Appearently, this town must not have any other type of crime if they are this concerned about skateboarding. Can somebody please go there and murder a city leader so they have something else to wrap their stupidity around?

My Dream Job

A few hours after posting this, I've given this some thought. This would be a GREAT job! I want to start, but I need a market to sell my foot.. err, goods to. And what larger market is there then the GOP National Convention in NYC next year! That city will be filled with people who need a couple swift kicks in the ass!

I'm so gonna do this.

I hate it when potential employers don't call back, especially after they promised to. I should learn better then to get my hopes up, get my hopes up about anything, really..

I don't know when I'll be making a post today. I'm just not in the mood right now.

How popular he's not

I had a conversation with one of my new coworkers, and it veered into politics. I asked him where his views stood, and he told me that he used to be a Republican, "..until Bush got into office."

I've been talking to a new friend online, and politics also came up in that conversation. She told me that she's not too political, but hates Bush.

Hell, another friend of mine, a Head Start teacher who that I have tried somehow to convince her to vote even if she thinks that her vote will do nothing, she hates Bush so much that I think she will vote next year!

Could Bush succeed in doing the impossible, what Nader couldn't do in 2000: Draw the non-voters out to the polls? Let's hope so.

Fark headline of the day

Michael Jackson will give himself up when ready. Also says Billy, Gene not his lovers

I have to run to work in ten minutes, but for the sake of updating, you get some less detailed news:

Jim Hightower gives you the low down on the prescription drug bill for seniors: "Prescription Drug Bill for Seniors is a Republican Wolf in Sheep's Clothing"

Protesting Bush: Indymedia UK is sure to have all the detailed news on today's protests against Bush's UK visit.

Protesting the FTAA: A special Indymedia project, FTAAIMC, will be covering the Free Trade Area of the Americas protests in Miami. They already have a breaking news wire setup. Of course, the bigger story may end up being what's happening with the talks and 'FTAA Lite" seeming to emerge from them.

Listening to BBC radio right now. Nothing good is happening in Istanbul...

More later, but now it's time to move around some boxes.

Unbelievable

I was going to write a big, long thing on gay marriage, but why? Why should I give the critics of gay marriage the dignity giving counterpoints to their ridiculous arguments?

Here's my argument, and not to sound pompous but it's the only one that deserves to be heard. It's about freedom. If you are against gay marriage, then you are against freedom. It's really that simple.

Anybody who loves freedom would not advocate a position that allows for big government to invade the private lives of citizens and dictating who they can and cannot love. If a Republican takes a stance against gay marriage, then they are for big government. Therefore, they are hypocrites.

Anybody who advocates the government telling you who you can and cannot marry is basically telling you that they fully support the government violating basic tenets of personal freedom. Therefore, they are against personal freedom, which is fundamentally unamerican.

Anybody who uses their religion as an argument that gay marriage should be illegal does not believe in the separation of church and state. Therefore, again, that is fundamentally unamerican.

What pisses me off the most is the fact that if two people I don't know get married, it has no effect on my life. And it also has no effect on your life, or the lives of the critics of gay marriage. So what right do I or anybody else have to tell two people that they don't have the right to get married?

We don't.

If you believe in freedom, you believe that people have the right to marry who they want. And if you believe in freedom, a fundamentally American ideal, then you believe in gay marriage. If you don't believe in gay marriage, then you don't believe in freedom and you should find another country to reside in because you're unamerican. There is no wiggle room here.

So, what is it? Freedom or tyranny?

Two things

I've been listening to news on the radio, so I'm not going to provide links. You're just gonna have to trust me.

The Massachusetts Supreme Court has ruled that a ban on gay marriage would be unconstitutional, so they see no problem with allow same sex unions in their state. This is huge, and it could cause a domino effect because a respected court (though not a federal court) has made this ruling. Already, a gay marriage bill is being prepared for the next legislative session in my native homeland, Rhode Island.

Also in RI, Gov. Carceri has filed papers to put Bush's name on the primary ballot, even though nobody is running against him for the Republican nomination. They mentioned that Carceri is Bush's RI Campaign Chairman. This pisses me off. Not that I care who Carceri works for, but isn't this a confflict of interest? The governor of the state, the person partly in charge of certifying the vote, is the head of one of the candidate's campaigns. Shouldn't it be illegal for an official elected to such a high office that Carceri to run the state presidential campaign for a candidate? Katherine Harris, the bitch who stole our democracy, was Florida's Secetary of State when she ran Bush's 2004 campaign in Florida, and ended up certifying the vote for Bush when he didn't actually win. Why is such a situaton still possible?

[Update: I should have said that the court ruled it was unconstitutional as according to Massachusetts constitution, not the US constitution.)

"Public Enemy Number One" arrives in the UK tonight

It's estimated that over 100,00 protesters will be ready to greet him. One protester already scaled the Buckingham Palace fence to display an upside American flag with a message: "Elizabeth Windsor and Co. He's not welcome". Bush has already proposed the jaw-dropping assertion that American-owned businesses which have jobs in the UK ship those jobs back over to the US (paying no attention to US businesses which ship jobs to India and China, but wanting to take away jobs from the UK?!), so I propose that Britain also import a few of their protesters to the US so they can teach us Americans how to protest.

Sign of the times

Tom Tomorrow's latest cartoon has this quotable in it: "You know, I'm not really sure gay marriage would lead to the inevitably to widespread sex with animals..." Roll that line around in your head for a couple minutes and then try telling me that Republicans haven't fucked with our thinking process. The fact that we have to defend gay marriage from attackers on the right saying that it could lead to some hot man on dog action, it's just ridiculous.

What's gay marriage? It's two consenting adults who love each other and want to get married. That's friggen it. End of fucking story. If any of these freedom loving Republicans truly cared about the freedoms of their fellow citizens, they would say to themselves, "Well, I'm not gay and I would not like to be in a gay marriage, but I understand that if two other people of the same sex get married, it has no effect on my life. It does not infringe upon my freedoms. So what's the problem?" The fact that they have a problem wih gay marriage means that they have a problem with freedom. 50 years ago, these same assholes would have been the ones claiming that interracial marriage is a sin and it shouldn't be legal.

Go take your morals and keep pushing up those divorce rates, assholes.

Why do we even give those arguments the dignity of a counterpoint? They are just so stupid. People who use them should be given the "You're a FUCKING MORON!" look before we move onto more productive things.

Fark headline(s) of the day

"Woman, 772 lbs, sues government for her "public housing" renovations. Needed 22 firefighters and EMTs to get her to the dentist"

Christ... There was also this:

"Further proving that movie audiences lack taste, intelligence and basic comprehension skills, Elf leads the weekend at the box office"

I'm moving far, far away...

The most sought after mustache in the world

The trail on Saddam is colder than a corpse, which, consequently enough, is what we'll see a lot more of if we don't find him (or pull out the troops). Gee, don't you think we should have planned to capture him if we planned on raiding his country? I guess that thought never crossed the minds of our Republican overlords.

Bring on the Rabble

So, what's happening with "NAFTA on steroids", the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)? Canada's Globe and Mail reports that FTAA talks, to be held this week in Miami, could fall apart. Reminds me of the WTO conference in Cancun earlier this year that fell apart. If globalization isnt your thing, then this is good news. My favorite paragraph in the article contains even better news:

Separately, anti-globalization protesters are threatening to disrupt Miami talks in numbers that haven't been seen since rioting sunk WTO talks in Seattle four years ago. Organizers are predicting between 25,000 to 100,000 demonstrators and Miami shopkeepers are boarding up their stores, and in some cases sleeping in them, to safeguard goods from rioting.

Not that I'm into rioting, but I am into protesting (and no, the two activities are not synonymous). If Miami has 100,000 protesters in the streets to take a stand against globalization (which has to be one of the most boring topics on the planet in my opinion, and that's coming from a guy who enjoys reading about politics), that makes me happy. I may even contemplate a roadtrip.

Hollywood values

I just saw a headiine on Fark that makes me angry: "Liv Tyler told to lose some weight. "We want her to have the body of a 12 year old boy, just like the other female stars" says movie exec."

Jesus Christ, where to start? I could rant about how damaging this image can be to impressionable young women, but other people can do that much better then I can. I'll stick with what I know, and being a man with a reasonable libido, I know that the women I find attractive don't look like, "a 12 year old boy." Don't you think that's rather sick, or maybe a psuedo-pedophilic type of comment? The only people who should look like 12 year old boys are 12 year old boys, boys who have not hit puberty yet. Isn't it damaging to suggest that adult female Hollywood stars shouldn't look like adults if they want to land movie roles?

And let's not take away from the fact that Liv Tyler IS SKINNY!

Do we have to see a women's ribcage now? Is that supposed to be the new sign of beauty? Maybe I'm just an oddity (keep your smart ass remarks to yourself), but I don't find ribcages attractive. This is just plain ridiculous. I can't believe a movie executive thinks women should looklike 12 year old boys. This man should be fired.

Somewhere in the distance, I hear a whip cracking...

The 40 hour work week is a myth:

"Americans work more hours by far than any other workers in the [industrialized] world," said Benjamin Balak, who teaches economic history at Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla. "If you want to be a high-income wage earner, you have to work like a dog. If you want leisure in today's economy, you'll be stuck in a low-income job. It's income or leisure."

You know, it's a damn shame. Union members fought hard, and some died at the hands of the bosses in colluision with the government, for a 40 hour work week. They fought for our right to have some time to enjoy life; to live a life and not an existece where you are defined by a job that you spend half your day at. But the ever greedy CEOs whose appetite for the almighty dollar will never be quenched no matter what negative effect they have on the human condition, not even after we eventually have the first trillionaire, will force us to toil for them until we dropdead from exhaustion. It's sick. I'm not psychologist, but it's my personal opinion that somebody who is willing to cut the jobs of thousands of people, thus forcing other people to work longer hours to make up for all the lost work, just so they can line their already overstuffed pockets.. This kind of person is sick in the head, and they need some psychological help.

Even if you have a 40 hour work week, an 8 hour day, you are still robbed of your time. You usually have to drive an hour to and from your job, you have an hour lunch which increases the time of your shift to 9 hours, there's all the time in the morning you have to take to get ready for work.. Suddenly you're looking at 11-12 hours a day devoted to your job.

So, what's next? I was only a wee tyke back in the late 80's and early 90's, but I remember stories in the evening news about how "lazy" American workers were when compared with their Japanese counterparts, and how we needed to be more like the overworked Japanese. Well, it happened. When do we get the sleeping tubes installed next to our (ever decreasing in size) cubical?

What do you want to be when you grow up?

This article takes a look at the average salaries for various types of bachelors degrees. I'm happy that I decided not to goto school for psychology.