Politics
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Wordless Wednesday – Thursday Edition
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Immigration
(photo found here) Every so often, in the argument about illegal immigrants in America, and more specifically here in California, we hear that we need these workers to come to America, legally or illegally, because Americans aren’t willing to take these jobs. The jobs that immigrants take in America, mostly agricultural, are jobs that Americans aren’t willing to take. Well, I stopped awhile ago to think about that, the last time I heard about coal miners getting trapped underground for days, weeks, until they die…I thought, if people are willing to go into the bowels of the Earth to bring out fuel, at the risk of becoming crushed and losing…
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Torture…
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=PtS45bh_INY[/youtube] I wrote last year about waterboarding, and how it’s clearly torture, no matter what the dickwads in Washington think. Well, I was walking Genevieve the other day, and listening to Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me on my beloved iPod, and what should I discover? (I swear, you get better news from this show and Comedy Central than 99.9% of what else is out there.) The U.S. government is being sued for copyright infringement, because they tortured inmates at Guantanamo by playing crappy music over and over again, and they never paid the artists any sort of royalties. Kind of an ingenious way to stop torture, I guess, but I…
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Don’t Hold Your Breath
(image found here) Growing up, my mom was a Libertarian, and being a child, I pretty much followed her lead. Being a Libertarian means never having to say you’re sorry for what the current administration is doing, because the current administration is never going to be comprised of Libertarians. It also meant that I was raised with a large dose of cynicism about politics and politicians. Always told to follow the money, because that’s what makes politicians tick, even if their ideals are high, the reality is that they need money to run election and re-election campaigns. So if you want your favorite politician to be in office, to do…
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Happy Independence Day, Everyone
Does anyone else remember this little April Fools Joke that ran in the newspapers back in 1996? I remember it because my mom was visiting us, and Maya had just been born (March 29), and we were looking at the newspaper, and Mom got all outraged. I wonder if it was sleep deprivation, due to all of the excitement, or if perhaps the fact of being in such a historic city got the blood all of her patriot ancestors flowing freely, but she decided this was just too much. And to think, George Bush wasn’t even in office yet! Anyway, she was talking to my dad on the phone, and…
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Year of the
RatTurdWoke up 3 times last night. Twice by small earthquakes, then a phone call that said mom fell last night on the way back to bed from the bathroom, and hurt her neck. They’re sending her back to the hospital. Sigh. (And another grumpy thought…I haven’t even spoken to a single woman who could bring herself to vote for Hillary (besides a few family members) so what’s this stupid talk about Obama needs to heal rift with women? Idiot press. Most people I’ve talked to say, they’re so similar on the issues, they would vote either way. And then the campaign turned a lot of people off to her. So…
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TANSTAAFL
(picture found here) That stands for “There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch”, and when I was growing up as a Libertarian in Fairbanks, Alaska, it was a term that I heard from time to time. If you’re not familiar with the phrase, ‘no such thing as a free lunch’, the concept is that you don’t get something for nothing. For everything you get in life, you give something up, and it’s important to make decisions wisely, and make sure that what you are receiving is worth what you are foregoing. I was reminded of TANSTAAFL the other day in the car, when I was listening to Forum…
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Quagmire
quagmire (plural quagmires) 1. A swampy, soggy area of ground. 2. (figuratively) A mixed up and troubled situation; a hopeless tangle; a predicament. The paperwork got lost in a quagmire of bureaucracy. The invasion of the country went smoothly, but the subsequent occupation became a quagmire. Growing up, I remember hearing how the war in Viet Nam was a quagmire, how leaving was bad, but staying would have been worse. How it was very much a situation to be avoided, and only a fool enters a war without a decent exit strategy. And yet, here we are again. Perhaps partially because the Chickenhawks in charge weren’t in Viet Nam, and…
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Angry Black Bitch wins the Perfect Post Award
I haven’t awarded a ‘perfect post’ in a long time…to be honest, I forget about it every month, until I get an email from Petroville, who dutifully sends the code for the badge, and reminds me of the award. But by then, I’ve forgotten what wonderful stuff is out there, and so no awards go out. But in a perfect example of synchronicity, I received the email, and then went and checked out an amazing post written by Shark Fu, aka, Angry Black Bitch. What makes this post award worthy? I love the way she dives right and and tells it like it is, reminding us what being a patriotic…
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Are you talking about yourself, Asshole?
“Any government that presumes to represent the majority of people must confront criminal elements or people who think they can live outside the law.” ~ G.W. Bush 3/28/08
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This Is What a Feminist Looks Like
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YA13GNT8Mc[/youtube] I saw this over at Salon, and thought it was worth sharing.
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Do Over?
I’m kind of curious to know what you all think of this story, where the Democratic National Committee is considering having a second primary in Florida and Michigan, probably via mail-in votes. See, the DNC decided not to allow states to move their primaries to before Super Tuesday, and when Florida and Michigan did so anyway, the DNC decided to punish them by not allowing their delegates to count toward election totals. But now that the race between Clinton and Obama has turned out to be so close, they’re suddenly wanting those votes to count. And it wouldn’t even be fair to count the votes as they were cast the…
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I Voted
We just got back from voting…It felt ridiculously good to see the names of a woman and a minority on that ballot. No matter which way it goes, today was a good day. I can honestly say that I have never, NEVER felt this way about voting before. We took Maya into the ballot with us, so she could watch history being made. A good day. Updated to add, I have not forgotten that Carol Moseley Braun and Al Sharpton ran last time. He’s a bit of a freak, and neither of them had much of a chance. This is the first time things have gotten so far as to…
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Dang.
First Kucinich, now Edwards. The candidates who had the most to say to the more progressive elements in the Democratic party have dropped out. I can only hope that their influence lives on, and that both Obama and Clinton take some of it to heart, and do more than ‘talk the talk’. Getting tired of politics already. I mean, so few people have voted, and this is indicative of the entire country? Bah. Stupid primaries.
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Blog for Choice Day
Today is the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and the 3rd annual ‘Blog for Choice Day’. I participated last year, when the writing prompt was, “Why you’re pro choice“, as well as in 2006, when I declared that I think that the rights of the pregnant woman supersede those of the unborn child, and that the answer to the abortion question shouldn’t be to outlaw it, but rather, to improve medical care, education, and family planning access so that fewer and fewer women find themselves having to make this difficult decision. The writing prompt this year is ‘why it’s important to vote pro-choice’. In an election year, especially an…