Friday, December 29, 2006

RIP Sadaam Hussein

Good riddance to bad rubbish. Now let's get cracking on those war crimes charges against Rumsfeld.

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Edwards '08?

John Edwards has announced his run for President. Considering his only "official" opponents are Tom Vilsack, whose name alone will deny him the Presidency, and Dennis Kucinich, a well-meaning nutjob, Edwards currently has my provisional support.

Right after the 2002 elections, I started looking for a candidate to support in 2004. By December of 2002, I was already a pretty solid Dean supporter, and I stuck with Dean to the bitter end. I thought Edwards was way too slick, and he came off as fake, like Hillary Clinton fake. But he has since impressed me -- he seems a lot more genuine than I gave him credit for in 2004. He's got a lot of charisma, he seems to be a real idealist with a lot of heart, and his work over the past two years on the issues of income inequity, social justice and bringing attention to global conflicts like Darfur, has impressed me.

I don't know if I'm yet ready to slap an Edwards '08 sticker on my car, but it's not out of the question.

Monday, December 25, 2006

Ubuntu saves the day

Now living in a Windows Free Household. Since my hard drive crashed and I don't have the install disk, my partner and I decided, after obtaining a spare hard disk from a friend, to Make the Switch (TM) to Ubuntu, a Linux GNOME O.S. So far so good, though several programs I used to use in Windows just won't work. C'est la vie. The one major thing I really wanted to work was my Launchcast station, but that is sadly not meant to be. Soon we're going to get a laptop and install Windows on it (with Ubuntu installed alongside), and I'll be able to listen to my Launchcast station and use Ventrilo and other such things.

So, we now have a Mac and a Linux machine in our household.

Learning Linux should be interesting.

Sunday, December 24, 2006

Dead computers aren't much fun.

My computer died yesterday. Sniff. I'm going to be posting from my partner's computer from now on.

Chanukah and Birthday were both good. I'm now 28 "big boy" years old. :-)

I'll have more political shtuff to report soon.

Friday, December 15, 2006

So long, and thanks for all the killing us

We lose another species.

RIP White River Dolphin. 20 million years -- not a bad run.

Monday, December 11, 2006

Christmas Trees come down at Seattle Airport

A request from an ultra-orthodox Jew that the Seattle airport include a Menorah among a display of Christmas trees prompts the airport to take down the Christmas trees.

Shockingly enough for those who know me, I don't think anyone was correct here. There's nothing wrong with a nicely decorated Christmas tree in public, as long as it's tastefully displayed and contains no overt religious iconography. Hell, if having Christmas trees on public property was a problem, then we'd have to make a lot of changes -- taking down the White House trees, the Rockefeller Center tree, etc. I don't support that.

There's a difference between a non-obtrusive, non-religious holiday display, like a tree, and an overtly religious item like a Nativity scene--or a menorah, for that matter. The thing is, Chanukah doesn't really have that much of a secular component to it, and I do not believe that we can argue that a menorah is "the Jewish Christmas tree." It's not. A menorah is an icon that represents a specific Jewish event, one that cannot be thought of as secular. A Christmas tree, on the other hand, has been so co-opted into our collective public consciousness, that, by itself, it has no specific religious connection to it. Add a cross to the top of it and yes, it becomes a religious symbol, and therefore verboten on public property.

Seattle Airport should have kept their trees up, as long as they were tastefully displayed and contained no overt religious iconography, and explained to the Rabbi the difference between secular holiday displays and overt religious symbology. Just as we cannot have a nativity scene in a public place, neither can we have a menorah, or any other thing that overtly advertises, supports, or promotes a particular religion's viewpoint.

Sunday, December 10, 2006

Roundup

Well, what happened this week? Not a lot, as far as I've heard...

Wait.

The Iraq report came out and was swiftly denounced by the leader of Iraq, and the conservatives. Rupert Murdoch showed that he's gotten quite good at arguing his case from the standpoint of an absolute blithering moron, and the bobbleheaded morons on right-wing talk radio and television were right there with him. Bill O'Reilly advocated the death of 26 million people. Tony Snow accused a reporter of being partisan because the reporter dared to quote the Iraq report at him. Have I mentioned how much of an absolute dickhead Tony Snow is? He's so...dickish...in his ability to just...lie.

Pinoshit died today. Now there was a real winner. Overthrew a democratically elected government with the help of who now? Oh yeah, the good old US of A. We just love to meddle in the affairs of South America, and look what a great job we've done molding it into a continent that's subservient to our corporate needs. Wait. No, sorry, South America is rebelling against us and electing populist governments. How dare they?

The Conservative branch of Judaism, in a very Jewish move, approved three conflicting texts at its meeting concerning the role of gays and lesbians as clergy. The good news: I could now apply to the Conservative seminary, if I wanted to. I don't want to, because I'm not a Conservative Jew, but the point is that I could.

(addendum: it was a very Jewish move because whenever you have two Jews in a room, you have at least three opinions. Which is one of the main reasons why I'm a Jew. No it isn't.)

Well, it looks like the queue for my Warcraft realm is empty, and I can now play my game. Please, comment on any or all of the above stories, you fictional people who read my blog regularly.

Tuesday, December 5, 2006

Hitler's race car, we're not winning in Iraq, and other stuff

Hitler's race car is on auction, and it's expected to fetch something like $12 million. Frankly, I think that money should just be given directly to the ADL or the State of Israel. You kill six million of us, we get all your stuff. Seems fair to me.

Bush's new nominee for Defense Secretary says we're not winning in Iraq. Nice to have a little bit of honesty out of these clowns. Still, I get the sense he was probably just saying that to seduce the Dems as part of some big overarching evil Republican plan. Eh, maybe not.

I'm going to try to audition for a movie sometime relatively soon. Wish me luck.

I'm not providing links to these stories because I just don't have the energy to go find the links and then cut and paste them into this blog entry. You want more info, you go google it.

Monday, December 4, 2006

Typing with a cat on my lap proves difficult.

But hey, in better news, John Bolton just resigned as U.N. Ambassador. That's a good thing. Hopefully the Dems will be able to prevent Bush from nominating another rabid werewolf to guard the henhouse. I just love how Bush continues to lavish all of this complete bullshit praise on his "posse." He called Bolton a defender of human rights and peace? I can't even think of a metaphor for how utterly wrong that statement is.

So, the song of the day is: "Another one bites the dust" by Queen. And of course, "We Are the Champions" is still on repeat since the election.

My cat's purring signals that she approved this message.