Personal Responsibility

Yesterday at Running Scared, Jazz posted about a man who's making news in a child support case. See, there's this guy who didn't want to have kids, and his girlfriend said that she didn't want to have kids, and yet, there's a kid, and now he's upset about having to pay child support.

Today, Jazz posted about the brouhaha that this sort of thing can cause.

Now, I'm all about a woman's reproductive rights, and the fact that everyone should be able to get to choose what happens to their own bodies. Do not think for one minute that I'm not pro-choice. I am, however, also pro-personal responsibility. This case is being touted as an example of the necessity of a "Roe v. Wade" type law for men, and I think that's getting silly. At some point people have to accept that some things are their own responsibility on their own. Making laws about individual cases can cause way more trouble than it's worth. Yes, yes, people need guidelines, but they need their own damn moral compasses, too, at some point. I wrote a comment over at Running Scared that when I was done, it looked an awful lot like a post to me, so I figured I'd put it up over here:

Newsflash: EVERY SINGLE CASE IS DIFFERENT. We cannot make a sweeping generalization of law to solve everyone's problems. Try a little personal responsibility, for a change.

These people didn't think the woman could conceive. The man said he didn't want children. The woman agreed - until she got pregnant.

When you're in a consensual relationship with someone and you agree not to procreate, you can't try and hold someone responsible for an accident. This case is clear, and no other case in the world is exactly the same.

If I was in this situation and found that I wanted to raise the child, I'd *hope* that the man involved would want to help support the child, but I wouldn't expect it., and I certainly wouldn't sue. If things were less clear, I'd have different expectations. Why must people lump categorize everything?

Feel free to vilify me in the comments, but the drop-dead truth is that even safe sex isn't 100% safe. It's the ultimate truth that the only sure-fire way to prevent pregnancy is to not have man-woman sex, and that's just too hard a truth for most people to face.

No, YOU Back Down!

US, Iran clash over nuclear referral

I don't get it. We have this big ol' UN thingy so that everyone can get together and talk rationally about international relations. There's interpreters aplenty, I'm guessing decent coffee, and yet, we still get statements like this:

"The United States may have the power to cause harm and pain but it is also susceptible to harm and pain," it said in a statement obtained by Reuters on the sidelines of the IAEA board meeting in Vienna. "So if the United States wishes to choose that path, let the ball roll."

To be fair, the U.S. is pushing them *hard* to give up any hopes of developing their nuclear program further.

I was going to say that it's like we're saying we can't trust them to act as responsible adults, but it's not like that, it's exactly that.

We have all these diplomacy rules in place, and yet at the base of it all, we (the nations of the world) wind up acting like willful teenagers so often that I wonder if maybe evolution theory isn't missing something about when a species starts to backtrack.

Leaders need to act like adults, and not insulted duelists. I'm glad that it seems like the only threats being made so far are veiled (thinly), and referring to the movement of money and oil, and not the movement of soldiers and bombs, but I'm not glad that it's occurring at all.

I see how if I was an Iranian leader I'd feel backed into a corner, and I see how the U.S. cannot stop pushing, because if we're right, and Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons, that's a bad thing.

Note - I don't want anyone to have nuclear weapons, they scare the bejeebus out of me.

I wish that the leaders of the world were trustworthy, mature adults, and while I'm at it, I'm going to wish for a pony.

Anonymous Posting

Look, sometimes you just have to steal other people's stuff. Today, I want to tell you about a stupid piece of proposed legislation in NJ, but Juan Melli's already wrote it up so pretty, why not just let you see his words? No reason! I thought not. I really should have asked him first. Good thing I'm not making money off of this. Right. On to Melli's post:

Biondi Wants to Ban Anonymous Online Speech
by: jmelli
March 06, 2006 at 18:26:39 EST
Assemblyman Peter Biondi (R-Somerset) has introduced a bill (A-1327) that if passed would: 1. Require that every user of this site provide us with their real name and address. 2. Require us to turn over this information to anyone who claims to have had "false or defamatory" information posted about them. 3. Make us liable for any damages if we don't follow the measures in the bill.

There's one small problem: The NJ Supreme Court ruled that banning anonymous online speech is unconstitutional.

This is as ridiculous as it gets, but it displays the total disconnect that many elected officials have with the internet as a medium for speech. The US Supreme Court ruled in Talley v. California (1960) that anonymous postings of pamphlets is legal. Like pamphlets, websites like Blue Jersey are just a communications device, but it's feared because it's so democratic and often uncontrollable. Perhaps people who support these measures have something to hide and would rather it not come out during campaign season.

Assuming the bill were somehow enforceable and that it managed to pass, it would require us at Blue Jersey to spend money to verify the identity of every single person that posts here (currently 377 users). Otherwise, we would be liable for damages. That measure alone is enough to shut down almost all forums and community blogs - the costs would be prohibitive. It's a little more indirect than Chinese-style censorship, but the end result is the same.

Congratulations Mr Biondi: You're the winner of today's Worst Legislation Award!

So yes, that's what I think, too. Poor judgement shown, here, "road to Hell" and all.

Sushi, Mercury, Lewis Carol

So the news today says that sushi can be bad for your health because of high mercury levels in tuna.

Scrutiny Hooligans says that sushi eaters could go the way of 19th century hatters.

Lewis Carol wrote the charming (or not) character of the mad hatter.

They still make felt hats today, they just don't expose workers to mercury poisoning during the felting process any more.

I don't know what conclusions to draw from this, other than maybe I should cut down on the sashimi dinners.

Stuff You Didn't Want to Know About Me

I have mentioned before that I was raised particularly anti-Christian. As odd as it sounds, it's true. I'm Jewish, and my parents experienced just enough antisemitism in their lives to try and give me a healthy dose of caution to use in my day-to-day dealings. What wound up happening is that I managed to grow up wondering if all the people in the world who actually believe that Jesus died for their sins, literally - and that's a LOT of people! - were really, really stupid, naive, or a combination of the two. This is probably too harsh an opinion. I promise I try not to judge someone based solely on religion. No really, I do try.

Anyway... I've been raised anti-Christian*, but I'm not anti-values. I really do feel like we have to take responsibility for our own behavior, and that following the glamorously named "golden rule" does indeed make the world a better place for everyone. Still, despite my personal vows not to kill other people (at least, not needlessly), I'm still guilty of a giant dose of schadenfreude. Oh, yeah, I love watching people who pretend to be righteous get busted.

Throw on top of that ice-cream base a hot fudge topping of "I can't stand crap art that doesn't make you think" and you'll see why I was thrilled at the following story in the LA Times:

Dark Portrait of a 'Painter of Light'

Thomas Kinkade. While I know people who like him, I wonder why. I cannot stand his stuff.

In sworn testimony and interviews, they recount incidents in which an allegedly drunken Kinkade heckled illusionists Siegfried & Roy in Las Vegas, cursed a former employee's wife who came to his aid when he fell off a barstool, and palmed a startled woman's breasts at a signing party in South Bend, Ind.

What's that noise I hear? Is that the air coming out of someone's "I paint with the light of God" statements?

See, I told you that you didn't want to know this about me.

* This passage has been edited, because the original phrasing just wasn't correct, and it was really bothering me.

Tell Them What You Think

Have I mentioned that the government is attempting to sell off land, ostensibly to support rural school systems*? In my opinion, and Scrutiny Hooligan's opinion, and the opinion of Tata from Poor Impulse Control, this is not a good move to make.

The USDA Forest Service has a 30 day period in which they'll take comments from the public about the sale. Please, tell them what you think.

* If I thought this would actually help the school systems, I'd support it, I promise

I Should Be Talking About the World

But instead, I'm putting up a post telling you all that I'm extremely amused that I just got an email asking me for the Tammy sex video.

And I bet this increases my hit count even more.

Odd fact about this: my page views are consistently higher than my unique hits. Does this in fact indicate that some of the people popping in are actually reading more than one post? Maybe?

A Cause for Celebration

If you look hard enough, you can always find a holday. I didn't even have to look very hard, this time.

Sure, sure, it's Ash Wednesday, and Catholics around the world are going around looking like careless smokers, but in Wales, it's St. David's Day. Much happier.

Dewi is sometimes known, in Welsh, as 'Dewi Ddyfrwr' (David the Water Drinker) and, indeed, water was an important part of his life - he is said to have drunk nothing else. Sometimes, as a self-imposed penance, he would stand up to his neck in a lake of cold water, reciting Scripture. Little wonder, then, that some authors have seen Dewi as an early Puritan!

One of the things I love most about religion, is that these people are celebrated for doing this stuff, whereas if I were to try this today, my family would just put me somewhere to "rest". Fabulous.

My Friends are Funny!

Heard of the movie "Snakes on a Plane"?

I doesn't actually matter.

http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2701810?htv=12

Survivors, or Just Sad?

All right, I'm all for a good party. Everyone who knows me knows that. But the whole Mardi Gras thing this year is making me depressed. As much as I'd love to see all the people returned to their homes - their rebuilt homes, and the city restored to it's full glory, this article speaks to the simple, confounding nature of things:

New Orleans revelry closes post-Katrina Mardi Gras

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of costumed revelers shouted for beads and danced in the streets on Tuesday as New Orleans bid the blues goodbye, at least for a day, to close the first Mardi Gras season after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city.

Hey, a flood destroyed our livelihoods, but I still wanna see boobs!

"We're letting people know that we can poke fun at ourselves. Everybody's trying to deal with this and get their lives together. Vodka cures everything," said reveler Barry Rush, sipping from his drink.

No further comment necessary.

Because I'm Evil, Tammy NYP

Yes, much in the same vein as when I wrote a post called "Ratzinger, Nazi", so I have now written a post with the words "Tammy NYP" in the title. Seems like the poor girl had her cell phone stolen and a sex video of she and her boyfriend is now published on the internet.

I feel kind of bad for her, but not as bad as I would if she wasn't a Tami pretender.

Sorry, kid. Thanks for the traffic, though.
tammy nyp

OK, a Serious Question

The U.S. supports Israel, right?

And now it's obvious that relations with the UAE are a lot closer than I would have thought:

Dubai Port's top American executive, chief operating officer Edward H. Bilkey, said the company will do whatever the Bush administration asks to enhance shipping security and ensure the sale goes through. Bilkey said Wednesday he will work in Washington to persuade skeptical lawmakers they should endorse the deal; Senate oversight hearings already are scheduled.

"We're disappointed," Bilkey told the AP in an interview. "We're going to do our best to persuade them that they jumped the gun. The UAE is a very solid friend, as President Bush has said."

Can one country truly be allies with two places that are diametrically opposed? Because everyone in the lefty blogosphere and their uncle has been pointing out that the UAE doesn't even *recognize* Israel.

So I'm walking around, wondering if we're living out the plot of some book where all of the characters in it are too stupid to see that the villains are going to take over and kill all the stupid trusting Americans, just like in "Mars Attacks", and feeling crazier and crazier because of it, and then, I run across this article in Tikun Olam:

Everyone who'’s been screaming about how much of a security risk Dubai Ports World is should consider that if we entrust U.S. Navy ships to DPW, especially in the aftermath of the Cole bombing, then they must be trustworthy (and fully vetted for potential security weaknesses).

Great, just great. Nothing like something that actually looks reasonable to make me feel even more stupid.

So here's my serious question - is this whole deal as bad as it looks, or are we all just panicking without any real reason? Maybe this isn't so much a serious security risk as it is just a deal between really rich people who like to make each other even more rich. I can no longer tell.

I did mention over on skippy, though, that the thing that really surprises me is that DPW isn't Haliburton.

Pull the Other One

Last night I was watching the news for a few minutes, and the story came on about more members of Congress protesting the sale of the company that controls the security of several US ports to a company based in the United Arab Emirates. There was the usual setup, some pictures of docks, someone talking in news-anchor-calm tones about what ports were involved, and then the cut to a clip of Michael Chertoff actually saying "you just have to trust us". Now, I'd read those words around the blogosphere, but I didn't realize that they were a direct quote.

Why in the world would I trust them? Because I elected them? No one I know elected Michael Certoff, and almost no one I know elected George Bush. Didn't 49% of the people in the U.S. who voted vote for someone who wasn't Bush? And you know what? That's no matter. People are people, and we make mistakes and do things with unpure motivations, like greed and vanity.

I don't have to trust anybody, especially not a group of men who think that having a UAE-owned company run security on U.S. ports is a good idea.

Update: Today on the radio I heard the annoucer specifically say that the UAE-owned company would not be in charge of port security, but I still don't care. I see myself heading into wingnut territory here, btu I cannot make myself believe anything other than this: The United Arab Emirates are NOT our friends, whther they "play by the rules" or not. They're waiting to strike when we're not looking. Again.

Menendez Interview

OK, a really short interview. Still, I'm busy at work, so I give you a link to the podcast at Blue Jersey.

Already Been Said

I haven't chimed in about the Cheney hunting accident at all, and really why should I? Other people say it perfectly well, and let's face it, you're already reading them.

If, by chance, you are not reading Shakespeare's Sister for her take on this, I shall quote some good parts for you.

"I thought the vice president handled the issue just fine," the president said in his first public comments on Saturday's accident. "I thought his explanation yesterday was a powerful explanation."

A powerful explanation? A powerful explanation is when Felicity Huffman is asked why she took the role of a transsexual in Transamerica and movingly describes her intention to honor the courage of those who risk being ostracized or discriminated against, or bravely live life on societyÂ’s margins, all in pursuit of realizing their true selves. Dick CheneyÂ’s guttural intonations about how he shot a dude in the face in the middle of a canned hunt thatÂ’s essentially skeet shooting with the added benefit of actually murdering living things is not powerful. ItÂ’s pathetic.

Bush said it was "a deeply traumatic moment for him and obviously it was a tragic moment for Harry Whittington." He said that the shooting "profoundly affected the vice president."

Profoundly affected him in that he was woefully inconvenienced and actually had to admit doing something wrong.

OK, that's most of it, but the whole thing's a good part. She's right on the money, here - the way that this administration talks when they have to explain bad things sucks major eggs. No, I'm not in favor of the kind of hunting that these men were doing. Doesn't matter. Yes, I think when you accidentally shoot someone and you're the Vice President, you should get on TV, and say, "This was a terrible accident, and I am profoundly sorry". That matters! The statement took a long time, and that made it weird.

And yes, I think that the whole reason so many hours went by before the police talked to Cheney was indeed to make sure he didn't have any alcohol left in his system. It's just too obvious to not be true. Saying that someone on a recreational hunting trip had been drinking is not nearly in the same class as saying that some corporation is just a front for a cabal that's trying to destroy the world and then sell fallout shelter supplies to the survivors.

Suddenly, I Remembered the Environment

I don't know about you, but I personally feel like we should have just a wee bit of respect for the land we live on. I don't mean Earth ceremonies or anything, where we all dance in a circle around hard boiled eggs while waving palm fronds, though, don't worry.

No, I just mean that perhaps it's in our best interest as humans to support groups that watch over what our government is doing, ecology wise, and deals with issues through legal channels, just like we all said that we would when we took Civics class in the 8th grade.

Don't know any like that, you say? Let me point you at the Western Watersheds Project, then, as they've recently been pointed out to me.

The mission of Western Watersheds Project is to protect and restore western watersheds and wildlife through education, public policy initiatives and litigation.

See, I understand that everyone has a life, and that we can't all be out there fighting every battle every day, it's just not possible. It is possible, though, to support other people who are fighting fights you approve of, in ways you approve of.

It's downright reasonable, isn't it?

Unsolicited Opinion

U.S. Says "No Plot" for Hamas Ouster

(Ouster? Someone thought that was the best word to use?)

"The United States, which claims herself to be the mother of democracy, must respect the election results and the will of the Palestinian people," Hamas spokesman Mushir al-Masri said

Sounds like Hamas is whining to me. Look "Palestinian Authority", whine all you want, the U.S. is allied with Israel and no matter how many votes you take, as long as Hamas remains a group committed to DESTROYING a U.S. ally through destructive violence, things are gonna be a little strained, OK?

Cop Out

With many important things going on around the world, I'm going to abstain from commenting on the lot of them and just mention this one thing that's pretty cool, today:

Fossett Flies for Non-Stop Record

Adventurer Steve Fossett has broken the record for the longest non-stop flight in aviation history, landing in dramatic fashion after power failure.

Fossett, 61, took the record as he flew over Shannon in Ireland. In total he has flown 26,389.3 miles around the globe since lift-off on Wednesday.

It's true that it's my not-so-secret ambition to change my title from "Senior Systems Analyst" to "Adventurer".

Useless Headline of the Day

(cross-post city)

Let's see if I can come up with some useless cliche's to go with it: "You're not really paranoid if they really are out to get you". Yeah, that's a nice one.

W.House knew of flooding night of Katrina: documents

No kidding. Seriously, I'm not a full-blown conspiracy theorist at this point, but our government seems to be slowly but surely turning me in to one.

Is there anyone reading this blog who didn't already believe that government officials knew exactly how bad things were and just wanted to pretend that it wasn't happening?

The fact that people were saying that conditions were terrible in New Orleans and that the information was falling on deaf ears is not news.

Thought for the Day, Feb 9, 2006 Edition

If you put up the money to build it right in the first place, you seldom have to spend millions more in a desperate scramble to fix all the holes, afterwards.

This applies to government, as well as roofing.

I'm Not Pushing You Away

Never think that I don't love you for visiting me here on my girly red blog, but today I put something up over at Blanton's and Ashton's. Feel free to click through and read it.

Don't Know Why I Came Here Tonight

I wanted to blog yesterday, but it was all just too much for my little brain. What was I going to talk about? Could I coherently explain that if people in my government are breaking the law on purpose by listening in on phone conversations without warrants, that I think they should be arrested, no matter who the hell they are?

Was I going to try to put two sentences together about Hamas forming a government and expecting other nations to deal with them as an actual respectable country? Good luck re-training people willing to die for a cause into people willing to clean sewers for a cause, Hamas. The worst part about it, to my way of thinking, is that I cannot comprehend how the U.S. can not deal with them considering their complete enmeshed status with the countries that control our oil supplies. What are we supposed to do in order to make them feel threatened by us, rearrange every job in the U.S. so that people can only work somewhere they can walk or bike to?

And what about uncontrolled, unmitigated, unreasonable violence - over a cartoon. Someone tells a joke in very poor taste, a joke, that in my opinion, shouldn't have really been made, and people DIE? That actually is insanity, in case you've been thinking otherwise. Sure, I think it was in poor taste to publish those cartoons, it's insulting an entire faith, but worthy of fatal violence? There's just no sense of perspective, there.

So no, I couldn't figure out what I could possibly say about these things, so I kept my fingers still and my mouth shut. Until I couldn't any more, of course.

We Keep Saying that the World is Mad at Us

(cross posted at Running Scared)

We keep saying that the world is mad at us, and now the world is starting to show it in really obvious, ten million dollar ways.

In Turkish movie, Americans kill innocents

ISTANBUL, Turkey -- In the most expensive Turkish movie ever made, American soldiers in Iraq crash a wedding and pump a little boy full of lead in front of his mother.

They kill dozens of innocent people with random machine gun fire, shoot the groom in the head, and drag those left alive to Abu Ghraib prison - where a Jewish doctor cuts out their organs, which he sells to rich people in New York, London and Tel Aviv.

Billy Zane plays the American military commander "gone bad", and Gary Busey plays the specifically mentioned "Jewish" doctor. (what persecution complex? Me?)

"The scenario is great," Istanbul Mayor Kadir Topbas told The Associated Press after the film was shown at a posh opening gala Tuesday night. "It was very successful. ... a soldier's honor must never be damaged."

But Topbas and other Turks at the premiere weren't too concerned about how the movie would be perceived in the United States.

"There isn't going to be a war over this," said Nefise Karatay, a Turkish model lounging on a sofa after the premiere. "Everyone knows that Americans have a good side. That's not what this is about."

Sure. Everyone knows. That makes me feel much better.

I Only Hear What I Want to?

Our president is on a 3-state tour to promote his "competitiveness agenda"

The president argues America needs to give its high school kids the skills the global economy is demanding.

i don't know about you, but i always get much more nervous when Bush starts saying things I've said out loud. It's pretty much like "opposite day" where everything you say means the exact reverse, the kind of thing 8-year-olds do to annoy parents.

America does indeed need to give its high school kids the skills that the global economy demands. The sticky wicket here is that actually doing it involves funding the programs used to educate these kids. The whole reality/money thing can be such a buzzkill.

A completely unimportant side note: the "tour" is starting out at the 3M company headquarters outside St. Paul. When I was 12, I did a report on 3M, and now every time I see the company name, I think, "I know that stands for Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing. Odd".

Because Israelis Don't Have Enough Outside Enemies

Sometimes they just have to fight each other.

Israeli Troops Finish Clearing Settlement

AMONA, West Bank - Israeli riot police wielding clubs and water cannons cleared out part of this illegal Jewish settlement outpost Wednesday, as resisters fought back with sticks, stones, bricks and paint. More than 200 were injured, one-quarter of them officers.

In anguished scenes reminiscent of last summer's Gaza withdrawal, the security forces dragged hundreds of protesters from rooftops barricaded in barbed wire and flattened empty homes with bulldozers and heavy machinery. The military said 32 people were arrested at the scene along with "dozens of other rioters" in the area.

The fierce battle was a likely harbinger of what lies ahead if Israel decides to leave other parts of the West Bank. Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the front-runner in the March 28 Israeli elections, is widely expected to withdraw from more areas of the territory and dismantle additional Jewish settlements if he wins.

There you go, something really depressing, just in case you weren't already down from the "I put on a good front" SOTU and the Alito nomination. OK, that's really just one guy who reads me. Bet you feel special now, eh?

A Quick Civics Lesson

I was just reading something where someone criticized the President and followed it with a sarcastic "forgive me for being unpatriotic". That cheesed me off. Why? because patriotism is love of your nation, not necessarily love of it's leaders. See?

Patriotism: Love of and devotion to one's country

In the "old world" this did indeed carry over to mean the royalty. L'etat, c'est moi? An antiquated, un-American concept. A French concept. (Eat that, Freedom Fries lovers!)

A driving purpose behind the U.S.A.'s founding fathers was that the country was governed by it's people - all it's people, not just the elected representatives. *sigh*, OK, I have to include my usual disclaimer that they didn't really think about all the people, they were really only thinking about the white, landowning males, but they still had the whole elected representative thing going on!

Every once in a while, I just have to write this stuff down. Yes, we have an elected President who's supposed to run things while he's in office. He is, however, just a man, and just in office for a specific amount of time. He's representing our country, but he does not define it. TO be against the President is not necessarily anti-American. We're allowed to have political opinions, and we're encouraged to involve ourselves in our government, and through official, pre-established channels, work for the agenda that we think would make the U.S. a better place to live.

Having an opinion about how your country should be run is as patriotic an action as I can imagine. No, it's not as obvious as holding up a gun at our enemies, but if the only people who cared about the way things were being run were the people already doing the job, we'd be a different nation.

What was it that Lincoln said? "Of the people, by the people, for the people?" Yeah, I think that was it. Nothing about "Of the people, by the people, for the President", as far as I remember.

Every Time I Look Around

Every time I look around there's a new atrocity waiting for me to read about it. Today's comes via Brilliant at Breakfast and Pandagon: Treating women as f**king chattel.

The U.S. military on Thursday freed five of what it said were 11 women among the 14,000 detainees currently held in the 2 1/2-year-old insurgency. All were accused of "aiding terrorists or planting explosives," but an Iraqi government commission found that evidence was lacking.

Iraqi human rights activist Hind al-Salehi contends that U.S. anti-insurgent units, coming up empty-handed in raids on suspects' houses, have at times detained wives to pressure men into turning themselves in.

Everyone reading this understands that this practice isn't law enforcement, it's kidnapping, right?

Why the hell don't the people who are doing it? Or do they know and just don't care?

Friday Not-My-Pet Blogging Mark VII

Today I'm not in the mood to talk about a specific news item, so I'm just going to talk.

Work is going well, I've made a lot of coding progress, which is nice.

The event I'm planning for the end of March is coming along swimmingly.

My phone calls to my new Senator went very well. It was not long, but my point was made.

I've been having a few interesting private conversations about the whole Hamas-as-government thing. Key points:

1) Running a government and running a terrorist organization are 2 different animals. Two words: public services.
2) I don't think Hamas wants peace so much as complete genocide. Thinking that, it's hard for me to be optimistic for the future of peace talks.

Blogger won't let me post a comment over on the Center of NJ Life. Oh, wait, it just did. Never mind.

It's Never Going to Work

It's Never Going to Work

More and more when I see how things are going in the Middle East, I think those words. I am now of the opinion that everyone currently involved in the whole Israel-Palestine fiasco has to die and be replaced by less fanatic people for a resolution to ever come about. I used to think that Yassir Arafat was the one who had to die to open things up, but now I see that I was indulging in wishful thinking, and my timetable was plotted out on much too small a scale, and that this generation will not even be close to seeing anything resolve. Not even close.

Just when I was hoping (but not expecting, I admit it) that democratic elections for "Palestinians" would show the world that these people are not all rabid-Israel haters, that cooler heads do exist in the Arab world, and that most people want to coexist peacefully and just be done with all the fighting, I'm proven wrong, wrong, oh, so wrong.

If you've read me before, you know that my heart and mind are torn to pieces over this. I'm so far left in my desire to not kill anyone, anymore, that I'm wrapping around to the right and thinking that if we just kill them all, already, that at least it will be over, and we can stop the damn fighting.

Of course that's utter crap. The reality is that there has to be a certain combination of force and the will to cohabit the same earth constructively, and that it just isn't being reached.

My crazy idea for the day: teacher spies. We infiltrate the training schools with teacher spies who use subliminal messages to make the children they're teaching less violent and less likely to be willing to take their own lives for "the cause".

Is that really crazy? Is it morally reprehensible? I can not tell anymore, what with my brain saying things like "killing them all is the peaceful thing to do" and "people given a democratic choice are choosing the bloody terrorists".

See? It's never going to work.

I Respectfully Disagree

Reading Atrios today, I clicked on the article he called "Wanker of the Day". I usually agree, today I didn't. Atrios feels that Joel Stein has it wrong in his article "Warriors and Wusses". I, on the other hand, do not. So, I wrote in the comments section:

I can't agree that this piece makes "wanker of the day". Caring about the individual while loathing the war isn't an idiotic position, whether you agree with it or not. Quite frankly, when I think of something I can do to "support the troops", it's always send over packages of eye drops. That's what I do. Maybe it's stupid, maybe it's useful, I don't know. I do know that it's not glorifying war the way parades do.

After writing it, I realized I was comment number 266, and no one would ever see it. That's when I remembered that I have this blog thing...

So that's it. I think that parades are about war, and that soldiers are people, most of whom are just doing what they think is right. Sure, some are crazy violence-lovers, but hey, at least they've found a legal outlet for their aggressions. These guys are necessary for the world we live in (as opposed to the world I'd *like* us to live in), so I send them stuff, but I don't see how some hip hop star lip-synching while standing in the back of a convertible helps them, right now.

Scare Tactics, eh?

Theory: Canada doesn't want U.S. liberals moving in, and they've made deals with the American press to help discourage the idea.

I have no other real explanation for headlines like this:

Canada's Conservative Party wins election
Victory pushes Canada to the right for the first time in nearly 13 years

That contain a slightly different tone within the articles themselves:

As Monday'’s victory quickly gave way to Tuesday's reality, it became clear that the Conservatives'’ winning margin was too narrow to rule with a majority, a situation that will make it hard for them to get legislation through the divided House of Commons.

Answers

A blog that gives actual answers to the question, "So what can *I* do?". Amazing.

Saw it over on Poor Impulse Control, had to share.

Unsatisfactory

(I SO cross-posted this at skippy the bush kangaroo)

I'm from jersey. Yeah, yeah, exit 9. We Jerseyites have a new senator, Robert Menendez. Yesterday, I decided to write my new senator an email, and yet, I - and I believe myself to be amongst the savviest of the internet-search-savvy - could not find an email address for him.

Email Address: None Currently Available

What's up with that?

Word Worth Spreading

Via Running Scared, who saw it at Balloon Juice (been a while since I mentioned that blog, and the last time I was pissed):

Welcome to ReadtheBill.org and the "72 Hours of Sunshine Rule"

ReadtheBill.org is a new national organization dedicated to forcing Congress to post all proposed legislation online for 72 hours before it goes to the floor of Congress. We call this the "72 Hours of Sunshine Rule". It is needed because Congress has degenerated into chaos. The House of Representatives still has a rule on the books requiring proposed legislation be available to members for three days. But the House waives this rule routinely and rubber stamps huge bills in the middle night, clueless of their content or cost. Senate rules are fuzzier but the result is the same. This chaos in Congress costs every American. Provisions and giveaways slipped through Congress are one reason that the U.S. has a national debt of $8 trillion. These sneaky provisions also invite plain-old corruption.

Being the kind of gal who reads instruction manuals, I'm also the kind of gal who believes that the legislature should be reading the legislation before voting on it. Isn't that actually what their job is? Listen to the constituents, propose new legislature to make the country/states run better, and vote on other people's proposals - that they've actually read? Doesn't that sum up the important duties?

I'll check on that, but I'm pretty sure. I admit, I've read a few bills, and it's hard. They're more boring than listening for your name at the DMV. Still, these people ran for the position and won, they now have to actually do it.

My Job Is Getting Their Money's Worth

Their money's worth out of *me*, that is.
I wish I had time to write something insightful, but it's 4, already, and I have to leave at 4:30 if I'm going to make my 6:00 appointment. I hate working so stupidly far from home.

And no, I don't want to change where home is. I *like* where home is. I also refuse to quit. I've been here 10 years, and I've got a very sweet benefits package going, thank you very much.

But since I wanted to write *something*, and nothing good was going to get written by me today, I decided to go with this:

Camera, music phones give Sony Ericsson record Q4

Business was buoyed throughout the second half of 2005 by sales of a high-resolution 2-megapixel camera phone and the Walkman phone, based on Sony's brand of portable music players.

Why do I care? I just bought the Sony Ericsson w600i, that's why. I ditched the orange face plates. I don't need the Walkman at all, I've already got an iPod, and a radio transmitter attachment makes it usable just about everywhere. The 1.3 megapixel camera, though, that's pretty boss. I took this picture with it. If only my hands weren't so shaky, it'd be a pretty good picture!

A Message to Jon Corzine

Today is NJ Gubernatorial inaguration day. Jon Corzine will be sworn in as NJ Governor, and I have the following message for him:

I backed you pretty hard, Jon; now's the time to not let me down. Make good on the promises, and do the job you said you could do.

Two things

One - it's not my problem if Alito's wife cries. Why is that news?

Two - Obviously airport screeners need to be trained by UPS guys.

No Meat, Just Snark

Personal bankruptcy filings hit record in '05

WASHINGTON - The rush of indebted consumers to file bankruptcy before a tough new law took effect pushed personal filings for 2005 to their highest annual level on record — more than 2 million, according to new data.

Because the economy's looking up, right?

Seriously, I cannot imagine the annoyance to creditors when anyone who was afraid of the new law rushed to beat it to the finish line. These are not signs of a healthy country.

Apologies

Just too busy to blog today, and yet I can't stop thinking about it. Hence, you get this note instead of some lengthy essay about the Alito hearings or something.

I'm really sorry.

Trouble Getting Serious

As you know, the world around us is a depressing place, sometimes. See any of my entries about the Middle East if you wonder what I'm talking about. Sometimes, though, life gets silly. Today a friend directing a choral project sent out this link:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/theweaselking/1159951.html

If you don't read music, read the notations, you'll still laugh.

Religious Mixed Messages

(Inspired by Mu)

OK, Pat Robertson, still off his rocker:
Robertson says Sharon's stroke is God's punishment

     The Reverend Pat Robertson says Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's massive stroke could be God's punishment for giving up Israeli territory.
     The founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network told viewers of "The 700 Club" that Sharon was "dividing God's land," even though the Bible says doing so invites "God's enmity."
     Robertson added, "I would say woe to any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course."
     He noted that former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated.
     Robertson said God's message is, "This land belongs to me. You'd better leave it alone."

As a liberal Jewish woman, I'm getting confused, here.

• I support Israel because it's the homeland for the Jewish people. I went to college there for a semester, and then I lived on a kibbutz for a while, and I definitely feel connected to Israel.


• Am I expected to support the peace efforts or right-wing solidarity position? Because I feel like I could go either way without betraying my faith.


• Quite frankly, I want my government to support Israel, but not because of the crazy messianic lore that Christians are actually supposed to believe. Jews have crazy messianic lore, too, but I'm not a very good Jew, really.


• Who are the people who think that all liberals support the cause of the Palestinians? Am I not really a left-leaner if I'm completely against them? I don't want any part of Israel to become Palestine at all, but I understand that a compromise can save lives. I also understand that everyone wants Jerusalem, and that only one side can have it. I'm also skeptical about how many of these "Palestinians" are really people who want a homeland, and how many are just Jew haters who want us all dead, and they're using this cause as an excuse to perpetrate extreme violence.

Well, that turned out badly, as lists go. Not organized at all. And on top of it being a terrible list, I find that every time I write about this I only wind up depressed and convinced of the futility of it all.

Random Comment on "Tributes"

Last night I was at the gym, and when I walked into the treadmill room (the one with the TV's), I saw still pictures of miserable crying people, with a background of some homey, folksy song. I said, "What the hell is this?".

The woman on the treadmill (it was half an hour before closing, and it's a small gym) said, "It's a tribute to the miners that died."

"A tribute? Their idea of a tribute is to show footage of the miserable, sad people left behind crying really hard? Is it me, or is that just exploitation? It's mean!"

So... is it me?

You Thought I'd NEVER Come Back!

OK, so I went on vacation and didn't tell any one, nor did I arrange guest bloggers. Can't say I know what I was thinking, except,

"It's the holidays and I'm going away! Yay!"

Perversely, as I went to somewhere warm in summer (Bermuda), I went somewhere cold (the Poconos) in winter. I should really rethink my strategy, there.

Still, I had a wonderful time, and later today I'll be back to my usual opinionated bloggy self.

God Is In the Details?

This morning a friend pointed me to a cartoon by S. Harris that he felt sums up the difference between theology and science (I'm paraphrasing there, my friend didn't actually say that. In fact what my friend said, exactly, was,

"The epiphany came for me the other day when we were exchanging emails. Believe it or not it came when my mind stumbled on the memory of this cartoon."

And then my friend included a link to this fine cartoon.

Censures

I'm kind of hoping that one of the congressional movements to censure and/or impeach actually take place. Not that Cheney would be any better, but not even censuring seems so... well like we're living in a dictatorship, no matter how pleasant. Everyone must answer to the law if they actually get caught, right?

CensureBush.org

Edit, 12/22/05 - It has been brought to my attention in the comments that my statement sounds as if I would like the official hearing part of the process to be skipped. Obviously my statement is misleading. The movement that I am supporting would like to form a special committee for investigation of the administration's possible crimes. When calling for law, I am not imagining that those who enforce it should also circumvent it.

Psst - Heard About HR 550, Yet?

Of course you have. I've written about it all over the place. Lots of people have written about it. It's a fine, fine bill with some bi-partisan support, and it deals with the rights of the voters to have a voting system that's verifiable and accountable. That's all. It's not about Democrats winning, or Republicans winning, it's about the person who gets the most voted (electoral or otherwise) actually being named the winner. It's politics, people, both sides cheat, and it's important to have as secure a system as possible, isn't it?

If you haven't by now (My goodness, whyever not!), please, go look at and sign the petition.



Technorati tags for this posting are:
HR 550,Votes,Elections,
Verified Voting,Rush Holt

Faithless

Lifted from The Opinion Mill today, who in turn is quoting Penn Jillette:

Believing there's no God means I can't really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That's good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around. Believing there's no God stops me from being solipsistic. I can read ideas from all different people from all different cultures. Without God, we can agree on reality, and I can keep learning where I'm wrong. We can all keep adjusting, so we can really communicate. I don't travel in circles where people say, "I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith." That's just a long-winded religious way to say, "shut up," or another two words that the FCC likes less. But all obscenity is less insulting than, "How I was brought up and my imaginary friend means more to me than anything you can ever say or do." So, believing there is no God lets me be proven wrong and that's always fun. It means I'm learning something. Believing there is no God means the suffering I've seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn't caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn't bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future. Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-O and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have.

PENN JILLETTE
The magician's contribution to the "This I Believe" feature on NPR's Morning Edition.

I find this statement as soothing as a fluffy comforter wrapped around me.

What I'm Doing

Instead of blogging, that is.

1) Organizing a New Year's Eve weekend. It's work!
2) Catching up on reading everyone else's blog. Also work.
3) Learning my part in some madrigals. I've joined up with a group performing at an SCA event. One's in Latin, one's in German, and I have none of them committed to memory, yet. Plus, I'm getting mightily sick of the tenor line on "The Wren", which will not leave my head.
4) Trying to catch up on actual news. I turned on CNN this weekend only to see people talking about Novak and Plame for half an hour. Don't I already know about that? What about the whole "invading privacy" thing? Isn't that important? I think it's probably very important. Running Scared has some excellent posts on this topic.

HR 550 - You Know You Love It

In an attempt to seem topical witout doing any work at all, I have COMPLETELY lifted this post from DBK over at Blanton's and Ashton's. I'm hoping he doesn't sue.

Liz of Blondesense told me that she wrote to Randi Rhodes of Air America Radio several times about the H.R. 550 petition and Randi Rhodes has said nothing about it on the air.

Well, how about we all write to the show and ask them to publicize it?

Here's the link to write to Randi.

Here's what I am sending to her (feel free to use part or all of it for your letters too):
Dear Ms Rhodes:

Congressman Rush Holt has a petition at http://www.rushholt.com/petition.html in support of H.R. 550, the verified voting bill that is currently languishing in the House Administration Committee. VerifiedVoting.org has called this legislation the "gold standard" of verified voting bills. The bill has 159 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives and was also strongly endorsed by the Carter-Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform. I know you are familiar with the legislation.

On November 30, a blogswarm began in support of H.R. 550 and Congressman Holt's petition. (A "blogswarm" is a loose coalition of web logs that agree to post articles about a certain topic and link to each other's postings on that topic.) The swarm now has about ninety participating web logs, but it is not enough and we need your help. Could you please publicize the Congressman's petition on your program?

Verified voting is not a partisan issue. The possibility that an election could be rigged is a danger to everyone, regardless of political leanings. From the GAO's report on election fraud, issued this past October, to the Carter-Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform's final report, issued this past September, to the many articles on BlackBoxVoting.org and VerifiedVoting.org, there is no question that current touch-screen voting systems can be rigged. The American people deserve elections that are not only free from fraud, but free from the possibility of fraud. They deserve verified voting, and H.R. 550 provides that.

Thank you for your consideration.

Please join me in writing to Randi Rhodes and pushing her to publicize verified voting and the H.R. 550 petition.

Technorati tags for this posting are:
HR 550,Votes,Elections,Verified
Voting,Rush Holt

I Try to Keep it Clean

I really do try to keep it clean, here, It's not that I mind swearing, or that I frown on anyone swearing in the comments. It's not that I don't swear in my everyday speech, either. It's just that I feel like if I keep it clean, then when I do swear, it'll carry more weight. Like, for instance, when I see this:

Iran's Ahmadinejad says Holocaust a myth

A myth. You stupid, purposefully cruel fuck pig. I hope that comes back to you in your eternal "reward". Hell, I hope it doesn't take that long.

I think you all understand how I feel about this with perfect clarity, now.

Loss of Motor Skills

Great, now I can't make a fist.

Via Jill via Digby, Tai Shan.

HR 550 Blogswarm - Week Two

What else can I say about the importance of verified voting? I've already pointed out how it's in everyone's best interest, no matter what their party, because knowing that the votes are recorded and counted correctly makes a victory unassailable. I've linked to articles about states taking the reigns in their own hands, and I've talked about how paper-only or electronic only is a bad idea because of the possibility of system failure.

I've linked to the petition site over and over.

Well. I guess I've just gone and done it again, then.

Technorati tags for this posting are:
HR 550,Votes,Elections,Verified
Voting,Rush Holt

Busy Signal

I'm guessing that yesterday's loggorhea is the reason I'm so behind at work today. I'm too busy to post quite yet, so I thought I'd throw this up for now:



Technorati tags for this posting are:
HR 550,Votes,Elections,Verified
Voting,Rush Holt

Freedom of Religion

A bit of background on me right now: I'm trying to buy gifts for my family and friends, because I love buying and giving gifts, I'm trying to keep up with the HR 550 blogswarm, because verified voting is a very important issue to me, and I'm listening, on CD, to Ron Silver reading me "The Plot Against America".

Imagine, if you will, a story about Lindbergh becoming president instead of FDR winning a third term, and holy cow is it a scary story for a Jew. Yikes. It really rams home how people don't want to believe that bad things are happening. They don't want to believe it to the level that they do not stop the bad things. I was reminded forcefully of the same feeling when reading a post at Brilliant at Breakfast about Christopher Hitchens on Joe Scarborough's show. Yes, that's a lot of links.

HITCHENS: This guy from Lynchburg defines progress as teaching junk science to our children, and leaving us the mockery of the world by pretending that we did not evolve.

Scarborough immediately tries to stop this topic because

"We are not going to debate intelligent-we are not going to debate intelligent design right here, but, Christopher..."

It felt, suddenly, exactly like the feelings I get when listening to the story. People who want to stop the teaching of evolution in the classroom in favor of "intelligent design" are doing a bad thing. Religion is religion, and science is science, and no one is saying that some god figure didn't make up the rules that make science science, we're just saying that the rules exist, and that teaching them actually equips children to grow up in an informed manner. It lets them grow up prepared to understand how things work, and solve problems, and exist without fear of simple things because they're unknown. Teaching evolution in a science classroom teaches more than just the idea that men used to be apes, it teaches natural progression, it teaches how larger, more complex things can grow from smaller, simpler things. It teaches them to think and learn and analyze for themselves. If people want to teach their young that a deity is the reason for the rules, fine. They're welcome to do that in the house of worship of their choice. The public schools aren't there for that, they're just there to talk about what those rules actually are.

This brings me back to Scarborough Country. Hitchens said this:

HITCHENS: ... as in Washington, D.C., there are large numbers of public buildings, lavishly financed, usually, in fact, invariably, tax exempt, sometimes even government subsidized by the-—what do we call it, faith-based program.

They are called churches. People can go there if they want to have religious ceremony. They can put up hoardings on their land which say it's Jesus' birthday or Christ has risen, if it's Easter, anything like that. You can't stop them. They do it all the time, and they are very welcome.

And that's true, they are very welcome to do that.
When I say that I don't want religious items on public ground -– and this is a position that I've only come to occupy fairly recently - it's not because I'm anti religion, it's simply because I feel that our government should remain staunchly secular. I wish for public offices to deal with only the cut and dried matters of taxes, and zoning, and civil documents and the like. Should people be allowed to decorate public offices? Sure. No one likes a depressing work atmosphere. Can'’t it be secular decoration, though? Can'’t they just put up some pretty snowflake lights and be happy with that?

Our founding fathers were trying to set up a country where free, white land-owning men could worship in any way they darn well pleased. I lift another link from Jill:

It was during Adam's [sic] administration that the Senate ratified the Treaty of Peace and Friendship, which states in Article XI that "the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion."

Does this make me "anti-Christmas"? No, it does not. I am not a Christian. That means that I don't have any particular religious significance attached to the holiday. I love all the secular and updated-pagan trappings that go with it, though. I'm crazy for evergreens, love candles in windows, and I think that getting to kiss someone because they're standing under a specific branch with some berries on it is a fun idea. I like to wear green or red in fancy, warm fabrics, and don't even get me started on twinkly lights or silvery decorations! But I'm still not a Christian, and I still don't actually celebrate Christmas. And neither do Hindus, or Buddhists, or Muslims, or any other non-Christians. And those of us who practice these religions that are U.S citizens, well, we're not Christians, but we are indeed Americans. Sure Christians are the majority, but they'’re not the monopoly.

If someone, as an American, decides that they will only say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas", they're not trying to exclude anybody from celebrating anything. They are merely trying to include everyone in a wish for a happy season that doesn't make any assumptions about their habits of worship. Here in the U.S we're free to worship, and to celebrate as we choose. That's not a bad thing. Being restricted to do so at non-government locations is not a sign of oppression; it's a sign of freedom.

Taking Action

You know what my .sig file* is at work? It's this: "...well run companies have 'a bias for action.'". That's right, a bias for action.

From a recent AP article by Brian Bergstein:

Even in this election off-year, the potential perils of electronic voting systems are bedeviling state officials as a Jan. 1 deadline approaches for complying with standards for the machines' reliability.
Across the country, officials are trying multiple methods to ensure that touch-screen voting machines can record and count votes without falling prey to software bugs, hackers, malicious insiders or other ills that beset computers.

This isn't just theoretical - problems in some states already have led to lost or miscounted votes.

Problems have already occurred. We can't personally make people build machines that work better, but we can support legislation that will make it illegal for poorly-conceived machines to be used in US elections. By requiring a paper trail we canverifyy the voting results and make the entire process better.

Have you not signed the petition supporting HR 550 yet? Why not? Why not take action?

Technorati tags for this posting are:
HR 550,Votes,Elections,Verified
Voting,Rush Holt

* for those of you who just said "Huh?" a .sig file is the few lines of text that you can set up to show at the bottom of your emails

More Voting Stuff

OK, so maybe work is keeping me a little busy with... work. I'm still popping my nose in here and passing you all a link to Blanton's and Ashton's where DBK is once again talking about verified voting. I'm hoping that by taking part in this blogswarm, that some of you reading this will learn more about the issue than you would have without me, and that all of you reading this will sign the petition supporting HR 550.

Technorati tags for this posting are:
HR 550,Votes,Elections,Verified
Voting,Rush Holt

Carnival of the NJ Bloggers #29

Carnival 29 is up, baby!

Focus on Security

Today I'd like to highlight a small - tiny, even - section of the text in HR 550.

(9) PROHIBITION OF USE OF WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS DEVICES IN VOTING SYSTEMS- No voting system shall contain, use, or be accessible by any wireless, power-line, or concealed communication device at all.

I read this and I though, "Of course! Of course we need a voting system that can't be accessed via concealed communications device! Why isn't that already written down?!"

Security matters are not intended to be afterthoughts. They're an important part of the development process. Not being able to access a voting system from the outside - at ALL - is just as important as the concept that all of the code should be available for audit by the people who buy it. This isn't a word processor that some software company's afraid that their main competitor is going to steal, here, this is the system that will be fueling the engine of our democratic process. It needs to be transparent by its very definition.

HR 550 is a bill worth supporting. Have you signed the petition, yet?

Technorati tags:
HR 550
Votes
Elections
Verified Voting
Rush Holt

You'd Catch 'em Votin' at Del Mar...

Back in August, the Mercury News wrote up an article about how important paper ballot validation is and how Governor Schwarzenegger was likely to sign a bill requiring it. The article brings one of my favorite points:

The difference may seem an arcane point, but it's fundamental. If there is a glitch with the software, you won't know it by simply using images that mask the problem. Only the paper copies that voters verified when they voted can offer an accurate check.

This isn't just important for California, but for the whole country, right?

HR 550 includes this aspect. It's a bill that protects our rights as voters, not as members of a political party. It's important to every one of us. Have you signed the petition supporting the bill? No?

Well sign the petition, already!

Technorati tags:
HR 550
Votes
Elections
Verified Voting
Rush Holt

Verified Voting is Cool

Look, I'm all about the technology. I'm a web developer by trade, and a computer nerd by hobby. I'd say by birth, but I was born in 1968, and I'm not sure if full-fledged computer nerddom had evolved yet back then. I love all things having to do with technology, from my TiVo to my iPod to my Playstation, Playstation 2, and my XBox. Heck, I love my cell phone. What don't I love? Paperless voting machines.

Yes, having electronic voting machines is cool. Having no way to verify your vote is not. Let's say that some sort of catastrophic weather event like a hurricane, or tornado or blizzard wiped out a whole bunch of paper votes beyond reading. In that case it would be darned handy to have all of those votes also stored on a handy, not-wiped-out database. It just goes to follow that in the case of data loss, or power outage, or hack job that there should also be paper records of the votes. We should have a backup to our system, just out of common sense, and we should be able to verify that the votes were recorded correctly.

There's a website showing which states have already made verified voting a law, which ones have them proposed, and which haven't taken any action yet. It's a good resource for reading material about this subject, with press/media links and a page helping people to take action. It's called Verified Voting.Org and it's worth reading.

And, of course, you should still go over to Rush Holt's site, if you haven't yet, and sign his petition about HR 550.

Tag world:
HR 550
Votes
Elections
Verified+Voting
Rush Holt

HR 550 - It Matters

If we can't feel confident that our votes are counted, and counted correctly, can we really feel that we have a voice in our own government? If we aren't sure that our votes go to the people we intend them to go to, then who is our representative democracy really representing? The answer is "not the individual voters".

That's why HR 550 is important. There's a petition out there on Rush Holt's web site to support HR 550. What is the bill all about? Some highlights, from the site:

The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act (H.R. 550) will:

* Mandate a voter verified paper ballot for every vote cast in every federal election, nationwide; because the voter verified paper record is the only one verified by the voters themselves, rather than by the machines, it will serve as the vote of record in any case of inconsistency with electronic records;
* Protect the accessibility requirements of the Help America Vote Act for voters with disabilities;
* Require random, unannounced, hand-count audits of actual election results in every state, and in each county, for every Federal election;
* Prohibit the use of undisclosed software and wireless and concealed communications devices and internet connections in voting machines;
* Provide Federal funding to pay for implementation of voter verified paper balloting; and
* Require full implementation by 2006

Other bloggers are posting about this important issue today. I'll update the list as I find more. Feel free to read any one of them for more information and opinion.

Blanton's and Ashton's
The Center of NJ Life
Scrutiny Hooligans
Did I say that out loud?
The Opinion Mill
Xpatriated Texan
Blondesense
A Mockingbird's Medley
Skippy the Bush Kangaroo
Daily Kos (registered Daily Kos people, please recommend this diary)
Pam's House Blend
Shakespeare's Sister
Brilliant at Breakfast

Read up, and please, sign the petition.

Officially Anti-Alito

I wasn't sure yet how I felt about Alito, but Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings has helped me make up my mind.

The fact that Samuel Alito was a member of the Concerned Alumni of Princeton, and cited that fact on his 1985 job application, has been in the news recently; and it occurred to me that since I was a Princeton undergraduate (class of '81) while CAP was active, I might be able to provide some useful background on this one.

...

CAP was not about opposing affirmative action. It supported quotas that favored white men. CAP was about opposing the presence of women and minorities at Princeton. Period. Moreover, its tactics were despicable. In retrospect, it was one of the first instances of what has now become a familiar pattern: an extremely well-funded organization dedicated to spreading lies about some opponent in an effort to force that opponent to change course through the sheer volume of vitriol and harassment that a lot of money can buy. Samuel Alito pointed with pride to his membership in CAP in 1985. What relevance this should have now is open to debate; I just wanted to clarify what exactly it was that he was proud to be a part of.

What can I say, racism and sexism bother me.

New Carnival

This week's Carnival of the NJ Bloggers is at Gigglechick. Not that I remembered to send in an entry. I was busy! It was a holiday weekend!

Yeah, Right.

Are you kidding? You really thought I'd write a blog post the day before a holiday weekend? The holiday weekend that happens to fall at the same time as my birthday? Yeah, right.

No, instead, I think I'll tell a parable. Once, when I was young, less that 23 young, but over 21, I went to the doctor. When I arrived at the doctor, he asked why I was there.

"I think," I said to my doctor, "that I have strep throat. It hurts to swallow, and I have a fever, and I have these white spots on the back of my tongue. See?"

My doctor then took one of those fast cultures and came back a few minutes later.

"You don't have strep," he said.
"I don't?"
"No. Here's a prescription for erythromycin."
"Erythromycin? What do I have?"
"Something else," replied my doctor.

I never saw that doctor again, because I concluded from that visit that he was a dick who couldn't stand for anyone else to be right.

Evolution of Political Parties

Today's Reading is about how Israel is dissolving Parliament early, and has set early elections next year. These decisions appear to be based on yesterday's news that Ariel Sharon is leaving the Likud party over disagreements with its far-right members.

Hmmm... leaving a party because it's going too right wing, who does that remind me of?

Seriously, though - even though the article says that new parties don't usually have a history of success in Israel, it also says that polls are favorable:

Opinion polls showed the biggest gamble of Sharon's long political career could pay off, giving his new -- and so far unnamed -- party 30-33 seats in the 120-member parliament, enough to virtually assure him a third term.

I don't think that the US really can have a viable third party yet. What makes it possible in Israel and not here? Is it the popularity of Sharon? Is it the fact that Israel is a much younger country, and they've never been limited to a 2-party system, so that the concept of a new party isn't as shocking to people? Either way, when I think about all the talk of partisan politics today, I find myself wishing we could think more like Israel. With a system that had more than 2 parties supported by reasonable numbers of people, maybe less name-calling would ensue.

The more I write on this subject, the more I'm beginning to think that I'm fooling myself. Oh, well. It was a nice idea.

Enough is Enough, Already

Should I ever improbably find myself with a daughter, I'm going to raise her in a nudist colony. I don't even care about the fact that this means everyone will see my enormous butt in full detail, I'm still doing it.

That way, I never have to worry about what she wants to wear.

I cannot believe that people aren't done with this discussion, yet. Little girls spend half their time pretending to be something magical/fantastic, and the other half pretending to be a grown up woman.

The girls who dress the most outrageously are often those most starved for adult male attention, first and foremost from their fathers.

Ah. So glad I read that gem.

Carnival if the NJ Bloggers # 27

Welcome to the 27th Carnival of the NJ Bloggers.



Some people have done fancy maps. Some have done elaborate Shakespeare-style plays. Some have done links grouped up by topic. I, being the laziest of them all have selected a format: I shall list the links in the order I received them.

Joe from Joe's Journal is talking about the weather.
Janet at The Art of Getting By talks about tee shirts and thin skins.
Jim Testa over at Jersey Beat is making lemons out of lemonade.
Tata, over at Poor Impulse Control, finds herself inspired to thought by a comment she saw here. Go figure.
Kelley at Fractals of Change explains APIs and Bubble 2.0 (techie/programmer stuff).
Debbie at Barista reports on an unusual party this week.
Sharon over at The Center of New Jersey Life is happy to report that she finally wrote something she's willing to submit. :o)
Maureen writing at Jersey Writers on NJ.com gives us a review of the Musical "Jersey Boys".
Greg at Greg Gethard's Amazing Journey introduces the concept of positive heckling.
Jane at Armies of Liberation was on Al-Jazeera. I wasn't expecting that.
Snowflake at Wild Snowflake saw Bruce. That's as Jersey as it gets, sometimes.
Are there wolves in NJ? Fred at The Eternal Golden Braid thinks there are!
Shamrocketship wrote this week about bizarre dreams.
RBM at NJ Conservative brings a COAH surprise in to the open.
Mike at Ipso Facto Comic Blog has an amusing take on people who don't think about blocking their IPS for their counters.
Lou at Cinnaman talks about Nancy Pelosi.
Cripes, Suzette! has corn fritters. That sounds really good, actually.
Ken at SmadaNek talks about the price of elections.
The Jersey Shore Real Estate Bubble and a stupid rationalization.
Pre-Thanksgiving pounds and a bridal shower from Gigglechick.
Another beautiful photo from Dimitri.
Professor Kim proves that you just never know. You don't!
It finally clicks for Laughing at the Pieces.
Voting stupidity brought to light at Tammany on the Hudson.
A thought experiment in campaign financing at Xpatriated Texan.
D at "D"igital Breakfast remembers the 80's - economically.
Steve at The Opinion Mill has been listening to the callers on 101.5 again. Don't do it Steve, it just makes you crazy.
Jersey Days talked about Jack Murtha and his comments on the war.

Next weeks Carnival will be hosted by NJ's favorite funny gal, Gigglechick.

Written by Tata

A little while ago, I was exchanging emails with fellow NJ Blogger, Tata. She said that she'd been blogging to beat the band. I jokingly replied that I'd appreciate if she wrote something for me, because I was suddenly very busy with actual work. Then, I wrote the tiny post you see below this.

Well bless my buttons if she didn't actually send me something! Read on...

Send the Politicians to the Moon

Not even little things like death keep Hawking from lecturing on matters scientific.

"They had to resuscitate, and that panicked a few people," Bristol told the audience. "But he's been there before."

And speaking of being there:

What [does Stephen Hawking] think of the program to send American astronauts back to the moon? "Stupid," he answered. "Sending politicians would be much cheaper, because you don't have to bring them back."

It Seems More and More Pointless

You know, people have been telling me that there are different kinds of Muslims, and even amongst themselves they don't get along, but I don't think that anything has ever really made it this clear to me before:

Suicide bombers kill 77 in Iraq

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two suicide bombers strapped with explosives killed 77 people and reduced two crowded Shi'ite mosques to rubble during Friday prayers in a northeastern Iraq town, deepening the country's sectarian conflict.

Isn't bombing a place of worship a really cowardly and hateful thing to do? That's my impression, at least.

And the Horror Continues

It took me a minute, as I was reading Pandagon, to process the words:

The continuing Shame of America. No respect for the poor and disenfranchised, even when you're dead.

On Anderson Cooper 360 last night there was a report that just makes you sick. I don't know how the clowns in the Bush Admin thought they could convince the public that they found all the bodies after this disaster. When they called off the search in October, there was such an outcry that the effort continued, but folks are coming home and finding the corpses of loved ones rotting in homes. (CNN):

The official search-and-rescue effort was called off October 3, but there was such a backlash, crews resumed searching demolished neighborhoods. They have cleared areas zip code by zip code.

There was no joy for Paul Murphy (ph) in this homecoming. When he walked into his house in New Orleans' Ninth Ward last month for the first time since Katrina, it was shock and anger.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, I'm thinking that, OK, I was going to come and salvage a few pictures or something. And I walk in here. I found my grandma on the floor dead.

DORNIN: Since November 1, 10 bodies have been found in the ruins of the Ninth Ward. The last area, known as the Lower Ninth, will open to residents December 1. Coroner Frank Minyard worries about what people will find.

(on camera): You're fully expecting that more bodies will come in once they open the Ninth Ward?

FRANK MINYARD, ORLEANS PARISH CORONER: Yes. And I think it's -- it's going to come in for a good while. There's so much rubbish around that they might find people in the rubbish. DORNIN (voice-over): They already have. And there are still many bodies left unidentified and unclaimed.

MINYARD: We have 150 autopsies left to do, all on unidentified people. Hopefully, that -- that will help us identify that person, if we can find a pacemaker or an artificial hip or something. Then we're into DNA.

DORNIN: Susan Eaton (ph) asked if she could send a DNA sample and was told DNA samples were not being accepted. Nearly 80 days after Katrina, not one DNA test has been done.

I want to cry, and throw up, and send more money. I cannot imagine why this would be this way in our country, today.

State of the Tami

I feel icky. It is so not fun to feel icky.

Still, I managed to write a short sentence and link a lot over on Running Scared.

I would also like to remind you all that my birthday is now only 10 days away. You shopping time is getting seriously short.

OK, I know, it's very cheesy to ask for presents in my blog. Thing is, last time it worked. I can't argue with results.

Splogging: Is There Money In It?

A friend pointed me at a Newsweek article today that gives us yet another new word: splogs. Splogs are spam web logs, or blogs devoted entirely to advertising that try and suck you in with misleading links. Ugh.

Of course, you know I wish that my blog was popular enough to have that kind of problem.

It's times like these that I go read books. Sure, sure, I pay money for books, but I can be pretty certain that the only thing I'll encounter within is the story I paid to read.

Do people read blogs looking to buy things? Yes, internet shopping has taken off in the way that every single market analyst predicted that it would, but are blog readers really a good target market? I don't think so. People head to the blogosphere looking for opinions. They look for validation, or a good argument. They look for news scoops and gossip. They're not looking for unrelated, unsolicited ads.
I understand that spam works on some people, but blog readers? It seems like a bad choice of a place to waste your advertising dollars.

Here's how they work: first find a subject that draws consumers who may be valuable to advertisers on Google or Yahoo, and register for the programs that let those search companies place ads on your blog. Then set up a blog that automatically sucks in items from the news (via easy-to-set-up feeds) about that subject. If you've done it right, Google's search engines will identify your blog as a prime place for a high-value ad. Then, as Sifry says, "you can pay housewives in India to sit there and click on the ads." Because programs like Google's AdSense pay out each time someone responds to the ad, it's possible to make a bundle from this.

Oh. Well, then, never mind, it's just a scam that inconveniences people looking to read actual writing. Never mind.

*sigh*

Carnival of the NJ Bloggers #26

Carnival's up, here and here, at No-w-here.

Next week I'm hosting. I'm excited!

Veteran's Day 2005

As a non-veteran civilian, I feel both grateful for those who are willing to lay down their lives to defend the American way of life and resentful that so often they're forced to do so based on falsehoods and poor leadership.

Today, I read Paul Krugman (via Atrios). This paragraph rang particularly true for me:

We finally reached a point where a lot of people are starting to acknowledge the obvious, which is that we were deliberately hyped into war, and a lot of defenses are coming up. People are still trying to pretend that nothing happened and it all made sense, and I felt that it was time to find a way to play how ridiculous that is.

People are starting to acknowledge the obvious. I want to know - what made them so afraid that they tried to hide their heads in the sand for so long? What did that to us?

Green, Unexpected

Admit it, when you think of hybrid cars, Ford isn't the first company you think of. That's why I was mildly surprised (it wasn't painfully shocking or anything) to see that Ford has introduced a mini-fleet of hybrid taxicabs to serve NY City. That's very cool, it's exactly the kind of driving that hybrids are good for.

The Ford hybrid sport utility vehicle gets as much as 36 miles per gallon in city driving, double the mileage of the taxi fleet's current Ford Crown Victoria model. A test model drove more than 500 miles on one tank of gas in New York, the CEO said.

I am thinking about making my next car a hybrid. Only thinking about it because the bulk of my driving is highway driving, and I wonder if I'll actually be conserving anything by owning one. I'm not nearly as green as I should be. I must fix this.

About the Weather

Having seen Lewis Black make fun of the weather channel in his stand-up act many times, this news is making laugh my butt off.

Maybe someday, if you're good, I'll tell you the story of how I forced Girl Scout cookies on the poor man one night outside the Gotham Comedy club.

If you're good.

You Know I'm Happy With It, Right?

Democrats sweep Virginia, New Jersey races

Corzine, a multimillionaire and former Wall Street executive, linked Bush and White House political adviser Karl Rove to the results of his race.

"I want to thank the people of New Jersey for rejecting the Bush-Rove tactics that are bad for democracy and that were stopped in their tracks tonight," Corzine said in his victory speech in East Brunswick, New Jersey.

Perhaps not stopped in their tracks, per se, but at least not encouraged to go any further.

No, we don't need corrupt officials who line their own pockets with state monies, but we certainly don't need officials who attack the character of others rather than provide information about the kind of job they'd do.

I know that some of my readers are frustrated that Corzine won. To you I extend an olive branch - no matter who won, we were going to have to keep our fingers crossed that the state would be taken forward in a direction that's best for all of us. Let's all hope that together.