Sarah Palin is stepping down as governor of Alaska. That headline just screams "Scandal" to me.

The only questions are:

1) Is it a scandal along the lines of "going hiking on the Appalachian trail"?
2) Is it a scandal along the lines of "misappropriated funds for personal gain"?
3) Is it a scandal along the lines of "Minnesota Wide Stance"?

For someone with supposed aspirations to the Big Chair in 2012, she's doing herself a political disservice. It could be that, for some CRAZYTOWN reason that her advisers told her "if you quit, you'll have a better chance to be president" but I can't see that happening unless her political team failed grammar school.

This should be fun.

As I write this, it is morning in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The sun has risen above Tehran, it's bright rays stabbing into streets choked with smoke and tear gas.

The Quran has 114 chapters, or suras. All of these - save one - begin with a phrase known as the Basmala. The Basmala is spoken by those of the Muslim faith before beginning a task.

It is written as

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

and translates as "In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful".

Things are beginning in Tehran.

May your god be with you. May he watch over you and protect you. May your day pass without blood being spilled. May you have your freedom.

California Supreme Court and Prop 8: K-lame

Sonia Sotomayor: Don't know enough to form an opinion

Stratocaster: We're becoming friends, but she cut one of my calluses last night

Internet Explorer: Suck a chubby

Whiskey: My love and my enemy

Kids: Get off my damn lawn

I realize I am neither Republican or Democrat. I am socially liberal but fiscally and governmentally conservative. This creates a problem. So I'm going to make my own political party.

Here is the Manifesto of the Antidouchebagitarian Party. I am still working on some of the language and finer points. Feel free to comment.

1) Don't Be a Douchebag. This should be self-explanatory, but for the morons in the crowd we'll spell it out: leave me the fuck alone. The government should only be involved in the lives of its citizens where specific issues affect the society and not the individual. In other words, unless you have a specific legal reason to be sticking your fucking schnoz into my diapers, get the fuck away.

1a) End Governmental Recognition of Marriage. The word "marriage" is not a secular term; it has deep religious connotations and the government isn't in the business of managing people's belief in a wizard in the sky (or lack thereof). The government should recognize "civil partnerships" and afford the rights of what we call "marriage" to those unions; those are legal partnerships. It shouldn't care what those partnerships are for.

1b) Women Get to Choose to be Pregnant or Not. A crazy idea, I know, but we don't live in the middle ages anymore. Terminating pregnancies is a very personal choice, and one that the government has no right talking about.

1c) Fuck Off With Criminalized Prostitution and Marijuana Use. The taxes we could get from the decriminalization of these two things alone would be gangbusters. Plus, we could regulate two industries which are high-crime (and, in the case of prostitution, possible health threats). This also reduces police and court work load.

2) Science Makes the World Better. Ever wonder why no one you know is crippled from polio? Science. Ever wonder why smallpox doesn't kill hundreds of thousands every year? Science. Ever wonder why cancer isn't a death sentence? Science. As a species, we have one biological advantage that allowed us to get out of the trees and stop eating a diet that consists only of bananas: our fuckin' brains. Let's use 'em.

2a) Fund Research. This isn't just about medical research, but scientific research in general. Research brings in all sorts of happy stuff to our lives. We had no real practical reason to go to the moon but because of the research into that we got ball point pens and Tang. Practical science is secondary to research science; it's a result, not a cause. Smart people understand that general research will always make a society stronger (which leads to bullet point 3).

3) Be Selfish and Greedy. Don't take more of my money than you need. However, we are aware that when our whole society is stronger, we are stronger as individuals (since we are members of that society). So the laws of selfishness dictate that we want to enable the bulk of society to be productive, educatated, and protected. This may mean taking a lot of my money, but I also recognize I'll get the value back in other ways.

3a) Universal Health Care is a Must Have. Why? Because if everyone has even basic wellness check-ups, we will reduce our vulnerability, as a society, to interesting things like, oh, epidemics and bacteriological terrorism. Why is this greedy and selfish? Because if you don't get sick, you can't infect me with your cooties, dumbass.

3b) Education Spending Should Be Paramount. Why? Because if the populace is smarter, we do smarter things as a group. That means not passing dumbass laws based on the ten commandments, for example, which makes life better for everyone. It's selfish because a smarter populace ensures my job stability - which, in turn, ensures yours.

3c) Municipal Organization Spending Should Also Be High on the List. I'm talking cops and firemen and paramedics. We need to spend more money on the police force. I don't mean throwing more cops at crime; I mean throwing more money to make better cops (also maybe more cops). A handful of smarter police and fire departments with modern equipment will go further than a mass of poorly trained thugs.

3d) Infrastructure Spending Should Also Be High on the List. Sitting in traffic sucks. It makes my life less fun. Let's make my life more fun. This may require spending money. Bridges, roads, tunnels, trains, planes. Transportation is very important, but so also are things like clean water and power.

4) Lead Through Example and Not Fear. We should want to be our leaders, not fear them or the boogymen they purport to protect us from. This sort of ties into bullet point 1. Actually, it really ties into bullet point one. But I leave it as its own point because we shouldn't be doing shit like torturing people or starting wars over oil.

4a) With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility. If some group in the Congo decides to start butchering another group in the Congo, and we can stop it, we should. Because we can do it, even if others can't. We have a moral imperative to not let people get raped and butchered. This speaks to a global society. I'd like to say we should be isolationist but I can't: we are a global power.

4b) All For One and One For All. Civitas Romanae. This sounds stupid to say under point 4, but here goes: Fucking with one of us is fucking with all of us. This should be our foreign policy. I'm not talking about legal mumbo jumbo; I'm saying that if some stupid crew of fundies in the world decides to declare war on a citizen of our fair society, that we should step up to the plate and lay down the hammer.

4c) Don't be Obstructionist. We are for the people. The people may not often want what we think is best for them (something we can theoretically cure with better education). Be loud, be aggressive, be inflammatory, but ultimately bend to the will of society.

(This is about California state budgetary politics, which is pretty dry reading. However, if you bear with me, I'll try to make this funny while also being educational. Also attempting to foist my political views on you [mostly that I want to get Prop 13 repealed].

Those of you not living in California, feel free to buzz off and pick your noses or whatever. Eat some paste.)

My fellow Californians,

On May 19th, we have a super-exciting Special Election! I love these things. These are the elections where we spend a lot of money trying to fix or undo all the things that a bunch of morons voted into law in previous elections.

This particular special election is based around the Great California Budget Crisis of 2008-2009¹.

Let's start with an overview about why we have this budget crisis. It's quite simple, really, and has to do with the following cycle of madness:

A) The state budget is determined legislatively: the state's constitution says how much we have to set aside for any one program (be it education, super trains, or even government salaries)
B) The state budget requires a super-majority to pass (that's 2/3s of the State Legislature who have to agree to the budget)
C) The state budget is constitutionally required to balance
D) Any fucking lunatic can write any fucking lunatic amendment or proposition and get it on the ballot without much effort, which brings us back to the madness of item A, above

You may be thinking to yourself, "Self, I'm pretty sure the problem is the fault of all those dirty Republicans!" (or, if you're a Republican, you may want to blame the Democrats). You couldn't be more unbelievably wrong!

The roots of our problem lie with Proposition 13, voted into law in 1978 (so it's really your parents' fault, if they are from here). Now you may be asking yourself, "Self, what does a cap on property taxes have to do with our budget crisis?" I'm glad you asked!

Not much.

It's a secondary clause in the legalese that's the killer. In layman's terms (cribbed from the wiki):

"In addition to lowering property taxes, the initiative also contained language requiring a two-thirds majority in both legislative houses for future increases in all state tax rates or amounts of revenue collected, including income tax rates. It also requires two-thirds vote majority in local elections for local governments wishing to raise special taxes."

So this is where we get our utterly moronic "Super Majority" bit from. 2/3rds of our elected officials have to agree to raise taxes - any taxes. And as we all know, getting 2/3rds of a bunch of people who have vested interests in getting re-elected to agree to raise taxes. . . well. It's just not gonna happen.

(Warren Buffet, Ahnuld's economic adviser and like, the richest guy in the world, suggested that it be repealed to help avoid problems like this.)

By and large, Californians enjoy spending money on programs. Some of these programs are smart while some are lunatic and stupid. However, the quality of these programs really doesn't matter because I think that we, as a state, seem to think that money just comes from some magic fountain someplace. A measure says that the budget will allocate seven billion dollars for reforestation? Sure! Who knows where the money comes from; that's the governor's problem. Write it into the constitution, stat!

(This may be why a state of liberal Democrats needs to have Republican governors. We need a father figure.)

So that brings us to the special election, which is a mash of both good ideas and bad ideas. Pete Rates does a pretty good job of laying out the props and which ones are good and bad.

I suggest you familiarize yourself with it (read: don't be a douchebag; understand what the fuck is going on).

I pretty much agree with everything he says though I'm still vacillating on Prop 1A (I may likely vote "NO" on it). As a general rule, I vote NO on everything, especially if it isn't very clear, or it seems like a band-aid on a problem. Voting "No" never makes things worse while voting "Yes" can (small government FTW!).

I should write up a manifesto for my new political party, which I am tentatively calling the Antidouchbagitarian Party.

I definitely agree with his argument against Prop 1F - specifically that it comes across as vindictive and childish.

Anyways. Go vote on May 19th, and don't be a douchebag when you do so.


1. Who knew that there would be a Wikipedia entry about this?

You know what never fails to make me laugh?

Dumbass conservatives who don't have a sense of history.

Today, the Oklahoma House of Representatives passed a resolution that declared the state as being "sovereign" (warn: autosound). This is the second time in as many weeks they've done this, actually - the first time the Governor vetoed it.

The resolution states pretty much that Oklahoma gets to do what it wants. But, you know. They don't have to return any federal funds.

(That's not how it works, guys. You want federal money, you submit to the authority of the federal government. I'm not too happy about the size of it myself these days but that's how it works in a democratic republic.)

Oklahoma isn't alone in this crazy. Several other states have done similar things:

Georgia pretty much said they believed that the US Government was on the verge of nullifying the US Constitution if any more laws are passed that could be considered "infringements on the right to keep and bear arms".

South Dakota and Oklahoma both passed similar resolutions.

This is all getting pretty much unnoticed due to Texas governor Perry saying that he was contemplating seceding from the Union. He says it's legal and above board, that Texas reserved the right to secede if they wanted when they joined the US of A.

(He is, of course, wrong. It's totally illegal for states to leave the Union - and it's option to secede was revoked after the Civil War. You might think that someone who is supposed to know the legal stuff about thier state would know that. But hey, when has reality ever gotten the way of a sound byte?)

I don't understand secessionist logic. These are people who claim to be the ultimate patriots and are talking about leaving the union. How is this hypocrisy not brilliantly visible to them?

But further, what happened to all of the "anyone who doesn't support the president is a traitor" rhetoric? I know that I, personally, was told I was being treasonous several times when the Republicans had power. I mean, what changed in the country that made them do such a radical flip-flop of opinion?

Oh, yeah. They became a minority, regional party.

As near as I can tell it's "All for one and one for all as long as it's all for us". That seems to be the mantra.

Here's a reality check to all this secessionist and sovereign talk:

You are not sovereign, no matter how much you wish otherwise.

You are not going to secede.

Hint: We already fought a fucking war over this issue. You lost. And I guaran-fucking-tee you that any president since Lincoln would rather send tanks rolling down the streets of Houston and arrest everyone in the legislature for treason than allow for another Civil War.

It's just not going to fucking happen.

So foul, these people.

These people who claim that waterboarding is not "torture". And yet, the National Review points out that we executed Japanese for engaging in waterboarding.

Here is a journalist experiencing waterboarding. I absolutely recommend you watch this; it's not terrifying: the actual process of waterboarding is disturbingly, almost terrifyingly banal. Even Playboy's journalist kind of thinks that going into the process.

He bets that he can last 15 seconds. I mean, anyone can hold their breath for that long. Hell, I can, and I've got asthma and a history of fucking spontaneous pneumothorax. A dollar a second, that bet.

Keith Olbermann bets $1000 dollars that he'll give to charity for every second that Sean Hannity lasts in a waterboarding session. Because Hannity said he could.

Our Playboy journalist lasts 6.2 seconds between first drop of water to the drop of his "safeword" device.

6.2 seconds.

It takes me longer to pee than that.

6.2 seconds is about as long as it takes the average car to come to a full stop after traveling at 70 miles per hour. This is about twice as long as yellow lights last in 35 MPH traffic zones.

Think about that.

Multiply 6.2 seconds by ten and you get a minute and 20 seconds. That's about how long it takes to microwave some diced potatoes to the point where they'll burn the inside of your mouth. A minute twenty: that's half the length of the average commercial break in your favorite television shows (most commercials lasting only 15 seconds).

Double that (two minutes and forty seconds), and it's the time for microwaving 5 breakfast sausages or a cheap burrito from the supermarket or the average survival rate in Left 4 Dead's "Survival" mode.

Double that (five minutes and twenty seconds), it's longer than the time it takes for a large French press of coffee to be ready (four minutes, even) and far longer than the average time that a man takes during sexual intercourse before orgasm (about 3.5 minutes).

These do not seem like long periods of time.

They are unimaginable periods of time - infinities upon infinities of seconds - when held upside down underwater.

And yet, this is not torture?

The comments from the soldier in the Playboy video are telling:

"I think you're going to lose that bet."

"You'll probably need more therapy."

How the fuck is this not torture if you are required therapy afterwards, even if you know, going in, that you aren't going to die?

What the fuck, people?

What the fuck?

Where did our moral compass go?

My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

WHAT THE FUCK?

We are the Home of the Free and of the Brave.

When did we get rid of that ideal?

First off, we have a couple people who are missing the point entirely:

"We have decided to kill U.S. and French sailors if they happen to be among our future hostages," said Abdullahi Ahmed, a member of a pirate group based at Harardhere, a coastal town in central Somalia.

Second, we have an interesting article that brings up pretty much every issue that has been discussed in the fifty or so forums I've been talking about this on. And it looks like what is going to happen is pretty much exactly what I predicted.

There's a lot of legal precedent for attacking land-based pirate bases - not just American law, but internationally - as well as existing anti-pirate UN resolution (passed in August). But we can go back as far as 1801 for a US precedent for invading pirate bases.

It also turns out that the USA has been there for a while, with Task Force 151, whose job is pretty much anti-piracy and had thwarted two previous piracy attempts (as well as responding to the Maersk).

Dear Somali Pirates,

So, yeah! Hey guys. How's it going? I'm guessing not so well, with the "being dead or in custody" thing. I kind of feel bad for you guys because you pretty much got pulled up into a gigantor whirlwind of your own stupidity, and stupid people sometimes need to be protected from themselves.

So, first, let's start with what we can call "Mistake Zero." That was trying to take a ship registered in the USA that has a bunch of US citizens on it. Now, I can't really fault you for not doing a lot of research on the registry and the like. I'm betting that it isn't easy to gain access to those kinds of records in Somali. But, you know: there's a big American flag on the boat.

This sucks for you! Because we're not like most of the other countries you guys try to bully. We have, you know, a navy. And one of the primary benefits of being a citizen of the USA is knowing that my government will do things like, oh, send Destroyers after people who fuck with our shit.

So, that's Mistake Zero - the one from which all others bloom.

Mistake One was taking a hostage when shit went south. I mean, you failed to take the boat from an unarmed crew. They kicked your ass! After 9/11, we're just totally Not Into the whole "being taken hostage" thing because the last time that happened thousands of people died. Further, it started a series of military engagements across the world. We are a vengeful giant when woken.

You should have just taken that lifeboat and left. Gone back home, did a couple quests, and leveled up some more before trying again.

But no. I'm not sure what you were thinking with that. Well, I mean, I do - you were thinking you could get a ransom for it. And maybe that works when dealing with the Dutch or the Italians or the Greeks or someone else. But, you know. We have this "No negotiations" policy in these scenarios.

Again, sux 2 b u.

Mistake Two was this: we sent a fucking DESTROYER after you. One of those deck guns could have blown you out of the water in one shot leaving nothing behind but splinters and chum. Even if you disregard the Big Guns on there, that ship is going to be stocked up with snipers and SEALs.

Sending the Destroyer Bainbridge? That was us telling you "We are Not Fucking Around." At this point, smart people would have raised their hands and said "okay, we're done here, hahaha we were just joking." But no.

Mistake Three was this: We sent a boat of dudes over to get our guy. We gave you the courtesy of doing this in the open! You could see us. This was us saying, "Look, we really mean business here, and we'd like to resolve this peacefully. But, you know, we have teeth. Lots of them. We mean business."

And what did you do? You fired on them. Yes! Yes! YOU ENGAGED THE UNITED STATES MILITARY WITH GUNFIRE. Not smart; now you've upped the stakes from "Hey, we're gonna talk with you and not kill you" to "hrm. You're gonna try to kill us, and probably the hostage, too, so now we have to treat you as a threat."

You changed the rules of engagement with a clearly superior enemy.

Mistake Four: Sending one of your guys over to the Bainbridge to negotiate. Now you're down a man on that little life raft. Smart criminals would realize that the instant your guy was on board the destroyer, the SEALs would move in and killify whoever was left. And whoops! That's exactly what happened.

Now, it's entirely possible that the one who went to negotiate was playing the "smartest man in the room^H^H^H^Hlifeboat" card. He may very well have known what's up, and figured that "getting clapped in irons" was a better fate than "hand clamped over the mouth followed by a bowie knife across the throat in the dark". He's alive; you're not.

I wonder if you guys thought about how this scenario was going to end. Did you ever think about that? The absolute best scenario for you was to just not try in the first place.

So what I wonder is, what are you guys gonna do now? I'm speaking in the more global "pirate community" here, obviously.

My fear is that the violence of the piracy episodes will increase in volume. That people are going to start getting killed instead of kidnapped. This may seem like the "right" thing to do: they took some of ours, so we're gonna gets us some paybacks.

But that way lies madness: eventually, there will be a coalition of countries who just send a bunch of naval warships over there and set up camp.

You'll lose your country that way. Ask Afghanistan what happens when you harbor people who attack our citizens. It's not pretty: it's a fucking horrible tragedy with lots of innocent blood on the sand.

The problem here is that there are no proportional responses when you deal with Americans. We're a country filled with jackasses and weirdos and we can't get along with each other at all. But weirdly, despite all the potential civil wars brewing here, we take the molestation of one our citizens - it doesn't matter who - as if you screwed with a member of our family.

Think about that for a moment. Remember the feelings you have when one of your family members (mom, dad, child, sibling) gets messed with by someone. You get pissed. You want to go out there and beat whoever it was down.

That's what we feel like when stuff like this happens. And the problem is that we are not an 800 Pound Gorilla. We're King Fucking Kong. When someone punches us, we don't smack someone in the face back; we swat them with our giant, meaty gorilla hands like bugs. It's not a good thing. It's a horrible thing.

I understand that it really sucks over there, and that a lot of the piracy isn't really "piracy" per se, but kind of a small war against a bunch of countries who use your land and water as a dumping ground for nuclear waste. That totally blows. It's a complicated situation, one where the real villians are not so obvious.

But that doesn't mean that everyone has to be a bad guy. Help me to help you! We don't want to turn your country into a wasteland, which is exactly what will happen if you escalate this shit. It hurts your cause.

I'd like to see fewer deaths, please.

Update: As I feared, from here:

Jamac Habeb, a 30-year-old self-proclaimed pirate, told The Associated Press from one of Somalia's piracy hubs, Eyl, that, "our friends should have done more to kill the captain before they were killed. This will be a good lesson for us."

"From now on, if we capture foreign ships and their respective countries try to attack us, we will kill them (the hostages)," he said. France and India have both taken deadly military action against pirates in recent months and seen no significant retaliation, however.

This ad makes me want to beat people to death.

From our 1796 treaty with Tripoli:

"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

Several sources are reporting that the great, "democratic" and "free" "nation" of Iraq is going to start performing mass executions on prisoners in death row.

Whose "crime" is homosexuality.

Yes. They are supposedly going to start killing people for being gay.

Coming soon to a battle theater near you! Killing people who are Jewish and Romany!

The world needs to stop sucking now.

I may have posted about this before, but Conservapedia is a gold mine for humor at the expense of wingnuts. Some of the best "balanced" writing they do is in the "daily news" section on the main page.

The article on Barack Obama is especially delicious, saying that he was allegedly born in Honolulu and devoting entire sections to conspiracy theories ("Obama Will Likely Be the First Muslim President"; "Aunt is in the United States Illegally"). The best bits are when they say he's a follower of Islam in one paragraph, and then point out "evidence" that says he's an atheist in the next!

(Personally, I pray to god that our leaders don't pray to god.)

They have a "Bible Verse of the Day" section, which fits in nicely with its crushingly oppressive stance that evolution is "bunk science" and that creationism is the Really Real thing.

Interestingly enough, the article on Evolution there is the "article of the year". Possibly this is because it contains gems like this:

"A 2005 poll by the Louis Finkelstein Institute for Social and Religious Research found that 60% of American medical doctors reject Darwinism, stating that they do not believe humans evolved through natural processes alone"

I want to meet those doctors. For real. I'm wondering if 60% of the doctors interviewed were South American witch doctors or if Sarah Palin somehow got a medical degree. (She, btw, has an article glowing with praise and love.)

It is apparently difficult to become an editor there because they have a "rigorous screening process" to prevent liberals from joining the sekrit Konservative Kan-do Klub.

I wish I could still find it, but at one point a couple guys (obvious liberal commies) got editor privileges a while back and proceeded to insert subtle lines in articles like "The fossil record shows that dinosaurs are dated to the same time period as Jesus Christ" to make them extra-wingnutty.

I seriously would think this a parody site except, you know, there really are people who possess such skewed logic circuits that they become self-parody.

This pisses me off more than you can possibly imagine.

Edit to add:

I love love love love San Francisco. I cannot imagine living anywhere else in the world.

Love.

Four-One-Five Forever.

Dear Republican Party,

I am writing this to you so that you may better learn how to obtain my vote in the future.

I cannot begin to describe my feelings concerning the results of the 2008 election - I am still trying to process the phrase "President Obama". "Elated" may be a good word, but there is also a bittersweet taste to the chocolate, as Proposition 8 passed.

Which makes me want to kick a bunch of gap-toothed inbred religious fuckos to death.

I was listening to NPR today and the discussion was "what will the Republican party do now?" One of the talking heads said something along these lines: "It will be the first impulse of the Republican party to assume that they were not conservative enough, and that would be the wrong conclusion."

A+++ WOULD DO BIZNESS WITH AGAIN

Listen.

I am, at my core, a Republican. I know that sounds fucked up given everything I have ever said, but it is true. I believe in the following:

Smaller government
Fiscal responsibility
State's rights
Lack of government interference in private life

That is the definition of "Republican ideology" that I was taught.

But that is not the definition of the "Republican Party". The party has been co-opted. It is in the control of neocons and theocons. They have systematically destroyed each and every one of those principles. Somehow we went through a rabbit hole and the Republican party became the party for big government, federal mandates, unrestrained spending, and telling me what I can and cannot do in my private life.

So I am not a member of the Republican party because they do not espouse my real principles. Oddly, it is the Democratic party that most closely aligns to my ideals. Perhaps this is because they are the "lesser evil". Perhaps not. My father considers me to be "just to the left of Karl Marx" but I don't know that he really knows my political ideology simply because he refuses to discuss politics with me.

In my idealized world, "Republicanism" is not about being "conservative" (where that means "non-liberal"). "Liberal" is really about being "open minded" and "progressive". We have a goal. That goal is to be better people. That does not mean "stay the course;" it means "adapt and conquer."

I do not personally consider the words "conservative" and "liberal" to be antonyms.

I am still trying to process the phrase "President Obama".

Why is that, you think?

The answer is simple: Obama represents, to me, a true maverick. A move away from Politics of Hate. Which, in a nutshell, is why the Republican party does not hold my allegience.

Hate.

Regardless of the truth of the matter, the Republican party appears to simply pay mere lip-service to the ideal of "inclusion". If one reads the words of Republican pundits, of Republican news sources - the only thing you can come away with is hate. Hate, the child of fear.

Fear of change.

Listen.

Change is going to happen. You must adapt or die. We do not live in the world of the Christian Crusades. When a pundit refers to "liberals" as "traitors" - well. That simply screams exclusion. You cannot say that you are "bi-partisan" while also saying that those of us who wish to move forward are "traitors".

You gotta stop that shit.

Here's what else you have to drop:

The Jesus.

Seriously.

I, personally, do not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ.

However, I do believe there is sufficient evidence that a man named Jesus Christ existed, and that he did enact a great deal of change. Mostly through "community organization."

This man was executed by the Roman Empire because he was a political enemy. Because he was progressive and because he was liberal.

Listen.

Jesus Christ was a communist. At the very least he was a socialist. Throw all the Bible verses out you want; you'll be wrong. He was all about empowering the disenfranchised, taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor, and taking care of those who cannot take care of himself.

So. What we have is this . . . thing. Where you, the Republican party, have been trying to draw the votes of the religious right. And you know what? Those people scare the living hell out of people like me. The opinions they espouse?

They make me hate them.

And when you support those ideals - usually those of hatred - you make me hate you. Throw up all the smokescreens you want, call yourselves "mavericks", whatever, I don't care - the hatred seeps through.

Drop the Jesus. Step away from the bong. Return to your ideals of not screwing with my private life. Seriously, truly. DISAVOW THE GAP-TOOTHED RELIGIOUS FUCKOS.

It will earn my respect, and that is almost equivalent to earning my vote.

Back in, oh, June, when it really looked like the election was going to be Hillary vs. McCain, I would have voted for McCain. I liked him then. He was a punk rock, no-nonsense, honest man. I liked that.

Then we introduced Palin into the mix. Holy crap. Fuck that! It was such an obvious pander to the "base" that any respect I had evaporated instantly.

You speak as if you are the party of the "common man" but you are not. These people are not the "common man"; they are the dregs of society. Ill-educated. Poorly informed. Racist. Homophobic. Close-minded.

This is not America.

Here's the next tip: stop spending my tax money to fund dumbass wars. So much has been said about this issue that I don't need to talk about it. But it leads into the next point:

Lead through example, not fear.

So much of the Republican message has been about being afraid of the boogyman that you forgot how to point the way to a better land! You keep trying to push us into bomb shelters. Stop that! Stop, stop, stop.

Moses took the Jews out of Egypt into Israel. That is being a leader. In the same situation, you are effectively telling us to cower under the pyramids! Stop that shit. Point to a better land.

Adapt.

As the election results came in, I was filled with a great deal of schadenfreude. I wish that were not the case. However, all I could think was, "take that, you pigfuckers!" I enjoyed every Senate seat you lost. I reveled in it.

That is not the person I want to be.

So help me help you. Stop being pigfuckers.

Love,

Jorm.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, is Election Day.

Go Vote.

Go Vote for Obama. Do not vote for the Dusty Vampire.

Go Vote "no" on Proposition 8. Do not vote for the hatred and bigotry spread by gap-toothed, in-bred religious fuckos.

Vote for a better world.

ITEM!
I love that it is almost November and the sun is still very bright and the weather is still very warm. Hot, even, lately: it is hitting the 80s up on the hill. So, even though it's a week from lazy chicks dressing up as 'sexy' nurses day, I still have a very deep tan from sitting and working in the sun all day.

I was musing the other day that I want to bring sun worship back into vogue. Let's resurrect the cult of Apollo. Then tague chided me, pointing out that I live in the Temple of Wind and Fog. And really, he's right: it is foggy about 70% of the year and is always windy up here (it just happens that my porch is in the lee of the building, so the wind isn't over punishing).

ITEM!
The I am a Real American project is continuing apace. There are currently a mere 24 videos posted, but there are several hundred people joined up to the Facebook group. There's even a LiveJournal community at imarealamerican.

(If you want to participate, instructions and more info is here.)

ITEM!
My game, Nexus War, is apparantly mentioned in this month's issue of Playboy Magazine. At least I have been told; I have not seen the issue in question but I suppose I shall have to trek out and obtain a copy to add to my collection of press (good and bad).

I've never bought an issue of Playboy in my life. When I was in my teens, it was a prurient thing, something furtive. Difficult to obtain. Later, there was a phase where the idea of possessing pornography of any kind (even soft core) was somehow socially unacceptable. Still later (or now), when I don't care about such things, I don't find myself attracted to the photoshopped, hyper-polished, unrealistic women. It's theater.

ITEM!
At this point, I am unsure which event would crush my soul more: a McCain victory in the presidential election, or the passing of California Proposition 8.

I have found that over the past couple of days the idea of embedding discrimination in our state's constitution is twinging on my Sense of Justice something fierce. I get more and more angry when I read about some of the scare tactics being used by pro-8 assholes and it make me want to burn things.

At the same, however, there is a huge ground swell of "no" support, which includes some awesome and well made videos and this helps to restore my faith in mankind.

ITEM!
I'm perhaps 4 or 5 hours into Saints Row 2 now. While playing Grand Theft Auto IV, you may have asked yourself, as as I did, "where did the fun parts go?" Well, I have an answer for you: the fun parts escaped to Saints Row 2.

I'll have a more complete review later, once I've got a chunk of percentage points racked up.

ITEM!
It is a bit of a tradition that every few weeks I join my friends Maynard and Ming in sampling one of the city's "burger joints". Somehow, what started as ex-alumni from Lazslo getting together for food became a quest to find the "best hamburger in the city."

This week we went to Beep's Burgers, which was ghetto fabulous and awesome.
( Here Are the Current Standings )
Afterwards we went back to my place and played a bunch of Guitar Hero III in co-op mode (I have two guitar controllers). Ming had never played it before and loved it, though carpel tunnel quickly caught up to her. I had never actually played in co-op mode and loved it; I guess this is what all the kids are raving about with regards to Rock Band.

ITEM!
My teeth suck. They've always sucked, for various reasons.

For the past couple years, this has been because I grind them at night (a stress reaction). Because of this, there is this totally awesome gap between two of my rear molars. Crap gets stuck in there lots. This creates cavities. Cavities, when one doesn't go to the dentist for a while, become, you know, bad, which means I have to get a root canal done on Monday.

Good times, good times.

ITEM!
Stan's death has had an interesting side-effect in my life. While he was one of my mentors, he was not my only mentor. I was overcome earlier with a feeling that I needed to tell my other mentors how much they had affected my life.

So I sent out a couple mails. And I recieved responses! So I am now in contact again with people who mean a lot to me. And that is good.

Here is the text I sent to Peter, my printmaking professor:
( Cut for space )
He responded to me with enthusiasm. I hope that I will be able to continue conversification with him in the future.

Now that your masters are publicly hating on prop 8 (as all good humans are), you guys should make real ads like these using Mac and PC.

Several of my friends and I were talking about a rather chilling trend towards thinking that there is such a thing as a "real" American (versus, you know, a "false" American). And that pissed us off.

Enough to do something about it.

Because there's no such thing as being a "false" American. Americans are a very broad, diverse group of people. So we are making videos to tell people that we are real Americans.

We put together a website and a facebook group.

Here is how you get involved:

Make a short (10-20 second) clip of yourself. Just look into the camera, say your name, something about yourself, and tell us that you are a real American.

"My name is Joe Smith. I am a farmer, and I'm a real American." Bam!

Upload it to youtube and tag it with "iamarealamerican". We will find it and post it.

Here's mine: