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August 30 m'Ann o'Coulter DebateCheck out the verbal destruction visited upon Ann Coulter by one Kristen Powers. Ann’s responses are just plain silly, not to mention wrong.
Congrats to Fox News for not censoring this. And poor, poor Ann – she could not take it. View the video here: http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/08/24/ann-coulter-gets-her-freak-on/ Don't Debate IranI found this article very interesting. http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/08/29/iran.nuclear/index.html Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has challenged George W. Bush to a debate “without censorship.” There’s an old saying/cliché there somewhere about the pot calling the kettle black, but here’s my short opinion on how such a fantasy debate would progress (because I seriously doubt GWB is up to the task). In fact I have personal concerns about such a debate. - Both presidents are backed by an authoritarian radical religious base that promote theocracy over democracy. Since Iran has made more progress with this, Bush might be able to learn tactics on how to best make this happen. http://www.theocracywatch.org/taking_over.html or if you’d like http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,211057,00.html (man, quite a difference in tone, anyhow you get the drift) - Both men don’t listen to the rest of the world, so perhaps it would be a yelling match - Admadinejad’s English is a bit rough. I think he might have an edge over GWB. (speaking of, I’m honestly concerned about the pres. The way he’s been stumbling about verbally lately, he looks thinner. Is he snorting puff again?) - Both countries know what it’s like to have an extremely wealthy power base at the top and lots of poor people without choices at the bottom. Again, GWB might learn a lot here in how it’s done in Iran. - Hey, it’s ok to drop nukes on other countries you disagree with. Screw the nuclear aftermath, environmental destruction and mass death. This is where GWB can give Admandinejad some pointers - Torture is a.o.k. Hey, it’s just a means to an end. So what if the information is unreliable and you kill a few while you’re at it. I’m sure somewhere in both the Christian Bible and the Qoran it must say it’s holy…I mean, they both promote it. So, as unlikely as it may be I have to say it’s a bad idea. Hell, they might even become great friends. On a similar subject, everyone should listen/read the below interview http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/30/1418211 Akbar Ganji spent 6 years in Iranian jail. Now he’s out and speaking out against Iran….but he also refused an invitation from the White House. Read why at democracynow.org.
August 29 Ah it brings back the memories...sui
generis
\soo-eye-JEN-ur-us; soo-ee-\, adjective: This is a great term/word. 14 years ago I was in Mendoza, Argentina as a college student studying Spanish and was introduced to the 70s-80s Argentine rock band called....Sui Generis. Charlie Garcia may have had a reputation for being a little crazy but the music was great. It was also really tough for my friends to explain to me in Spanish what this term meant... Some great topics coming up by the end of the week. Take a look at my music list. Interested in anyone who has bands that are 'different' like some of those I list. I'm in to trying out new tunes. August 24 Watching Movies in the ‘ole HotelI saw this story yesterday. http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/08/22/hotel.porn.ap/index.html I said it last week in an entry and I’ll say it again, “STAY OUT OF OUR COLLECTIVE BEDROOM!” Or in this case, hotel room. What the fu**? Regardless of your opinion of porn, its effects on women, etc. is this really necessary? Is this the “top issue” of our day? Legislating minor points of morality for the US needs to stop. Most of us agree on clearly illegal activities – terrorist bombings, murder, theft, pedophilia, true crimes that that directly disrespect another’s health and well-being. But is this one of those? We have multiple wars going on, serious social and constitutional issues at home and these people want to monitor who watches porn in their hotel room. Ridiculous. Of course, these are the same types of folks who brought us these fine efforts as well: http://archives.cnn.com/2000/books/news/07/06/trouble.harry/index.html http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2003/11/05/textbooks/index.html Legislating debatable morality is not the way to go. Let the lonely businessman watch his porn if he wants. Certainly better than him going down the street for a prostitute. Instead, vote with your cold, hard cash by not buying the porn in the first place. If nobody buys it, then it’s not worth it for hotels to carry it. Tell those you hang out with what you think. Preach in the church and your sphere of influence. The government doesn’t need to be involved with everything. Monitor yourself. Makes me wonder if the groups named in this article are really the ones with serious sexual hang-ups. Aren’t there people dying in Sudan that they can lobby for? http://www.sudanactivism.com/ My rant for the week. Nothing gets me fired up like frivolous censorship in the name of ‘family values.’ Check this list of books banned over the years: Google ItCheck this out for a little fun: 1- Go to www.Google.com August 23 Why RPG?Taking a break from real life tonight, so you'll be delighted to read
some random musings about what I enjoy. How does this topic figure into
politics? Well, it doesn't really...but wait a minute! I see a story
about an effort to legislate banning of something...Hmm? A tie-in? I
think so. But that's for tomorrow night. Those who are 'in the know' and hang out with me know that I love RPGs. RPG is the acronym for Role Playing Game. If this is all foreign to you, probably an intro is in order. Better than me writing it I thought this link would serve: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role-playing_game. After you read the wikipedia entry (there's some great stuff there BTW, even if you couldn't rely on it to write a school paper), then you'll know what I'm talking about. Usually when I try to explain RPGs to non-gamers I get the blank stare "that's nice" look. It is I suppose a niche hobby. But games like D&D are perhaps more well known and accepted than they ever have been, in part thanks to those massive multi-player fantasy computer games that I don't have time to play. They're great learning tools and a place for the imagination to venture. The group I game with consists of 6-8 individuals, all in their mid 20s to 40s, professionals and most with families. The stereotype of the 'loser' in a dark room is just that - stereotype. I've actually been invited over the last several years to homes where they are doing the mildly-popular "Host your own Murder Mystery" things - these are fun for one night. Oddly enough, they are a role-playing game that owes a lot to the dungeons and dragons crowd. Just packaged differently. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_mystery_game I started wondering tonight, since I'm preparing the next game for my group why I spend time on this hobby. I enjoy it, but what makes it worth it? It's the sense of adventure, the other-worldly that we tend to shed as we grow older I think. When I'm working on the game, playing the game or reading gaming books I regain some of that wonder and simply let loose. A game of pretend, forget the real world for a few hours sometimes is all I need to recharge (ok, I'm high-strung and a 4 mile job does it too). I create and can create this play-place for my friends as well. It's pretty 'cool,' even if it's not cool. A shared experience with like-minded individuals. And the unmitigated abilty to destroy one's monsters :). After all, we spend 99% of our lives within the quagmire of reality. It's time to slay that dragon... August 22 Who's Listening? And Why...I'm quite sick of listening to some in the media and current administration talk about how we have two choices: 1) Allow tapping our phones, internet, mail, etc without warrant and 2) Endanger national security by interrupting this spying activity. Folks, this is not an either/or choice thing. The debate should be about the legality of this activity and having a reason to do it. What the current administration has now done for years is illegal. It is against the law. There are clear legal processes outlining these very same activities. So what's the problem? The only answer I have for this is that the administration clearly feels it is above the law. You won't find me saying that tapping phones should be outlawed. You will see me saying that there should be due cause and that it should be done within the legal system. Why does this bother me? Who are they monitoring? Me writing this blog because I disagree with them? The woman protesting the war peacefully because she is a 'dissident?' Or are they truly going after the bad guys. Those are the people we want them to catch, to prevent the next terrorist attack. But document it, do it legally and do it for reasons of national security. Data mining for data mining is sheer 'data noise.' Do we want 1984 (the novel) or do we want to play this smart and protect civil liberties? Think about the long-term consequences. Give the government a blanket 'ok' to listen to everybody, watch everyone's finances and, suddenly, 5-10 years down the road the government is listening to you using that very same 'ok' simply because you disagree with them. Can't stand authoritarianism government. That's a topic for another day. Signing out. August 21 Profile of a TerroristI'm seeing a lot of talk about how we can keep the U.S. and our people safe by doing 'smart' profiling. On the surface this seems to make sense - we see Islamic extremists saying how they want to kill Americans, how they are not afraid to die etc. etc. They truly scare me and most Americans. But I wonder more and more about how this would be done. Would you only profile people and search them more carefully based on some assumption that a TSA individual has at the airport? Or do you carry this idea further and all Muslims are subject to 24-hr surveillance in their homes? How do you train somebody to look for an Islamic individual? This TSA employee that you're paying $12/hr should know how to identify someone's ethnicity and religion by sight? See: http://mediamatters.org/items/200608170006 Some questions:
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20060816-090452-1153r.htm August 19 Recommend SyrianaJust rented "Syriana" last night. I kept meaning to see this when it was mini-released last year in the theaters but never did. Anyhow, I highly recommend it. It is fiction, loosely based on non-fiction events, but is a convincing and 'real' (in the sense that good fiction is 'real') story about the Mideast, the politics of oil, corruption in many layers of the government (of multiple countries) and slight, tenuous connections to terrorism and unrest in the Middle East. It follows the paths of at least 6 different characters, some of whom never meet each other. You have to watch closely to understand all of the nuances but I think it's worth the effort. An artful film. Like any good story, it is "show," not "tell." And there are no Hollywood easy solutions or happy endings which fits this story well. August 18 A Song of Ice and FireMy wife, Terri, has been reading the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series by George RR Martin. It's fantasy, but very gritty, low-magic feel. The world is grimy and unforgiving and the writing is serious, thoughtful and hardcore. It spans a possible 6-7 books, but I highly recommend them, though I've only just begun the 1st, I'm hooked. You won't find Tolkien's hobbits and dwarves here, but human beings struggling with the all the issues we have - a little magic thrown in. Snakes on a What?!Ok, I don't get it. I saw the trailer a few weeks ago. Now I see that it is released in theaters. Samuel L. Jackson in "Snakes on a Plane." I guess you could say, "You know exactly what you're getting." Is it just me, or is this some ridiculous Hollywood marketing scheme that plays to the, um, shall we say less intelligent sector of the country? I mean, it's truly insipid. Stupid. Even if the movie garners rave reviews, I don't think I can bring myself to go see it. What the hell? As if movies in the last 5 years weren't bad enough, now we get titles that are even worse. "The Perfect Storm" was a truly awful film, despite critical acclaim, but at least...at the very least...it had a good title :) Maybe we'll see "Yellow Jackets on a Hot Steel Barbecue" next? August 17 Gas and Oil Suck - or my Car Sucks ThemAs my little Nissan Sentra starts to fall apart physically, the engine and important stuff keep running. I guess that's good. But it's about time for a new car. I'm thinking in the next 10 months of getting an alternative fuel vehicle. The problem is that there are several options out there, none of which are talked about that much. Hard to decipher what might work and what would not. Ethanol, bio-diesel, hybrid, electric. Truly none of them are supported by our current infrastructure either. It would take some planning, for example, to know how and where to fill up with pure Ethanol and you might be in trouble if not in a large metro area like Denver. But...I do most of my driving in Denver anyway. An hour commute twice/day makes for a long(er) work day. There are lots of reasons to make the switch. In some ways, 'voting' with my dollars is every bit as loud as voting at the polls. By buying an alternative-fuel vehicle I'm sending a message, in a similar fashion as you would buying a certain brand of milk or makeup. Here are my main reasons:
Of course, it's best if you can avoid driving at all. It's an embarrasment that all large US cities the size of Denver don't have a lightrail/subway system adequate to support the population. But progress is being made. Apparently Denver made some list of Top metro cities for its public transportation system. My opinion is that it's not currently very good, but they have a 15 year plan to extend light rail through out the metro area. If I have to spend an hour going across town, I'd rather do it on a train. I encourage everyone out there to bike to work once in a while as well. My commute is a tough one, but I manage it 2-3 times a year (25 miles each way). However, many people have a much shorter commute than this. Think about the exercise! In the meantime, check out my photos I added and look around. Thanks for stopping. August 15 Cute Labels are for Beer and ChipsIt occured to me as I was driving home and listening to the radio, that we are all (I include myself) subject to a tendency to label things in order to compartmentalize and simplify. It removes complexity, especially within people and ideas. Sometimes I suppose that's what's needed. However, I don't like to do it with people because I truly believe folks are very, very complicated. Messy even. So, I guess what I'm saying is that I apologize for the use of the term 'Neo-Con' in the 8/14/06 post, which is of course catchy in itself :) Neo-Con, Conservative, Lib, Liberal, and the other various combinations are too easy. So I will make an attempt to avoid them and instead talk issues when I decide to be serious at all. Us vs. Them and all that. Though I admit that the 'feel' in the US for a few years now definitely has had that tone. I wonder what it would take, if anything, to bring 60% of us together concerning something big? Purely speculation on my part. What about true elimination of a strict 2-party system, an alternative? A Republican President with a Democrat Vice P? Vice versa? None of them sound realistic right now. Serious charisma and intelligence required. I'm sure the label that seems to 'fit' me is some variation of Liberal. I'm not sure I like that. Nor am I certain what that word means anymore. I think I identify those who oppose my ideas, but again I'm no longer certain about that. So, to bare my political and ethical soul, here is a list of what Josh believes. As always, this is me and my opinion. What we all have to remember is that people hold their core beliefs dear to heart.
Go See "A Scanner Darkly"I wouldn't a true fan of obscure 1970s sci-fi without mentioning that the movie of "A Scanner Darkly" came out a few weeks ago. It's hard to find, but worth the view if you have a theater in town that deals in small releases. The odd 'roto-scoping' (sp?) animation that's done over Keanu Reeves (the main character) makes him bearable and he actually does a fine job. Robert Downey Jr and Woody Harrelson are also quite entertaining. The movie stays true to the book (see my recommended reading on the left), displaying the odd relationships between law enforcement, the addicts they pursue, drugs and who profits and, ultimately, the folly of becoming an addict. Not a happy story, but certainly a strong one. The book is a bit dated, with 70s slang that never really caught on, but other than that a good read. The movie does avoid that :) August 14 Catch as Catch-Phrase CanSo, I start this blog with the full knowledge that people out there will disagree with me, but you know what? I just don't care :) I am, however, tired of name calling and the oh-so-catchy catch-phrases that our current Neo-Con administration communicates with. I hear so many of them that I'm beginning to think the Neo-Con politicians are simply fatuous. Are Americans really not seeing through the Neo-Con advertising spin? I maintain hope that this isn't true. So, without further ado here is a beginning of terms and catch-phrases that I am truly sick of:
There you have it. Three of their favorite phrases. Ponder it. The next time I blog I'll expand a bit more on what I think about some of the imbedded topics above.
Fatuous Politicsfatuous \FACH-oo-uhs\, adjective: 1. Inanely foolish and unintelligent; stupid. Just trying to educate myself by using new words. Let's see....The Bush administration continues to enact the same fatuous policies in the Middle East. Yeah, I think that works. August 13 Joining the Blog ThingI've had mixed thoughts about doing a blog, the usefulness of it, etc for a couple years now. However, I'm going to try it. So stay tuned. This is my place to tell you what I'm tired of, what I'm about and what scares me. Within a few days should have a real first entry fired up. |
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