Saturday, September 28, 2002

posted by Orange Goblin at September 28 9:39 AM. Anyone go to the anti war protest in London today? The number of the people has been estimated from between 3000 (by the police) to 350,000 (by the organisers). I reckon 200,000. Either way, its the largest peace protest ever in the country. Me and my friends sign was a great success, with many people commenting on it/photographing it. It was the only black one we saw, so easily stood out. It said 'Its all about the oil' on one side, and on the other there was a picture of Bush looking stupid, and 'No to War'. The protest was peaceful (or was when I left) and on the whole, a success. The only question is, will Bush and Blair take any notice? [MetaFilter] Alright, I'm a total peacenik - I'm a fervent pacifist and support of diplomatic means. But the only reason I'd show up at a big peace rally (like the one in London today) would be to be able to say I was there. My mom was in college at the same school I went to (Oberlin College) when Kent State happened - Oberlin shut down immediately afterward, and damn near the entire student body went to protest in DC. Part of me has always been jealous of my parents' generation, who actually had things to protest against that could rally hundreds of thousands of people to get to the streets. We've yet to be stuck with anything like that in my time - and when you get down to it, I hope we never do. I'm afraid we're going to, though, and soon - the war is about to start.

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posted by 86 to Baseball September 28 10:16 AM. Rey calls me stupidThe always-disappointing Rey Ordonez thinks Met fans are stupid. Apparently, we boo too much. As far as I can tell that start and ends his list of reasons why we're dumb, but its gotten him fired up. Rey wants to be more relaxed, wants to play somewhere where they don't hate errors and 0-4 games and where they don't expect you to be a machine. For the record, Rey's machine is firing at .254 avg, 1 HR, 2 SB, and 19 errors on the season. Rey makes $6 million. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! [SportsFilter] Well, Mets fans ARE stupid - but not for booing Rey Ordonez. I'll take Rey Sanchez, who has far superior defense while hitting a bit better, whining less, oh, and making $750k. Ha! Stupid Mets...

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UN draft sets Iraq tough demands. Baghdad rejects a US-drafted resolution which says Iraq must give details of its arms programmes within days or face possible military attack. [BBC News | WORLD] ...as if Iraq's even relevant in this matter any more. If the Bush Junta can persuade France and Russia to vote for their resolution, and China to abstain, they'll get what they want. I don't know if they'll succeed in that - Russia, especially, looks like a tough sell. Which is bizarre - I'm actually counting on Vladimir freakin' Putin, the Butcher of Chechnya, to prevent slaughter in Iraq. Oy.

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More Than One Option on Iraq [New York Times: Opinion] As the Times' editors realize here, Ted Kennedy's speech yesterday against pre-emptive war against Iraq was very, very important. For one thing, he didn't dick around on wording - he called a spade a spade, and Bush's war a war. Every other prominent public figure has pussyfooted around using "war" to describe the Iraq plans, but it sure as hell would be war. Kennedy also eloquently put forward the case for war as only a last resort. He brought up a good point - we didn't invade Cuba during the Cuban Missle Crisis, and we sure as hell were under much greater direct threat then than we are now.

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U.S. Agribusiness Peddles to the Proletariat in Cuba By Lizette Alvarez September 27, 2002 Fidel Castro and nearly 300 American companies set aside four decades of estrangement to kick off the largest American trade show ever in Cuba. ... [AB: snipping a bit - they're trying to sell food to Cuba, mentions Jesse Ventura's there]... However, as if having the man the CIA couldn't shave and "the Body" under the same roof were not enough, the event was spiced with some surreal happenings. Otto J. Reich, the assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, recently expressed his disappointment with the event, and cautioned Mr. Ventura and others traveling to Cuba to steer clear of the island's "sexual tourism." [Driver 8] Me, I'm shocked that Reich wasn't there trying to blow it up. This is a man with ties to anti-Castro terrorists, after all. I'm still baffled as to how this man ever got confirmed...

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Windows 2000 Runs On Xbox Under Linux [Slashdot] This is Big. Yes, it's too complicated for your average Joe off the street to get going, but it's a giant step towards the eventual fate of the Xbox - a cheap computer you can buy used that hooks up to the TV and runs everything you could really want. I need to get around to picking up an Xbox soon, before the new hardware (they're changing configuration to prevent mod chipping) rolls out. I might not play many games on it, but the play potential is huge.

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The Gloves Are Off: Bush Links Iraq, Al Qaeda. Plastic::Politics::War: Information "gleaned from senior al Qaeda detainees captured", according to Condoleezza Rice. [Plastic: Most Recent] Yeah, well the info either came from those "senior al-Qaeda detainees", who, this article points out, are being held without any rights and may just be saying anything they can to get some food, or the info came from..um...Bush's imagination? I mean, I'm a skeptic, true, but this pushes way past anything I can accept without evidence. And if you actually expect the Bush Junta to give us any evidence, you're a sucker.

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A spam I received yesterday: I'm really frightened now.
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