Wednesday, October 09, 2002

Wow - 32% of people watching the debate tonight thought that the Green Party candidate, Jill Stein, won the debate. That's amazing - the Dem candidate did 23%, the Republican 33%...but 32% for a virtually unknown, well left of the conventional mainstream candidate? I feel better about the world now. Though if she gets too many votes, she cripples the Democratic candidate and we might get stuck with Romney the death penalty advocate. Argh. I'm going to try to NOT think about that right now.

11:34:16 PM p e r m a l i n k trackback [] say something []

Hey- Mitt Romney, Republican for governor, got endorsed by the "liberal Democrat" mayor of Salt Lake City. They worked together on the Olympics, you see. He's looking past partisanship for a person, you see. I know this sounds bad, but you don't think that maybe the fact that they're both Mormons has something to do with the endorsement?
11:30:25 PM p e r m a l i n k trackback [] say something []

The "minor" candidates for the Massachusetts governorship got in to the primary - I'm elated. Five candidates on one stage, an actual diversity of opinion...it's wonderful. It'd be a lot better if Mitt Romney wasn't there...in fact, if he hadn't run, Jane Swift, the current interim governor, might well have ended up winning the Republican nomination - which would have led to all five candidates being women. Anyway - Carla Howell, the Libertarian candidate who seems to honestly just be running for governor to get more camera time for her ballot question to eliminate the state income tax, spent the entire debate saying "big government: bad. Small government: not bad," more or less. The best bit was when she said "The high tech industry? The Internet? They weren't the product of big government." Actually, that's so wrong that it's comical, but hey, you wouldn't expect someone running for major public office in the state where the Internet was "born" to know something like that, would you? Would you? I just saw the latest in the long line of commercials that use inappropriate songs: Nissan, which I believe has done this kind of thing before, is using Iggy Pop and the Stooges' TV Eye. Damn - I was hoping that'd get inadvertently bought by a consumer electronics manufacturer... =) Owowow...my left middle finger just started spasming. Pardon the awkward one-handed typing...

11:22:45 PM p e r m a l i n k trackback [] say something []

7:49:55 PM p e r m a l i n k trackback [] say something []

Good Ole Senator Byrd. In today's NYT Bush Iraq Plan Hits Snag in Senate ...But while it appeared to be clear sailing for the measure in the GOP-led House, Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., served notice on other Democrats at a party luncheon that he intended to use parliamentary tactics to delay a final vote, according to those who attended the session. That could delay the vote well into next week, suggested Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-W.Va. Byrd, widely respected for his deep knowledge of the Senate rules, has emerged as the primary Senate opponent to the president's war resolution.... [Blog Left: Critical Interventions] Put simply, Robert Byrd's a dick - but this time, he's our dick. Filibuster on, Senator!

11:44:47 AM p e r m a l i n k trackback [] say something []

Guardian Unlimited | World dispatch | America's great misleader. Regime change badly needed in Washington.... Guardian Unlimited | World dispatch | America's great misleader [Blog Left: Critical Interventions] This is an article by a prominent journalist in the second most prominent newspaper in the UK. It's not some knee-jerk anti-Americanism - rather, it's well thought out and accurate. Read it.

10:00:06 AM p e r m a l i n k trackback [] say something []

Iraq attack likely 'only if provoked'. The CIA says Iraq is unlikely to attack the US unless it fears imminent strikes¸ but could then respond with biological or chemical arms. [BBC News | WORLD] I mentioned this report earlier, but it deserves getting all the eyeball-time it can - WE'RE ONLY THREATENED BY IRAQ IF WE GO TO WAR WITH IRAQ. It's that simple, people. Even though I'm distrustful of any intelligence agency, I'm far more willing to take the word of the CIA on Iraq than, say, the word of a C student from Yale with a history of alcoholism and failed businesses.

7:26:20 AM p e r m a l i n k trackback [] say something []

Irish Protestant Leader Issues Ultimatum on Sinn Fein Ouster [New York Times: International News] Aw, hell. This is all over accusations that a number of Sinn Fein members in the government spied on the British and Unionists, and may have passed that information to the IRA. David Trimble, the leader of the moderate Unionists (as compared to Ian Paisley and his Democratic Unionists, who make Jerry Falwell look like a liberal) and first minister of the power-sharing government, has threatened to withdraw his party's support for the government unless Sinn Fein is thrown out of the government. Which, of course, nullifies the whole power-sharing agreement, since it's dependent on both Catholic and Protestent participation. While Sinn Fein isn't the only Catholic party (John Hume's moderate SDLP has said it doesn't support kicking Sinn Fein out), it's very hard to see a government as legitimate and broad-based without Sinn Fein in it. Without getting into the spying issue, it's also worth noting that Trimble says Sinn Fein shouldn't be allowed in government "until such time as the I.R.A. has been disbanded." One could easily argue that Ian Paisley's crew shouldn't be allowed in government until the various Unionist paramilitaries disband as well, then - his ties to Protestant terrorists are at least as strong as Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness's ties to IRA terrorists.

7:06:17 AM p e r m a l i n k trackback [] say something []

EU presses ahead with expansion. The European Commission is formally to announce the enlargement of the EU to include 10 new member states by 2004. [BBC News | WORLD] This makes me very, very happy...I don't have any personal vested interest in this, but it just feels *right* to recognize the economically and politically successful ex-Communist states of Eastern Europe for their accomplishments. Case in point: Slovenia. Historically, the area was part of the core Habsburg family lands, connected politically to Austria for centuries. It's always had a majority-Slavic population, but was never as disconnected from the West as the rest of ex-Yugoslavia (largely because, unlike all of Macedonia, Bosnia, Serbia, and most of Croatia, it was never conquered by the Ottoman Turks). Slovenia was the first republic to break off from Yugoslavia, and were lucky enough to have no significant Serb or Croat populations...the wars of Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo never touched Slovenia. I actually vaguelly considered going to school in Slovenia. The University of Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, was trying to get American students to come, and were offering full scholarships. I didn't do it - I suck at foreign languages, and really it was just a fun idea omre than anything else. But it stuck in my mind. Since breaking off from Yugoslavia around a decade ago, Slovenia has quickly adopted a market economy and democracy. They're not the only country to quickly and dramatically adapt (the Czech Republic being the most successful of the others - the Czechs also have significant historic connections to Austria and the old Holy Roman Empire) but I'll always feel a little happier for Slovenia than anywhere else. They've worked hard - they deserve EU membership. The rest of the former Eastern Bloc countries that will be joining in 2004 (the Baltic Republics - Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia) all will fit in to the European economy rather easily. There'll be some interesting visa issues with Lithuania and Russia, since the Kaliningrad enclave of Russia (the northern half of the old German Prussia) is seperated from the rest of Russia by Lithuania...residents of Kaliningrad have been able to travel through Lithuania without needing a visa, but EU rules prohibit that. The other two countries to be admitted are Malta and Cyprus. Malta's not exactly large, but it's peaceful, democratic, and with historic connections to its former owner, the UK. Cyprus...well, I'm doubting they'll get in in 2004. For that to happen, they'll have to actually resolve the split into Greek-controlled and Turkish-controlled halves. Turkey has threatened to outright annex the Turkish-ruled northern portion of Cyprus if EU membership goes ahead without a resolution.

6:54:25 AM p e r m a l i n k trackback [] say something []

Ok, I'm a sucker - I just bought the Complete Walking With... DVD set. Hey, I can't help it - it's six and a half hours of paleontology come to life. The 7 year old in me is twitching with happiness right now.
6:34:11 AM p e r m a l i n k trackback [] say something []

The police think they may have found a break in the Maryland spree killer case - a tarot card. No, seriously - they found a tarot card near the scene of the Monday school shooting. It was the Death card, with "Dear Policeman: I am God" written on it. This leads me to suspect one of a couple things: either this is a prankster, or the killer is a total wiseass who's trying very deliberately to confuse people. I just don't see there being much chance of the same person who's been so deliberate in cleaning his crime scene (the fact that a shell was found at the last shooting makes me wonder if it was even the same guy as the others, in fact) would be so nuts as to leave a message on a tarot card and actually MEAN it. On a completely unrelated note, I'm watching Discovery Channel's super-cool Walking with Prehistoric Beasts - I love you, TiVo - and they just showed a shot that really impressed me: underwater, underneath a herd of elephants swimming by. It's positioned so perfectly that you have to think it was a human cameraman, not just a prepositioned camera. Damn, it looked cool - but the most badass thing is that if it WAS a human, s/he was maybe 10 feet below a herd of freakin' elephants. Oy.

6:25:52 AM p e r m a l i n k trackback [] say something []