Wednesday, September 27, 2006

What's grosser than gross?

A bonus blog post that doesn't belong on teh same page as my last one. I went into the restroom at work today and there was a dude in one of the stalls in sitting at his feet was an opened container of Vaseline. Contest: WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT VASELINE DOING THERE?!?!? I'll declare a winner some time in the future.

Misunderstood Crazy Venezuelans

I got the following forwarded to me:

Venezuela Dictator Vows To Bring Down U.S. Government Venezuela government is sole owner of Citgo gasoline company Venezuela Dictator Hugo Chavez has vowed to bring down the U.S. government. Chavez, president of Venezuela , told a TV audience : "Enough of imperialist aggression; we must tell the world: down with the U.S. empire. We have to bury imperialism this century." The guest on his television program, beamed across Venezuela , was Cindy Sheehan, the antiwar activist. Chavez recently had as his guest Harry Belafonte, who called President Bush "the greatest terrorist in the world." Chavez is pushing a socialist revolution and has a close alliance with Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. Regardless of your feelings about the war in Iraq , the issue here is that we have a socialist dictator vowing to bring down the government of the U.S.. And he is using our money to achieve his goal! The Venezuela go vernment, run by dictator Chavez, is the sole owner of Citgo gas company. Sales of products at Citgo stations, including 7Eleven, send money back to Chavez to help him in his vow to bring down our government. Take Action Please decide that you will not be shopping at a Citgo station. Why should U.S. citizens who love freedom be financing a dictator who has vowed to take down our government? Very important. Please forward this to your friends and family. Most of them don't know that Citgo is owned by the Venezuela government.

People should know me well enough by now that I'm not going to let something like that go by without commenting. Here was my reply:

So we're all clear: just because a guy is crazy and has some very odd and troubling political statements, that doesn't make him a dictator. He is an elected President just as, if not more validly, than our And just because he wants to end "imperialist aggression" doesn't mean he wants to bring down our government. Regardless of how misguided his tactics or how extreme his views are, the fact of the matter is that our actions in Iraq absolutely could be defined as imperialism (the policy of extending the rule or authority of an empire or nation over foreign countries, or of acquiring and holding colonies and dependencies).

Given that there had been zero acts of aggression, terrorist or otherwise, that originated from Iraq, it's agents or it's citizens, we as a people must reflect on this without the political spin of our governing party and look at the situation objectively. WHY DID THIS ATTACK FIRST HAPPEN? Yes, it may very well be a front on the "War on Terror" (why isn't Wes Craven in jail?), but that was of Bush's very own making for it was clearly not a front PRIOR to our invasion. Yes, Salaam was a very bad man, but again, he posed no credible threat and all conceivable intelligence suggesting otherwise has been at best questionable and usually summarily refuted. Given that, our invasion and destabilizing of the Iraqi government (regardless of how evil they were) can very easily be seen as nothing more than an act of Imperialism. And our torture of prisoners, and subsequent release of those prisoners without any charges ever being levied on them, could very well be described as a terrorist act.

Chavez is absolutely a nut and has ruined his credibility in the international community as a result of some of his comments. But you're kidding yourself if you think our President hasn't destroyed our credibility in the international community as a result of some of his actions. But that doesn't make Bush any more a dictator than Chavez. And as far as toppling governments, I believe Bush is 2-0 vs Chavez's 0-0. Only one of those 2 for Bush was provoked and warranted and it is a shame he didn't stay in that first country long enough to finish the job and actually hunt and bring down terrorist leaders.

I hope that as intelligent, free thinking people, we recognize what our government should and shouldn't be doing. I hope that we're able to see that unprovoked aggressive actions around the world will only bring more aggression directed at us. I hope that, regardless of the source of the sentiment, we understand that imperialism is not a good thing and should not be condoned or tolerated by our or any other government. I hope that we're able to distinguish between the rantings of a crazy men (whether they come from Chavez or Hussein) and the threats of a crazy man fully capable and willing to carry out those threats (bin Laden). And I hope in the future, our leaders will be able to make the same distinction.

Please vote in November and keep this in mind.

By the way: after Sundays thrashing of Fox News by Bill Clinton, I regret having never voted for him. My problem with him in the past was that he was never straight forward. Realizing that our current "president" is extremely straight forward and woefully misguided, I realize now and vagueries are much easier (on many different levels) to deal with than idiocy. Anyway, the Daily Show showed a clip of the question posed to Clinton followed by a question posed to Condi Rice on teh same day by Katie Couric. Let's just say that it's way easier to handle questions about what it's like to get asked out on a date when you're Secretary of State. The fact is, the question posed by the Republican Mouth Piece Fox News was extremely combative and could have been phrased in a plethora of different ways without being offensive and calling into question Clinton's attempts to capture Bin Laden. It's safe to say Bush, who has been every bit as lax or unwilling (and I don't think Clinton was either of these things) to capture bin Landen but Fox would NEVER ask him the same question in the same way. FUCK FOX!

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Catch up

Wow, there's only like a million things I've wanted to blog about in the 3 weeks since I last posted, but I've never really had a moment to sit down and do it. But here I am, waiting on others to get their crap together, so I have the time. And rather than give each topic it's due time, I'll just touch on each one momentarily.

First we got a dog. We adopted from the Humane Society here. He's a Plott Hound mutt. His name is Elwood (though he was originally Chance). He's 8 months old. He's pretty good with the accidents as he's only had 2 since arriving on Sunday - both in his crate. The on thing about him is that he's extremely skittish. He was very very shy at the pound, so Jenn took to him right away (she loves a challenge, especially with a dog [and a man, hee hee]). He's come out of his shell to a great extent, though he still has issues when Jenn and I are in the same room at the same time. He'll hide behind her and growl at me. Anyway, we're working through all that and I'm looking forward to getting him some obedience training.

Next, a friend of mine is going to Paris. The exchange rate is almost $1.30 for 1 Euro. That's insane. Frighteningly insane. When I went in November of 2001, the exchange rate was pretty darn close to 1 for 1. If anything it was like $0.95 for 1 Euro. That was in the aftermath of 9/11. That was one year into the Village Idiot's "Presidency". Now, we're 5 years into this 8 year National Mess and our economy is so bad that the Euro has increased in value by 25% to 30%. And no one's making a stink about this? No one's alarmed? How is the fact that our economy is entrenched in the shittier not a national story? How can all of the news out of the Idiot's office be sunny shiny happy and not a single person with a national voice call him on it? And it's not like we're talking about a developing or growing country here, people. We're talking about a currency based in the oldest modernly developed region in the world. Our currency should be flat with their's at all times. It's sick and insane.

FOOTBALL!!! 2 weeks of football have passed and not a peep from me. I know: sacrilege! Anyway, my Steelers stunk last week, so that was sad. But I'm fairly confident that, they will improve as the year goes on. Well, let's just say they have to because if they don't, then rumors of Bill Cower's departure are going to swirl through that team like a tornado in a trailer park. As for Fantasy Football. I had a horrible weekend in week 2 in all of my leagues. I won in the money league, but only because the team I played (ironically, my brother's), managed to be more incompetent than me. I'm really hoping that things will turn around.

On TV, I've got my TiVo up and running so I'm watching the Colbert Report and the Daily Show religiously again. I'm telling you, from June through August, when I was without those 2 shows, I really got out of touch with what was going on in government. Reading the paper doesn't provide enough context. In their fun way, they really frame everything nicely. And intelligently. I think that's why the kids (me included) love them so much. It's nice to be back in on things.

With everything else, the house has come light years. We've still got some boxes to empty, curtains to put up and a spare bedroom to paint, but everything urgent is done. I think it's fair to say we're taking a break. We had been going non-stop on the place for so long that it's good for the both of us to step back and just put that on the back burner. I'm sure we'll start up again in a couple weeks.

Jenn's doing better coping with work and classes, though it is definitely very difficult for her. I'm both impressed with what she's doing and getting done and proud that I get to be a part of it in some small way.

That's it for now. Hopefully I'll be more regular. No, not like THAT!!! Sicko.