S?

I don't know what's more intriguing, this CNN, uh, 'story', or the URL for it.

Screencap, in case it goes away:

It goes 'ding' when there's stuff

Despite not being particularly thrilled with Mr. Gordon Brown, I'm feeling rather chummy towards the Brits right now. Not that I often feel particularly antagonistic towards them, what with the wanting to be British myself and all, but anyway.

For one - I've been watching some Doctor Who recently. It's one of those shows that's hit-or-miss. Sometimes it's just unintentionally silly, sometimes it's pretty crap. Then every once in a while there's an episode that, upon first viewing, is completely outstanding. I'm referring to the relatively recent episode Blink, which if nothing else, had the creepiest damn low-budget monsters I have ever seen. Spoilers, in case anyone's a Who fan but hasn't seen it yet: Stone angels that are only stone when you're looking at them. They send you into the past to live our your life ("the only psychopaths who kill you nicely"), and feed off the life you would have otherwise had (they "let you live to death"). Psychologically, this is absolutely brilliant, because you see a scary monster and what do you want to do? Hide. Turn around and run away. Stop looking at it. But in this case, you can't, and I find that horrifyingly genius.


Anyway, fictional monsters aside, the Brits today also prevented themselves from getting blown up again. Not only that, but it looks like they've done so in a remarkably calm and stereotypically British fashion. All I have to say on that is (if I may): "Well done, chaps".

More on pants!

Here's the judges decision (pdf) in the case of the 'Your pants are not worth $67 mil' case.

The plaintiff sounds like a serious head case.

A rare case of common sense winning

Pants, no matter how nice, are not worth over 50 million dollars.

It makes me happy to see that the lawyer in question is now out all that time and money, plus court costs for the defendants.

I want to ride my biiiiii-cycle...

To be filed under "Things to remember for future reference":

If it is 90-some degrees out, you probably don't want to ride your bike rather than take the bus back from the grocery store. Because while that may give you a moment of feeling good about yourself, it's three miles back to campus. And those three miles are entirely uphill. And it's over ninety degrees out. And also, you have no water with you. And, because this is Santa Fe, it's something like -110% humidity, and you can just feel your red blood cells shrieking and shriveling up as they die.

And also because this is Santa Fe, even if you're on a back road with practically no traffic, you will still get obscenely whistled at by a couple Hispanic guys in a white pickup. I don't know if it's the same guys in the same truck, but I swear that's a constant of any bicycle or foot journey in this town.

A few minor clarifications...

I'm quite certain I'm walking into a minefield here, but I feel compelled to do so anyway. A few points on the 'purity-ring' nonsense:

1. The school (apparently) would allow her to wear the ring if it were religiously required. So the Sikhs at that school are allowed to wear a metal bracelet and ceremonial knife, because that is an integral part of their religion. A Mormon would be permitted to wear their temple garment. A Muslim would be permitted to wear some form of veil or head scarf. Why? Because in the texts that these religions are based on, there's something that says "Once you've been baptized you need to wear a metal bangle", or "You must wear this undergarment to guide you towards modesty", or "You must keep your head covered in the presence of others". It's a command of their religious beliefs.

On the other hand, I know of no biblical verse that tells Christians to wear silver rings advertising that they're more likely to get into oral or anal. Rings like that are a staggeringly new moneymaking scheme, not a religious tenant. There is no reason to grant that ring the same status as something required by your religion.

2. People don't respect most religions more than Christianity, and anyone who says that is showing a staggering amount of ignorance. Sorry to be harsh, but it's true. I was raised in a not-Christian religion, in an area that has a huge minority of that religion. It's not respected more than Judaism. Islam is not given more respect in the Western World than Christianity (when was the last time you heard of a church being firebombed?). Buddhism is not more respected - have you ever considered what, exactly, is being said culturally when Abercrombie & Fitch or whoever co-opts the image of Buddha so that they can fund their sweatshop operations?

By virtue of being a terrifying, in-your-face, with-us-or-against us majority in certain world power nations, Christianity gets to do whatever it wants to do, and still whine about being persecuted.

I somehow doubt that Christians in West Sussex are a persecuted group

Oh noes! I can't wear my magical anti-sex ring at school where it violates the dress code! This is clearly a violation of my human rights!

Lydia Playfoot was told by Millais School in Horsham, West Sussex, to remove her ring, which symbolises chastity, or face expulsion.

Okay...

The school denies breaching her human rights, insisting the ring is not an essential part of the Christian faith.

No kidding! If you're going to argue otherwise, could you point me to the verses that not only encourage chastity, but say that you must wear jewelry in order to remain chaste?

"The real reason for the extreme hostility to the wearing of the SRT purity ring is the dislike of the message of sexual restraint which is counter cultural and contrary to societal and governmental policy," she added.

Wait, what? Meaningless sex at the age of 16 is governmental policy in Britain? I missed that.

Why everyone should take at least one biology class

Oh, for the love of all that is good in the world, will someone please physically and violently knock some sense into someone, anyone in the White House? Ideally, Bush himself, so he stops doing stupid crap like this:

Announcing his veto to a roomful of supporters, Bush said, ''If this legislation became law, it would compel American taxpayers for the first time in our history to support the deliberate destruction of human embryos. I made it clear to Congress and to the American people that I will not allow our nation to cross this moral line.''

NO IT WOULDN'T, YOU IDIOTIC SACK OF GUTS!

It would do absolutely nothing of the sort. It would, at most, compel American tax payers to support doing something with almost unprecedented potential with clumps of cells that are otherwise going to be discarded without any use.

The majority of stem-cells used in research come from IVF procedures. A typical IVF procedure fertilizes far more eggs then are actually implanted, thus, excess. If they're not used for research (which has the potential to save countless lives, to say nothing of the improvement of so many more), they're just destroyed. Incinerated, put in an autoclave and tossed out in the garbage.

What's more respectful of life there, hmm?

Do your pants make you cry?

No? How about getting the wrong item of clothing returned at the dry cleaner?

Still no? That's probably because you're a sane, emotionally healthy person. Unlike Mr. Roy "priceless pants" Pearson, who started crying while testifying.

He's suing a dry cleaners.

For millions of dollars.

Because they lost his pants.

This is one of those things that's just so ridiculous there's no satire left in it.

Remember that thing about reduce, reuse, recycle?

The 80's/90's environmentalism push was, in my mind, best summed up in that little phrase. It's best to just reduce how much stuff you use, and find new uses for what you already have used. If you must toss things out, recycle them. Common sense, right? And it's clearly tied in with the current push to increase the efficiency of cars and trucks.

The new Toyota Tundra truck gets, at absolute best, 20 mpg on the highway and 17 in city driving. The least efficient model, with a 5.7L V8* gets 14/18.

18 miles per gallon.

For comparison, a relatively comparable truck, the Chevy Colorado 'crew cab' gets 18/24. A 2007 Honda Civic Si gets about 23/32mpg. The 2007 Civic hybrid gets about 40/45. Interesting.

*In all honesty I don't actually know what this means beyond 'bigger engine'.

Something I absolutely must have

I cannot begin to express how much I want this: A reproduction of a British WWII poster. It's £3.60 plus £3.00 shipping, so about fifteen bucks total. I don't, by any definition, have fifteen bucks I can justify spending on a poster, regardless of how wonderful it is. But it's just so wonderfully British and soothing and encouraging and...somehow unspeakably perfect.

The minute my next paycheck is in my grubby little fingers, I'm ordering this. I will feel guilty about it, until I get it, at which point I will bask in glorious waves of Britishness.

The few, the not-so-proud?

So here's an interesting story. It's been on the front page of the New Mexican lately as it involves a guy from NM, but I haven't really paid much attention to it (as I generally disregard everything in that paper - it's either local human interest stories or wire pieces). It finally caught my interest today.

This guy Adam Kokesh joins the Marines. He goes and serves in Iraq, then gets to come home with an honorable discharge. He's not, however, entirely free of the military; he's in the "individual reserves", which means keeping Big Brother Sam informed as to where you are, and they can summon you back to active duty essentially whenever they see fit.

Kokesh has, at some point, decided he's not OK with America's actions in Iraq. He takes to protesting. He, on at least once occasion, does so wearing his military-issue camo, but he's stripped it of all military insignia as far as possible. There's a Marines emblem embroidered into the fabric, but other than that there's nothing identifying him as a (former) Marine.

Then someone from the Marines sees a picture of Kokesh at said protest. It is technically against regulations for a member of the US armed services to protest while in uniform. They decide that A) Kokesh is still a member of the Marines, despite not being anywhere near on active duty, and B) he needs to be disciplined.

So in order to do so, they had a trial and retroactively 'downgraded' his discharge, from honorable to general. I'm not certain if this has any true significance - it apparently isn't expected to effect his benefits - but regardless, it's kind of a sleazy thing to do. My objections can pretty much be divided into three categories:

1. Why the hell are the people who are allegedly fighting for our "freedom" and in support of democracy and such not given, y'know, basic American freedoms? By this point I know it's hopelessly idealistic but I can't quite rid myself of the hope that, someday, our military (which is composed entirely of people who've sworn or affirmed to "support and uphold the Constitution" will in fact have to follow the rules set down in the Constitution.
2. This reeks of the military trying to cover itself up so that, a hundred and fifty years down the line once society is rebuilding itself from the disaster we're racing towards, people don't look at this incident and say, "Dear god those people were jerks." He didn't do anything wrong or offensive; he did something extremely "patriotic" and is being unjustly punished for it because his higher-ups disagree with him. And if anyone would argue that protesting against things your government does that you think are wrong, I'd like to direct you here.
3. Sweet bleeding Jesus, between Iraq and Afghanistan do the Marines not have anything truly important to do?

Richardson's troubles

Salon has a fairly well-written piece on Gov. Richardson and the problems he's having thus far in the campaign. I think it's pretty spot-on right here:

Of all the second-tier Democratic candidates, Richardson has been seen as the one most likely to make a move, mainly on the strength of his résumé. He's Hispanic, a Western governor, a former United Nations ambassador, a former secretary of energy, a former congressman, and a man who has personally negotiated with dictators and tyrants in Sudan, North Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan and Cuba. Plus, he is the only Democrat in the field who can pull off polished cowboy boots. But presidential campaigns are not about résumés as much as they are about performance, and Richardson has had his troubles

Granted, that's not a problem with Richardson as much as it is a failing of the American people ("Who cares about the issues? I want the slick talker!"), but it's unlikely to change within the course of this election. In fact, considering the that the two front-runners are both visible minorities in politics (not-white, not-male), I think that image is going to be the most important thing this election, rather than issues.


I really like where Richardson stands on a lot of issues. I like his stance on Iraq, I like his stance on Guantanamo, I like his stance on gays in the military. His stance on energy/oil dependency is pretty good. I definitely like that he wants to establish a minimum wage for teachers; that's an approach to education that I haven't seen taken seriously before and I think it's worth some thought. He's OK on health care - obviously, I'd love if someone had the balls to propose truly nationalized, affordable health care a la Britain or Canada, but I also do dwell in reality and know there's no chance of that happening. Overall, I think that Richardson is a fairly well-rounded candidate. And in my mind he gets extra points because if he's even a serious candidate it'll probably reduce the number of idiots who refuse to acknowledge that New Mexico is, in fact, part of the US.

But he needs to get it together, because, as the Salon piece says, no one cares about the issues. I don't know how peculiar to American politics that is, that we're so terribly fixated on how smooth a politician is rather than their stance on the important issues, but it bugs me. I personally don't give a flying crap how good of a public speaker he is, so long as he's willing to work his ass of on the important things.

Now, if only I had a brainwashing gun that could convince every other liberal in the country (ooh, and there I go using that dirty l-word...) to agree with me, we'd be pretty well set.

I smell phantom patchouli

Something about riding my bike to take the bus to Trader Joe's and getting a raffle ticket because I brought my own bag* makes me feel like an incredible hippie. Which, some would argue, I am, but I'm much more of the "conservative politics bad, personal hygiene good" type than the word tends to bring to mind.

I kind of wish that my parent's generation hadn't so sullied the image of the liberal.

*I didn't really mean to, but I realized as I was in line that I had my messenger bag with me (because I need something to carry my keys/bottle of water/phone/book in, and a bag like that's easier to manage on a bicycle), my purchases would all fit in it, so why in god's name should I carry both a shopping bag and that?