My blog peeve of the week (similar to pet peeves, but focused on -- you guessed it -- blogs), is guest contributers. Not at Huffington Post or Swampland, but at personal blogs, a la kottke.org.
That being said, I will be going on an extended leave starting tomorrow, but do not fret, my mom will be posting in my absence. Enjoy.
Jake Tapper blogged today about the flak Hillary Clinton received in last night's debate over her supposed support of New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's plan to license all drivers in the state, including undocumented workers, and I commented...
I think that driver's licenses should be considered as licenses to drive. Does that make sense? I mean, state-issued driver's licenses should not necessarily be used by the federal government to control borders. Maybe I'm just old fashioned.
I received a phone call from my wife in San Jose while I was walking the puppy around the neighborhood. She asked me if I was alright. I said yea. She then realized I had no idea why she asked me, that I did not feel the 5.6-magnitude earthquake. She concluded that the temblor must not have reached the northern part of the bay area (it was centered around the south bay city of San Jose). I agreed.
By the time I reached home from the walk (just a few minutes ago), I had bumped into our neighbors an hour after my brief phone conversation with my wife, and they had asked if I felt the earthquake. I said no. They told me it was a pretty big one, and that it lasted a long time. Maybe it was the fact that I was outside, in the cold air with a breeze, or maybe I didn't feel the good-sized earthquake because my puppy was pulling on her leash a bit too hard. Either way, I missed it and I have mixed feelings about that.
Mitt Romney has the quote of the campaign so far... "You call it privatization, I call it a private account."
He is discussing, of course, the privatization of Social Security, and I am glad to go on record that I am in favor of eliminating Social Security altogether, in the course of a phased withdrawal, and assisting seniors in-need with a general tax fund secured by taxes on private equity funds. What I am not in favor of is some sort-of haphazard half-assed bandaid-effect attempt of partial privatization. It is all or nothing.
This movie plays off the storyline of The Graduate and I wonder if the producers had to pay accordingly for the right to do so.
(Returned 11/10/06.)
This was originally written on April 3, 2005, and I do remember this post getting the axe, after publishing, by the unseen editor of this blog, my wife. It wasn't the content of my editorial that upset my significant other, who at the time was my fiancee, but the image of the pope in the first newspaper clipping shown. So not long after publishing to the blog, I pulled the post back, and saved it to the nether region of draft-status blog entries. I am confident that enough time has passed since the pope's death to run this post again, albeit as a resurgent draft, but we'll see if I hear any objections over dinner tomorrow.
Unpublished Draft
What is with the Washington Times? Not only have they been shilling for the "culture of life" movement (but why wouldn't they, the paper was started by the controversial Unification Church and the Rev. Sun Myung Moon; yes, it was started by a fringe right-wing church; Tony Blankley enters stage right), but now wants to throw fuel on the fire by mentioning gay marriage poll numbers. And on the front page. (Look lower right.)
Images: PressDisplay.com
Although I hate to admit it, this is a fun movie to watch. It is painful to watch Cruise play that "cutesy" husband/boyfriend role in the beginning (the one he plays in almost every movie); it's annoying and it's getting old.
(Returned 11/10/06.)
Every few months, or in my case, once a year, it is time to do some shopping. And starting a new job always requires a new shirt or two. I am here with the wife in Emeryville, home of Pixar, and the greatest outdoor shopping experience in the East Bay. I'll admit that I'm an Old Navy kind-of person. Now I'm pining over (and using) the black MacBook. Should I go pro?
Blog later.
I wrote this on March 22, 2005, in the midst of the Terry Schiavo news-cycle, which to this day, would still continue if it were up to the religious right.
I am not sure why I did not publish this, although it certainly wasn't worth any more than all of the other commentary being written at the time, but it also wasn't worth any less, in my opinion. I attempted to contrast the Elian Gonzalez case with the Terri Schiavo case, and make the point that it was the electoral significance of Florida that drove the outward concern of the GOP in both cases. Additionally, that it echoed the willingness of the GOP to follow the goldmine of evangelical support, no matter the constitutionality of the issue.
I found two other brief mentions of Elian in the archive -- here and here, in similar context -- but it seems I didn't re-use the overall thesis of the post elsewhere. I guess I simply wasn't crazy about it, besides the fact that it was all over the place, with no connecting theme. It was clearly unfinished. But that is no excuse; this is a blog, and all trash is welcome.
Unpublished Draft
First there was Elian and now there is Terri Schiavo. (I hate to say that since this clearly [is] an emotional issue to some.) The GOP loves the battleground of Florida so dearly they will throw out there deepest core-principles. And in both cases, the law has been perfectly clear.
I have asked my friends, and it pains me to do so, what if this were a black man, or a poor woman? What if this were an open-atheist that banged on the doors at the "town-hall meetings" held by Bush, while pseudo-discussing his non-existent plans to reform social security, clamoring about woman's rights and pre-Iraq War lies? Would there be an uproar?
The base of the GOP is very weak. If an issue takes root in the media, and if the issue has any slight chance of being related to god or Jesus (or jeevus, as Homer would say), they are up in arms until their congressmen/women are forced to do something. Now, I am not saying DeLay isn't evil; he surely is. But the radical religious right is so important to the GOP; it makes up 30% of this country (my estimate) and roughly 70% of GOP voters. It would be as if the Dems gave up on the intellectual elitists. The difference being, intellectuals tend to think through the issues before lighting crosses and taping their mouths shut.
