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Wednesday, June 18, 2003 |
Shocking silence. In Iran, a grass-roots, student-run, anti-theocracy movement has reached critical mass. So why doesn't the U.S. left care more about it? [Salon.com]
10:49:01 PM Permalink
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The Recall Election
It looks to me like this recall election, which was a bad idea to begin with, has picked up steam with Issa's money. Issa knows he can't get elected to a statewide office in a general election, so I think he figures that this way he can get elected on, say, 20% of the vote. When the Republicans don't win elections, it looks like, they try to impeach or recall the person who did win it, or find a way to get the courts to declare them the winners anyway. I wonder how Issa thinks he will have any sort of mandate if he wins with less than half the vote? The California legislature, turned into a bunch of stupid hacks by term limits, won't pay any more attention to him than they do to anyone else.
Here's an idea, though. It costs only $3500 to get your name on this ballot. It may be worth that just for the heck of it. It couldn't hurt the resume to have on it "Candidate for California Governor, 2003." If enough of us sign up, maybe we can make a dent in the deficit, and make Issa's idiot mandate worth even less when he gets less than 10% of the vote...
I promise to work for guaranteed health insurance for all Californians, confiscatory inheritance taxes, state holdiays on May 24 (Bob Dylan's birthday) and June 16 (Bloomsday), bicycle lanes on all bridges, and mandatoy medicinal marijuana.
6:48:38 PM Permalink
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Portrait of An American "Conservative"
- Believes in the free market, but wants subsidies for their own company|industry|state.
- Believes in free speech, but shouts down any opinion not their own.
- Believes in democracy, but supports a president who subverted democracy.
- Doesn't want "our boys" involved in overseas adventures, didn't want American soldiers in Bosnia or Kosovo, but gets a kick out of them kicking Afghanistani and Iraqi butt.
- Believes in states rights, unless a state does something they disagree with.
- Fiercely pround of the Constitution, but thinks school prayer is no big deal and that America was "founded as a Christian nation".
- Believes in truth and justice, but fiercely opposes any attempt to re-examine dodgy death penalty convictions.
- Thinks "lying" about a blowjob is worthy of impeachment, but sees nothing wrong with not telling the truth about Iraq's supposed Weapons of Mass Destruction.
- Before the war, thought the UN weapons inspectors had had enough time to find those WMDs, but now keeps urging patience, don't you know Iraq is a big country?
- Call themselves Christian, but apparantely never read the parable about the splinter and the beam as they rant about the evils of gangsta rap while losing eight million dollars through gambling.
- Thinks the media is "too liberal" and takes great pleasure in hearing Rush Limbaugh and Mike Savage talking about the evils of the liberal media, reading Ann Coulter's books about the evils of the liberal media, watching Fox News items on the evils of the liberal media before watching the Sunday political talkshows about the evils of the liberal media and finishing that newspaper item about the evils of the liberal media, not to mention that Wall Street Journal article about the evils of the liberal media. Thinks tonight they'll blog about the evils of the liberal media. Somebody needs to bring the message out!
[Wise Words]
1:58:00 PM Permalink
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Gotcher links right here. Good piece in Salon on the Bushies' attempts to squash any inquiry into 9/11 intelligence failures: "We've been fighting for nearly 21 months -- fighting the administration, the White House," says Monica Gabrielle. Her husband, Richard, an insurance broker who... [This Modern World by Tom Tomorrow]
10:53:51 AM Permalink
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Windows Rot
I think my Thinkpad laptop is getting Windows Rot. The number of errors I'm having on the thing is going up day by day. Just a few minutes ago, I kept getting unspecified errors when I tried to print, and couldn't make them go away without restarting. It's really annoying. I've ordered this package of software from Microsoft, which includes 10 XP Professional licenses, among a lot of other stuff.
But the thought of upgrading gives me the creeps. I'm running Win 2K on the laptop, and I'm just not confident in getting all my apps (serial numbers, etc.) moved from one OS to the other. I think I'll make a good list of what I've got and the serial numbers or keys, and print it out. And also make a good backup of my data, and some of the apps and installers, and see what happens.
I may chicken out and just stick with the rot, too.
9:01:53 AM Permalink
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© Copyright 2004 Steve Michel.
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