Emmanuel? Is that you? Emmanuel??? Mr. Goldstein?

*ahem* Still no Bin Laden or Hussein eh?

Anyway... What's new... what's new? Well, part of the next federal US election will be on insecure, unauditable electronic voting booths. Glad I get to vote in a country where it might count. Er, as long as I vote Liberal. ;)

What else? Well, might not be new, but Turks and Caicos wants into Canada. Hey! We need a tax haven, or something! :) Would be cool to jet down to the Caribbean without going through customs.

So breaking news. http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2003/07/16/crash_driver030716

86 year old guy plows into a marketplace along a street at upwards of 100kph, killing 8 and injuring 45. Obviously the guy shouldn't have been driving. Too old? Maybe... Maybe if we had reasonable public transit, and weren't so enamored with our little rolling living rooms this guy wouldn't have felt the need to be driving? What if we had decent public transit, and there was no stigma attached to it? If driving is so 'necessary' there's something wrong with the system. There's a lot of people who JUST CAN'T DRIVE. They're too young, too old, have poor vision, or are just simply not coordinated enough to be behind the wheel of 3000 lbs (1500kg) of hurtling metal. Why is it the 'right' of those who have the capability (and $$) to drive to have all this freedom of transportation, but the other third of the population without a drivers permit are chopped liver?

Anyway, not to hijack the issue at hand. It's a horrible tragedy what happened in Santa Monica today. Just my train of thought... (pardon the wacky twisty tracks)

On a more positive note, last week there was a bit of a media feeding frenzy about Bush and his gang of murderers lies about Iraq importing uranium. Maybe they'll get with the program and ask for proof that the US Fed had actual evidence of WMDs before starting the war?

They can impeach a guy for getting a hummer from an intern, but goddamn if you making up stories to justify your murder of sixteen THOUSAND Iraqis gets you any consequences.

We'll see if I'll be proven wrong come election day. It sure would be nice to see the Dems swing a little left first, THEN win....

posted by Greg at 8:42 PM

Sheesh, been a while, hasn't it? What's happened in FIVE MONTHS?

Well, Bush has vanquished all the badguys in Iraq. Hey hey! Probably why I've been too politically depressed to post. You'd think the anger would fire me up. I guess I was finding myself entirely too 'ranty' already to promote it by venting online.

Let's go in the wayback machine and see where we're at. Gore still isn't running for pres. The Dems are having a televised debate, one of the earliest in any election's history. Will be strange seeing them knock each other around. Hopefully I'll get to learn about their hopeful.

Meanwhile, in the Bush camp, it's business as usual. I can't beleive (even if I want to) that the US will keep it's dirty little paws out of the war pie until the next election. We might just see *another* war before the next election. Or at least, a few big military exercises in Iraq and Afghanistan to root out those Ba'ath-Al Queda-commie-nazis.

The deficit in the States is rolling along. Tax cut for the rich after tax cut for the rich. Handouts to industry buddies in the form of Iraq reconstruction contracts (not competed for), missile defense shields (which would fail to block non existant missiles from hypothetical aggressors) and bunker busting NUCLEAR WEAPONS. Goddamn brand spanking new NUCLEAR WEAPONS. Let's hear that again, the US is developing and building a new type of weapon for their nuclear arsenal. [reference]

The Gov in the States is doing an amazing job. The highest deficit levels, the highest personal debt, the highest municipal debt, and the highest state debt since 1929! WOW! Go team! Hopefully, they'll be able to cancel medicare, destroy all social assistance, and piss off the WHOLE WORLD before they have to help their buddies load up their cargo ships with gold bullion and sail off from the economic wasteland that the US just might become.

You know, I find it hard to blame the greedy bastards in charge. They are what they are. You have to expect a certain percentage of the population to be simply sociopathic and self centered. That's why we have checks and balances though. My question is, where the HELL is the mainstream media? They're certainly not calling these assholes out like they should be.

"We need a tax cut for the mega wealthy... We're still paying taxes on DIVIDENDS! Imagine that! I wasn't born into a rich family just so that I'd have to pay taxes on money which my money makes for me!"

I mean, come ON! Bloomberg needs to cut one BILLION dollars from the NYC annual budget. Goodbye afterschool programs, goodbye lunch programs. Goodbye to 40 firehouses and 10,000 city employees.

I guess the kids could go hang out in the vacant lot where their school used to be before it burnt down, and eat some grass and gravel while watching the shiny corporate jets and helicopters flying in and out of La Guardia. Hell their unemployed parents could go join them!

Meanwhile, the fed is taking care of such weighty affairs as worrying about what sort of copyright law to institute in Iraq! Hillary Rosen to the rescue!!! Now, last I heard, she was the head of the RIAA, which is a freaking indusrty organization. Why are they relying on HER to look out for the interests of Iraq? Lord knows, their opportunities to rebuild themselves by engaging in international trade would be drastically impacted by the risks involved in them not having strong DMCA style copyright protections. After all, who would buy oil from a country that bootlegs Britney Spears albums?

Like, I can go on here, folks. Give me a subject, I'll give you a rant. It's gotten to the point that I can't pick up a paper if kids are around, cause I can't hold my tongue if I start discussing the day's events with someone. Darn cuss words. ;)
posted by Greg at 7:27 PM

What a week it's been!

Kissenger resigns from the head of the 9/11 commission. Is the enemy we know better than the one we don't? He's being replaced by Tom Kean... not sure what to think. I haven't read any nasty info about him, so I guess that means all his skeletons are securely stowed in the closet. ;)

Gore declines running for President in 2004

An interesting move. I think Gore is a pretty intelligent guy, and I think the reasons he states for not running are more or less the actual reasons. The other aspect is, other people would have a better chance of beating Bush, which is really a shame, because I'm starting to warm up to Gore in some ways. While the talk mainly seems to be of Daschle, Kerry, Gephardt or Lieberman, I think the Dems have some interesting depth in their ranks. Vermont governer Howard Dean might have what it takes. There's also the intriguing possibility of the Democrats fronting a woman for the role. Who knows, my gut reaction would be to say the Americans are about as likely to elect a woman as they would be to elect the jewish Lieberman. It would be interesting to see if a female, jewish, or visibile minority candidate would be able to excite the electorate enough to get out an extra few hundred voters, to put them over the top. ;) Who knows, maybe the voters will surprise me?

Basically, in my mind, it's a race for the Democrats to lose. (Kinda like last time) They're competing against the idiot prince (idiotic through the actions of his gov't, not necessarily himself) who has stomped on civil liberties, shit on them, then stomped on them again, NOT CAUGHT BIN LADEN, 'lead' the economy into a spiral, given a HUGE tax cut to his rich buddies, and is now thinking of a tax hike for the poor and middle class. If THIS can't bring out the apathetic democrat voter, you wonder what would.

Not that I'm saying it'll be an easy battle. Bush jr. will probably have learned from daddy's mistake, and may ensure that "War in Iraq 2: this one's for Pappy" will be in full swing leading into the elections. The republicans will be talking their brand of Newspeak, making up down, and right, left. It's up to the Democrats to do something about it. I'm horribly disappointed in the way they just rolled over and played dead, both in the election in 2000 and 2002, and also in the events since September 2001.

Time to wait and see....
posted by Greg at 7:23 AM

US Freaks out that Canada might decriminalize marijuana:
(From: http://cbc.ca/stories/2002/12/12/drugreax021212)

Robert Maginnis, a drug policy adviser to the Bush administration, warned that the U.S. would not look on any changes kindly.
...
"We're going to have to clamp down even stronger on our border if you liberalize and contribute to what we consider a drug tourism problem," he said.

"I don't want to get to the point where we're calling for a boycott of Canadian products."

This sort of thing strikes me as exactly the sort of disagreement where Canada could apply rulings of the WTO and such to fight these trade restrictions, unless of course the American gov't claims that somehow pot decriminalization is an economic advantage for Canada...

Mind you, not that it's stopped them from jerking around the Canadian softwood lumber industry, or establishing subsidies for US Steel and such....

*sigh* So much stupid news...
posted by Greg at 1:10 PM

Welcome to my little corner of the world. This is where I'll post my various rants, so as not to piss off all my Zone 12 friends by venting my spleen there.

Not sure how long this will last here, as having the blog hosted on a box of my own is probably advantageous, I just have to get it up and running.
posted by Greg at 7:26 AM