Entries tagged with current events

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From the department of good news, but isn't it kinda late?

The Department of Education has finally ruled that university gag orders on rape victims -- if you want us to investigate, you can't talk to anyone, even your parents -- are, who would have thought, violations of federal law. UVA said this was about protecting student privacy, and necessary to comply with FERPA, but fortunately the Department of Education finally saw through that. (Don't read the comments on the article; it will hurt.)

The case was based on a University of Virginia rule, but UVA is hardly the only place that has had such a requirement -- several American universities have attempted to protect their reputation as "safe" at the expense of rape victims, who are sometimes told by boards of inquiry that they can be expelled for talking about their cases. If protecting the reputation of the university involves harming rape victims, so be it.¹

Other relevant links:
A story at the SAFER blog in which an Adelphi University alum talks about the obstacles to reporting rape, and her university's gag order.
Abyss2Hope's discussion of some of the social consequences of the gag order.

¹ At my undergraduate university, in fact, various administrators frequently tried to keep women from reporting sexual assault -- one administrator tried to get rid of the anonymous sexual assault help line; she said that the rape counselor had to get the student's name and make her name her assailant or she couldn't take the call. This might've been legally true, I dunno, but there was no excuse for this: When this drove down the number of calls significantly, she then tried to use it as evidence of a reduced rate of sexual assault on campus, claiming that my university was one of the safest in the state.

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Best! sentence! ever!

So the campus republican club proposed a concealed-carry resolution before the student assembly. (Apparently forgetting that guns on campuses are forbidden by the state legislature, which would make it kinda hard for the undergraduate student assembly to pass said resolution. But whatever! People have the right to bear arms everywhere, right? I mean, private buildings, public buildings, places of employment -- you can take concealed carry with you where ever you want to protect yourself, right? RIGHT? Oh.)

And this is what the Chair of the College Republicans said about the issue: "People can bring guns onto campus illegally, but if someone wants to follow the law legally, they cannot."

No, really.

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(no subject)

So I was reading a New Yorker article about Krystian Bala, a Polish author accused of murder, and I came across the following paragraph and was just -- boggled. One of these sentences is not like the others, guys:

Bala cast himself as an enfant terrible who sought out what Foucault had called a "limit-experience": he wanted to push the boundaries of language and human existence, to break free of what he deemed to be the hypocritical and oppressive "truths" of Western society, including taboos on sex and drugs. Foucault himself was drawn to homosexual sadomasochism. Bala devoured the work of Georges Bataille, who vowed to "brutally oppose all systems" and who once contemplated carrying out human sacrifices; and William Burroughs, who swore to use language to "rub out the word"; and the Marquis de Sade, who demanded, "O man! Is it for you to say what is good or what is evil?" Bala boasted about his drunken visits to brothels and his submission to temptations of the flesh. He told friends that he hated "conventions" and was "capable of anything," and he insisted, "I will not live long but I will live furiously!"

Now, okay, I'd like to smack the author of this article for other reasons, yes, but the sentence there that begins "Foucault himself?" Dude, what does that have to do with this paragraph, which is about things-Bala-read-that-he-liked? Did he READ about Foucault's sex life? No evidence of same here! What then does Foucault's sex life have to do with Bala reading about limit-experiences? Nothing, except that this is already an article about the ways Bala was influenced by postmodernism to ignore "truth" and "morality" and only do language games and thus kill people, and sadomasochism seems similarly edgey, dubious, and weird.

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facepalm

No, seriously *facepalm* here, guys. Because... in the state of Virgina, the Republicans have decided to make a loyalty oath part of their primary I am so not kidding. People voting in the primary will have to sign a form indicating that they will vote for the Republican candidate in November, no matter who wins the primary! I mean! Guys! WHAT THE FUCK. I don't care that it's non-binding -- it is so fucking ridiculous that there are no WORDS.

From The Roanoke Times and Salon.com's War Room.

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Bay Area

So I was giving a bunch of Bay Area sports blogs a quick once-over this morning, and checking out various links. (Links, for example, where fans discuss Baron Davis' sartorial choices. I guess because it's sorta trying to keep within the NBA dress code while still expressing individuality.)

And I ended up at youtube, checking out a vid that's sorta Oakland-against-the-world, paralleling the criticisms of J-Rich and the Warriors and New Bay hip-hop. I basically just embed this video for

fiatlouis. *g*

As one is wont to do, I clicked on some of the related links, most of which were crap. But one of them was set to Zion I's "The Bay." And one of the related links to that was ... holy shit, I said, is that really a music video for "The Bay?" Or is it somebody's mix? And no, no, that's Zion I's "The Bay." I didn't even know it had a music video, so I have to share it with everybody in the known world.

... and while I was typing this, I checked sfgate, and holy shit. That is an oil tanker that blew up and MELTED the upper deck of a freeway overpass. WTF.

Awesome, but random: Wikipedia has a page called WP: BALEET that redirects to the wikipedia deletion policy page. Ha!

ETA: Speaking of embedding, apparently we expect "LOCALLY HEAVY RAINFALL...AND EMBEDDED THUNDERSTORMS" here tomorrow. Per the National Weather Service. Embedded thunderstorms? Embedded in what?

Current Music: Buzzcocks - Everybody's Happy Nowadays

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a random Monday list

Best headlines of the day:

"Pomos wary of superfund."
My first take: postmodernists don't like superfund sites? Who huh wha ... Oh, oh! Pomo Indians. Right!"

"Study: Don't get divorced or fired."
Apparently they're bad for your mood, according to the subhead. Really? Whoda thunk?

"Developer condemns city." (In the Philadelphia Inquirer.)
Me: "the whole thing? Oh, wait. They mean city hall." Lo, I am slow on the first DST weekday.

***
Life goals:

One day, when I produce a TV show (I don't know how I'd get there from here, but that's irrelevant), I will commission an amnesia episode. You know, like the famous amnesia clip shows of yore (due South, I am so looking at you). Except that all the stories we frame as big, important stories... will be clips we've never seen before. It will be fabulous! It'll be the anti-clip show, with "flashbacks." You know you want to subvert the clip show, too! None of the "he was dreaming!" "he had amnesia!" "he was on trial!" "but it's not really a clip show, because we dubbed in new dialogue!" crap.

***

This is quite possibly the most hilarious quote regarding DADT ever. Regarding, of course, Matt Sanchez, the Marine Corps Times informs us that officials are "unable to confirm whether Sanchez had enlisted prior to the end of his film career or if Reserve Marines were prohibited from doing porn when not in a drilling status." These are important questions, yo! If you're a Reserve Marine, and you're not drilling, and you're in some gay porn: does that violate DADT?

Man, DADT: how are you so completely ridiculous? GOD.

But, on the other hand, think how useful this information might be to people who write in SGA.

( Aside )

***

And one last link for those of you who, like me, are bitter about this whole stupid thing where Daylight Savings starts earlier and ends later: a University of California study, based on the Australian case, that argues that pushing DST back into winter actually increases energy use. Rather than putting daylight hours when we use them, it puts dark hours when we wake up -- so we get up, turn on the heater, the lights all over the house, and so on. And this turns morning into a peak-load time, increasing the prices of electricity in the morning. Yeah, a nice "free" way to conserve energy? Bite me, Congress.

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News makes me cranky

Today, in The Bush Administration Argues Like A Five Year Old, the EPA will be presenting the following case to the Supreme Court: Greenhouse gases aren't airborne pollutants so they're not legally subject to our regulation. And even if they were pollutants, regulation would be too big of a step because it might cause more harm than good. (No explanation provided for same.) Also, regulating greenhouse gases is unfair to the USA, because the problem is global, so the developing countries get a free ride while we do expensive regulation. (Note from the bench: who is the world's largest producer of greenhouse gases? Hint: it's not India. Or China. Or any developing country.) Oh, and anyway, there's dispute about the causes of global warming so it wouldn't matter if greenhouse gases were pollutants because the EPA can't be expected to regulate without all the data. (One might then ask about the global-warming-global-causes logic statement.)

Okay, look, EPA and Justice Department guys: arguments that rely on a lot of "and, and, even if I had hit him, it would have been in self-defense?" Yeah, we laugh at those on CSI.

***

Oh, and people are talking about getting AH-nold to run against Barbara Boxer in the next California Senate race. PAH. Barbara Boxer = made of win. AH-nold = sucktastic but with really good image people. Voters = frequently idiots. "Arnold will kick ass! He's the Terminator!" You want someone to kick ass, you should have nominated his stunt double. DOUBLE PAH.

***

Jon Carroll, on the other hand, makes an effective argument in his discussion of the Warren Jeffs and FLDS trial. He does not make me cranky at all! Except, okay, he talks about the defense's argument that a fourteen year old girl was "happy" in her marriage and sometimes "volunteering" for sex to get to leave the house, so it clearly wasn't rape. And the very existence of that argument? Makes me CRANKY.

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Ann Coulter: Bill Clinton a latent homosexual

Okay, I am posting way too much today, but ... I can't leave this transcript of an Ann Coulter interview alone.

Sample discussion, c&ped from Wonkette's transcript:

Ms. COULTER: I think that sort of rampant promiscuity does show some level of latent homosexuality.
DEUTSCH: OK, I think you need to say that again. That Bill Clinton, you think on some level, has — is a latent homosexual, is that what you’re saying?
Ms. COULTER: Yeah. I mean, not sort of just completely anonymous — I don’t know if you read the Starr report, the rest of us were glued to it, I have many passages memorized. No, there was more plot and dialogue in a porno movie.

And it gets weirder! Again c&ped: "Ms. COULTER: No. I think anyone with that level of promiscuity where, you know, you — I mean, he didn’t know Monica’s name until their sixth sexual encounter. There is something that is — that is of the bathhouse about that." It's all so mind-boggling that I could have easily cut and pasted the whole darn thing here. I mean! Ann Coulter's assertion that promiscuity = "obsession with your own — with your own essence" and is "reminiscent of a bathhouse."

Go read it and stare in astonishment. (Watch out for the comments, though, as there are a number of sex and sexuality-based ad hominem attacks on Ann Coulter. I mean, she makes no sense, and I call her stuff bullshit all the time, but some of the comments contain content that I find pretty darn offensive.)

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It's not prejudice, it's "rational."

From the NY courts document:

"Our conclusion that there is a rational basis for limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples leads us to hold that that limitation is valid under the New York Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses, and that any expansion of the traditional definition of marriage should come from the Legislature."

Then they go into a bunch of stuff about Due Process and Equal Protection, but that's not the hinge point, for me. Nor is it the hinge point of the decision. "Rational." That's the word that pisses me off. And it's the basis of their decision: "Where no fundamental right is at issue, legislation is valid under the Due Process Clause if it is rationally related to legitimate government interests." Emphasis mine.

They're not just putting it off on the legislature, not just saying that it's not unconstitutional because of the way the law is written. That would be awful, but wouldn't make me as angry as this does. Because they're saying that there are rational reasons to keep me from getting married.

Those rational reasons appear to be:
1. Opposite-sex couples are more likely to have children accidentally, so we could say that it was valid to reward them for that and that "[the legislature] could find that an important function of marriage is to create more stability and permanence in the relationships that cause children to be born. It thus could choose to offer an inducement -- in the form of marriage and its attendant benefits -- to opposite-sex couples who make a solemn, long-term commitment to each other." That is, apparently marriage is a bribe to encourage us to have kids, or to make couples who have an unexpected pregnancy stay together. Because the on-purpose pregnancies of same-sex couples don't need encouragement. Or something.

"The Legislature could find that unstable relationships between people of the opposite sex present a greater danger that children will
be born into or grow up in unstable homes than is the case with same-sex couples, and thus that promoting stability in opposite sex
relationships will help children more." -- Right. Because prohibiting some parents from getting married will help children "more" than letting all parents form a "stable" relationships. And they don't really address this; they say "Our earlier discussion demonstrates that the
definition of marriage to include only opposite-sex couples is not irrationally underinclusive." That is, it doesn't fail to include same-sex couple with kids for any irrational reason, but for a rational one: bribery.

2. "Plaintiffs seem to assume that they have demonstrated the irrationality of the view that opposite-sex marriages offer advantages to children by showing there is no scientific evidence to support it. Even assuming no such evidence exists, this reasoning is flawed. In the absence of conclusive scientific evidence, the Legislature could rationally proceed on the common-sense premise that children will do best with a mother and father in the home."

Yep, common sense trumps science any day. Give me a nice significance test, with big sample sizes and good statistics, that demonstrates no apparent difference in the children of same- and opposite- sex marriages, and I'll just say "well, but common sense says..." Ahhh, the refusal to act until you have "conclusive" evidence. Please note that the majority opinion justices are not saying that they did not see evidence; they are denying that said evidence was "conclusive." (Also they are saying that evidence that the children of opposite-sex couples are better off could exist, which kinda boggles the mind, because the defendants would totally have used same in their case if they could've.)

I'm probably overreacting. But just. That word. "Rational." Gnargh.

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Totally random post

Yes, this is one of those posts that happens when your in-progress file gets too big, weird, and disconnected to do anything with. So why not just post the whole darn thing at once?

Weirdest BEA schwag:

Jelly Belly gummi rat from Coffee House Press. Nothing to do with anything, near's I can tell.
Magnetic Poetry's BEA-themed magnetic poetry, featuring words like schwag and tired and not and another and catalogue.
Red back massage thingy from Elloras Cave.
Inexplicable green alligator filled with water. I don't even remember where it's from. Or why anyone would advertise a book with a squishy water-filled alligator.

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So I read Interpretation of Murder, which is... well, it features Freud, and I find the practice of Freudian psychology kinda funny, so it's hard for me to accept it as a thriller. I mean, totally ridiculous dialogue during psychiatric appointments, and Jung and Freud arguing about the supernatural, and Oedipal complexes in Shakespeare, and then at the same time, thriller. With standard death!porn -- you know, the bits where we see a murder from the murderer's pov, and don't give the victim a name, but call her "the young girl" or whatever. Bleh.

The basic problem is that this book doesn't fit in its genre, or even know what the genre is. (You have to know what the genre is to play with it.) I expected it to be a puzzle-thriller: the PR material was all about solving puzzles in Shakespeare and that sort of thing, so I figured it would be the da Vinci Code (which I, um, haven't read) except with Shakespeare and serial killers and Freud. I did not expect the puzzle to be "why does Hamlet act in some instances, and yet find himself incapable of acting on his uncle?" Especially since this puzzle is solved entirely without dialogue or investigation: it's a thought-puzzle in the mind of the narrator. Note to author: thought-puzzles do not make puzzle thrillers.

(Also, there's a bit where they talk about a psychiatrist sleeping with his patient, and there's already been a lot of dialogue about 19th century neurologists are just using sex as a cure, so. It's like the author's trying trying to do both the 19th and 20th century "nervous disorder" cures at once: The talking cure and orgasms. Ickitas.)

*
... they even made fandom_wank. Not that that takes much on slow wank days. Slow wank days. Heh. -- talking to friede about audiography

*

Totally disgusting discovery of the day: the Left Behind game. It's... I have no words. Since I have no words, I have attempted to share the horror with everyone I know. For example:

eruthros: Oh lordy. Have you seen the PR stuff about the Left Behind game?

friede: noooo

eruthros: Basically you wander the streets of New York with many large guns, trying to convert or kill Jews, pagans, Buddhists, gays, etc.

friede: ...

eruthros: And these people call themselves Christians!

friede: seriously. gar

eruthros: In fact, they protest against violent video games and how they make kids violent!

eruthros: And. Wah.

friede: *pets*

eruthros: posts link to Left Behind Games' website

eruthros: You can even play it MULTIPLAYER and try to take territory from other players!

friede: omg

eruthros: When presumably you're all trying to, you know, convert folks, apocolypse, blahblah etc. And yet.

eruthros: I AM SO HORRIFIED I HAVE RUN OUT OF WORDS.

friede: also AHHHHH

eruthros: Left Behind was creepy enough before it was, like, Grand Theft Soul.

Also? In this game the UN is a tool of the antichrist. Jesus Mary Mother of God. I ask you. And this, from the president of a Christian marketing organization: "I would assume, if there is violence, it's the cosmic struggle of good versus evil, not gratuitous violence." Right. Of course. It's not gratuitous! You're just killing all the Jews 'cause it's the end times! WAH. From the LA Times: "Ralph Bagley, a spokesman for the Christian Game Developers Foundation in San Diego, said he had seen demand for Christian games grow as parents rejected the escalating violence and explicit sex in mainstream games." And this is... not part of the escalating violence?

Also? Also? Look at what Michael Pachter, an analyst for the investment bank WedbushMorgan, said about this game: "The reason that I think this game has a chance is that it's not particularly preachy. ... I will say some of the dialogue is pretty lame —people saying, 'Praise the Lord' after they blow away the bad guys. I think they're overdoing it a bit. But the message is OK." BUT THE MESSAGE IS OKAY? BUT THE MESSAGE IS OKAY? I swear, I'm going to have an aneurysm over here, if that's what people think is a reasonable message.

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Twenty-five years

Tomorrow, June 5th, 2006, is the 25th anniversary of the first publication about AIDS deaths in the United States. On June 5th, Dr. Michael Gottlieb, an immunologist, wrote up a set of patient histories for the CDC's Morbity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR): "in the period October 1980-May 1981, 5 young men, all active homosexuals, were treated for biopsy-confirmed Pneumocytis carinii pneumonia at 3 different hospitals in Los Angeles, California." Later, he said: "I thought this might be bigger than Legionnaire’s disease.” (You can see his write-up of those patients here.)

By the July 4th MMWR, clusters of Kaposi's sarcoma and Pneumocytis carinii pneumonia were being reported in San Francisco and New York. The cluster of Kaposi's sarcoma was also reported in the New York Times in July. The article contained this, now infamous, quote: "Dr. Curran said there was no apparent danger to non homosexuals from contagion. 'The best evidence against contagion', he said, 'is that no cases have been reported to date outside the homosexual community or in women.'" (The article is reprinted at the bottom of this page.)

Previous cases exist: HIV was found in the blood samples of a man from the Congo, taken in 1959. It was found in the tissue samples of a 15-year-old male prostitute who died of Kaposi's sarcoma in 1969. It was found in the tissue samples of a Norwegian sailor and his wife, who died in 1976. Of a Danish surgeon who died in 1977. But the literature of the AIDS epidemic, the AIDS epidemic as a concept, and the beginning of the CDC's public health response to what was later named AIDS, began with that list of five gay men, all previously healthy, all with no "clinically apparent underlying immunodeficiency." (From the editorial note in the MMWR.)

I really, really don't want to cut-tag this list, but I think someone will kill me if I don't, so. ( Twenty-five years - Rest in peace )

Please feel free to add names in the comments.

And the more than twenty-five million people around the world who have died of complications of AIDS since 1981.

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Random!

1. From this axcessnews article on gay parents and the Easter events at the White House:

Rueben Israel, 43, of Los Angeles, flew in for the protest, knowing the homosexual families would attend the event. He demonstrated with electric cables how he saw those relationships as not being right in God's eyes.
"This doesn't work," he said, holding two yellow cables by their plugs and pushing them together.
He then turned one plug around so it would fit into the socket: "This works."

*rolls eyes* Ah, the "God created extension cords as exemplars of the ideal human relationship" theory. In this theory, I suppose, God created humans in his image in 1904, when electrical plugs were patented. (Though that too proves problematic: who then patented the plug?) Either that or Harvey Hubbell is an unknown prophet. Or (my favorite) this man is NUTS. I mean, does he seriously believe that the gay people will go "shit! You're right, if we were extension cords, you couldn't plug us together! Clearly we are not natural!" without then thinking "wait, neither are extension cords..."?

2. Yesterday I accumulated much good karma. I got into the train station downtown early, so I stopped by Reading Terminal to buy something for lunch, and ran into a huge group of junior high and high school students who were in town for some debate thing and had been given ten minutes in groups of five or more to find and eat breakfast. Ten minutes! At Reading Terminal, which is largely closed at eight am! *thwaps adults involved* Anyway, I was at Met Bakery when one of the adults came by with a kid in a wheelchair, looking for coffee and pastries, and I let them in front of me in line for the pastries and pointed them toward Old City Coffee. And then I ran into a group of kids wandering the aisles and saying things like "well, if I wanted raw tuna for breakfast..." and "maybe I'll just get some juice..." and pointed them toward Le Bus Bakery, and then encountered a third set of kids, with one boy playing the John Sheppard countdown role ("we have five minutes! we have four minutes and fifty seconds!") in order to encourage the others, and pointed them to Met Bakery and a smoothie place. And then more students! All in all, I spent fifteen minutes at Reading Terminal, most of it saying "okay, head down this aisle to the end and then turn left, continue up five aisles and you'll be at a coffee place..." Poor kidlets.

3. I have this Vorkosigan universe/Stargate Atlantis crossover in my head. No, I don't know either. See, it starts mid-sentence, with Miles and Gregor suddenly aware of where they are, and John's doing his "McKay, we'll be dead in thirty seconds!" thing over his shoulder, and Miles is trying to find out where they are and what's going on and who kidnapped them and shoving Gregor behind him and drawing his stunner, and Rodney's ignoring them except to say things like "yes, yes, you can thank me for saving your lives later" and "it was nothing, now shut up -- or, wait, better, go on, distract the man with the shield generator! that's a brilliant idea!" because he's not listening to a word Miles says, and John can't look at them because he's firing out the door but he's still all "argue later, McKay," and Gregor just looks bemused because it's the weirdest kidnap/assassination attempt ever, and then Rodney manages to rig the Random Ancient Equipment to protect them all just as the wraith dart self-destructs.

And then everyone yells for a while, and Rodney keeps trying to persuade them that he wasted valuable seconds beaming them out of the wraith dart so they wouldn't die, and John politely doesn't mention that it was sort of his idea, though he probably wouldn't have mentioned it if he'd known how tight the timing was going to be, and of course Miles is a paranoid bastard and doesn't believe a word of it because it can't be demonstrated, the wraith dart having kaboomed and buried them in the ruined ancient wossname until Teyla and Ronon can dig them out, and he introduces himself as Lord Miles Vorkosigan of Barrayar, and of course John and Rodney don't know where that is, which leads to another incredulous and loud-volumed digression before Miles finally says "... and this is my friend Greg" (because, while he thinks they kidnapped Gregor on purpose, he's not positive, and why risk it) and McKay says "and does he ever talk?" and Gregor has to stifle laughter and eventually they all agree to keep on with the paranoia but stop the yelling, especially because Miles can't see any way out of the ruins, but he and Gregor keep having strategy conversations in Barrayaran Greek and Rodney keeps making snide comments about how stupid they are that they can't even recognize rescue. And eventually they get to the stargate to go back to Atlantis, and Miles insists on going first and makes Gregor wait for his confirmation that it won't kill them, and oh my god you see what I mean?

I even know what kind of AR the Vorkosigan-verse is: it's one where the Ancients never made it to the Milky Way, so there are no stargates, just natural wormholes, and thus there are no Goa'uld manipulating Ancient technology. And then there are conversations about whether the mirror can take them back to a universe in which that same mirror doesn't exist, and Miles is still being a suspicious bastard, and so on.

Seriously. Where did this come from?

4. I saw a girl today wearing camouflage flip-flops. With heels. And a little camo-tassel. Very disconcerting.

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Think John Waters on a skateboard...

From an officer of the Play and Film Control Board in the Bahamas, where BBM was just banned: "The board chose to ban it because it shows extreme homosexuality, nudity and profanity, and we feel that it has no value for the Bahamian public."

Query: what is "extreme homosexuality?"

Does it involve half-pipes?

Or snowboarding?

(Also, if "extreme" is meant to modify all three nouns, what is "extreme nudity?" I understood nudity to be an absolute.)

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Lies, damn lies, and statistics

Interesting comparisons of the day:

The latest CBS poll numbers for Bush and Cheney permit some interesting comparisons. Bush is hovering around 34% approval, the worst of his presidency; Cheney is down at 18% approval. So. The other polls are from Polling Report. My favorites are in bold.

Hovering right around George W., we have:
34% of Americans believe that the Bible is "the actual word of God and is to be taken literally" (Gallup 2004)
34% of Americans believe that rock music has had a negative impact on "society, culture, and values" (NBC 2002)
33% of Americans believe that "a wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband" (Fox 1998)
33% of Americans disapprove of labor unions (Gallup 2005)
33% of Americans are bothered "a lot" by homosexual characters and themes on tv.(Pew 2005)
29% of Americans believe that it is not possible to believe in God and evolution simultaneously. (CBS 2005)
27% of Americans believe that divorce is "morally wrong" (Gallup 2003)
26% of Americans believed that natural disasters in 1999 "may foreshadow the wrath of God" (Fabrizio 1999)

So... about thirty percent of the population thinks divorce is morally wrong, the Bible is literal, wives should submit to their husbands, et cetera et cetera et cetera. And about thirty percent of the population still approves of Bush's job performance. Coincidence? Hmmm.

(I wanted to add Darwin to this mess, but as of 2005 51% of Americans believe that God created humans in their present form. How sad is that?)

And circa Cheney:
22% of Americas believe that MLK Jr.'s birthday should not be a national holiday. (AP 2006)
20% of men believe that Viagra will be a bad thing for society overall (Gallup 1998)
18% of Americans think that young people don't have as strong a sense of right and wrong as they did fifty years ago (those whippersnappers!) (Pew Research 2005)
18% of Americans rate the honesty and ethics of lawyers "very high" (Gallup 2005)
14% of men think that being a woman confers more advantages than being a man in today's society (CBS 1999)
11% of American believe that the U.S. is not addicted to oil. (Pew 2006)
11% of Americans think that the Bush administration has a clear plan for keeping down the price of home heating oil and gas. (CBS 2005)
11% of Americans oppose any restrictions on human cloning. (LA Times 2003)
10% of Americans would would be willing to be filmed eating a rat for reality tv. (CNN 2000)

Notice how there's this cluster of People Who Believe Anything down there with that Cheney rating? I mean, apparently you can get ten to twenty percent of Americans to agree to anything. That does not bode well for Cheney.

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Yet another reason to love the Oakland A's

I always confuse Philadelphians when they ask me what my local sports teams are, because I'm from the East Bay. The Raiders aren't my team, even though they're closer -- the 49ers are further away, but when I was a kid they played smart, little-guy no-huddle football and were polite and had nice fans, so. And the A's are closer, but that's not why they're my team -- the Giants are big-money (and still lose), but the A's are locally-focused and community-minded. When I was younger, I'd do reading programs at all the local libraries, and get two A's tickets (bleachers, daytime games) for reading six books. And I got A's tickets for being on the honor roll. And they donated money to my school to prevent the libraries and athletic programs from closing post-school district bankruptcy. So they're obviously my team -- they're not just nearby, they're local. (A sentence that is reminding me of Cordelia's statement in the Buffy pilot that "when I go shopping, I have to have the most expensive thing. Not because it's expensive, but because it costs more." But I really am drawing a distinction.)

Anyway, they have recently done something that I think is really, really cool.

Environmentally conscious Oakland A's fans needn't feel guilty about tossing their plastic cups into trash cans at the McAfee Coliseum. They're being composted along with half-eaten hot dogs, cardboard food trays and used napkins. ...

The recyclable plastic cup program that started last month at Oakland A's games will be expanded to include all plastic utensils, plates and food containers not just for baseball games but for all events at the McAfee Coliseum and the neighboring arena.

"It's the right thing to do,'' said George Valerga of SMG Management Company, the facility manager for the Coliseum and arena.

The A's were happy to be the first in the country to launch the recycling expansion, said David Rinetti, vice president of stadium operations.

"We've always tried to be on the cutting edge of recycling out here,'' Rinetti said. "It helps us. It helps the environment.''

Awwwww! My local sports team may not be able to whup your local sports team, but they're way, way greener (and I'm not just talking about the jackets). *hugs local sports team*

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Astonishing poll facts

This poll from Quinnipiac University has some interesting numbers.

The most interesting, for me: American voters largely supports Roe v. Wade (63-33). (Considering that the Dems are supposed to have lost the Presidency based on right-to-life and "moral" issues... well.) But what's even more interesting: men support Roe v. Wade more'n women. (Men: 68-28. Women: 58-37.) Huh.

The most horrifying: 65% of respondents hadn't heard enough about Antonin Scalia to form an opinion about him or his politics. He's quoted all the time, he's been profiled left and right, and he's always the one where the news says "aaaaand Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the dissenting opinion."

Of course, this is only registered voters (and only 1100 of 'em). Still. Huh.

Also, 10% of registered Democrats want the Supreme Court to be more conservative, and 7% of Republicans want it to be more liberal. (Which reminds me of a very good B5 quote: "No, Vir, the universe is an evil place, but at least it has a sense of humor about the whole thing." Because. Really. We all know that labels suck, and all, but that seems a little weird even so.)

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Thoughts on the CA Recall...

What I hear most from people my age who are into Arnold for Governor is that "he'll kick the legislature's ass!" or that "he'll terminate the competition." When I say something, they say "but he's the Terminator!" That sort of thing. People seem to imagine him walking up to the capital dressed in black leather, kicking down the door, pulling a very big gun and Making Things Happen.

But this really doesn't make any sense at all, because Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn't do his own stunts, so he couldn't kick down the door on his own.

Clearly, we need an actor who does his own stunts. So. Jackie Chan for Governor!

Never mind that he's not a California resident and has shown no interest in running (the whole thing is already so ridiculous I doubt anyone would notice) -- he actually could break through the glass dome above the capital building, rappel down to the floor, do a running slide down the stairs, break through the door feet first, and then leap up and kick State Senator Pete Knight in the stomach, sending him flying through a window. Surely that makes him more qualified than Arnold!

I've decided to start a write-in campaign. ::g::