Some brief thoughts on debates 1 and 3

Well, I just caught the third debate on TV then immediately watched the first from video off the internet (which I hadn’t seen yet) – I do want to watch the second at some point as well, but after three full hours of presidential debates… I am done for now!

Generally speaking, I think that Kerry did a better job of actually answering the questions asked. Bush relies much more on repetition, answering each and every question asked with the same answer – regardless if it made sense or not in order to drive home a point.

In the first debate, Dubya harped on the point that Kerry is a flip flopper. He worked it in every answer that he was resolute and that Kerry was a flip flopper.

In the third debate regardless of the question – Bush’s answer was education and "no child left behind". When asked about jobs and economic development – "no child left behind" was the answer. When asked about healthcare – "no child left behind" was the answer. When asked about raising the minimum wage – "no child left behind" was the answer…

Finally, in the conspiracy theory department, I thought this was pretty funny (this link too)… apparently, the story goes that in the first debate Dubya was wearing a wireless receiver and was being fed the answers by an offsite team of Republicans. After watching the first debate, this theory sure does answer a lot of questions…

Canadian Speed

The posted speed limits in Canada are just too damn slow… and the worse thing is that Canadian cops are *soo* much better at enforcing the speeding laws than American ones are.

YVR

Sparrows in the airport
I have been doing some travelling this past weekend up to Canada. Some observations from the Vancouver airport from where I had *quite* a bit of time to kill…

  1. I couldn’t believe that I actually saw sparrows inside the airport. It seemed a little scary that after all the security that you had to go through to enter the international transit lounge, it was still apparently porous enough to still allow birds to fly in and out. It raises the spectre of nuclear tipped Al Qaeda sparrows of mass destruction…
  2. I really like the Vancouver airport because while it is very new and shiny, it retains it’s personality. It is very distinctly Canadian and doesn’t look like so many identical airports in Europe and Asia.
  3. It seems to me that they would sell more porn if the newsstands weren’t staffed only by young cute girls.

Talk Radio

I thought that as soon as you called up and pledged to public radio (like the annoying man told me to), the irritating pledge drive was supposed to end *immediately* (ok, well maybe not thought that, but wished it). Since that’s not how it works, I have been forced to expand my range of commute hour talk radio (until the pledge drives *do* actually end).

I generally listen to NPR because it produces intelligent (mostly) unbiased commentary and the people who call in aren’t total neanderthal morons. In comparison, most of the other talk radio that is broadcast is generally unimpressive. Making the rounds this is what I found:

  • I have always found Rush’s rantings entertaining in small doses, but I am not sure if he is no longer on the air because I can’t seem to find him
  • Howard Stern is entertaining in *very* small doses but is generally infantile and gets old quickly
  • Sarah and No Name spend all of their time talking about stupid useless bullshit
  • Michael Savage remains a xenophobic, racist, Nazi that I can’t deal with for even a second
  • Armstrong and Getty are mildly entertaining but have no real staying value
  • The biggest gem that I have found was Bill O’Reily’s show

What really won me over, in the first 15 minutes that I listened to O’Reilly, he said something that was actually intelligent. This was the first time on a non-public radio station that I had ever seen someone take a point, weigh the pros and cons and make a reasoned argument – I didn’t agree with his point, but that made me appreciate the way at which he went around going there all the more.

Unfortunately the moments of intelligence are few and far between and scattered among self-pitying whines about how he was cancelled from something or another or desperate self-praising pleads on how "only the Toledo times was intelligent enough to realize how great my show is while everyone just else ignored me" and there was a fair amount of other just general nonsense. However, compared to some of the tripe that is on the radio, it is not horrible.

While I am on the topic of political commentary, I think my buddy Kyong has some excellent comments on the Republican National Convention, although his "Girls of the right wing" commentary, gallery and survey are quite possibly the scariest thing that I have seen on the internet in the last month.

The Canada Files

This is one of those long running projects that I have been meaning to do for a while, but had always found enough actually important things to do to never have gotten around to it. It first came to mind when I was living in Canada, then becoming engaged to a Canadian and making subsequent trips back to the frozen north added fuel to the fire. Well finally, I have managed to procrastinate away enough important things to make time for this… a reasonable compilation of my rant, raves and observations of and in Canada.

And now presenting…

Salim’s World – The Canada Files

Bush gets soverized

Following is the transcript (video below as well) of President Bush being questioned at a gathering of minority journalists (the UNITY conference in Washington DC, August 6, 2004):

MARK TRAHANT: Mr. President, […] what do you think tribal sovereignty means in the 21st century and how do we resolve conflicts between tribes and the federal and state governments?

GEORGE BUSH: Tribal sovereignty means that, it’s sovereign. Ohhh, I get it! You’re a — you’re a — you have been given sovereignty and you’re viewed as a sovereign entity. It makes so much sense when explained like that!

MARK TRAHANT: Okay.

GEORGE BUSH: And therefore, the relationship between the federal government and tribes is one between sovereign entities. Wait, this is now the third time he said that Now, the federal government has got a responsibility on matters like education and security to help. And health care. And it’s a solemn duty. Wait, Dubya’s not answering the question From this perspective, we must continue to uphold that duty. I think that one of the most promising areas of all is to help with economic development, What? Economic development?? What does that have to do with the *meaning* of tribal sovereignty in the 21st century or the conflict with state and federal government?? and that means helping people understand what it means to start a business. That’s why the Small Business Administration has increased loans. It means, obviously, encouraging capital flows, Whew! Glad we have Dubya on the job to define what a loan is for us! but none of that will happen unless the education systems flourish and are strong. That’s why I told you, we spent $1.1 billion in reconstruction of Native American schools.

Afterwards, the Reverend Jesse Jackson held a news conference which he used to poke fun at Dubya.

BRENT MERRILL: As you saw today at the president’s conference, the leader of the free world does not understand tribal sovereignty. Ouch! What would you do in your estimation, Reverend, what would you do and how would you advise tribes to educate our folks, just exactly what tribal sovereignty is?

JESSE JACKSON: The President explained. You just didn’t understand. Sovereignty is sovereignty. You understand? It’s like in sovereignity. If you are on a reservation, you have been soverized. Your Ph.D. is in soverbication. You understand? I don’t think you understand. [laughs]

BRENT MERRILL: You’re right. I didn’t understand that.

Watch the video, it’s freakin’ hilarious!! The original transcript and streaming video are available too:

My only comment on this, is that this bumbling idiot has access to nucular weapons – if he asks nicely, he can even get access to the nuclear weapons. He has access to the most powerful military in the world. He sets the policy and tone for the largest economy in the world. Is he *really* the right guy for the job???

Now, one may make the argument that as president one can’t stay up to date on the issues of every single group in the country, and that would certainly be true. However, considering that one of the four groups that organized this press event was the Native American Journalists Association, this question, or one like it, should not have come as a surprise.

All of this leaves me really impressed with Dubya’s campaign machine. John Kerry has almost constantly been on the defensive about stupid trivial non-issues – many of which apply just as validly to Dubya. Kerry is completely unable to keep the conversation focused where *he* wants…

  • Flip flopping??? My god, did we not hear Dubya state in the 2000 presidential debates that he would avoid nation building and would use our military in a more sensible manner and not over-commit the military and that he valued smaller government??
  • Vietnam – regardless of whether or not Kerry threw away *all* of his medals or how much fire he actually came under while in Vietnam… he WENT TO VIETNAM… willingly… voluntarily. What did Dubya do? Well, all we know is that he is really defensive about it and won’t tell anyone.

If we are going to talk about stupid issues like the above, why can’t the Kerry people keep the big picture in the front of mind… like THE CURRENT PRESIDENT IS A BUMBLING IDIOT… and not let themselves get dragged down into esoteric details.

Oh enough ranting…

To finish, let’s review…

Word:

sovereignty

Definition:
  1. It’s sovereign
  2. If you’re on a reservation, you’ve been soverized
  3. A study of sovereignty is soverbication
Word:

increased loans
Definition:
  1. encouraging capital flows

SF Wedding reception pics

The miserable photographer took many multiple months to actually deliver the pictures to us, and it took us repeated attempts to get the CD of pictures from them. Despite a professional setup and friendly staff, the quality of many of the pictures and most of the prints were sub-standard (especially for a professional) and we ended up feeling like we would have been better off just giving a camera to one of our friends.

Overall our experience with Image Arts Etc located on Main street in downtown Los Altos was just terrible and we strongly urge people to run, not walk away from them.

Actually, before you run away – please go inside their store, ask to use their bathroom and leave a big smelly dump in the toilet without flushing. We would appreciate it. 😉

Terrorists, prostitutes and Communists, oh my!

My wife is filling out immigration forms for the INS (or USCIS or BCIS or immigration.com or Department of Homeland Security or CIS or whatever the *hell* they are called these days!) and part 3 of the I-485 form, asks a series of truly thought-provoking questions (*my* first thought being, what the f**k are these guys thinking??).

Following is a sample of some of the questions that are asked to each and every person applying for permanent residence in the United States (really, I am not making this up – see page 6 of the i-485 form:

  1. Have you ever:
    1. within the past ten years been a prostitute or procured anyone for prostitution, or intend to engage in such activities in the future?
  2. Have you ever engaged in… sabotage, kidnapping, political assassination, hijacking or any other form of terrorist activity?
  3. Do you intend to engage in the U.S. in:
    1. espionage?
    2. any activity a purpose of which is opposition to, or the control of overthrow of, the government of the United States, by force, violence or other unlawful means?
  4. Have you ever been a member of, of in any way affiliated with, the Communist Party or any other totalitarian party?
  5. Have you ever engaged in genocide…?
  6. Do you plan to practice polygamy in the U.S.?

These are questions that the government expects truthful answers to??? Additionally, question 6 baffles me – what is that still doing here? Are we really still scared of communists, do we feel that they still pose a threat to this country? Last I checked the cold was over and we won!

However, the silver lining is, who knew that the war on terror could be so easy? Someone should tell John Ashcroft of the existence of these questions immediately. He will undoubtedly have all of the immigrant spies, terrorists, prostitutes and Communists rounded up shortly!

<sigh> our tax dollars at work…

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me

What is with the Republican party that they repeatedly elect people so dumb that they sound like elementary school dropouts?? Starting with Dan Quayle and continuing with George Dubya, people have filled entire books with idiotic, incorrect or just plain dumb things they say???

Recall the phrase "Fool me once shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me" – the below link is Dubya’s eloquent personal interpretation of said quote… come on, are we going to continue to give this man access to nucular… I mean nuclear 😉 weapons!!!

Remember, a vote for George Dubya, is another vote for this guy as leader of the most powerful country in the world: