I've even raped and killed a mountain panda in the hills of Shaanxi.

See that pointy bit up there? I think that's 2008, least that's what the scale made me assume. There are many reasons not to vote for Obama*, but driving up America's debt isn't one of them, actually.**

* There have been very few policy changes since 2001 in general. Some, like abortion being legal, are good; others, like the Patriot Act, are not so good. But I'd vote for Dubya before a professed Mormon. At least I know he's done drugs!

** Not that the President actually has that much of anything to do with increasing the deficit or revenue (the latter of which hasn't really gone up).

On a slightly different note, I'll quote Bill Hicks, even though it has nothing to do with the GDP, but everything to do with America:

"They say we're losing the War on Drugs. You know what that means? The drug users are winning! And we're all fucked up on drugs!"

Duke Rape Case a Travesty

basically, despite lack of substantial evidence, the DA went ahead to win the black vote.

I love America.

edit: No wait I love Mexico.

So I sort of attempted to kind of read Dude Where's My Country? last night, but it was highly depressing. I mean, yeah, some of it is outright made up, but all the 9-11/Afghanistan shit was just.. I mean, I knew it, but it's kind of different to have read articles over the past 4 years, and have them all together in a compendium. I'm cynical enough not to be shocked that the government and corporations are colluding, but idealistic enough to not want to see examples. Anyway, I read some Terry Pratchett afterwards and relaxed enough to fall asleep.

The dialysis bits were pretty funny though.

[disclaimer: i have not and probably won't see F911]

"If we formally gave up enforcing rules on immigration then over a few decade period the United States would grow to have a population of about 1.8 billion people. One has to be a lunatic to want such an outcome. Therefore it is not implausible that Bush and the neocons want exactly that. Why? They have faith in the most foolish ideas and consider embracing such ideas a virtue."

(source)

There's not been as much rhyme or reason on my democracy poll, except the more cynical people seem to think it's a bad idea and vice versa. But it's not that tight a correlation. Perhaps I phrased it badly, but I think if you vote for people to run the government, they should just run it and not ask the people every time a new issue comes up. The only time direct democracy comes close to working, as Asa said, is in a really small group of people. In Parliament of Whores, PJ O'Rourke goes to a town meeting in his small New England base of operations, and it's utter chaos. Probably fewer people than Congress, too.

---

Last night we watched the first part of Guns, Germs, and Steel. It's pretty similar to the book so far, except that they have some new archaelogists showing the earliest granaries and villages around the Mesopotamia area. Has anyone read that anti-agriculture rant? It's kind of weird since in the book he postulates that agriculture led to free time which led to CIVILIZATION. Maybe he's lost his mind.

---

Hey, no-fault laws increased divorce. WHAT A SHOCKER!

Yesterday the HoR voted in favor of an anti-flag burning amendment, the SCOTUS decided against the 5th amendment, and new anti-porn legislation went into effect.

I think I killed my brain with Scrabble. It was actually about 2 hours before we gave up. Hardcore man. I also baked a cake, and finally got my teapot. Boy, that was annoying. If an ebay seller only accepts BidPay, kids, don't DO IT. It's a nice little teapot though.

people who try to talk about economics as if it were a zero-sum game are very, very, very annoying.

woah.

There's a scene in Stalag 17 where the men in the prison camp play a record of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home." I asked Reg why such a cheery song had such a depressing tune behind it. He said it was from the Civil War. But really, it's from long before that. The lyrics were totally spin-doctored.