renaissance poisson

i would kindly invite mr preston manning to come to BC next to help us finish off our conservatives.

no big surprises. but i guess voting in a US election, even if i could, would present a huge problem:



the good news is that the paramour, while 3 pts to my right economically, is only 0.56 pts to my right socially. i rub off. ;)

the also -- by now -- unsurprising fact that obama is just slightly less authoritarian and socially progressive than mitt romney is probably something that by now no longer escapes any but the blindest apologists. that's pretty much my own biggest failure of the decade when it comes to political assessment before he got elected the first time. the whole "hope" razzle-dazzle managed to fool me thoroughly.

from the political compass.

happy internet freedom day.

i don't know how "free" it really is, considering certain regime restrictions and crackdowns, and i am anything but happy at this point, but i guess it's worth celebrating that SOPA, PIPA (and ACTA) didn't pass, and that we threw a small wrench into the attempts by greedy and authoritarian scum to destroy the internet.

best election summation i've seen yet. she is just amazing, a brilliant political analyst.



[*] in the soc.singles.moderated sense, not the actual marriage sense.

i'm watching al jazeera's US election coverage.

because it has glenn greenwald. OMG. can you imagine a US mainstream news network having glenn greenwald commenting on the elections?

but it's more interesting anyway. fewer blowhards, more reportage. and so many cool accents.

i'm mostly staying away from it, but if the alternative is kate middleton's bared breasts...

so the mass media is in an uproar over romney's "47%" bit. (if you live under the same comfy rock where i am normally curled up, he was secretly taped at a closed, wealthy donor fundraiser, where he spouted a lot of really lovely crap, see [*] for verbatim quote about this particular bit).

and i gotta say, i see why the uproar is handy, of course (and a nice present for the obama campaign), but it's not like this is news. isn't this what the right wing has been flogging for more than a year already? hasn't there been some anti-"occupy" reference like "we're the 53%" from them? ok, so it's news that the candidate for the presidency said it, with the addendum that he doesn't worry about these people (which will be taken out of context, but he clearly meant it in regards to his election strategy)(well, "out of context" -- i think romney does in actuality not care about most people, but he wouldn't ever say that out loud as president, or act overtly as if he believes it. heck, maybe he doesn't even realize it.).

so some people say "stick a fork in him, he's done". and i say "alas, no".

because his base will gobble it up. seriously. they think it's poor people driving the US to the brink (nothing could be further from the truth, but truth was a victim of republican talking points long ago). they're dead set against helping poor people, because they think they're lazy freeloaders. they have become a lot less compassionate than they were even under reagan (who started the whole "welfare queen" malarkey). they don't recognize who these 47% are. since i know how to, uh, quack (using duckduckgo as my search engine), i looked it up, to be sure i had actual data instead of gut feelings: most of the 47% pay other taxes, just not federal income tax -- they simply don't make enough for the latter. but they pay sales taxes, payroll taxes, state income taxes, etc. most of them are not lazy, shiftless bums lying on their couches eating government bonbons, they're working in menial jobs where they barely make ends meet because they also have children. or they are retired, after a working life of, well, not being a corporate raider; the 47% includes many seniors. the idea that they're not taking responsibility for their lives is preposterous.

and a huge part of his base don't even realize that they are quite possibly part of these 47%. they just don't think of themselves as lazy victims, dependent on government handouts, unlike those obama voters.

so no, romney's not gonna lose those voters. not a chance. in fact he might fire them up some, which he badly needs, since they're not that excited about him. well, maybe a few seniors will stay at home, the ones who're already worried about medicare and medicaid.

he's just not gonna win any undecideds. but i doubt there are many of those left. how can anyone still be undecided? it's not like the republicans are actually fiscally conservative; they just prefer to direct their welfare at the corporate sector. of all the people to rail about debt, romney is their champion? romney, who made his fortune off pushing companies into debt? romney, who has never created anything, and who got his own personal bailout for bain? why paul ryan isn't throwing up every time he looks at him, is a mystery. or hell, not so much. he's a republican; hypocrisy comes with the territory these days.

i mean, for me obama has been a crushing disappointment, but if i could vote, i'd vote for him 10 times over romney. people are supposed to become more conservative as they grow older, but so far it looks like the opposite is true for me. i used to have respect for some republicans, but that group is tiny now, and most of them have already left the party.

last but not least, romney saying anything at all about people not paying taxes? the irony, it slays me.

[*] “There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right? There are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. …. These are people who pay no income tax. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax. So our message of lower taxes doesn’t connect. So he’ll be out there talking about tax cuts for the rich. I mean, that’s what they sell every four years.

And so my job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

jack layton dead at 61.

fuck cancer.

from avaaz.org:

As the world mounts a desperate effort to stop catastrophic global warming in Copenhagen, Canada should be leading the way. Instead, we're receiving global "fossil awards" for wrecking this crucial summit! And new leaked documents show that while the entire world is increasing cuts to carbon emissions, the government is secretly planning roll back ours.

At the Bali climate summit in 07, a massive national outcry forced Harper to stop blocking the talks. But the oil companies that PM Harper works for know that Copenhagen is the make or break moment for climate. It will not be easy to win this time, but to save the planet and our country we have to.

Let's mount a tidal wave of pressure on Harper with the largest petition in Canadian history - click below to sign:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/harper_enough_is_enough/98.php?CLICK_TF_TRACK

if you're not a member of avaaz yet, and you care about global issues such as climate change, poverty, human rights, you might want to sign up for their alerts. they keep track of what's going on better than i could, and they've never spammed me with unrelated stuff.

so fictionwise has a new ebook reader for sale. the small print says "Items not shippable to Cuba, Iran, Syria or North Korea."

because... WE DON'T WANT THE AXIS OF EVIL TO READ?

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i am cold. time to bring firewood inside, and clean out the wood stove.

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today in palintological news:

the woman of the people who travels the country in her bus, always looks so fresh and full of energy because she ... doesn't actually TRAVEL in her bus as she's claimed. no, she goes rogue in a chartered jet to an airport near the next book signing, hops on the bus, and then makes her grand entrance as if she'd been on it all along.

she is such a pathological liar. nobody would give a damn whether she flies!