- An editorial in the Aspen Times Weekly claims that angry white men will dominate the 2008 election. What the Aspen Times Weekly fails to realize is that angry white men don’t have anyone to vote for.
- China will launch more than ten missions into space this year. This includes China’s first spacewalk. What does that mean fo the U.S.A.? It means that we’d better get our act together if we don’t want to see the moon claimed as a Chinese outpost. Of particular interest is that China will be launching a communications satellite for Venezuela (ahem, spy satellite). I guess China hopes that catering to an oil-rich country will prove beneficial to its economy in the long run. Perhaps the U.S. should shoot down the Venezuelan satellite rather than the one falling slowly to Earth.
- In other China-related news, the Chinese government is showing it understands the principles of free speech. Slapping a film making ban on a production team, prohibiting certain types of media, and restricting internet Web sites is a great way to show fitness in the human rights arena to the rest of the world. The content may be offensive (Having not watched it and only having a glib report from Reuters, who can say?), but the ability of a government to “wish” a problem away with prohibition has been shown to fail time and again throughout history. I won’t even open the whole free speech can of worms. You can insert my typical, cantakerous rant here.
- Fidel Castro resigns. I won’t link any news stories, because its all over the internet at this point, but what does that do for the United States? Nothing. We still have an embargo, we still have our awesome extra-territorial prison, and Cuba is still dirt poor. Cuba should have been a state. We won it fair and square (don’t remind me about yellow journalism) from the Spanish in 1898. It’s ours, precious.
- Can I ask everyone a question? WHY IS OUR CONGRESS SPENDING TIME ON STEROID USE IN BASEBALL? This gets a huge WTF from me. Isn’t Congress supposed to, you know, run the country or something? Don’t they have important issues to decide? Who cares if Clemens used steroids or HGH? If there was a policy at the time prohibiting their use, make him ineligible to hold records or go into the Hall of Fame. If there was no rule against it at the time, then shut up about it already and let our Congress get back to work doing something useful. It completely chaps my arse that my tax dollars are being spent on such a colossal media circus that is so outside of the scope of responsibility of our legislative body. Enough already.
Now Reading
Planned books:
- Dragonfly Falling (Shadows of the Apt 2) by Adrian Tchaikovsky
- A Dance with Dragons (Song of Ice and Fire) by George R.R. Martin
Current books:
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After America by John Birmingham
Recent books:
- The King of the Crags: The Memory of Flames, Book II by Stephen Deas
- The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan
- The Books of the South: Tales of the Black Company (Chronicles of the Black Company) by Glen Cook
- Chronicles of the Black Company by Glen Cook
- Neverwhere: A Novel by Neil Gaiman
Now Watching
Planned movies:
None
Current movies:
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![Let’s Kill Hitler [HD]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51hESmStH-L._SL160_.jpg)
Let’s Kill Hitler [HD] by Unknown
Recent movies:
- Fringe: The Complete Third Season [Blu-ray] by Unknown
- Castle: Seasons 1 by Bill Roe, Bryan Spicer, David Barrett, Dwight H. Little, Helen Shaver
- Unstoppable [Blu-ray] by Tony Scott
- The Walking Dead: Season One [Blu-ray] by Frank Darabont
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I agree with your first bullet. They (AWM) may be a factor in the upcoming election, but have no one to elect. The best that they can hope for is that neither McCain nor Huckabee acquires the magic number of delegates. This would open the field again to another selection of candidates… but even if such happened, who will stand up to represent them?
There will be a full lunar eclipse tonight (Feb 20), turning the moon (blood) red… are we sure China hasn’t already launched a lunar mission? True comm-sats are easy to identify. If the Venezuelan satellite makes it off the launch pad, and remains in geosynchronous orbit for more than a week, I’ll be impressed (on many levels). Venezuela is not the only oil-rich country that China is catering to, but I believe it is the only one in our hemisphere, and not terribly friendly to us in its current administration. I wonder, does the Monroe doctrine apply to space? After all, it is a Chinese rocket. I think it’s rather ironic that China (the culture that brought us gun-powder and rocketry) is entering space at such a late date. With all of the news of our planned shoot-down of our own orbit-failing satellite we’re putting the world on notice that we can black them out at will. Is this wisdom, or saber-rattling?
“Free Speech” and “China” are mutually exclusive terms… in the same way that “human rights” and “Marxism” are mutually exclusive. Even in their idealized dreams of communism, the will of the people is sublimated to the will of the state. China only opened itself to the economic benefits (and abuses) of capitalism, not the social benefits of a republic. It’s gonna take a lot of time and blood to get the state to release its death grip on power over the people.
As to Cuba… So your Maine point is that it’s ours by right? Do you think we should invade again? We don’t need troops to take Cuba, we need unrestrained materialism in the populace… the antithesis of the ideals of their “revolution”. I think if Walmart could get a beachhead in Cuba, it would spell doom for the island nation. If you agree, stand up and applaud!… sit down Che… I admire your enthusiasm, but your ecstatic and stumpy “thumps” just can’t be heard.
As for Congress, what I want to know is when did Congress become the governing body of American sports? Congress seems more involved in determining who broke the people’s trust in entertainment rather than who broke the people’s trust in governing the nation. Someone destroys Gitmo torture tapes and no one makes a peep, but Congressmen are calling out a witch-hunt on the Patriots for their taping of their opponents and baseball players for steroids. If there is illegality in the behavior of our sports figures, let the civil and criminal courts handle it. These Congressional committee members should be publicly flogged for wasting time and the people’s money, as well as neglecting the duties for which they were elected. OK, flogging may be too extreme… how about going “old school” with tar and feathers?
Congress is involved with both situations because of anti-trust law and exemptions allowed professional sports by the government. If there are violations of some terms of the agreement, then those organizations will lose that standing, and that is why they are being investigated.
Additionally, if the Patriots, for example, have been cheating and the NFL has known and did nothing, then there is potentially billions of legal gambling dollars at stake on all of this. It is not something so simple as people cheating at a game. Should they be looking into it, I don’t know all of the legal in’s and out’s, but is as not a simple as it is being made to appear here.
My ignorance of the anti-trust issue is glaring. Thanks for the tip, tasuja. How does the use of steroids or HGH become involved in this? Are they federally banned/illegal substances (except perhaps by a prescribing doctor)? Even if they are, unless it can be proved that the MLB sanctioned, allowed, or encouraged the use, the only ones that will be punished are individual people, whether it be a player, trainer, coach, team manager, or league manager. Even if culpable, I don’t believe that the MLB, NFL, NBA, etc. will ever be held accountable. Their profits are secure. How will Congress be able to manage this performance drug abuse situation? Seems to me that all they can do is posture. I think they are powerless to effect any change. What say you? How do you see this being managed?
Oh, I see it all being a giant mess and ultimately a waste of tax dollars.
I just wanted to provide some info on why they were talking about it at all.