someone tell me ...

what exactly the fuck is wrong with the world?

i look at the new york times, following a nice weekend in which i paid little attention to the outside world, only to find that aparently, people have stopped caring about the continuing death in iraq. in fact, why the fuck are we even talking about the president of the ukraine?

ok, i understand that there is a lot of natural gas in the ukraine. but really, i don't give a fuck. i don't understand why we focus on this kind of shit at all. they go on and on about voter fraud in other countries, but no one seems to care about the likely voter fraud here in the united states.

this is why other countries don't like us. we are so quick to point our puritan little fingers at anything that we don't like, or more accurately, anything that we think is not "possible" in america. but all the time, we are walking around without any mirrors.

i guess it's foolish to try and characterize an entire country by looking at a single newspaper. of course, it's not a single newspaper. it always seems that whatever the times puts as the most important stories, all of the other papers just seem to follow suit. (wow! that was a horrible sentence!)

but the larger question is whether or not the media represent what the people think. and i guess that's a harder question as well. i don't think that the majority of people care enough to follow what goes on in the world at all. most of my friends do not read a daily paper. they just find that kind of news boring.

but these are the same people who are not at all interested in taking any part in america as a political entity. so i am not sure they even count.

and as for the others, well ... i am not at all convinced that they are not being told what to think about by the media they consume. unfortunately, i am not the type of person to pay much mind to the nightly news, and i do realize that it's the nightly news that often delivers america its dose of current events.

i guess i don't really have an answer. i just know that i am not happy with my fellow americans. and it's not the ones that don't pay attention that bother me. if you don't care, then don't care. but if you do care, do me a favor and stop regurgitating the bullshit that our subsstandard media feed us. i am just convinced that those people don't really know anything at all.

further disapointment

i think that i blame a lot of the problems with this country on the mass media. in fact, i can't tell you how happy i am that both dan rather and tom brokaw are going to be retiring in the next few months. i honestly think that most of the people in charge of the major media outlets should be fired.

party politics have just come to influence too greatly the outcome and output of said media. these people, in that effort to seem "unbiased" have turned their backs on the nation that has supported them for so long. i mean really, who the fuck do these people think they are?

there should have been a great outcry from the news media in the days leading up to both the wars in afghanistan and in iraq. but of course, that would have demonstrated a prejudice against the president and his attempts to do what was "right" in the aftermath of the attacks in 2001.

the media have refused to recognize that letting more people die for a bogus cause is more harmful to the nation than openly sharing their disgust for the president and his clearly poor motives for war. they just accepted that iraq had to do with WMDs and not oil. and now people have the balls to suggest that the president lied to them. what the fuck ever.

i heard the same shit from the administration as anyone else, and i have never felt lied to. if you believed that the superficial motives were the reasons, then you shouldn't have had your job to begin with.

i guess i am just saying that the departure of these guys is long overdue. and really, my only problem or concern is that they will be replaced with equally poor judges of character and value.

conspiracies and whatnot ...

so it was 41 years ago today ... well ... yesterday to people without my wretched sleeping habits. i have been seeing some, though not a lot, about the kennedy murder in the press. and i guess i felt like doing a little bit of reading and asking questions tonight.

i guess it started when i heard that 81 percent of americans believe that there was a conspiracy to kill the president in 1963. i thought that was really fucking high, especially when you take into account that most "historical accounts" refute any such notions. you won't find too many history books that say anything other than that oswald acted alone.

and as a matter of fact, my interest this year was sparked upon my watching a documentary on the history channel, hosted by news anchor peter jennings, that "proved" that only oswald was responsible for the president's death. well ... i actually believe that. after all, i am not sure you could convince me that the bullet that pierced the president's neck and eventually wound up in the arm of the then governor of texas' wrist (aka "the magic bullet") would not have killed anyone. i mean, fuck. the damn thing severed the cat's nerve that controlled his breating. if he did survive, he would have wound up in an iron lung for the rest of his sad life.

and in all honesty, i don't know of a lot of people that would believe that oswald was not the man firing from the sixth story of the then "texas school book depository." but really, what the fuck do any of us care about the facts anymore? and no, i don't really mean to marginalize anyone who does believe that oswald was little more than a patsy.

i personally think it's foolish to assume so. i mean, you never find anyone refuting the notion that he bought the rifle that was found there in the "sniper's nest," nor do you really find anyone refuting his involvement. no, more often than not, you here refutation of oswald as the shooter that was responsible for the rather chilling head shot that caused the poor man's head to explode all over our celluloid history.

the thing i always have a hard time swallowing is this notion that oswald wanted to go down in history as the assassin of one of the great leaders. they often back this up with stories (of which i know little about) of a failed assassination attempt on a general not long before the death of kennedy. and of course, his life is peppered with the obvious traits of a man quite uneasy with normal social life. but i am always left with that one significant question: if the brother wanted to be remembered for killing the president, then why the fuck did he do all that he could to deny it after the fact?

don't answer that. really, i don't care.

being the little media whore that i am, i am far more intrigued with the whole situation as a media event -- and even more so with the public perception of it more than 40 years later. so i have foolishly spent my night reading some things, watching some things, and talking to some people to try and figure out what other people think.

yep, believe it or not, i care what other people think ... for the time being. and really, i only care because of my ever increasing interest in propaganda and the reason people buy the "truths" they buy -- true or not. in fact, i try not to make any distinction between propaganda that tells the truth honestly, slants it to one side or the other, or outright distorts it. propaganda is defined, at least to me, by the agenda of the propagandist.

and if the agenda is anything other than the free exchange of ideas -- which i certainly hope no one is really that unbiased -- than it is propaganda. i mean, who the fuck are these people that don't have any clue as to why they want people to know the "truth"? seriously, these people need to go fuck themselves. chances are they are journalism teachers at humboldt state anyway. and in that case, i can personally verify that they are full of shit.

there is this ideal behind journalism that we have to, as journalists, reject any tendencies to show favor to any one side of an issue. and that's just a crock of shit. they quickly forget that they have chosen their paths according to their natural tendencies. and they do so rather convienently. i think that the free exchange of ideas is driven by personal convictions. and in fact, when lacking in those personal convictions, you have little more than unusable garbage and hyperbole.

so i guess now would be a good time to get to my point.

these are the two things i have found to be most interesting: 1) most people believe in the conspiracy without knowing much about the case. 2) of those people, most have gotten their information from oliver stone's JFK, which stone himself has never claimed to be fact. in fact, stone has pointed out that he has taken a great deal of artistic liberty in making the film. of course, i happen to think the film is brilliant ... one of stone's best.

so i asked a number of people if they believed in a conspiracy. all said yes. i asked if they thought that oswald killed the president. most said no. i asked if the accepted the "magic-bullet" or "single-bullet" theory. most said no. and i asked where they got their information. most said from the film.

of course, this is why i pointed out that at least in my mind, there is no doubt that oswald killed the president, that the "single-bullet" theory is completely plausible, and that i love the movie. but i guess you could have figured that out by now.

but i had more questions too. you see, i wonder how much people think the world would have been a better place if kennedy would have lived. he has become such a cult hero, to conservatives and liberals alike, that i think it must be a natural notion to think he could have possibly been the answer to a lot of today's problems.

really, i just kind of wonder if people will always have this longing for the "way things used to be." and i can't say that i have come up with any difinitive conclusions. well ... i have concluded what i have always known. people want to believe something. and they choose whatever they can fit in their minds.

oh god, how did this entry get to be so convoluted? it seems i always do this. well ... i guess that's ok. i am starting to near the end of tonight's wick anyway.

mon petite theorie

lee harvey oswald killed president kennedy with a shot to the back of his neck. the bullet was the second fired by oswald. it, after leaving kennedy's body, changed orientation (though not trajectory) and entered the back of the governor. it then traveled through the body of the governor, exited, and re-entered his wrist. i feel like all of the evidence supports this perception.

first, the trajectory from the window that oswald fired from would have perfectly supported this. but you have to first realize that the governor and the president changed the orientations of their bodies after the first shot. you also have to realize that the governor was not sitting directly in front of the president, but rather a few inches to the left, and a few inches lower. these are all accepted facts of the case.

i also believe that there was a second gunman posted behind the fence in the area that has come to be known as the "grassy knoll." i believe that this is the shooter who shot the president from the front right, causing the head to explode. but i think that this "explosion" was the result of the third bullet coming from oswald's gun hitting the head at almost the same exact time.

i do not think that president johnson was part of this conspiracy, though i do think that he had a significant roll in the cover-up. i do not pretend to know why the president was killed. there could be a lot of motives behind this kind of murder. i would have to assume that it had grand political and/or geopolitical implications.

and i am not sure if i believe that jack ruby had any sort of role in the cover-up or assassination. in fact, it seems to be more likely that oswald was going to keep his mouth shut and say little more than that he did not do it, and that he was a patsy. i think that ruby simply had the connections and the short temper that drove him to murder. after all, you can't just set up one person as a patsy. the real world just doesn't work that way. there are always loose ends to try and tie up.

just a short note ...

i don't really have a lot to say right now. i am finding the news rather depressing and rather iffy. i don't know what i believe, if i believe anything at all.

though it pains me to say it, it looks like things are going well in iraq. i am a little confused about why we would hand over the nation to a government that would not do whatever we want. this doesn't seem like a wise way to conquer a nation.

i know, everyone wants to put forward this image that we were doing little more than liberating iraq anyway, but we are doing little more than liberating the iraqi citizens from their lives. and as each day goes by, we insure that a truly democratic regime in iraq would have no respect for the united states.

either way, i am thinking that things need to settle down. we sucessfully pounded falujah (if you believe what you read), and are working our way into position for a fight in mosul. and no, i don't know exactly what the means.

what ever happened to the days when war was more honest? there is defintely something wrong with this world.

step forward, don't worry

i was starting to think that our government was too weak, made up of a bunch of tree-hugging pussies. but rest assured, the fates are always there for me.

i guess it isn't a big suprise that colin powell left the bush administration. he must have felt like a black man at a clan rally (funny how that works huh?) since the start of the war. if there is one thing that has been fairly consistent about this war is that there just isn't room for diplomacy and reason.

from what little i know, he has been an outsider in the white house since soon after the start of the "war on terror" and has been marginalized ever since then. he was the lone dove in a nest of hawks.

i noticed at the start of bush's first administration that he was doing what he could to appoint people who looked diverse, but who really shared his idealogy. and i guess powell wasn't a whole lot different.

the way i see it, there are two significant forces of evil in power, both embodied by bush. first, there is the god fearing bush. this is the man that does what he believes is right. he is guided by god, and logic cannot prevail. but there is also the militaristic conservative power as well. this is represented in bush as a notion that his notion of democracy is the only acceptable form of government, and all other governments must perish before it.

obviously, it's not very hard to hold both of these beliefs. of course, it seems a little weird nowadays, because we have gone from fighting communisim/socialism to fighting theocracy/islamism. but you have to accept that these theocracies that we are fighting and the islamism are both non-christian, and therefore cannot be right at all. but god is an angry and jealous god (as was written in the bible).

and ultimately, bush is about as close to god as i am to lesbianism. sure, i am a little obsessed with it, but i just ain't even in the same ball park, and i am not getting close.

but i do fear about what an america would be like with rice as our sec. of state. it is the face of a diplomatic nation. and she is the hawk of all hawks. her entire career has been dedicated to the proliferation of "democracy" -- which i am sure is how she got where she was.

but unlike powell, rice is a "win at all costs" type of woman. and though thats fine with football, where bombs do little more than put six or seven points on the board, in real life (where the bombs are slightly more nuclear), it's a pretty deadly situation.

this is really the first time where i think i would support the blocking of an appointment to the cabinet, but i think that's probably a good thing for this nation. of course, there is no chance of that. getting ahead in washington is a strange proposition from the whores that seek it. they have to wade their way through the bullshit and resistance of a classist society, then put in hours in some meritocracy, only to gain foothold in an oligarchy. and i think i still can't spell. but i think that this is all a little queer when you are talking about the proliferation of a democracy that isn't even realized in the united states.

but the point is that rice has served her time, and the people whose opinions matter respect her for that. after all, few people even seem to see the fault in the war on terror -- a far more deadly and toxic notion than the war in iraq ever could be.

i don't really know what to think about this. but i do have faith in something ... though i can't really say what. well ... i have faith that the war effort will become more pointed and decided. and though that still poses a lot of threats, it seems to be a step in the right direction.

it's funny, if you would have asked me years ago if i would like a war effort to be pointed and decided, i would give back a resounding no. but now that i have had a chance to observe a bush led nation and war effort, i am stuck thinking, "well, at least they could do it right." i wonder if that is the same feeling that kerry felt. no, who am i kidding, he was just a bitch that couldn't really follow his own logic.

today's new york times

so i guess that yassir arafat died. i can't really say that i care. i can say that i wish it was ariel sharon instead, but you can't always get what you want. i suppose that the real concern over this is the question of whether or not the stability in the middle east will last now. but really, what fucking stability was there in the first place.

i would guess that the wall will be completed, lessening the frequency of "suicide bombings" in israel. i would also guess that the settlers will keep flowing into non-israeli palestine until there is someone that has the balls to stick up for them. and no, i don't really think that arafat did that. but as the settlers continue to flood in, there will be more violence.

so once again, i am left asking who the fuck had the bright idea to give israel nuclear weapons? that person needs to be taken out and shot. the last thing religious fanatics need are weapons of any kind, let alone the kind that can hurt me from far away.

speaking of which, it seems like there is a lot of talk of voter fraud. the times website sort of just discarded it, though i didn't read the article. but if i am wrong, it should teach those fuckers that a headline shouldn't be biased.

pieter has sent me a few articles about the "fraud." but i kind of thought this was going to come anyway, though i can't just dismiss it. i guess i think that bush is such a loser that not only would he have to do this, but he would. either way, this voting system is pretty flawed. i can't honestly say that i have ever felt like my vote counted. in fact, i am at a loss for an explaination of why i continue to vote. maybe it's just so i can continue to bitch and take my "high moral ground."

and more troops are headed into fallujah. yeah, i can't really say much about this. i guess it just pisses me off about the whole voter fraud thing. i just want to scream at people that their little flirtation with kerry led to a diversion from the fact that the greatest threat to our nation is this ongoing war -- currently centered in iraq.

i want people to finally see that "spreading democracy" is just a veil for trying to corner the world oil market. unfortunately, it will take years for that to materialize, and no one will really understand what happened when it does. fucking stupid people, got to love them.

sometimes i feel like i live in one giant mentos commercial.

but on a happy note, ashcroft has resigned as attorney general. but really, i still am counting on the rapture. i think i could take seeing the end of the world, as long as the christians are finally gone.

let's die

The New York Times > International > Middle East > Insurgency: G.I.'s Open Attack to Take Falluja From Iraq Rebels

well, thank god the war came back -- i was starting to get a little worried.

i have to wonder what is wrong with the world when people are so undisturbed by the notion of war as the american public seems to be. i think it's fair to say that i must be a total pacifist. certainly i am not the first person to refer to me as such. but when i think about it, i happen to like war. i like this notion of men going out on a battle field and having it out to try and see who has the bigger dick -- that is why i like sports.

and i think that i would be totally fine with war if it did not violate a couple of my core beliefs. the first, and least obvious, being that i don't like it when the stronger man is not more likely to win. bill russell kicked ass because he did beat wilt chamberlain. walter payton was the true idea of a hero. if the odds are stacked against you, and you still manage to come out on top, then you are a warrior of homeric quality.

and i just don't like things that throw that out of balance -- such as guns and the weapons that have come since. the problem with a gun or a missile or a bomber is that the person who is doing the killing was not blessed by nature with the ability to kill.

and i imagine this is where i disagree with most people, but i think that men with strength come in two types (oh how dichotometic i am ... is that even a word?), those who understand the peaceful balance of the goal of humanity, and those who don't. and that in turn, we shall praise the former and destroy the latter. and that all of this happens naturally.

for instance, if you have a man who is 6'8" and 245 lbs and quite adept at the ways of violence and the influence of the kshatriya, then he will either be the kind of man to display his strength wisely and kindly, or he will be a tyrant. if he is the former, than he will rise in the ranks of that caste in society. if he is the latter, than though he may rise in said ranks, but he will ultimately face the fate of all tyrants.

is this all a little out there?

well, it's my way of saying that nature decides what types of men we are, and that the things we do to take that balance out of the hands of nature, the more harm that we ensure for humanity. and eventually, we will have to pay that bill. guns and other impliments of war do this, they take the balance out of the hands of nature.

the first problem with this is that "little man" complex that people of short stature and such have. these people feel this overwhelming need to try and prove that they are as good as other men. large men do not have this problem. in fact, it is often that a large man seeks to be overlooked. i believe that if you put a gun in the hands of a man with this complex, then you are creating a tyrant.

and certainly there is part of me that believes that bush suffers from this ... and i remain convinced that he is anything other than a tyrant. but i guess the nice thing about this country is that he will (hopefully) fade away after another four years. of course, the shame of this nation is that the people who have the real power -- the ones that installed him in power -- will lurk on long after bush is a distant (and haunting) memory.

anyway, my second major concern about war is the tendancy for it to hurt people who have nothing to do with the key argument/disagreement at hand. and as these impliments of destruction get more and more powerful, it becomes a lot more likely that innocent people will die.

really, i guess i don't really know anything about the world. and i certainly don't understand what would possess a man to want to kill a man that he doesn't know ... let alone women and children. and i am not sure that you can ever see anything positive about the deaths of women and children. i certainly can't think of anything positive about this attack.

between war and discourse

i wonder why it was that i missed the preparation for the attack on fallujah (is that the right spelling?) in the days leading up to the election? i am just kidding, i am not that stupid. but it does make you wonder what the fuck is wrong with the media in america.

i have become more and more frustrated with the democratic party and the political left. i don't want to go on and on forever about how i thought that both parties nominated the wrong candidates in 2000, so i won't.

it's just that when i hear this talk about the polarization of america i find myself a little confused. so few of the people i know fit into either the left or the right side. most of them fall in some indescribable place in the middle. and i think that the two major parties see that. and they have different ways of utilizing it.

the republicans and the right wing try to seem centered but adhere to the basic principals that have supported them/it for so long. bush never tried to be anything during the election ... other than less radical. but he never hid his dislike for homosexuality, abortion, people with brown skin. he just made it seem like he wasn't going to go out and attack them right away, which was probably a deception.

but the democratic party is worse.

the democratic party has abandoned the left wing. maybe they feel that there is no room for left wing politics in america. maybe they see the way that bush (and clinton before him) has seem so centered and gotten so much success. but both clinton and bush are anything but centered.

i know, i am going on about nothing again. but it leads back to what i saw on HBO last night. i was watching the last episode of real time with bill maher when bill made a joke that because the party was talking about the nomination of hillary clinton as a presidential candidate, then the party was preparing to lose the next election. the implication of course being that clinton could not win an election.

but i am not sure i agree. i think that mrs. clinton is certainly left wing. and i think that america has to be willing to swing that way. i think that america has to be sick of centerist politics -- where both candidate try and appeal to all voters. in fact, i think that what has served the republican party so well in recent years is that it has tried to appear centered while sticking to core values.

i mean, what would be wrong with clinton? it was she who tried to push for universal health care in the early '90s. and i can't go on enough about the need for universal health care, if only to prove to the rest of the world that people mean more than money in america -- though sometimes i wonder if that is the truth.

in that same episode of real time, they had the noted professor noam chomsky (still, i wonder if i can even spell). the old man repeated what i had always figured to be fact, that the united states is very active in the geopolitical fight for power. and that part of it was to gain both control over the major oil supply in iraq, as well as to establish a foothold for democracy in the heart of the middle east.

and though these are not things that have ever been denied by the ruling party, his comments were written off by both bill and one of his guests as being either far-fetched or downright unamerican.

it's this simple: if you don't like it, if you don't want to face it, then go ahead and try and bash it as propaganda (which it is) and not worth your time ... but it is worth your time.

people in america have to realize that the game didn't end when the soviet union went under. in fact, to some, it only began. the men who are in power now were in power before the fall of the soviet union, and had been salivating and licking their chops to get a chance to take another stab at the proliferation of "democracy" -- a cause that they see as being the most noble in the world.

and all the while, these people have failed to ask the most important question: what if no one wants our version of democracy?

and i suppose that long road leads me to my point. we have to change the discussion in america. we have to create and foster an atmosphere where the left wing is as welcome as the right. we have to be able to talk openly about our countries geopolitical goals. we have to be able to talk about what is wrong with the country without being cast as "anit-american." after all, a real american should be concerned about how they are being represented to the rest of the world.

i am still so confused about why the democratic party would nominate kerry, a spineless centerest, rather than howard dean, who sought real changes in america. i thought that we were all hoping for real changes. and i am saying that as a conservative, and not a leftist ... though i am sure that's not how others would see it.

there is certainly part of me that hopes the democratic party will wither and die, and possibly be replaced by a more pointed party.

so here is my proposed platform for a new political party:

- ending the so called "war on terror"
- establishing a foreign policy that does not seek regime change or democratic proliferation by force
- reforming and regulating utilities and power companies
- establishing a national universal health care system
- completely re-authoring the constitution
- changing the money of america so as to not heroize slave owners and indian hunters
- reforming the method by which we elect our leaders

and i am sure i can go on. but i won't. and that's largely because no one would listen. so i am just led back to the same question: how do we change the focus of the discussion in america?

some brief parting thoughts before bed ...

i don't have a lot to say about this right now. i am kind of waiting to hear how the election turns out. but as i am going to bed, bush has destroyed kerry in the close popular vote -- meaning that it seems like a high enough difference to negate questions of rigging the election.

of course, people will still say it. and i don't think i agree with that. i figured bush was going to win. i am not convinced that there are a whole lot of supporters for the people that are outraged in this world.

in fact, i think america is the evil that it is perceived as. i think the people are largely responsible.

i am not going on forever. it's a little past my bedtime ... sort of. but i think there are a few things that we have to change about the way the nation runs the elections. i always interpreted the apology by plato as a statement that the stupid and evil people in the world will always outnumber the wise and honest.

and i think that the nation proved by far today that he was certainly right if you use america as your sample. i think i am going to try and start the movement to abolish the government practice of acknowledging marriage. i consider it a direct offense to my first amendment rights.

i don't really care if states want to ban gay marriage, i don't know why gay peole want to get married. but a government right should have the same access for all people. there is a lot that is wrong with the world, but our government should not be part of that.

i think i fear living in this country no matter who wins. i am not comfortable with living in a country where christianity runs so rampant, where people think that american lives are worth more than other lives, where people feel like you have to live the way that they want you to live. this is not my home, not like this.

i believe that america could be a lot better. and i have to admit that i am very happy that bush has gotten re-elected. i think that now things might actually change. i am hoping that enough people stopped trusting this system. and though i should go on to clarify my feelings, i am not going to. i guess i am just going to assume that no one actually reads this, and i will clarify tomorrow.

the quick rundown ...

here it is, my voting on the califonia props for this election:

1A -- yes
59 -- yes
60 -- yes
60A -- no
61 -- no
62 -- no
63 -- no
64 -- no
65 -- no
66 -- yes
67 -- no
68 -- yes
69 -- no
70 -- no
71 -- yes
72 -- no

initial thoughts on the election ...

this may change throughout the night.

prop 1A: i think this is a question about whether or not you believe that the state should have control over money, or whether it should be the local governments. yes, i know it is actually a lot more complicated than this ... but it's not.

of course, the state and the federal government will always get the money they need. and this actually provides a way for the state to take more money than allowed. and of course, i come into this with a very conservative approach to government and law. so ... i am going to vote yes on prop 1A.

prop 59: just as with the first prop, i think it is better to boil these things down to simple beliefs, and suffer the practical consequences. i guess i think that if we all did this, we might actually live in a democracy -- where we all agree to live our lives by the happy medium of our core beliefs.

this prop is an attempt to make governments more transparent. i don't think it will actually do much, but it is a nice notion. and since i believe in notions, i am going to vote yes on prop 59.

prop 60: well, i really don't like passing constitutional amendments, nor do i like the fact that i am choosing to vote in favor of so many of these props. but what can you say. i think that the election should be between the people who get the most votes from their party.

i mean, i think that there should be as many political parties as there are unique points of view. i would like to see more independants, but i do still believe in political parties. and i feel like this prop is a question of whether or not you support party politics (which is not the same as two-party politics), so ... i am going to vote yes for prop 60.

prop 60A: there are a lot of things i do not like about this prop. for starters, i don't like to lock any one into a position where they would have to act a certain way, barring unforseen circumstances. i think that trust in the human element is the cornerstone of society, and something we should all have faith in. and really, that's the only thing that gets me through those days when i just don't know why i go on living in a world where so many people are so stupid.

simply said, i don't want to tell the government what it has to do with certain money -- and that is what this prop says. moreover, i don't like that this proposition would almost make it good for the government to sieze property. so, needless to say, i am going to vote no on prop 60A.

prop 61: this really isn't my topic. i have such rigid views in my support for universal health care. i honestly feel that the united states should join the rest of the world. i think it's silly. i think that the reason health care prices are so obscene has a lot to do with the way that the industry is not only allowed to run rampant, but also has so much pull in the various legislatures via lobbyists.

but i do not think the solution is for the government to just fork over money to health care companies. this whole system needs to be re-worked. and if you combine that with my core beliefs about medicine and whatnot, i just cannot support this prop. so ... i am going to vote no on prop 61.

prop 62: i am sorry, but there is no way that you could possibly convince me that limiting the choices to two candidates is a good idea. i am not sure what the motivation for this prop is, but i know that it reaks.

i do not believe that this will do anything to further the causes of third parties, nor will it be a referendum on tw0-party politics. i am going to vote no on prop 62.

prop 63: i certainly like the notion that money to pay for these "more noble" interests should come from the people that can afford it, but as i discussed earlier, i am not satisfied with the lack of a national health care plan, and i cannot endorse anything that aims to be either a patch or a pacifier. i am going to vote no on prop 63.

prop 64: this prop doesn't seem to be a lot more than a pitiful attempt to protect corporations from responsibility to the public. there could often be a position where a company is wrong, and the government (i.e. governor, attorney general or district attorney) might not see it that way.

the mark of a true democracy is how much the government does to make the citizens feel as if they are equals with the government. and i think that it would be a bad move to try and take away the rights of the people to sue whomever they want -- as long as the loser, and not the government, pays the court fees. so, i am going to vote no on prop 64.

i am not going to even discuss prop 65. most people should vote no on it, and save their opinions for prop 1A. and i think this is a good idea.

prop 66: needless to say, i am not a big fan of the three strikes your out laws to begin with. and it has nothing to do with my feelings about crime, as i believe that criminals should always be punished accordingly. i would suggest to the defenders of these kinds of laws that if you have a legal system that does not hold rapists in jails until they are no longer capable of raping women, then you have a serious problem, no matter what previous offenses they have.

i do not like it when you take these kinds of decisions out of the hands of human beings. a judge that sentences any rapist or molester to any thing less than life in jail should be removed from the bench. in my opinion, there cannot be second chances. and there certainly shouldn't be safety nets in the law to "make sure" that justice is served when justice is so often served on non-violent offenders.

we should never forget that justice is just another word for revenge -- and that is not meant to be a condemnation of justice. i think that revenge is a good thing. but it is a human thing, and it should not be outlined by people that are incapable of understanding the facts of the specific case.

having said all of that, i like this prop. it seeks to put some limits on the three strikes system. if it let's people out of prison that should not be let out, then there is another problem with the system, and it cannot be cured by more legislation that takes cases out of the hands of the judges that hear them. so, i am going to vote yes on prop 66.

prop 67: my support for universal medical coverage has a lot to do with my belief in what i consider to be an amicable bargain with government. i think that if we are going to allow government the power that we allow it, then it should serve the needs that every person "needs."

i do think that the truest form of democracy is a lot more like an anarchy than a republic, which is what we live in here in the united states. but i recognize that i do not have a lot of supporters in that belief. so i go ahead and accept government, and i demand that the government does certain things for us. of those, i believe in universal utilities. we should not be paying for power, gas, health care, phone, school, internet, and on, and on. we should not pay for anything that it is for the betterment and the advancement of our society that we all have access to. this is a lot more like "a rising tide raises all ships" than almost anything else you will hear the argument used for.

and in turn, i find it hard to support any legislation that suggests raising taxes on a utility to provide another. and that's the way that i see this prop. so, obviously, i am going to vote no on prop 67.

prop 68: i don't really know too much about gaming and indian gaming issues. i know that if our government signed a treaty with anyone saying that they should be allowed to provide gambling for our citizens, while others should not, then the government was wrong.

i look at prop 68 and i see the expansion in gambling. and it is an expansion that i am very comfortable with. and as i said in the beginning, it's best to boil these things down to their bare bones, and that's what i have done here. and so, i am going to vote yes on prop 68.

prop 69: sorry, this one is a little too much like 1984 for me. i can't do it. i am going to vote no on prop 69.

prop 70: well, i have been writing this for a while, and i see the end in sight, so let me move quick. this prop sucks. i like prop 68 because i believe that it could lead to the legalization of gambling. but a reservation is a sovereign land, and i am not going to vote for anything that i feel would be a violation of said sovereignty. i am going to vote no on prop 70.

prop 71: i don't need to spend much time on this issue. this is pretty simple to me. i don't think that the abortion issue is strong enough to stand in the way of progress. and let me make it clear that i neither support abortion nor the advancement of medical science. but i know better than to make other people live according to my sense of morality. i am going to vote yes on prop 71.

prop 72: and one last time, when are we going to get national heath care? let's change this system. we didn't really miss the boat, did we? either way, i am going to vote no on prop 72.

just a hunch ...

i don't think this election is going to be as close as people think. i think that polling techniques are outdated. i don't know if that is good or bad for us -- though i call a re-election of bush to be a bad thing. and really, i feel that more because of the religious reasons that anything else.

i do not think it is a good idea to have someone with such strong religious beliefs in the white house. and i realize that kerry is not very level-headed himself. but i don't think he is as religious, though clearly he is willing to pretend that he is. but i am going to go ahead and forget the past, and pretend that being catholic is not as insane as being an evangelist.

i recently read this article in the new york times about how the zealous religiousness of dubya is not very appealing to a large segment of the republican party. and well, as a republican, i think it is clear that it really fucking threatens me.

that reminds me, i have started telling people at parties that i am a republican, often with a sense of pride. in fact, i am very proud. but it's clear that i like the fact that it offends the people that might be cool with me. and that's cool. i still believe in that all important wall.

anyway, i guess i am going to vote for nader. i don't really want to be a supporter of the green party. i don't think that a political party should be so narrowly focused. but i do think that there has a to some sort of referendum in this country in support for a break of the two-party system. and i mean, that was certainly a large part of my decision to join one of the two major parties.

but after hearing some of the excerpts of the lastest bin laden tape, i just started to wish that i cold vote for the big fella. i guess it's another situation of politics making for strange bedfellows.

in general, i feel that bin laden is just as evil and insane as bush, but i more often than not agree with him on a political level. i do think that the united states ought to withdraw all support for israel. i do think there is a problem with our nation when someone like bush can win to begin with. and i do think that our concept of freedom is not as holy as some do.

in fact, i fully support the right of nations like iran, israel and even a new iraq to opt for theocratic governments. though i believe that religion is a poison that kills liberty, i do not pretend to know what is right for people i have never even met. i just know that i do not like religion, and as long as i am protected from it, i am cool.

and there is part of me that likes the romantic notion of bin laden. he is almost like the modern che. i wonder if people will someday where his face on their shirt? who knows. people are a little uptight about the man to say the least.

i do think that bin laden does want bush to be president. in fact, i would not be suprised if bush called upon bin laden to do him a solid and release this tape. maybe i could be wrong in my prediction maybe it was going to be a blowout by kerry, but because of this tape, it may now be a close race.

i don't really know anything. i do know that i am ready for the futre, though. so let's get it on.