With all the inane things spewing forth from the right side of the political spectrum recently, one might be forgiven for thinking that they couldn’t take it much further. Ah but they can dear friends they can indeed! Check out these recent despicable comments regarding Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor spouted by conservative radio host G.Gordon Liddy on his show.

Racism and sexism all rolled into one and I’m sure if he had the opportunity he’d probably throw a few more “isms” in there as well. What makes all this bile from leading Republicans even more disturbing are the people that actually believe this BS. Stuff like this has no place in any sort of public dialogue end of discussion. This is not about being oversensitive, its about respect and treating your political opponents with it, something the right seems less and less capable of doing.

A couple days ago, former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura appeared on the Fox News program Fox & Friends to discuss his opposition to torture. There is a video at the link I recommend you all check out.

To summarize, Ventura basically lays the smack down on the hosts of the show who all appear to be “pro torture” a stance I myself cannot reconcile with in any shape or form. Perhaps someone in the audience can clarify for me, how can any man or women of good conscience be “pro torture”? What are the values instilled in someone that would make them “pro torture”?

I’ve thought about this at some length and simply cannot come up with any good answer save for the fact that those who proclaim themselves “pro torture” are lacking, at least in part, a conscience. Torture has always been viewed as evil, as something the bad guys did to the good guys in the movies. In truth, it is evil, it is heinous to the highest order. Not only is it evil and wrong, it disparages us as a people in whose name these actions have been perpetrated. We are lesser for it. I do not know whether the current administration will pursue legal action against those who both conducted torture as well as those who ordered its use. However, I personally believe that every step should be taken to bring both of those groups to justice and I fear that if this does not happen, the United States will never truly recover. We may have already become our enemy.

With the invent of the internet and modern devices news can be updated almost immediately, this is great in many cases. But, for the subject of player transactions in soccer it can be incredibly frustrating. The European leagues are on the very tail end of their season with the last matches a formality for most teams. Most of the league champions have already been crowned, congrats to Manchester United, Inter, and Barcelona in the big 3 leagues. So the media would seem to have plenty to write about examining what went right or wrong with the teams. However, the great majority of soccer/football news in newspapers, sports websites, blogs, etc. has been devoted to the summer transfer window. Even the smallest rumor of a player slightly unhappy with his situation is immediately plastered across headlines declaring him to be sold to various teams. Anyone who knows me, knows I’m a rabid Arsenal supporter(Go Gunners!) and I usually peruse any news that might come across for the team. As much as I’m interested in new players, this time of the soccer/football calendar is my least favorite. I was recently reading a blog and the blogger found in just a few hours of news that Arsenal had been rumored to have six different players and the coach leaving as well as Sixteen different players being bought. This is simply and utterly crazy. How are fans supposed to decipher which players actually have a decent chance of transferring? Every source comes out with the usual players connected to a club, such as Arsenal connected with anyone who speaks a word of french. The media will create rumors about who the media think might fit in with the club whether there has been any interest in the player or not.  The news is and will be just rampant and people will be suffering for real news unrelated to transfers for the next 4 months. My strategy when it comes to transfer news is, I’ll believe it when I see it. I suggest doing the same to anyone who is a fan and doesn’t want to stick a knife in their head. Ugh, I’m sick of it already.

Apparently satire doesn’t cross party lines at least when it comes to the Republican party. This, according to a recent study, proves to be the case for viewers of Stephen Colbert’s “The Colbert Report”. This particular study has found that conservative viewers were more likely than most respondents to state that Colbert was actually of the conservative ilk. Conservative viewers actually believe he means what he is saying!

Now before we go and paint the entire conservative movement with a broad brush, lets just make clear that this study probably doesn’t apply to the mainstream crowd. Still one has to admit… its quite an embarrassment, I myself am not sure if I can understand the mind set that would not see something so blatantly obvious. If it were in written form, I could perhaps understand that as it can be quite difficult to convey sarcasm via words on paper. That being said… come on people!

So… what do you do with four friends and close to $2 million in exotic machinery? Well you go for a cross country tear of course! Only… you don’t be stupid and get caught by the cops doing 40mph over the speed limit like these blokes did. A brief news article on CNN covers the story. Despite being speed freaks, the playboys involved still remained cooperative with the police which was nice.

Admittedly, I’m a bit of a speed freak myself (as my friends can attest to) however what these guys were doing was just plain stupid. It’s one thing if you wanna risk yourself and your car on a race track, but its entirely different when other people are involved. Clearly these fellows had some money and while I understand the romance of blasting down a highway or coastal road with the wind in your hair, if you’re going to go fast (as fast as these guys that is) do it on a race track. Hell, these guys got pulled over in Oregon, and Portland has an international raceway that’s open to the public, just put a few bucks down there and go for a few laps simple as that. Also, can you rich guys get some creativity… I mean honestly… only the F40 was interesting!

Not too long ago, a question was posed of me by an acquaintance via email. The question was regarding my opinion on our democracy and its impact on the United State’s response to the global environmental crisis. Below is our brief but intriguing correspondence. Names have been removed to protect the privacy of individuals involved.

The E-mail –

So was watching “the hunt for black gold” and came to realize that democracy is a poor system for dealing with oil or any for the greater good projects. Abu dabai (sic) is currently constructing a renewable city but we have to such programs or the necessary drive to in the US. I see this as a failure of maintaing the power of the senate as created by the founding fathers. They originally elected the Senate by elected officials, separating decision makers from the general population. This could be bad in that senators are not directly accountable for their actions and good in that they are not susceptible to whims of their constituents. A more powerful, less accountable system could ignore public sentiment and trigger change. Thoughts?

My Response –

You bring up an interesting point and yes I agree, it is significantly more difficult to enact serious change in our representative democracy as opposed to the likes of the theocracies and monarchies of the middle east and other areas. That being said however, even if the senate had remained a non voteable body in regards to the general populous, the system was still designed to move slowly and deliberately hence the checks and balances of the three branches of government.

I cannot speak to the exact reasoning behind the founding fathers decisions surrounding the constitution, there are many people far more qualified to do that than myself (I specialized in east asian history). But if you look at a comparison of governmental stability say between ourselves and France you’ll notice that though it may take us longer in some cases to enact reform and change, when it does finally occur it tends to come with significant public support and even a sense of permanence.

I would argue that the accountability found in our legislature and executive branches is a good thing for it affords the public an opportunity to make the noted changes above on their own. And lest the tyranny of the majority tries to take control, there is the supreme court which ideally is beholden to no one but the law. In the supreme court, we have seen many of the changes of which you might describe as the “significant” changes you want being enacted against the will of a greater number but in most cases for the greater good of the nation (which this case would certainly apply). Perhaps we should look to this avenue for challenging the status quo on the environment here in the states?

His Response -

The power of lawsuits has certainly been the avenue of most environmental control, and has been used both by environmentalists and industry to secure their interests. However this role of the courts, now cemented by precedent was not originally granted to the courts. Was it John Marshall that ruled on the (sic) a law as unconstitutional giving the power to the supreme court to veto laws? I believed he ruled that the northern states could not refuse to return slaves to southern owners, a momentary set back against black freedom but would later secure minority rights during the civil rights movement. I support your opinion that the court remains the campion (sic) of the minority, for better or worse. I hope that the best science is presented and not tainted by industrial campaigning.

So anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock for the last week has heard about the attempted hijacking and hostage situation on the cargo ship Maersk Alabama. It has been all over the news channels and they have deified Captain Richard Phillips who offered himself as a hostage before his crew retook control of the ship from the Somali pirates.  Its not like the pirate situation has started all of a sudden, but has been a constant threat off the coast of Somalia for the last six months or so. Only with the attempted hijacking of an American vessel has the media given this any attention. This is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world and has billions of dollars worth of goods going through it at any one time. As of yet, no one has been able to identify and take out the source of all the hijacking attempts. Somalia has a 1875 mile coast line and while naval ships from all over the world patrol its waters, it is almost impossible to thwart attacks on all cargo ships. The lack of a strong central government has hindered the ability of the international community to deal with the threat of piracy. That to go along with greedy, argumentative, and self-centered politicians that have held back Somalia’s economy for decades and have subsequently hurt their own people’s lives tremendously. So I can see why piracy has prospered in a country so poor that it has to resort to hijacking in order for people to live. Its a shame on many fronts.

Another form of piracy that has been in the news lately is the trial of four men in charge of running the bit torrent website The Pirate Bay. The Pirate Bay is one of the largest websites that connects people for the purpose of legal and illegal filesharing. Just in the last day the four men were found guilty of aiding in breaking copyright laws. The Pirate Bay has previously denounced what they were doing to be illegal due to the lack of laws against file sharing in the country of Sweden where the website was hosted. They have been so vehement that they have posted threats and warnings from multiple media companies along with their contentious responses.  The four defendants have stated they will appeal the decision if found guilty. So this should be interesting to watch in the following weeks whether they can get off from the charges or not. In any case Sweden has recently passed a number of new laws specifically prohibiting illegal file sharing. So it looks like file sharers will have to find some other country to host their websites.

News flash! New York will soon become the third state in less than a month to consider legalizing gay marriage. The other two, Iowa and Vermont, took the issue into consideration in the past few weeks with each state seeing gay marriage becoming the letter of the law.

Without a doubt, these are some of the best developments for awhile in this long slog of a fight to see equal rights for our gay friends. Being in Washington state myself, I hope to see my home government follow suit in the not too distant future. Still, one small step at a time. Despite this there remains much animosity on the right which must be overcome to ensure not just equal rights but equal treatment of gay couples. Separate but equal should never stand and with some luck and a lot of hard work we can finally ensure we rid ourselves of it. Congratulations to all the couples in Iowa, Vermont and soon New York (hopefully) that will finally be able to publicly recognize their love for their partners.

Update – Via jen3ral, the Washington state legislature has moved the Evergreen state one step closer today to legalizing gay marriage with the passage of a new bill granting more rights to gay couples in domestic partnerships.

Thanks to jen3ral for the heads up (be sure to check out her blog Diary Of A Computer Geek)! Even more good news for our friends and US citizens as a whole as another state takes on this issue. Equal rights for one group equates to equal rights for all. Onwards and upwards from here!

So the First Family of the United States has one more member yay! Bo is as cute a little puppy as you’re sure to find no doubt about that but can the press PLEASE just get over it?

Seriously… look at how many “journalists” are there. After you’ve checked that out for a moment… watch the news ticker at the bottom of the screen. I’d say that a few of the stories (Somali pirates, GM recalls, North Korea, etc…) ticking along there on the bottom would qualify as ever so slightly more important than a new puppy… no matter how cute the little guy is. This is yet one more reason NOT to give much attention to main stream media sources.