Sitemeter

I've added Sitemeter to the sidebar. It keeps track of traffic on this site but it's cool because anyone can check it.

A referral page is a site that redirected someone here. For example, if you follow a link to this site from Facebook, I can check my referral page and see that. Also, if you search for something on Google and my site comes up, I can not only see Google.com as a referral site, I can see for what was being searched. So here are some Google searches that get my site as a result:

kamo river photo

no 1 travel japan

pizzaria em kyowa

"under $3" visa

US government nagoya jobs

phi phi guesthouse

American Fascism-Lite

The 10 steps that all fascist states take according to Naomi Wolf:

1. Invoke an internal and external threat
2. Establish secret prisons
3. Develop a paramilitary force
4. Surveil ordinary citizens
5. Infiltrate citizens' groups
6. Arbitrarily detain and release citizens
7. Target key individuals
8. Restrict the press
9. Cast criticism as "espionage" and dissent as "treason"
10. Subvert the rule of law

Now, this is a pretty good list. If we are actually seeing these things in America, we should be worried regardless of the causes. She claims that while we have seen some of these things in the past, never before have they all been in effect simultaneously like they are now. For example, Lincoln suspended writs of Habeas Corpus during the Civil War and we have faced very real threats before, both external and internal.

I love conspiracy theories so I got sucked into this book, but a few of these items don't really stand up to scrutiny. I don't see a paramilitary force like Ms. Wolf does. I don't think you can compare Hitler's SA or SS and Mussolini's Arditi to Blackwater. Hitler's Storm Division (known before 1921 as the "Gymnastics and Sports Section") assaulted perceived enemies of the Nazis, harassed Jews, brawled in meeting halls, and destroyed Jewish businesses on the famous Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass). It was a way for the Nazi leadership to intimidate the German people without responsibility for the violence. The SS was created as a paramilitary force, answerable to Hitler and not the German people. This is not Blackwater. Blackwater is terrifying and should be dismantled for different reasons. It's not the SS.

Blackwater is a contractor to the State Department in Iraq (they actually have operations in 9 countries, including the USA) and do things like protect diplomats and support American troops. They are civilians, so they're not subject to military tribunals. Right before the CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority) dissolved in 2004, it declared Special Order 17 which prevents all US troops and contractors from being subject to Iraqi laws. So, the question is: What laws are Blackwater subject to? Who has the authority to try them for crimes? Well, I'm not sure. But lawsuits have been brought against Blackwater by Iraqis and Americans alike and are now being tried in US courts. But all of this is different from the extra-legal status of the SS. I don't buy that they're comparable. If they are comparable, then it's only from Iraq's point of view. Actually, from an Iraqi point of view, that comparison is probably spot on.

Naomi Wolf doesn't make the mistake of declaring fascism in America. She holds back and says that we have "symptoms" of fascism, but that we're not quite there. It's more like fascism-lite. We have tolerably weak versions of these 10 symptoms and that's why its dangerous to our democracy. I don't think Americans would stand for a paramilitary force patrolling our streets, but we will tolerate a paramilitary force patrolling the streets of Baghdad. We wouldn't tolerate torture in the Medieval sense, but it seems like we will allow torture-lite. I guess it's just up to Americans to decide where to draw a line.

Technorati tags: Naomi Wolf, The End of America, American Fascism, Blackwater

Subversive tendencies

Thanks for the comment Bruce. With your support I'm going ahead with this nonsense.

It's the day after Christmas and thank Jesus because now the public libraries are open again. I walked downtown today to pick up Naomi Wolf's book "The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot" and a book on how to teach yourself Arabic. I requested that Naomi Wolf book from the Western Mass library system after seeing her on the Colbert Report earlier this year (the YouTube link follows this post). While Ms. Wolf strikes me as a little nuts, her message sucked me right in. Unfortunately the only library in the Western Mass system to have a copy was in Amherst and there was a waiting list.

Daniela and I decided on Christmas Day to learn Arabic together, so I picked up a book with some CDs at the same time (I'm not going to stop learning Japanese, I'm just going to add Arabic to what I'm doing and I know how ridiculous that is). So, after leaving the library I stopped in at the Greenfield Farmer's Market to buy some green tea. While I was fumbling with my wallet at checkout, the girl at the register noticed both of my books: Introduction to Arabic and "The End of America." Yeah, that's right. I'm UP to stuff.

On Christmas Day, Daniela and I compromised on how to celebrate. We acknowledged Jesus Christ's divinity by eating Chinese food. That's your traditional Catholic/Jewish Christmas. While we walked down to the China Gourmet, we talked about Christian holidays (among other things). I said that they were actually a collection of pagan holidays and customs co-opted by Christians in order to teach and spread Christianity to pagan cultures. For example, both the hanging of mistletoe and the Christmas tree were pagan German traditions. Saint Boniface used the fir tree's triangular shape to help teach pagan Germans about Christ and they learned to revere it as a symbol as they had previously revered the Oak tree. December 25th was chosen as Christ's date of birth in the 3rd century because pagan Romans and Persians celebrated sun festivals around the same time. So, Christian traditions are actually a collection of pagan traditions subverted and redefined. We thought it was interesting. That's all.

Technorati tags: Naomi Wolf, The End of America, Christmas, Pagan

Naomi Wolf on the Colbert Report

エンキョリレンアイ

I decided to bite off way more than I can chew: I have begun reading a novel in Japanese. The novel I chose was written by Rui Kodemari (小手鞠 るい) and I just figured out that the title means "The Long-Distance Relationship" (エンキョリレンアイ).

I bought the book at a Good Will in Ashland, Oregon for a dollar. It was the only novel in Japanese and I thought that at some point I could use it to study. At that point, I had no idea what it was about. I can follow the plot, but the more abstract the sentences become the less I'm able to understand them. Some of the metaphors are giving me a real problem. I think she compared this guy's smile to light filtering through the leaves of trees, but I can't be sure.

It seems to be a trashy love novel. I'm cool with that. A love novel still trumps the children's programming that I watched in Japan. I remember at least one cartoon about a village of vegetables and a village of fruit (separated by a river) who learn that a healthy diet consists of cannibalizing residents of both places...

This novel is about a young woman looking back at the origins of her relationship with someone who may or may not be a foreigner (the "voice" as she keeps referring to him). I guess he's in New York and she's in Tokyo (it hasn't been said yet but that's what is implied on the jacket) and she met him while working part-time in a bookstore in Kyoto.

I'm only 12 or 13 pages in...

I guess none of this merits a post. Dammit.

This weekend to Christmas

Last night I got a beer with Tracy at the Pint and picked up a job application. I thought I could do something part-time before I left for Vegas in early February. I don't really need the money but I thought it would be fun to do something outside of my routine.



I told Tracy my plans last night about taking the Foreign Service Exam and she tried her best to scare me out of it. She was supportive in the end, but she told me about her friend Mark who currently works in Yerevan, Armenia for the State Department. He went to Georgetown's School of Foreign Service and was one of the few people from his class to pass the test. If his friends who took the test, and had been preparing for four years to take it, couldn't pass it what chance do I have? An additional concern of mine is that he took the written test in March but didn't get the oral assessment until September. I wasn't expecting such a long wait between taking the test and getting an interview. It's not a problem because I think this is what I really want to do, but if I can expect a similar wait, I should be taking that test as soon as possible. I don't want to take the test at the end of my time in Las Vegas and then have an additional 7 months to wait for an interview.

Unrelated: I went to the Salvation Army yesterday and bought a pair of pants. This isn't interesting, but I think I donated the pants that I bought.

Change of plans

Nothing is set in stone yet, but I don't think I'm going to return to Japan to teach English. I love learning Japanese, I love the food, I love the people, but I don't love teaching English and that's the problem. Also, teaching abroad is a very temporary solution to the problems that I'm having. I don't see anything long-term in this job (unless I got a job teaching at a Japanese university or returned to the US and taught Japanese in an American one), and I think that's becoming more important to me.

When I returned from Japan in May, I didn't have a job, I had spent quite a bit of the money I had saved (albeit to travel through nine countries), and I had no idea what to do with my life. If I leave again, I'm only going to return to this same spot in a year or two. I'll be 28, have a little money saved up, but still be without a career or even long-term goals.

So, as of right now, here is my new plan: move out to Las Vegas with Daniela and work in her aunt's bakery, while I study to take the Foreign Service Officer Exam. That's the test you take to get a job working in an American embassy abroad. I would be abroad, I would be learning a new language, and there's potentially a career in it. More to come as I figure this out.

Post-Japan plans?

First, try some of these:

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16. In American education, which of the following issues or policies has generated the LEAST amount of controversy?

(A) School vouchers
(B) School busing
(C) Local control over the curriculum
(D) National, standardized high school exit exams

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34. An administrator with overall responsibility for all administrative operations in a large operating agency is considering organizing the agency's personnel office around either of the following two alternative concepts:

Alternative I: A corps of specialists for each branch of personnel subject matter, whose skills, counsel, or work products are coordinated only by the agency personnel officer

Alternative II: A crew of so-called "personnel generalists," who individually work with particular segments of the organization but deal with all subspecialties of the personnel function

Of the following, the one that is the biggest drawback of Alternative I, as compared with Alternative II, is that

(A) training and employee relations work call for education, interests, and talents that differ from those required for classification and compensation work.
(B) personnel office staff may develop only superficial familiarity with the specialized areas to which they have been assigned.
(C) supervisors may fail to get continuing, overall personnel advice on an integrated basis.
(D) the personnel specialists are likely to become so interested in and identified with the operating view as to particular cases that they lose their professional objectivity and become merely advocates of what some supervisor wants.

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68. Native Americans have been much admired for their skill at arts and crafts and at artistic design, but are seldom given adequate credit for their intellectual achievements. All of the following are Native Americans who are correctly paired with their achievements EXCEPT

(A) Sequoya--developer of the Cherokee phonetic alphabet and creator of a literate Indian nation
(B) General Eli Parker--civil engineer and draftsman of the articles of Lee's surrender at Appomattox
(C) George Caitlin--author and artist
(D) Dr. Charles Eastman--physician, YMCA director, organizer of Boys Scouts and Camp Fire Girls

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These three questions were taken from Arco's "Master the American Foreign Service Officer Exam" test prep guide. I took the diagnostic test last month and got 17 out of 49 wrong. Not a great start. I took the first of three full practice tests a day later and scored similarly: 60 out of 180 wrong. Studying a little bit seems like a good idea.

Passing the Foreign Service Officer Exam is a necessary step in getting a job in an embassy. I have enjoyed living outside of the U.S. but teaching English isn't what I want to be doing in 10 years. Working in an embassy seems like a desirable alternative. I'm learning about what I would be expected to do for the Foreign Service (I must choose from one of the five specializations) and how feasible a career would be. I have two main reservations. First, I would be representing the U.S. government abroad and I hate the Bush administration. On the bright side, Bush doesn't have much longer in office. And secondly, as an officer, I would be expected to accept any assignment handed down, which means that I could be assigned to Baghdad as early as 2009.

But first, the test:

The test is divided into English and Knowledge-based questions. There are 110 questions in the English section and you are allotted an hour to finish them. The Knowledge section consists of 70 questions, but you're given an unnecessarily long 2 hours. This doesn't include the time required for a personality test and an essay section. The test guide I picked up says very little about the essay.

After reading through two books on English grammar and usage, I significantly improved upon my test score (48 out of 180 wrong). I'm currently rereading some Economics textbooks from college, after which I'll take the last practice test and hopefully see a little further improvement. I'm not in a rush though, as I'll have plenty of time while in Las Vegas to study and read up on the Foreign Service.

The answer to each question is C.

Technorati tags: Foreign Service Exam, Department of State, Arco, Embassy

りんご - "旅"

Japanese rap. The name of the band is Apple and the song is "Traveler." I think.

つしまみれ - "エアコンのリモコン"

A Japanese pop band that I like.

The past week

I'm currently at Daniela's apartment in Cambridge. I've always loved this area. Harvard Square has everything you could want: over-priced restaurants, punks hanging around the station, beggars, and pretentious students blocking the sidewalk. There's also a grocery store on Broadway, a movie theater nearby, Pinocchio's, and plenty of used bookstores. I was just reading 'Bend Sinister' on Daniela's broken couch while she took a post-breakfast nap in the other room. The couch should have spring-laden supports under the cushions, but the furthest one back has snapped in half, so you sink into the couch when you sit on it. It seems more like a rectangular bean bag chair now than an actual couch.

Why have I been in Cambridge for a week and how did I get here? Good question. Daniela had reserved Zipcars for my birthday and for the following Friday, unsure of which day she would actually drive out to see me. She wound up driving out to Greenfield on the 28th, the day before my birthday, but then forgot to cancel the Zipcar she had reserved for the weekend. If you try to cancel your Zipcar reservation within 24 hours they charge you the full cost anyway, so she drove out to Greenfield a second time, twice within 3 days. We hung out in Greenfield on Friday night and Saturday afternoon -- playing a little guitar hero, watching some Arrested Development, probably blazing although I can't remember, and waiting for a guy to buy some of our old furniture from the North End. I decided to come back with her to Cambridge and to stay until Monday morning (the 3rd). That was almost a week ago.

Daniela is still working at Dana Farber (although her last day is at the end of December) so I've had to keep myself busy during the day. On Monday I went to the Museum of Fine Arts to see the ukiyo-e paintings currently on display. As always, I was able to get in for free using my Brandeis student ID. That was key in deciding how I would spend my day by the way. Not receiving a regular paycheck makes doing things for free all the more appealing. I spent Tuesday reading 'The Time-Traveler's Wife' because Daniela was hosting a book club meeting that night and I wanted to participate. I only got through the first 100 pages (it wasn't a great book), but meeting Daniela's friends was cool and Daniela had bought a ton of food. There may have been 10 of us, but I was the only guy in attendance. I forced everyone in the room to agree with me by challenging them to arm-wrestling matches.

On Thursday I returned to the MFA and spent most of my time looking at Roman and Greek art. Thursday was the third night of Hannukah and Dave and Kelly decided to throw a party at their place in Brookline. Daniela brought matzoh ball soup, Vanessa made rugulah, and we made latkes. Add wine and dreidels for best results.

Based on my own experience, Jews simply cannot win at dreidel when goyim are playing. When we played during college, the only two non-Jews playing (Conor and I) easily dominated. Wait... was Santosh playing with us that time? I can't remember now. Anyway. This year, the first two people to be eliminated were Daniela and Dave. The only two Jews. Maybe it's some kind of cosmic lesson about humility. The lessons learned from playing dreidel are reserved for Jews only. I take pride in the fact that I was the third person out though. I guess after ACTUAL Jews, I was the next most-Jewish. God's people? Count me in. Or close anyway.

Last night Dana Farber held a holiday party at some hotel downtown. I had already met a few of Daniela's friends from work (Michaela, Katie, and Mara) but it was still intimidating. It shouldn't have been. All of her co-workers are great. It's actually kind of weird. Not a jackass in the bunch. I was drinking whiskey on the rocks all night. Now, that sounds like a manly drink (or so I was told several times throughout the night) but that's not at all why whiskey is my drink. In Japan, it was the most cost-efficient thing you could drink at a bar. Beer was usually expensive (or at least more so than liquor or sake) but there were quite a few cheap domestic whiskeys. So I've carried it back with me, and now I give off that man's man vibe (the beard helps) a little bit better. Dancing like a butterfly doesn't help that image, but I do like to dance. After D and I lost our buzzes and got tired and sweaty enough for one night, we turned in.

Actually, I just thought of an anecdote. Daniela's co-worker has a friend that said a lot of really nice things about me before we even met. "Oh, Benn looks really funny and clever, and you can just tell he's a great guy. The kind of guy I would like to marry. Do you think he would marry me?" Or something like that. It was like, funny and creepy only because she had never actually met me before. So, Daniela got a rape whistle from work, and I decided to wear it to the party in case this girl cornered me. It feels kind of mean now, but everyone who saw the whistle and asked about it thought it was pretty funny.

We'll probably finish the rest of this ficus (Seriously, this is great stuff) and catch a movie tonight. Expect me back in Greenfield on Monday.

Technorati tags: Hannukah, Cambridge, Dana Farber, Book Club

Greenfield Buzkashi Team

Today I came across the BBC's Day in Pictures page. While most of the pictures made me feel warm and fuzzy inside, I found something truly spectacular in picture 4. Apparently this is the season for Buzkashi in the steppes of central Asia and Afghanistan. What is Buzkashi you ask? Only the most rad game that side of the Urals.

From what I've gathered, two teams of mounted players try to throw a mangled goat carcass into a circle drawn in the sand (the "Circle of Justice"). Wikipedia says: "Competition is typically fierce, as other players may use any force short of tripping the horse in order to thwart scoring attempts... Games can last for several days, and the winning team receives a prize, not necessarily money, as a reward for their win." GAMES CAN LAST FOR SEVERAL DAYS! Without sleep, naturally. Real men don't take breaks from sport. So if you can picture it: two teams of mounted men, armed with riding crops and whatever else they have, beating each other unmercifully while trying to throw a headless goat carcass into the end zone. Afghanistan: where men are still allowed to be men.

If you're trying to picture what kind of a prize would be worthy of that sport, I have your answer. In Afghanistan this prize is usually a bathtub full of virgin blood in which the winners are allowed to bathe (in ancient times, it was usually the losing team's virginal daughters that filled the tub). In Uzbekistan, the prize is to be torn limb from limb by wild horses (a great honor). In Kyrgyzstan, they find out who has the largest scrotum on the losing team, and then the leading scorer of the winning team gets to tear his opponent's testicles clean off with his teeth. In the purer form of the game no anesthesia is used, but today some opt for it because the pain is unimaginable.

So, I would like to announce the creation of the Greenfield Buzkashi Team. It's going to be an intramural team and we'll hold tryouts at some point in December. You are to show up in Beacon Field with your own horse (as horses for this sport can run between $5,000 and $10,000 I simply cannot provide for everyone who wants to play) and riding crop. Pads are frowned upon. I'm going to get some jerseys made up, which I think will feature a flaming goat skull bleeding from its eyes. And, I don't think a goat skull is a terrible mascot for Greenfield either. Our high school is the Green Wave despite the fact that we're 100 miles from the ocean. At least we have goats. I think. It can't be too hard to get one to bleed from its eyes while on fire.

Technorati tags: Buzkashi, Afghanistan, Mounted Sports, Badass

Takesies Backsies

Dear Benjamin,

Thank you for your email. We are delighted to inform you that since you have Intermediate Japanese skills, we are able to accommodate your start date to December.

Please note that if you decided to come in December, we cannot guarantee your location. This is due to the fact that you would most probably be covering a vacancy arisen due to unforeseen circumstances (i.e. teachers having to go back home due to family emergencies and so on)

Naturally, at the end of your first contract (March 20089 and pending satisfactory performance and your wish to renew, you would be able to move to a different area in Japan, perhaps closer to your original preferences.

If you are happy with this arrangement, I would be grateful if you could email your documents as soon as possible. It currently takes approximately 26 working days to obtain a certificate of eligibility, and training is set for December 18th, so we are running out of time. (We also have an early January training session)

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Kind Regards,

X

So, nevermind then. December is an option and I've already told Interac that I'll take it.

NOVA's non-future

A lot of coverage has been dedicated to NOVA at the Japan Times. For a fluff piece on how faculty and staff plan on coping with the school closings, see this article (Jisu Oh is slammin' like a late night snack).

A friend of mine in Japan, a former student, said this two weeks ago:

"Well, I went to Nova 2 days ago, 17th Oct and at that time all classes were closed. But when I got there, Nova staffs were there and they told me that it could be open in 2 days, so keep coming. Anyway, today it was supposed to be open as they said and I called Nova to make sure that it was open. But it’s kept close and nobody was still sure from when all classes would be open like before. It might be open tomorrow, but who knows it? So we’ve been recommended to call the school whenever we plan to go. It really sucks.

Anyway, since that time, I haven’t seen any of the Nova teachers, so I really don’t know what they are all doing. But I can imagine they are sad, disappointed, worried, disturbed and upset. In fact, they have that serious problem to live here."

I talked to an Australian friend of mine on October 26th and she said the following when I asked her about the closings:

"I am sad to leave.. and particularly with how this all ended.. i didn't even have a chance to say a proper goodbye to many of the students.

Actually, to give you the most updated news.. today they have just closed the doors on Nova. So now, no one can go to work even if they want to. Basically the president of the company has just been fired (no idea why it has taken this long for it to happen) and now Nova is in the hands of the jap govt. It'll probably be closed for the next 10 days. I dont think there's anything we can do but to wait and see..."

So things haven't been going well. Brucie was accepted, deferred, and then told to forget about coming. That sucks but it looks like he avoided a huge pain in the ass by missing all of this. As did I by the way. For those of you who haven't been following this, the METI in Japan accused NOVA of breaking Japanese contract law and ordered them to stop signing up new students. Signing up new students is how NOVA makes almost all of its cash, so in a short amount of time they had serious cash flow problems. They started paying all their employees late, and then recently, not at all. To compound their problems, the former CEO Sahashi Nozomu, just decided to disappear when all these problems surfaced. A week or two ago the senior most executives at NOVA all quit over their inability to even get a hold of the guy. The Japanese government has stepped in and assumed control of NOVA to try and reach a settlement with its former employees. I can't be bothered to look online for breaking news so that's all I've got.

I'm... disappointed?

I just received this:

Dear Benjamin,

Interac Co., Ltd. takes great pleasure in offering you a position as a
Language Instructor. Detailed instructions about how to proceed from this
point are outlined below.

PROCEDURE... blah blah blah blah

The letter then goes ON AND ON about what I have to do next. While I'm happy that they've offered me a job, it isn't the job I wanted anymore. The letter says my start date is April 2008, not December of this year like I wanted. The job is for their base salary of 250,000 yen/month, not the 260,000 yen/mo like I requested at the interview (which isn't a problem but I'm WORTH it). My salary could still increase a little bit if I get placed in a 'hard to fill' location. That means the boonies from what I was told, but I would be fine with that...

So! I've set the very arbitrary goal for myself of speaking fluent Japanese. That means that I should take this job and get back to Japan. But I don't know how excited I am at the prospect of returning to Japan to teach. I mean, it's not terrible or anything, but I don't think its preferable to anything else I could be doing either. It's just a job.

Sigh.

How much does 0% cost anyway?

I downloaded this weekend's Meet the Press podcast, which was an interview with presidential candidate Chris Dodd. For those who don't know, Chris Dodd is the senior Senator from Connecticut who has more than a passing resemblance to Boss Nass. It's really in the eyebrows and chin in my opinion...

Anywho, thanks to the interview, I now know how much of an asshole Chris Dodd is. Luckily he's polling 0% nationally according to Public Opinion Strategies (cited in the show). When Tim Russert asked him about his numbers, he said "there's room to grow" and then explained that success really depends on how much money you're able to raise, etc; Valid points. However, Russert should have pointed out that according to that same poll, Stephen Colbert, who's currently spending nothing and is only running in South Carolina, is currently whipping his ass with 2.3% of the potential vote.

That's not why he's an asshole though (although indicative). When Tim Russert asked him about his voting record, he came up with nothing but lame excuses and contradictory statements. Tim asked him why, since he now wants to withdraw our troops by 2009, he voted for the war in the first place. Tim then played his speech before Congress on Oct 9, 2002 (before the war vote), where he said: "there's no question that Iraq poses biological and chemical weapons, that's not in doubt, and that he seeks to acquire additional weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons. That's not in debate. I also agree with President Bush that Saddam Hussein is a threat to peace and must be disarmed." Dodd defended himself by saying that his focus in that speech was on searching for the weapons. He added that he regretted that vote and wished he could take it back. Fine. So Tim asked him why then, in July of 2005, he was still giving speeches supporting the president and the war? And why in February of 2006, he said he didn't want to impose deadlines on the president. Dodd defended himself by saying that on September 28, 2004 he said just the opposite. That was supposed to exculpate him I suppose. He said that NOW he thinks its going very poorly and he wants to "change direction." Riiiight. So, in 2002 war was good, in 2004 it wasn't, in 2005 and 2006 it was, and now it isn't again.

Tim asked him if the troops had all died in vain and he said of course not. Then Tim again played a clip from some speech he gave where he said: "all that loss for WHAT?" Tim again put the question to him, and he said that the soldiers have "create[d] some space... in Iraq... for them to come together so that the nation has a chance in succeeding." And are they reconciling their differences? Nope.

He then played a clip from April of 2007 where Dodd said the war was about oil. Tim said he thought it was interesting that he had never said that publicly before 2007 and asked him if he always thought that was true. Yes, he thought it was true. "Why then did you wait until this year to say that?" Replied Dodd: "... good question."

He also threw out the number of Iraqi casualties at 80-100,000. Where the fuck did he come up with that? Even the president's own conservative estimates are higher than 200,000. Who the fuck is this guy?

I guess it just comes back to the fact that Connecticut sucks. And not, as Luke pointed out, that northwestern part of Connecticut that looks a lot like western Massachusetts. The part of Connecticut that the rest of us just drive through on our way to New York and probably elected Chris Dodd. You guys suck.

Work in progress...

OK. Haloscan ate my title and Technorati isn't pinging my site. On the plus side, I am now using Haloscan for my comments and it doesn't require you to register with Blogger first. I expect problems with spam and old comments don't show up anymore.

If you click on the post heading, you can open a unique page for that post along with all of its comments.

Let me know if this is worse or better.

haloscan problems...

anyone have any success with installing haloscan comments? it's eating my header...

Maintenance...

Technorati Profile

Alright. Spiders on their way...

My endorsement

Well, the primaries are quickly approaching and its about time that the good people at my blog (me) handed down their (my) endorsement. Since I don't live in South Carolina, my options aren't that great. My real favorite in this campaign is Ron Paul, the Republican from Texas. In addition to being adorable, he wants to reduce the government to half its size and eliminate, among other things, the departments of homeland security and education, and the IRS. But Ron Paul, like Ralph Nader, doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell. That didn't stop me from voting for Nader in 2000 (that's right mother fuckers. And as a Massachusetts voter, I didn't cost anyone the election), but right now I'm not voting. Only endorsing.

So, I'm endorsing Bill Clinton as Ambassador to the World. I don't really give a shit about Hillary but it's clear that without really fucking up somewhere, she's gonna trounce Obama in the primaries. In a recent trip to the UK, Clinton said he thought his best role in a Hillary administration would be to be "ambassador to the world." I like the sound of that.

Clinton said "I'd be of most use to [Hillary] doing something to try to help restore America's standing in the world and build more allies and get us to work together again." Amen. I guess when it comes down to it, the things I care most about are:

1. Getting US troops home as fast as possible (that includes from places like South Korea, Japan, and wherever the fuck else we happen to have them).

2. Improving our relationship with the rest of planet Earth, who, right now, happen to hate us.

3. Reducing the size and scope of the government.

4. Promoting very liberal social values.

5. Finding a cheap flight to Japan.

Bill and Hillary can promote that liberal social agenda, as well as improve our relationship with the rest of the world. Hillary isn't pulling those troops out of Iraq anytime soon and she's probably gonna increase what the government can do (Hillarycare 2.0?). But, I'm only really endorsing Bill right now, not Hillary. I think in light of a Turkish invasion of northern Iraq, a tactical air strike by Israel inside of Syria, a Putin visit to Iran where he said they should watch each other's backs, a Taiwanese bid to join the UN as an independent country, a nuclear and untrustworthy North Korea, the current war in Iraq, a planned invasion of Iran (is that going to happen or what?), and a planned anti-missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, someone needs to handle our international affairs a little bit better.