i would bear molly ivins's children. i expect she gets that offer a lot, though.

sacbee.com -- Molly Ivins -- Molly Ivins: Dodging pre-election meteorites:

In further unhappy evidence of how ill-informed the American people are (blame the media), the Program on International Policy Attitudes found Bush supporters consistently ill-informed about Bush's stands on the issues (Kerry-ans, by contrast, are overwhelmingly right about his positions). Eighty-seven percent of Bush supporters think he favors putting labor and environmental standards into international trade agreements. Eighty percent of Bush supporters believe Bush wants to participate in the treaty banning landmines. Seventy-six percent of Bush supporters believe Bush wants to participate in the treat banning nuclear weapons testing. Sixty-two percent believes Bush would participate in the International Criminal Court. Sixty-one percent believes Bush wants to participate in the Kyoto Treaty on global warming. Fifty-three percent does not believe Bush is building a missile defense system, a.k.a. 'Star Wars.'

bush is against labor and environmental standards, even here in the usa.
bush is against any treaties that would ban nuclear testing.
bush is against banning landmines.
bush is against the international criminal court.
bush is against the kyoto treaty on global warming.
bush is for, and is building, an ineffective missile defense system.

just so you know.

i used to want to do professional work in hiv prevention; now i do professional work in computers and do peer education about hiv. (if you know me, and you have any questions about hiv or any other sexually transmitted infection, email me, by the way. if i don't know the answer, i'll find you one or i'll find you a person who can.)

jon carroll talks about hiv and how the united states government is for punishing people who have sex. (you thought that was only the rule in horror movies, i bet...)

JON CARROLL:

There is, of course, a simple way to drastically retard the spread of HIV. It is simple and cheap. It requires three minutes of training and has no moving parts. It's called a condom. And the United States is against it.

The Bush administration apparently believes that abstinence is the only acceptable means of birth control. If people refrain from being abstinent, then they must suffer the consequences. Increasingly, one of the consequences is death.

In the simplest terms, that's the choice: sex or death. The administration chooses death. Tough beans, Africa; you shoulda thought of that before you started playing slap and tickle.

This is supposed to be the pro-life administration, but one of its most far-reaching decisions is pro-death. This administration is supposed to uphold morality, but there is no more deeply immoral position than this: Sex is punishable by death. It is disgusting; it is disturbing; it is being done in our name.

oy vey. i can make a new post, but reply to a comment? nooooo.

any moms referred to in that last post were mine and mine alone. (well, also my sister's, but you know what i mean.)

this would be my mom, aka the world's coolest mom (and i have *got* to find that picture of her right after she got her hair done this summer!) who, despite being the wcm has some political opinions that i occasionally disagree with.

stef talks about this in a way that i hadn't been able to pry out of my head yet.

no, mom, i don't trust that the current administration wants to get to the same goals that i do, and that we just disagree on specifics. i think we're working on different goals. and i do not like or trust their (sometimes stated) goals.

stef says:

firecat: This scares me:

I guess I thought that most of the people in my country had the same ultimate goal - a better life for everyone - and only disagreed with the specifics of how to get there. But if many people in my country have the goal of being part of an empire where they try to remake the world in their own image...well, then we're on a road that might have lots more hatred, violence, and bloodshed than I imagined.

what stef is reacting to:

In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

(from ron suskind's new york times magazine article, "without a doubt", from the october 17th issue. i am not providing a link because i'm not registered there, but go to stef's commentary and she has the direct link.)

i'm a little confused about this mining thing. ah, well.

Name Search Results for Betsy:

Betsy
Form of ELIZABETH. god's oath

Name Origin: Hebrew
Number of Syllables: 2.00
Gender: Female

More interesting facts about the name Betsy:

Lucky Number: 8
Ruling Planet: Saturn
Element: Earth
Primary Color: Rose
Traits: Inclined to be cold and pessimistic. Not much sense of humor. Often slow getting off the mark but usually ends up ahead of the game. Successful, especially where money is concerned. Frequently connected with mining, real estate and the law. Also with cemeteries and pawnshops. Believes that hard work never killed anyone. Often prepossessed with thoughts of the past.

at work today, and today is being a good day. we got the dogs back from the kennel yesterday, and it's amazing what they do for my mood. also had a good talk with nathan, a very happy birthday dinner with my family, and then some knitting and some sleep. these are all fine fine things. also, as chilly reminded me today, i have five whole days to work before they make me take two days off! hurray!

(yes, i still like my job. a lot.)

it's amazing how fast your mood can crash, eh? i had a really fabulously good day yesterday; dropped off the dogs at the kennel, grabbed breakfast, came home, went grocery shopping, cleaned, took a nap, went to home depot, made some cakes, and then people came over for my birthday party. (nathan and laura helped with all of these besides the nap. fyi.) the party was great-- nearly everyone who i was hoping would show up did, and there were a few surprise people as well who i had invited but wasn't expecting.

got up this morning, watched some er, talked with nathan for a bit, took a shower, got dressed, and here it is, 130pm and i'm sitting on the sofa trying not to cry.

except now nathan is out of the shower and dressed, so i expect that i'll go to menards and buy faucet handles and try not to cry there.

poetry meme. when you see this, go post a poem in your blog or journal.

Margaret Atwood - The Academy of American Poets:

Variation on the Word Sleep
Margaret Atwood




I would like to watch you sleeping,
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you,
sleeping. I would like to sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth dark wave
slides over my head

and walk with you through that lucent
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun & three moons
towards the cave where you must descend,
towards your worst fear

I would like to give you the silver
branch, the small white flower, the one
word that will protect you
from the grief at the center
of your dream, from the grief
at the center. I would like to follow
you up the long stairway
again & become
the boat that would row you back
carefully, a flame
in two cupped hands
to where your body lies
beside me, and you enter
it as easily as breathing in

I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.

it looks like hersh loves the same america that i do. it's not unpatriotic to point this stuff out. it's unpatriotic to try and hide it, to rail against fixing it, to say that this is the way that things need to be.

Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh spills the secrets of the Iraq quagmire and the war on terror:

The story seemed to leave Hersh sincerely, deeply saddened. While his critics may call him a 'muckraker' and unpatriotic, on Friday night it was obvious that Hersh takes the crumbling of America's image, very, very personally.
'My parents were immigrants,' Hersh said. 'They came here because America meant something... the Statue of Liberty and all that stuff, because America always was this bastion of morality and integrity and a place for a fresh start. And it's right in front of us, not hidden, that they've taken this away from us.'

Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh spills the secrets of the Iraq quagmire and the war on terror:

There was more -- rumors of atrocities around Iraq that to Hersh brought back memories of My Lai. In the evening's most emotional moment, Hersh talked about a call he had gotten from a first lieutenant in charge of a unit stationed halfway between Baghdad and the Syrian border. His group was bivouacking outside of town in an agricultural area, and had hired 30 or so Iraqis to guard a local granary. A few weeks passed. They got to know the men they hired, and to like them. Then orders came down from Baghdad that the village would be 'cleared.' Another platoon from the soldier's company came and executed the Iraqi granary guards. All of them.

'He said they just shot them one by one. And his people, and he, and the villagers of course, went nuts,' Hersh said quietly. 'He was hysterical, totally hysterical. He went to the company captain, who said, 'No, you don't understand, that's a kill. We got 36 insurgents. Don't you read those stories when the Americans say we had a combat maneuver and 15 insurgents were killed?'

i can't even think what to excerpt out of here. i bolded a few parts, but read the whole thing.

Voter Registrations Possibly Trashed

George Knapp, Investigative Reporter
Voter Registrations Possibly Trashed

(Oct. 12) -- Employees of a private voter registration company allege that hundreds, perhaps thousands of voters who may think they are registered will be rudely surprised on election day. The company claims hundreds of registration forms were thrown in the trash.

Anyone who has recently registered or re-registered to vote outside a mall or grocery store or even government building may be affected.

The I-Team has obtained information about an alleged widespread pattern of potential registration fraud aimed at democrats. Thee focus of the story is a private registration company called Voters Outreach of America, AKA America Votes.

The out-of-state firm has been in Las Vegas for the past few months, registering voters. It employed up to 300 part-time workers and collected hundreds of registrations per day, but former employees of the company say that Voters Outreach of America only wanted Republican registrations.

Two former workers say they personally witnessed company supervisors rip up and trash registration forms signed by Democrats.

"We caught her taking Democrats out of my pile, handed them to her assistant and he ripped them up right in front of us. I grabbed some of them out of the garbage and she tells her assisatnt to get those from me," said Eric Russell, former Voters Outreach employee.

Eric Russell managed to retrieve a pile of shredded paperwork including signed voter registration forms, all from Democrats. We took them to the Clark County Election Department and confirmed that they had not, in fact, been filed with the county as required by law.

So the people on those forms who think they will be able to vote on Election Day are sadly mistaken. We attempted to speak to Voters Outreach but found that its office has been rented out to someone else.

The landlord says Voters Outreach was evicted for non-payment of rent. Another source said the company has now moved on to Oregon where it is once again registering voters. It's unknown how many registrations may have been tossed out, but another ex-employee told Eyewitness News she had the same suspicions when she worked there.

It's going to take a while to sort all of this out, but the immediate concern for voters is to make sure you really are registered.

Call the Clark County Election Department at 455-VOTE or click here to see if you are registered.

The company has been largely, if not entirely funded, by the Republican National Committee. Similar complaints have been received in Reno where the registrar has asked the FBI to investigate.

today is my birthday!

i bought myself donuts for breakfast, and went out over lunch and bought pretty pretty yarn. so far in presents, i have gotten a mix cd. however, i expect more presents in my future, so don't feel too sad for me. (plus, it looks like a nice mix cd.)

happy national coming out day, for those of you in the united states!

i'm bisexual, polyamorous, and kinky. how about you?

did you know that Lake Tanganyika, in Tanzania is the longest freshwater lake in the world, and is the second deepest, after lake baikal (in russia)?

i am being nagged about my lack of updating.

so here i am, updating again.

i'm going to icon this weekend-- should be fun. i am shortly going to leave work, go home and grab the laptop (which nathan forgot) (although he remembered all the rest of my luggage), and then head to pick up a few people and then to iowa!

i am no longer running the artshow for convergence. it was fun, i loved doing it for two years, and my life is full to the gills and i needed to get some stress out of it, so boom, there went convergence. if they get someone who is willing to have the help next year, i may show up and work on it again, though.

okay, for those of you who aren't used to me, please take a deep breath and make sure you're sitting down, because this will be a little surprising for some after reading that last paragraph.

so, my friend davey called me. (hi, davey!) and asked me if i would please run the fiddler's green artshow. i, being unable to say no to these things, said yes. so, if you're an artist and your art reflects the themes of sandman, please let me know if you'd like to be in an art show in the middle of november.

yes, this is less stress than convergence. for honest and for true.

I am Academic Girl Click on the picture below to read more: Take the 'What Kind of Girl Are You?' quiz at CookingToHookup.com

josie is soooo helpful. some days, she wants to test out pirate's clothing before pirate wears it, you know, for science.



(pirate is half josie's size, for those of you who are tuning in late.)

puppies are fuzzy.

that's what my sister says to me when i'm sad and cranky.

so, because i am sad and cranky, i will tell all of you.

fuzzy fuzzy puppies!

many many many very nice very pleasing things have happened this week.

sadly, i've wanted to spend a lot of the rest of the week under my desk crying and poking people with sticks.

i have some hope for next week to be more moderate.