Conversations at work

At work I try to stray away from conversations regarding politics, mostly because I'm in Georgia and people down here tend to not be of political stripes and I don't want to get canned for causing too much unnecessary thinking. But today I was approached by a self-proclaimed evangelical Christian who asked me about my leaving the Christian fold. This conversation evolved into a discussion on politics and made me wonder why seemingly smart people can reject simple logic.

As it happened, said worker mentioned something about celebrities needing to keep their mouths shut on political issues, something I can agree with sometimes, and progressed to why "we shouldn't negotiate with Ahmadinejad". He said Ahmadinejad shouldn't be negotiated with because he is a "madman" and is a bad guy in general.

If Ahmadinejad is a madman, a madman whose most recent sin was holding British seamen hostage for breaching Iran's territorial integrity, one must wonder what the equivalent Iranian views George W. Bush, whose government deposed a leader of a sovereign nation, albeit a leader who maintained the delicate balance of rival groups through brute worse. Whose government holds people who are not even soldiers of any particular nation or militia for years without charge, engages in practices upon those detainees that are worse than what the British sailors have claimed.

By the way, "moderate" President Khatami's government also held British sailors upon British incursion in Iranian waters. Strike two crazies up for the Iranians.

Or strike Ahmadinejad up to being politically pragmatic and snappy, knowing how to play the west like a fiddle.

Oh, and did I happen to mention that we happen to have a lot of troops in two other countries right now? Oh yeah! Afghanistan and Iraq.

138,000 troops in Iraq.

27,000 troops in Afghanistan.

Should we embark upon another grand excursion? Should we now depose an elected leader of a country? Paging President Allende! Paging President Allende!

I asked him why another military adventure would be such a terrific idea.

Liberty, he says. Liberty for the people!

Liberty.

And justice.

For all.

Whatever and ever Amen!

O! How people have such great ideals! I can't recall the number of times I've been assailed for being too idealistic by cats like my coworker. But, lest we forget, it's okay to be hyperidealistic when you're hypernationalistic.

:throws arms in air:

-rl

Votojournalism

Techpresident has a cool feature hidden betwixt and between its layers of candidate technological embracing news called votojournalism. What is votojournalism? It's an interesting portemanteau, linguistically speaking, but it's also a feed of photographs of candidates uploaded by their campaigns to Flickr. The program's timer can be adjusted to decrease/increase the speed of the slideshow and has links to the candidates' Flickr pages.

Intrigued?

Go. See.

-rl

Rudy Giuliani: Out of Touch?

From Political Wire:

When former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was asked to give the price of a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread while campaigning in Alabama, he answered, "a gallon of milk is probably about a $1.50, a loaf of bread about a $1.25, $1.30," reports the AP.

However, "a check of the Web site for D'Agostino supermarket on Manhattan's Upper East Side showed a gallon of milk priced at $4.19 and a loaf of white bread at $2.99 to $3.39. In Montgomery, Ala., a gallon of milk goes for about $3.39 and bread is about $2."

While I like Rudy for his frankness and general :gasp: honesty, it's little things like this that make me wonder how in touch he (or any other candidate, for that matter) is with the general public. And yet he and Hillarious hold staggering leads in their respective primaries.

:scratches head: What makes the American public go for dopes like these?

I wonder... does this alternate universe have gasoline priced less than $1.29/gallon? You know, the world as it was in 2000.

Just wondering.

-rl

Gave blood, gave life.

I gave blood yesterday for the first time. Nearly 23 years old and it was my first time. I can't say that I wasn't nervous, because that would be a total and complete falsehood. There are few times where I have been more nervous.

But I overcame my nerves, sucked it up, and had that needle draw out a pint of sangre.

Once all was said and done, I felt relieved, albeit a little light-headed.

Give blood. Give life. I will again in 56 days.

In other news, Obama and Clinton announced fundraising totals and they are neck and neck based upon fundraising (w/o transfers from their Senate accounts) and Obama has a boatload that's dedicated to the primary. Bill Richardson was able to raise $6 million and has $5 million cash on hand.

I'm personally impressed with Obama's performance and pleased with Richardson's, given the dearth of coverage he has received and the fact he's still the full-time chief executive of a state. Hillary may be having more issues than recognized and reported by the media and these numbers - relative to Obama's - seem to convey that.

Hey hey, what do you say?
Hey hey, what do you gotta be that way?
Hey hey,
Hey hey.

-rl

Bill Richardson on the Daily Show

Watch.