Yay for Chavez!

Denny at Where We're Bound notes that Reuter reports that Hugo Chavez (President of Venezuela) has embraced socialism.

w00t! We're on our way! (Drawing off of LeftThought's Adding to the added comment to the current times post that, even though it's not the end, it's at least moving in the right direction.)

EDIT: So long as Chavez doesn't screw it up, intentionally or otherwise.

Blogger Profiles

So, in case anyone looks at my profile, it seems that it doesn't actually update the stats very often. I've posted since November. Really I have.

Check it!

So, check out No Cities Left over at Stupid Beautiful Lies.

A month later...

...and I still haven't posted about Steve and my 3-month anniversary. So, let me enlighten you.

It was a Friday night, and I took the S down into Denver, and got on the mall shuttle to head towards the Barnes and Noble that we had agreed to meet at. Imagine my surprise, then, when Steve gets on at one of the stops at the mall! I've always said my timing was good, but wow! Anyway, we rode the shuttle to our stop and went into the bookstore, where we spent a good deal of time looking at books (the reservation wasn't for an hour or so). Then, we went over to the restaurant, Maggiano's, and were seated. Very classy place, serves Italian food. Very good and big Italian food. Anyway, so we order and have some wine and garlic bread, generally enjoy ourselves and eat (half, it turns out) of the dinners (I can't remember what it was called... I don't think it was cannoli, but I dunno). Then we decline dessert and pay (well... okay, Steve paid... :-P) and go over to Tarantula Billiards, which is a pool hall (never woulda guessed, huh?), and shoot a couple of games of pool, which was fun.

Now the annoying part.

We decide to head back to Steve's place, so we go outside and call a cab. As in, phone the cab company and request one be sent. Well, we stand out there for a while, and plenty of cabs go by, but none stop. Forty minutes go by, and Steve decides to call again. It'll be right out there, ten minutes, they say. Okay. We wait fifteen more, and he calls again. Hmm, no, turns out that our request was never put in. So, we've now spent an hour in the cold (like, near 0 F) waiting for a cab that wasn't coming. We say "screw this" and hail the next cab that comes, which takes us to Steve's place.

Anyway, that's about the whole story. Overall, a good night, but we learned something new about taxicabs.

ChangeThis

So, I was surfing the web today, and I came across ChangeThis, an organization "on a mission to spread important ideas and change minds." They accomplish this by publishing "manifestos," which are essentially short articles (on the order of maybe 1000 words) on various topics. What's interesting is that they insist on clear, coherent argument... a change, they say, from the mainstream media, from television and radio. They may contact you to write a piece, or there is a submission process as well. In any case, the few manifestos that I've read so far were decently written and, even though I don't agree with them completely, at least made sense.

So, take a chance, check them out. A warning and a suggestion: all the manifestos are in PDF. But, for once, the PDFs are decently laid out for screen. And, take a look at Dated for Freshness, a decent concept piece on requiring all laws to expire in time.

Churchill and H. R. 418

Firstly, I'd like to point your attention to Where We're Bound's discussion of H. R. 418, which would, by WWB's interpretation, would be "the end of laws." He says:

Let me restate that in plain English for you: If H.R. 418 is passed into law, the Secretary of Homeland Security, a Bush appointee nobody elected, will have the right to declare null and void any law...

No judges will have the ability to overrule the Secretary of Homeland Security’s judgment in declaring null and void ANY LAW.

EDIT:Take a look at the ACLU's interpretation.

Meanwhile, Radgeek writes about Hoppe and Churchill. He discusses how you don't have to agree with their arguments in order to agree that they have the right to make them, as well as drawing an important distinction between Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom.

Finally, Pizzuti speaks about Churchill's speech on Tuesday (Colorado Indymedia).

The Shithouse-Crazy Cowboy Strikes Again

http://screwyou.thezeroboss.com/archives/004104.html over at Screw You Guys, I'm Going Home! Very amusing, and saddening at the same time.

Sometimes, there just isn't much to say.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/catelin/179683.html

Sarah's Semester at Sea

Added Sarah's Semester at Sea to the blogroll.

Linkage

Feminists for Porn and An Appeal for Anarchist Solidarity with Albanian Anarchists

Added Links

I've also added two blogs to the blogroll: The Rad Geek People's Daily, and Where We're Bound.

Further Discussion of Churchill's Article

In Some People Push Back, (available at the Dark Night Press and Ratical - note that these versions are different) written shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001, Ward Churchill presents an impassioned argument that the attacks were unsurprising and even understandable. Many years - centuries, if you take the crusades themselves as the beginning - of conflict with the "Christian West" have resulted in extremely devestating circumstances in the Arab world. Including, "deliberate genocide", as denounced by former U.N. Assistant Secretary General Denis Halladay. Something that Madeliene Albright, "calmly announced that she'd decided it was 'worth the price' to see that U.S. objectives were achieved."

He does indeed, as you may have heard, liken the american people to the German people under the Nazis, which, given the circumstances, is a relevant comparison; few, if any, spoke out against such actions, in Germany or in America.

The comparison to Eichmann is too far, but everyone who doesn't speak out against these crimes, when informed of them, is complicit. Which includes myself.

The basic point of the article seems to be, to me, that one can't go around bullying people all the time and expect for none to strike back. Maybe we should, like, not bully people anymore.

Ward Churchill's Article

First, the article.

Then, Pinky's commentary

Also, Where We're Bound has an opinion piece on it as well.

Finally, I quick view of my own to be expanded on later: he's right, duh.