no need for war in Iran

I just know our esteemed cheif executive (*w*) is salivating (or is aroused) at the thought of invading Iran.





They are trying to get this ad seen by more than just us folks that are sympathetic to their causes...

by the way

There's another Battle Royale this week. It's Tuesday night, at the Caledonia. Don't know if I'll go because they start so damn late. (circa 9 p.m.) If I get my work done and get permission maybe I'll go though...

word...

"Americans are not getting screwed by
the Republican Party. They are getting
screwed by the large corporations that
bought and own the Republican Party." -- Molly Ivins, RIP 2007

(I found the quote by chance, it's WORT's music director's signature text on their playlist...)

in case you didn't know

...who the great rock band The Stooges were when I mentioned them the other day, or even if you do, check out today's NY Times article about them...

Why not impeach the president?

I mean, if Nixon and Clinton were so deserving, than certainly Bush the Lesser is. The Democrats sent me this link: www.impeach07.org, which in turn made me want to share it here.

more about the conservative news channel

Have you seen this yet?

I can't wait to see what J. Stewart, et al do with it when they come back from vacation next week.

You have to really be thankful when your ideological opponents satirize themselves for you, even though they are attempting to satirize you. The multiple layers of irony are savory.

take a pot shot against the travesty that is Fux News.

Again, thanks to Move On for this...

Rather than email everyone about all of this, I'm pasting it here, verbatim:

Subject: It's time to take on Fox

Hi,

I wanted to tell you about something pretty outrageous.

Fox News convinced the Democratic Party to let Fox host a nationally-televised Democratic presidential primary debate this summer in Nevada!

But Fox isn't even a legitimate news channel! It's a right-wing mouthpiece like Rush Limbaugh—dedicated to smearing Democrats. (Recently, Fox falsely claimed Sen. Barack Obama attended a terrorist school!)

There's a growing backlash of people demanding that Democrats drop Fox. Can you help out by signing this petition to the Democratic Party of Nevada? It's really easy—just click this link:

MoveOn.org Fox News Petition

Thanks!

It only takes a couple of minutes, if that, to click a couple links and tell them who you are, and if you are really ambitious, add a few comments of your own. It certainly couldn't hurt anything.

I know that for folks like me that sometimes like to think of ourselves as even a little bit more left, politically, than the Democrats, it's sometimes troubling to realize that we are, in effect, compromising to support them. Unless one were to take more radical and disruptive action, however, I don't see an alternative. I used to think differently. Then W (president dumbass) got "elected" in 2000, and "re-elected" in 2004. The Democrats are our party, like it or not. We've got to do what we can to make the party more to our liking... Bueno... I think I've already said far more than enough on this topic for now.

A new look

In case you haven't already noticed, Holly has blogged yet again and has put up a new design she found. It looks pretty, pretty, pret-ty (gratuitous Curb Your Enthusiasm reference) good.

write a letter to your congresspeople

...to tell them to stop our President's plan to escalate the war in Iraq.

I did it. It's easy, just click here and follow their instructions. They give you the "talking points" to cover, so it's not like you need to be too creative or anything.

Here's my letter:

It seems that a majority of Congress opposes escalation in the war in Iraq. What needs to be done now is to act to stop President Bush from continuing to make the disaster in Iraq even worse.

Although I have not heard it recently, it was not long ago that President Bush was frequently heard in television sound bites proclaiming himself "The Decider." Congress needs to step in and make some decisions and exercise the checks and balances they have on the President's power. We need to bring our troops home and put an end to a war that should never have been in the first place, the current Iraq war.

In the elections last November the citizens of the United States proclaimed a new mandate for our government. We do not want more troops sent to Iraq; we want the war to end. Furthermore, President Bush's policy has been explicitly proscribed by the Iraq Study Group as well as many current and ex-generals.

Stopping escalation is the best way to support our troops. What better support is there than to take them out of harms way, especially if the we the people oppose the war? Just as important: if we should find ourselves in a situation where we need our military deployed elsewhere, we need them free to do just that. If the status quo remains or is exacerbated in Iraq, our armed forces may not be able to respond as urgently as could be necessary.

It might not make much of a difference, especially considering our representative, and our republican senators; but it makes me feel good.

Wal-Mart sells t-shirts with skull image virtually identical to the same found on a Nazi SS cap.

It's old news but I got another email from some like-minded activists today about it. It's kind of fascinating to me. You can read more here if you want. I've pasted their image below which shows very clearly the uncanny similarity between the skull on their t-shirt and the one on a concentration camp commander's cap.

The Stooges

The Stooges are putting out a new album!!! It should be a great year for rock!

bueno, cambié de opinión

I should probably just shut up but I take back what I said about the new RAE website. It's not so bad I guess. I liked the older one because I thought it was very economical in its design. The new one is alright though.

pero... no me gusta

The Real Academia Española has changed the design of their website. It sucks now. To me it does anyway, compared to their old one... oh well. Ni modo...

our new favorite bar

I have been meaning to mention this ever since it opened, which was shortly after the new year began. The Max Canada, besides being a rather strange name for a bar, is a pretty cool new bar in what used to be Room 13, and before that, The Engine Room.

Thanks to his and our entusiasm for PS2 Guitar Hero, we got to know the dude that opened this place up and we are big supporters of his efforts.

It's also a cool bar that I would tend to frequent even if left entirely to my own devices. It's not pretentious. There is no jukebox at the moment, but the staff seem to have pretty decent taste in the music they subject everyone to during business hours. There are plenty of pool tables. And, of course, now that the current management is in place, there will be plenty of video gaming going on there. ¡Viva Max Canada!

By the way:

Thank you and I love you, Holly! I am super-duper-extremely-extra grateful to Holly for fixing my coat over the weekend by sewing on a button that had come off thanks to my rough wear over the past few years. Nana would be proud! It was not as easy as it may seem; the material of the coat is pretty thick, and it looked like a big pain in the ass to me. I would probably still be one button short if it weren't for my wife.

mundanity

Another weekend has past and I'm feeling pretty good. But the weekend was pretty uneventful, and although I did a minimum of work that I'm sure my students will appreciate considering they have an exam on Tuesday, I didn't get much done on the thesis. It's no big deal of course. It's the only thing I have to do this semester besides teach, and so it's everything, so I'll be thinking and perhaps blogging about it quite a lot.

I know someone who did a doctoral dissertation recently who would respond when asked "How's the dissertation going?" by saying "You know, that's not a question you are supposed to ask" or something to that effect. It is a taboo topic. That makes sense. When you ask someone that, you are putting that person on the spot. If the writer/researcher is lagging behind he/she will inevitably be embarrassed, to say the least. I don't mind people asking me though. If nothing else, it is always interesting to me to ponder the different responses I get back from the askers.

Presumably one could redirect energy toward the project at hand (thesis) that is otherwise invested elsewhere (blogging, figuring out how to make a DVD with the new laptop, folding laundry) and be quite pleasantly surprised with the results...

On an unrelated note: I had planned to write a long post, inspired by my pal Jeffrey, about the music I listened to a lot or purchased last year. Since it's now February, I think it's a little late for that. Also, because I have to do my thesis, I don't think I can justify to myself the time it would take for me to write such a long post, especially if I did it in one sitting. So, I think I'll just do it little by little, and not mention the 2006 aspect of it all. Thus, Coming Soon: Rock and Pop reviews (not necessarily of new or recent releases) appearing here, by yours truly. Please try to manage your excitement so as to not act out in ways that are socially inappropriate.

this makes me sad

Molly Ivins wrote brilliant and very funny (in spite of the far too frequent lack of humor in the seriousness of the subject matter) political commentary. She died yesterday due to breast cancer, which she was fighting off for the third time in her life. I never met her of course, but have read many of her columns, mostly online, and I can honestly say she will be missed. She was 62 years old.

Winter IS here.

At least as much winter as we will probably get this year is here. More importantly, UGA is closed today. No my Wisconsonite and Chicagoan friends, no snow really. At least not that I can see out my window. Just some rain. And some of the rain freezes on the ground. It's a good thing, really. We can all use a day off, anytime, always.