bigmacbear: Me in a leather jacket and Hockey Night in Canada ball cap, on a ferry with Puget Sound in background (Default)
If you read nothing else today, please read this. And watch the video if you are able (and haven't already seen it on MSNBC). Central quotes:

The most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons. And, always, always wrong.

And if you think this hyperbole or hysteria, ask the newspaper editors when John Adams was president or the pacifists when Woodrow Wilson was president or the Japanese at Manzanar when Franklin Roosevelt was president.



My take on the matter )

In short, vote in this upcoming election as though your very life depends on it, because it very well might.
bigmacbear: Me in a leather jacket and Hockey Night in Canada ball cap, on a ferry with Puget Sound in background (Default)
The US House of Representatives passed a bill (H.R. 4437) last December that, if also passed by the Senate and signed into law by George II, would make it a felony to be in the US illegally and would also prohibit anyone from giving aid to illegal immigrants. While this may seem reasonable, if perhaps mean-spirited, the devil is in the details.

The details... )
Some say that illegal aliens are stealing our jobs. For the most part this is not borne out by the facts, as illegal aliens tend to be exploited in labor-intensive jobs under conditions that are actually illegal (not to mention entirely immoral) to subject anyone to. Legal aliens are the ones who tend to fill positions that might otherwise go to middle-class Americans, and abuse of these provisions of law is not nearly as widespread as one would think -- tech firms do, after all, have lots of people working for them with brains (by definition) and at least a modicum of moral compunction about how they use them.

I think the dearth of good jobs over the last few years stems not from immigration so much as from the unwillingness of corporations to invest in their rank-and-file worker in order to maximize benefits for the CEO. That is a set of misplaced priorities which is reinforced by the Republicans at every turn, and frankly I wonder how much longer the country can stand it. Immigration reform, whatever form it takes, is ultimately a red herring that distracts people from the evil that is done in the name of corporate excess and government beholden to it -- including propping up the civil war we started in Iraq in the name of those same goals.
bigmacbear: Me in a leather jacket and Hockey Night in Canada ball cap, on a ferry with Puget Sound in background (avatar)
Seahawks ordered to stop using "12th Man"

After reading what others had to say about this on KING's blog, I wanted to post my comments here to see if I'm barking up the wrong tree.

Party-poopers and lawyers... )

Ah well, between this and George II pontificating, I think I've had quite enough bovine excrement to deal with this evening. I feel so much better getting it off my chest, so to speak.
bigmacbear: Me in a leather jacket and Hockey Night in Canada ball cap, on a ferry with Puget Sound in background (Default)
Cindy Sheehan arrested in the House chamber before the State of the Union address

The stated reason for her arrest: "refusing to cover up a T-shirt bearing an anti-war slogan". She was an invited guest of a U.S. Representative, so trespassing wouldn't fly -- so they charged her with "unlawful conduct", which strikes me as a completely bogus charge. Any law she could possibly be violating is clearly in violation of the First Amendment -- what part of "Congress shall make no law" didn't they understand?

Trampling on the Constitution, in the very chamber where a traditional event it created is about to begin, is really bad form and shows the contempt George II has for civil liberties -- while spouting platitudes about spreading freedom and democracy around the world, how about remembering to defend freedom at home? How about it, Mr. President?

I hope the ACLU is all over this one.
bigmacbear: Me in a leather jacket and Hockey Night in Canada ball cap, on a ferry with Puget Sound in background (Default)
Ken Schram's commentary today for KOMO 4 TV has some interesting points about why gay non-discrimination laws are as good an idea today as when they were first introduced.
bigmacbear: Me in a leather jacket and Hockey Night in Canada ball cap, on a ferry with Puget Sound in background (Default)
I've seen lots of remarks about this Oklahoma pastor's arrest for soliciting oral sex from an undercover cop -- most of them taking on the theme of "poetic justice" or "divine justice". However, after watching a video clip related to the story, I discovered that the reason for the arrest is that, while the act of oral sex in private is legal (thanks, no doubt, to Lawrence v. Texas), offering in public to perform such an act is not.

This sounds blatantly unconstitutional to me, in that criminalizing just *talking about* an otherwise legal act in a public place couldn't possibly pass First Amendment scrutiny. As tempting as it is to laugh at the situation and say "serves him right", I also hope he finds competent legal representation and gets this nuisance law stricken from the books as it ought to be.
bigmacbear: Me in a leather jacket and Hockey Night in Canada ball cap, on a ferry with Puget Sound in background (Default)
CDC chief tries to deflate obesity debate

Here's a thought: Medical science, especially as reported to the general public, is so compromised today by conflicting results, irreproducible studies, and funding sources that in and of themselves skew the results, that most people I know discount the whole lot of 'em, and remark about how scientists and the government are just out to scare everyone to death.
Long story... )
Sometimes people just need to be left to their own best judgements -- in other words, to be treated as adults.
bigmacbear: Me in a leather jacket and Hockey Night in Canada ball cap, on a ferry with Puget Sound in background (Default)
I'm not sure why I feel as strongly as I do about this case half a world away where a woman who was clearly framed by drug smugglers at Sydney airport was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment after the judges refused to hear the evidence that this was a frame-up. But after reading the CNN report and seeing the coverage of the case on ITV, I can see people are extremely angry and it's clear that enormous pressure will be brought to bear on the Howard government to denounce Indonesia for this travesty of justice. Of course, cooler heads will eventually prevail.

Last night, I saw some more coverage of the inquiry into the case of Maher Arar, who was intercepted on a flight layover in New York en route from Tunis to his home in Ottawa, and deported to his native Syria on trumped-up charges with the knowledge he would be tortured there. This time, it is my own government who initially perpetrated this travesty of justice, and I'm just as angry hearing of this.

I suppose I have never believed that the world is fundamentally unfair, which seems to be a common belief around the world. News of injustice like this frustrates me, and frustration turns all too often to impotent rage.

March 2025

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