Congratulations, Connecticut.

So, the election is a week away. I thought I'd throw in my measly two cents in before it occurs.

Have you heard about the bailout? I can't imagine you haven't. The bailout was the U.S. government's plan to "bail out" the big banks so that they'd have money to loan to people, to try and help to bring our economy back on track. Both Obama and McCain voted for this bailout.

Want to know what the banks are doing with their bailout money?

AIG executives spent part of their bailout money on a $86,000 hunting trip.

Chase bank plans to use their bailout money to buy out other banks instead of making more loans.

I'm voting for the one presidential candidate who voted against the bailout. That presidential candidate is Bob Barr.

Some people may say I am throwing my vote away because he has no chance to win. However, if I were to vote for Obama or McCain, I would be voting for someone whose ideals I do not share. In my mind, that is throwing my vote away. I'm proud to be voting for Bob Barr.

Anyone know where I could find out if the number of third party/independent members in the House and Senate has stayed the same over the years, increased, or decreased?

Let's see, time to figure out how to imbed a YouTube video.



This is a cute video that I first saw on CNN. It's JibJab's parody of this year's election.

Well, it seems like talk of the LiveJournal events has died down, although it's still very much on my mind. It may seem silly to some to worry about something like this, but I will tell you why I am still concerned. LiveJournal/SixApart still has yet to address what we are and are not allowed to post in our LiveJournals and what we are and are not allowed to list as interests. They still have not addressed why they seemingly changed their own TOS without telling their userbase and then issued suspensions based on the new TOS that no one had (or still has) access to. I want to know why you can be suspended for listing something as an interest when you don't necessarily support it, you are merely interested in it, hence the word "interest." If I have the "Holocaust" listed as an interest, it doesn't mean I support it, all it means is that I am interested in it. LiveJournal/SixApart has yet to address this, and I will continue to be concerned about it until they do.

I wasn't really sure where to link the image, so I picked the link that seems to have the most thorough write-up on the topic. Basically, LiveJournal is mass suspending any LiveJournals and communities that have illegal sexual activities listed in their interests, including incest, pedophilia, lolita, yaoi, and others. LiveJournal appears to not be investigating said journals or communities before they are suspended, as legitimate journals and communities have been victims of this mass banning.

Such journals and communities include people who have been victims of said illegal sexual activities, because they have those activities listed in their interests in an attempt to find others who are victims. Also, many fandom communities have been deleted because they list yaoi, lolita, or others in their interests list, because they are fans of media that include such things in the media, but the fans do not necessarily support the activities themselves. Communities about the novel Lolita have been banned, and I am under the impression that this novel is about a character who discovers that lolita is immoral (correct me if I am wrong).

I find the whole matter saddening and I hope LiveJournal reverses their stance, and restores legitimate accounts to be unbanned.

Let me begin by saying that I don't really understand why your vote is supposed to be secret. If you support a candidate, shouldn't you publically support him or her, and encourage people to vote for that candidate? Ah, well.

But that aside, I finally decided to vote Libertarian -- Badnarik -- in this year's presidential election. I realize he is about as likely to win as I am to win the lottery. Still, I don't believe I should vote for a candidate I wouldn't want to see in office. That eliminated Bush and Kerry fairly easily. Of the third parties, the ones I liked best were Green and of course, Libertarian. I found the Libertarian position on the issues I feel most strongly about to be more clear-cut than the Green party's.

Firstly, small government. Both my ideals and the ideals of the Libertarian party support this. The government should exist to serve the people, not the other way around. All the government should do is uphold the Constituion -- that is, to protect the life, liberty, and property of all Americans. There are too many government programs that do not fall under these lines. Let private organizations take care of the extra things that government has taken on, such as Social Security and welfare. As an added bonus, this would lower taxes.

The War in Iraq. Badnarik's position is that we should bring our troops home, and if you know me you know I am all over that. Bring the troops home! Stop making the U.S. out to be the world's police. That isn't our job. The U.S. used to be all about not mingling in needless world affairs, but our leaders seem to have forgotten about that. And obviously, I'm against a draft, and so is Badnarik. Keep the Army a volunteer army. Those of us who don't want to fight aren't going to be good soldiers anyway.

Civil liberties. It's in the Constitution. The Patriot Act is not constitutional. It infringes on our liberties. Get rid of it. Yes, it's important to make sure that government agencies are able to talk to each other, but you don't need to infringe on our rights to do that. In addition, the genders of two people who are married is not of the government's concern. Either remove government involvement in marriage completely, or grant equal rights to both different-sex and same-sex couples.

Finally, abortion. This is the one area where I kind of disagree with Libertarians, but kind of agree. They say that the federal government should not control it, leaving me to believe they think it should be left to the state governments. But is murder against federal or state law? I would believe it is federal. So if murder is against federal law, abortion should be against federal law, too. But I am willing to sacrifice this one point, because Libertarians do at least oppose tax funding for abortion. The abortion battle is not one we are going to win any time soon. People as individuals need to realize that unborn babies are people too, before people realize that abortion is the same as murder.

As for Maryland's elections, I honestly didn't put as much thought into them as I did into the presidential election. I know, I know, I'm a horrible citizen. I did do a little bit of research on each candidate before voting, though. I voted on the same principles I described above. There were no other Libertarians on my ballot, however. I realized too late I could have done a write-in for a Libertarian candidate. Sigh.

I know Ken and I are probably going to get murdered for this, but I can't resist.

Izuko Hime: I think I finally understand how Kerry can hold his position on abortion.
the bird angel: because he's trying to appease the majority?
Izuko Hime: Well, besides that.
Izuko Hime: It seems that a fetus is only a person in the christian mindset. So only christian fetuses are people.
the bird angel: BS
Izuko Hime: Now, since we know of no species that changes into another species, and we know that life cannot come from unlife, then we must conclude that, if non-christian fetuses are not human, neither are non-christian adults.
the bird angel: *sniiiiiirk*
Izuko Hime: So Kerry supports the murder of all non-christians.

Just for the record, Bush is against the murder of Christians and non Christians alike. So if you'd like to support your right to life, don't vote Kerry. ;)

I actually watched the presidential debate on Friday night. Shocker. I heard that Bush didn't do very well in the first debate, but he seemed to do just fine in this one. His only bad point was insisting he have a comeback one time when it wasn't his turn. As for their stances on things, Bush impressed me more because he actually had a stance and supported it well. Kerry continues to prove that he's only a Bush copycat.

However, I'm not going to discuss the debate in detail. That would take too long and would bore me. What I want to talk about is just one question from it. If you didn't see the debate, you can read Kerry's and Bush's responses to the question I'm talking about in this CNN transcript. Here is the question:

Sen. Kerry, suppose you are speaking with a voter who believed abortion is murder and the voter asked for reassurance that his or her tax dollars would not go to support abortion, what would you say to that person?

Kerry responded that even though he is a Catholic (sniiiiiiiiirk, yeah right), he needs to represent all the people in the nation, even people who don't share his beliefs. He said that people needed to be afforded their constitutional rights.

However, Kerry seems to have missed the point. If he's truly a Catholic (snirk), he believes that abortion is murder. Murder is not a constitutional right. The right to life, however, is a constitutional right. Kerry seems to completely have missed that point. Bush realizes it, though I don't think he emphasized the constitution enough in his response to Kerry.

Kerry needs to reconcile his stance. If he's truly pro life, he needs to recognize that life is a constitutional right. The unborn are part of that group of people he's supposed to represent. If he's pro choice, well, that's another story. And really, he is pro choice. He has no right to be touting his religious horn, least of all not claiming he's pro life when he really isn't.

I've been trying to figure out which third party to vote for since I know I don't like Bush or Kerry. I found good charts on CNN that outline each candidate's position on a variety of topics. Unfortunately, Nader is the only third party candidate included. However, I have reproduced CNN's charts here, along with my own opinions on each topic. This should help me in deciding. At this point, Nader seems like a decent choice for me. He is the most well known third party candidate, and part of my purpose is to help out the third parties, so it makes sense to back the most well known candidate in hopes of giving him a chance.

( The chart -- it's long, so it's cut )

I wish I had a reliable source of news and information, and then maybe I could actually form a well-backed opinion and be able to figure out what exactly is under debate here.

It seems to me (and I am very un-informed, so I'm probably wrong) that the US media outlets are not very accurate because they are inherently US-biased, but the non-US media is inherently anti-US. Neither side, then, has completely accurate info. I don't want to base my opinions on what could be flawed information, or not the complete story. So I have to remain in the dark, which is probably a bad place to be.

When I was at GWU, I actually followed the news on CNN, because they're constantly talking about politics over there and I had to know what was going on. But once I left GWU, I stopped following CNN. I've heard that CNN is biased (and gah, I forget what they support -- ughuu~), and as I said before, I don't want to formulate opinions based on inaccurate reports.

So... uh... if you really want, you can recommend me some good news outlets. Just understand that I will be naturally skeptical about their accuracy. I mean, I've heard that the non-US media outlets are somewhat good, but... I'm an American. Isn't it sad that I'd have to resort to non-American info just to make sure it's accurate? @_@

[cloned from A Bird's Melody]

"I don't wanna miss the boss fight."

[cloned from A Bird's Melody]

Sometimes, it's a tricky area as to how to get the majority to understand the minority's message.

Yesterday, Michael Moore used his Oscar acceptance speech as a way to vocally protest against the war. However, a lot of people disagreed with his method due to the way he phrased his protest (bluntly), and going against the mainstream. Here is his acceptance speech, from Oscar.com:

Whoa. On behalf of our producers Kathleen Glynn and Michael Donovan from Canada, I'd like to thank the Academy for this. I have invited my fellow documentary nominees on the stage with us, and we would like to — they're here in solidarity with me because we like nonfiction. We like nonfiction and we live in fictitious times. We live in the time where we have fictitious election results that elects a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons. Whether it's the fictition of duct tape or fictition of orange alerts we are against this war, Mr. Bush. Shame on you, Mr. Bush, shame on you. And any time you got the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, your time is up. Thank you very much.

I really don't know if this was a good or a bad move. Yes, the Oscars are supposed to be about celebrating film, not using acceptance speeches as soapboxes. But, the Oscars are a perfect way to reach a large audience to communicate a message. Face it, the people for the war are probably tuning out the protests and such. But, a lot of those people watched the Oscars last night. So this was an easy way to reach them. I don't know if that was Mr. Moore's intention, but he sure did reach them in a way. The pro-war people I've heard were all like "How rude! I can't believe he did that!" As I said before, I don't know if it was a good move or not. But how else do we get our message, the minority viewpoint, out?

Another example of this I saw on the shuttle to Mount Vernon today. There was a truck riding down the road with messages painted all over it. Two sides had depictions of aborted babies, with the caption "Abortion - Not a Choice." The people in the shuttle that I was in were like, "That's disgusting!" And maybe it is. Maybe people shouldn't have to be subjected to that in public while they are driving. But how else can the pro-life people get the pro-choice people to realize that fetuses are human beings too? Any other time, without those kinds of pictures, they're more likely to say that human life doesn't begin until birth. But to look at the pictures, and then say that they weren't human, would be hard to do. At least I think it would be. But is showing those pictures in public acceptable? Where to draw the line? And how do we get them to understand?

From here:

All right, let me see if I understand the logic of this correctly. We are going to ignore the United Nations in order to make clear to Saddam Hussein that the United Nations cannot be ignored. We're going to wage war to preserve the UN's ability to avert war. The paramount principle is that the UN's word must be taken seriously, and if we have to subvert its word to guarantee that it is, then by gum, we will. Peace is too important not to take up arms to defend. Am I getting this right?

Further, if the only way to bring democracy to Iraq is to vitiate the democracy of the Security Council, then we are honor-bound to do that too, because democracy, as we define it, is too important to be stopped by a little thing like democracy as they define it.

Also, in dealing with a man who brooks no dissension at home, we cannot afford dissension among ourselves. We must speak with one voice against Saddam Hussein's failure to allow opposing voices to be heard. We are sending our gathered might to the Persian Gulf to make the point that might does not make right, as Saddam Hussein seems to think it does. And we are twisting the arms of the opposition until it agrees to let us oust a regime that twists the arms of the opposition. We cannot leave in power a dictator who ignores his own people. And if our people, and people elsewhere in the world, fail to understand that, then we have no choice but to ignore them.

Listen. Don't misunderstand. I think it is a good thing that the members of the Bush administration seem to have been reading Lewis Carroll. I only wish someone had pointed out that "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass" are meditations on paradox and puzzle and illogic and on the strangeness of things, not templates for foreign policy. It is amusing for the Mad Hatter to say something like, `We must make war on him because he is a threat to peace,' but not amusing for someone who actually commands an army to say that. As a collector of laughable arguments, I'd be enjoying all this were it not for the fact that I know--we all know--that lives are going to be lost in what amounts to a freak, circular reasoning accident.

The beginning of this little jem made me laugh out loud. Too bad this is reality.

[cloned from A Bird's Melody]

My roommate and her friend were talking just now about the war. One of the things that came up were the anti-war protestors. I can't believe they're against our troops, my roommate exclaimed. Those poor soldiers, over there knowing that so many of their fellow citizens are against them.

All I could do was to keep from saying something in my defense. I know, I know, you would have argued that I should have defended myself. But they are both political science majors, wonderful in debate, and my minority viewpoint would have been crushed. Just because I am against the war, does not mean I am against U.S. soldiers. Why would I be? Many of my family members are in the military. My online buddy Thong Bandit is presumably over in Iraq at this very moment. I support our U.S. soldiers -- I want them home, safe and sound, as soon as possible.

Yes, it would have probably been fairly easy to explain that, but then they'd probably try and argue that I shouldn't be against the war, etc. And knowing my easily convinced nature, I don't want to risk being persuaded so easily. Perhaps this makes me a weak person who is easily manipulated. But I think it is a result of my fence-sitting nature, willing and able to see all sides of a situation. However, this is a situation of life and death. I must hold on to my pro-life morals.

[cloned from A Bird's Melody]

Links to pro-peace sites added to sidebar. Yes, I realize they are kinda far down on the page. I think I'll move the archives to its own page, and that'll help out a little bit.

New Iraq war rant still pending. (It's almost 3AM, so I'm cutting myself some slack. :) )

[cloned from A Bird's Melody]

I watched the first Berserk DVD by myself today so that Rob and I can watch the next three tonight, since he's seen the first but not the next three. Before that, I was surfing through weblogs because I'd really like to read more, but I didn't find any that really interested me, except for all of the opinions about the war on Iraq. I ought to make another post on that soon.

[cloned from A Bird's Melody]

Well, well. Another Bush speech. This one was rather disappointing, though. Bush did not impress me very much that much, except for his persistence under pressure. I found his remarks rather contradictive at times. We want Sadaam to disarm, he says. Sadaam will not disarm, he says. He wants peace, he says. We will force Sadaam to disarm, he says. Pick one story and stick with it, Bush. You can't have it every which way. In addition, his claim that he doesn't know when we will go to war is bs. He has a plan. He knows when he wants to go to war, and he's just not telling us. Mind you, that's a good strategy so that Iraq doesn't know exactly when he'll attack, but it's still annoying how he claims that war is not inevitable when in actuality, it is.

I may falter on my position sometimes, partially because I don't debate well, but at least I don't claim to be absolutely right. Bush seems to hold the view that his views are the correct ones and the ones that the American people should hold (his frequent references to Sept. 11th and its "lessons" to the American people are proof of that).

My apologies for yet another in-coherent rant on my positions.

[cloned from A Bird's Melody]

Bush's State of the Union address was pretty solid. I cheered when he brought up the ban against partial-birth abortions. My roommate was disgruntled. Bush also made a good case for war against Iraq, despite my misgivings. However, one line of his bothered me.

"Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike?" - President Bush

This is true, but since when do terrorists and tyrants announce that they have weapons of mass destruction? The US somehow knows that Iraq has these weapons despite Iraq's continual denial of the fact. So if the US can figure out that Iraq has these weapons without Iraq telling it so, then the US can find out when they plan to strike. Due to this, I remain anti-war. What the US needs is not to be the aggressor, but rather to improve its intelligence. Perhaps one day I will be in the NSA, hacking into the Iraqi computer systems to find out about planned attacks before they happen.

By the way, I'm not denying that Iraq has these weapons. I don't think Bush would make the kinds of remarks that he did without being absolutely sure that Iraq does indeed possess them. But I maintain that if we can know for a certainty that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, we can find out where and when they will attack. And we can take preventative measures that do not involve the sacrifice of innocent lives.

[cloned from A Bird's Melody]

Today, the topic in my General Psychology class was critical thinking, but we also talked about the limits of intuition and common sense. One falsity that people often find themselves believing is a false alternative. I mention this because I found one of the professor's examples rather interesting. He said, one example of a false alternative is how the US says that either the weapons inspectors will find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, or they will not find them because the Iraqis are hiding the weapons. This puts Iraq in a no-win situation. Whether or not the weapon inspectors find weapons, Iraq is, to put it crudely, screwed. Now, I honestly can't say for sure whether or not Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. But I find it highly unfair that it's not even being considered that Iraq might not have them.

On a related note, another example of a false alternative was either you're in support of war, or you are against the war and thus unpatriotic. I think this example was in the Psychology textbook, but it's still interesting. After all, I'm pacifist, but I don't think I'm unpatriotic.

[cloned from A Bird's Melody]