Sex, lies, and politics...

Ok, so there's no sex. But as we're all aware, there are plenty of lies in politics. Normally I loathe FOXNews and its ridiculous sensationalist tactics--'Fair and Balanced' my foot. However, I couldn't help but find their three-part piece on lies and half-truths told by the three major presidential candidates to be rather interesting, for a variety of reasons.

The articles:
Clinton
McCain
Obama

The first thing that comes to mind is that FOXNews really has to reach for some of the 'lies' reported in each of the three pieces. Should we really care that Clinton lied about being named after Sir Edmund Hillary? Does it matter in the least that Obama's parents didn't actually meet at the civil rights march in Selma, Alabama?

I do, however, find it interesting that among the three candidates, there appears to be a clear demarcation of whose lies are the most serious in nature. Items in each of the three lists range from the irrelevant (such as the two examples I listed above) to the outrageous (such as McCain's assertion that Iran has been training Al Qaeda operatives).

If we can assume that these articles are accurate (which is a big assumption when dealing with the media and especially FOXNews) then McCain, in my opinion, appears to be the most serious offender, with Clinton coming in a close second. The false statements they have made as reported here are of a nature which could be extremely detrimental to the American people if either were actually elected, assuming such lies would continue.

The report on Obama, on the other hand, indicates that while he has spoken falsely on a number of occasions, several of these incidents can simply be chalked up to semantics (i.e. 'professor' vs. 'lecturer') or blurry childhood memories (i.e. the Life Magazine article). In the cases where Obama did misspeak, apparently intentionally, the lies he told don't suggest illegal or immoral behavior on his part. In fact, his only statement that might arguably be shady has to do with the senator receiving lobbyist money, but this is certainly not on par with Clinton's Whitewater scandal and McCain's Middle East and abortion nonsense.

Why is foreign aid a foreign concept?

Today I was forwarded what might be the most ridiculous thing I've seen this year. The following are excerpts (together with my comments) from an uber-Conservative diatribe against the US giving foreign aid to developing nations.

The author of the original piece is David A. Keene of the American Conservative Union.

"How do liberals fight poverty? They make more people poor.

No, it makes no sense whatsoever, but if you're a liberal, it's a viable solution... after all, it's 'fair'."

Yes, clearly "the liberals" just want all Americans to be poor! Why didn't we see this before?!

"Of course, we're talking about the newest liberal-inspired plan to allow a United Nations style tax on American citizens.

It's the Global Poverty Act (S.2433), and according to some conservative sources, this sickening bill could potentially force the United States to spend as much as $845,000,000,000.00 on welfare to third-world countries."

Well I'm certainly glad that Mr. Keene used unbiased and completely reliable (yet unnamed) "conservative sources" for his attack against a bill proposed by a Democratic senator! I would have been worried that I wasn't getting the whole story!

"$845 BILLION is hardly a drop in the bucket and, yes, that's in addition to our Foreign Aid programs, which, in 2006, cost American taxpayers almost $300 BILLION!"

It seems completely reasonable to me to be so concerned about how much the US spends on foreign aid while having no problem whatsoever with the enormous amounts of money flowing from the US into Israel. Perhaps foreign aid becomes money worth spending when it's used to help kill Palestinian Arabs? Why eradicate poverty in developing countries when we can focus all our resources on eradicating an entire group of people in the name of fighting terrorism? Why help people in need when we've got ours?

"But make no mistake -- for those of us who are compassionate -- you can be sure that most of that money will do little to alleviate poverty or help the needy.

If we allow history to be our guide, we can be certain that the most of the money will be gobbled up by third-world tyrants and bureaucrats, who live in heavily guarded palaces and drive gold-plated Rolls-Royces while their people starve by the millions or die of preventable diseases."

If I wasn't so sure that Mr. Keene had done proper research using the most reliable sources, I might have accused him of fearmongering. I'm sure he has loads and loads of rock-solid evidence (that he just hasn't shown us) that if the US were to close its collective eyes, point anywhere on a map, and send aid to the selected country, that money would only be used to buy another gold-plated Rolls Royce for some cackling handlebar-mustachioed Third World Supervillain. Poor countries are always, without exception, ruled by tyrant dictators who would like nothing better than to steal from America's coffers!

"If the Democrat-controlled Congress passes this bill, the United States will have taken the first step toward the complete surrender of our national sovereignty."

Indeed. Everyone knows that improving the quality of life for poor people around the world will only lead to the US losing its autonomy!

"The amount of money alone should be sufficient to toss this bill into the Capitol Hill dumpster.

But more -- much more -- may be at stake, because this monstrous bill starts us down a very dangerous path!

Specifically, Obama's bill would require that the President: 'acting through the Secretary of State, and in consultation with the heads of other appropriate departments and agencies of the United States Government, international organizations, international financial institutions, the governments of developing and developed countries, United States and international nongovernmental organizations, civil society organizations, and other appropriate entities, shall develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to further... the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty, and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal.'

And just who are these 'international organizations' and 'international nongovernmental organizations' and 'other appropriate entities?'

You guessed it!

To translate this gobbledygook, we're talking about the United Nations (among other things).

After all, the Millennium Development Goal is a United Nations creation. So essentially we'll do what the United Nations tells us to do -- something they don't have the right to do.

[...]

It's blood-boiling to see Members of the United States Senate -- like robots -- putting us into a position to carry out the whims of third-world despots and tyrants and crooks.

[...]

It's clearly time to break the kneecaps of the United Nations, before these third-world despots, tyrants, dictators and ayatollahs bankrupt us."

You... you mean this whole 'article' was just a poorly disguised, paranoid Orwellian rant about the UN? Say it isn't so! That dig against Iran was so cleverly nestled in there that I almost missed it, but the only thing that could have improved Mr. Keene's argument would be a more detailed unmasking of Barack HUSSEIN Obama.

Dear Ron Paul: Bigotry is not a constitutional right

Ron Paul touts himself as a candidate who wants to get back to the Constitution and a supporter of personal rights and freedoms. But a closer look at his newsletter, which is published under various names such as The Ron Paul Freedom Report and The Ron Paul Survival Report, tells us that these rights and freedoms should be protected only for upper class, white, heterosexual men. Behold:

On terrorism: "[O]ur country is being destroyed by a group of actual and potential terrorists—and they can be identified by the color of their skin".

On black people: "We are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, but it is hardly irrational".

Oh, those crazy barbarians: "The cause of the riots is plain: barbarism. If the barbarians cannot loot sufficiently through legal channels (i.e., the riots being the welfare-state minus the middleman), they resort to illegal ones, to terrorism".

On the plight of white people and non-Christians: "We now know that we are under assault from thugs and revolutionaries who hate Euro-American civilization and everything it stands for: private property, material success for those who earn it, and Christian morality".

On Martin Luther King Day: "our annual Hate Whitey Day".

Suggestions for alternative names for NYC: Welfaria, Zooville, Rapetown, Dirtburg, and Lazyopolis.

On a reporter from a gay magazine: "[He] certainly had an axe to grind, and that's not easy with a limp wrist".

On gay people: "Homosexuals, not to speak of the rest of society, were far better off when social pressure forced them to hide their activities."

On gays in the military: "Homosexuals, if admitted, should be put in a special category and not allowed in close physical contact with heterosexuals."

On AIDS: "Am I the only one sick of hearing about the 'rights' of AIDS carriers? ... they enjoy the attention and pity that comes with being sick."

More on AIDS: readers of the newsletter were cautioned not to receive blood transfusions because homosexuals are trying to "poison the blood supply".

Please tell me more, Mr. Paul, about who else you'd persecute if you had the power to do so. Tell me more about your obvious homophobia and xenophobia. Tell me more about how women aren't capable of making decisions about their own bodies. Tell me more about how minorities are ruining your life and the life of every other rich white man in America.

Ron Paul wants to purge the nation of gays, immigrants, poor people, non-whites, and non-Christians, yet he keeps talking about RIGHTS and FREEDOM. I suggest he actually READ the Constitution instead of systematically pissing all over it.

Masticatory Musings

Evolution is a funny thing. Its sole purpose is to promote the survival of adaptable species while allowing the retarded, worthless species that have somehow managed to make it as far as they have to die off in a decidedly unsatisfying yet appropriately inconspicuous puff of smoke. Basically, evolution's job is to be the bouncer at a popular but horrifyingly douchey night club: if you're not awesome enough to be on the list, get ready to be turned away in a flurry of public shame and very large fists.

In any case, we humans are supposedly relatively highly evolved. I say "supposedly" because in my comparatively short existence, I've seen enough slobbering, swivel-eyed mouthbreathers to question seriously whether evolutionary biologists have spent all these years just sitting around swilling Schlitz while thinking up the best way of playing a monstrous joke on the rest of us. Then again, the fundies have already beaten me to this possibility (albeit with an entirely different agenda in mind), and I try to make it habit not to side with brainless jerks.

Anyway, evolution has, in its own spectacular little way, provided our species with certain convenient little features that make our meaningless, tortured lives a bit more prolonged so that we can bestow life on a few poor bastards relegated to their own meaningless, tortured existences, mainly just to get back at them for being younger and more attractive than we ourselves have become. Evolution has given us things like bipedality. Speech. In the case of a few lucky humans, complex brains. And my personal favorite, the ability to chew things with our pukesome, germ-ridden gobs closed.

If there's one thing I hate, it's sitting down to dinner, thoroughly enjoying the fact that some poor slob other than myself has slaved over making my meal, only to turn my head and see some disgusting creature chomping away with its gaping maw open so wide that it seems seriously in danger of turning its head inside out. It's not that I frequent stockyards or farmyards or whatever kind of yards animals are kept in; these are the pitiful excuses for sentient beings that can be found just about anywhere there's food.

Here's the thing: I may be a complete moron when it comes to a lot of things, but I do know that humans are equipped with the capacity to feed without displaying the half-masticated contents of their vile blowholes. Why, then, do people feel the overwhelming urge to smack and slurp away, spraying flecks of saliva-soaked fodder all over everything and everyone within a 10-mile radius?

Because they're disgusting. Disgusting, self-important slobs. There, I said it. And I challenge you to come up with any kind of plausible proof that they're not. Thing is, I can't decide whether these monocellular slack-jaws are doing it on purpose ( "Look at me! I'm EATING! Lavish me with praise! I am a hero of the universe!") or whether they're just shamefully ill-mannered.

In any case, I propose that anyone caught slurping and smacking away like this in public should be hauled off and locked in a small dimly lit room with nothing but a knitting needle while the children's song "Frere Jacques" is piped in on a continuous loop. If after 72 hours they haven't poked out their own eardrums, they will be reintegrated into society under the condition that any further incidents of lip-smacking will result in permanent musical incarceration.

I have a feeling the ACLU won't like it, but then they hate pretty much everything.

You suck at driving, or: Get the hell out of the passing lane

Picture it: it’s a gorgeous autumn day, mid-morning, and you're driving down the freeway. Maybe you’ve got your window down, because gosh darn it, it’s just such a super-duper day outside and you want to enjoy it, by golly. The birds are singing. You’re singing along to whatever embarrassing music is on your iPod. Life is good.

You move over into the passing lane because, hey, you’ve got kind of a long way to drive, and maybe you want to cruise at 70mph. Meanwhile, the dim-eyed, slack-jawed simians who slid through the cracks at the DMV testing office—which coincidentally is also run by dim-eyed, slack-jawed simians—putter along at 45mph (on a 55mph highway, mind you) to their apeish little hearts’ content in the righthand lanes.

So far so good. But just as you’re feeling the wind in your hair and thinking about the delicious cup of coffee that awaits you at your destination, one of these idiots merges into your lane at a mindnumbingly slow speed, right in the middle of your soul-filled rendition of Journey’s classic hit “Don’t Stop Believin’”, causing you to slam your foot onto the brake and nearly have the front half of your head imploded by your own steering wheel. OK, you think, he’ll speed up—surely that’s why he merged into the passing lane.

Wrong. He merged into the passing lane because he’s a complete barking retard who clearly doesn’t understand the purpose of this particular feature of the American freeway system. For some reason, he can’t get it through his thick, nuclear warhead repellent brain housing that the passing lane is for passing. If it were known as the happy funtime going for a leisurely drive in the countryside lane, his actions might be justified. Even reasonable. You still might want to run him off the road in a fit of blinding fury and then punch him square in the face while belting out rock legend Bruce Springsteen’s anthem “Thunder Road,” but that’s neither here nor there.

So what do you do? This oxygen-sucking fleshbag is clearly oblivious to the fact that you have crept up dangerously close behind him, so you do a quick flash of your headlights to let him know you’re there. Sort of a non-verbal way of saying, “Excuse me, my fine fellow, but I believe you may have mistakenly entered the incorrect area for moving at a pace which is considerably slower than that of your fellow motorists. Might I ask that you kindly move over?” But of course, your polite request goes unnoticed—or ignored—by the thought-deficient sack of rocks before you.

You’re a law-abiding citizen. You’re an exceptional driver. So of course, under normal circumstances, you would never think of passing illegally on the right. But you’re desperate: your increasing pulse rate and steadily rising temperature indicate that a full scale meltdown is in your immediate future. You turn on your signal and look to your right. DAMN. As would be expected given your rotten luck, the next lane over is jam packed with an entire army of halfwits driving even more slowly than the beacon of stupidity in front of you. You flick your signal dejectedly into the off position.

So that’s it. You have no choice but to resign yourself to your torturous, slow moving fate. You’re reminded of one of those dreams where no matter how fast you try to run, it feels like your limbs are under water. Or encased in a block of stupid, stupid concrete. But this time, it’s all 100% real, and you’ve left your throwing knives at home. Again. So not only can you not hurl them with seemingly superhuman force at Retardo McMoron up there, you can’t even slit your own wrists with them. Maybe one of these days you’ll learn.

A revelation, perhaps...

I was contemplating some things today, and I kind of came to a realization--maybe due to the excellent scotch of which I partook last night, maybe due to the fact that my bitterness (realism?) has finally made me the wise old woman my friends claim that I am.

My realization is this: men don't want strong, intelligent women. They will always--always--say that they want strong, intelligent women. But the reality of it is, men want dumb girls with no goals (or at least ones who are dumber than they are) because those girls can be molded into the "perfect" mate. Dumb girls won't stand up for themselves because they think that their man knows best. Dumb girls won't argue a point because they are blissful in their ignorance. And dumb girls with no goals can never make more money than their man--the "provider." And the worst of it is, men like it that way.

Now one might ask, "But shouldn't a guy be flattered that a smart, independent woman is attracted to him? Shouldn't he feel like a superstar instead of running as fast as he can in the other direction?" Of course he should. But it's almost never the case because of one simple, stupid principle of human nature: a strong woman will threaten his masculinity. That's right, ladies--if you have brains and ambition, the world has doomed you to be single for life because Ugg over there thinks he might have trouble bashing you on the head with his club and dragging you back to his cave. If he were able to see out from under his brow-ridge, he might notice that you're beautiful, witty, intelligent, and an all-round awesome catch. But apparently you're just too highly evolved.

So what's the solution? Should we women try to pass ourselves off as blithering australopitheci? Should we stave off our outgoing, ambitious personalities in favor of simpering meekness? Should we hide our graduate degrees like we hide a zit (i.e. with lots and lots of makeup)?

I, for one, am not willing to do any of these things. Then again, I'm not really willing to die a lonely old cat lady either. There's got to be some kind of tradeoff, but hell if I can figure out what it is.

So, guys, we can't help being smart (and we shouldn't have to), but because we're smart, we all know that you're completely full of crap when you tell us you're "tired of games" and want a "strong woman who knows what she wants in life." What you want is a girl who doesn't think for herself but who looks pretty on your arm.

(I think I'm going to go read some Latin now or something...)

This is the reason I never keep journals...

...the reason being that I have good intentions, make a couple of entries, and subsequently become much too lazy to actually continue. But THIS time... this time will be different. I swear.

Anyway, rather than recap every detail of the past couple of months, suffice it to say the following: Syria was awesome. Great place (despite some pollution and garbage problems), great people (despite the guy at the visa extension office who seemed to think it necessary to stare at my boobs before finally looking at my paperwork), and really valuable archaeological experience. Oh yeah, and the "formal," the costume party, and other various weekend debauchery didn't hurt either.

Annnnd now I'm back to reality, trying to find some kind of decent-paying job (hopefully archaeologically oriented) that will tide me over until I can start a PhD program in a year. I've got a brand new game plan, though, and one that I think will be a lot more fruitful: I'm headed back to my anthropological roots and giving Classics the shove, though I still plan on working in the Greek/Roman/Near Eastern world.

I've also decided that this is the perfect opportunity to start reading all those classic books that I really should have read by now but that I've always managed to put off. First on the list is Moby Dick, and after that The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Finally, I'm headed back to Minnesota for a week at the beginning of August for a family reunion, which in and of itself sounds excruciating, but in actuality will allow me to get in some much relished swimming and fishing time at the lake. I hope they're getting the Sea King ready.

Damn Europeans, or: Thinking You're Smarter Than You Are

Ok, I'll just say it. I'm sick of the Europeans (and the Brits, since they don't consider themselves part of Europe) always jumping down the Americans' throats when we complain about our gas prices. Yes, we know that the price of fuel "over there" is twice what we pay here. But guess what? We in the US are pretty much forced to drive to most places we need to go, be it work, school, the grocery store, etc. Most of us aren't lucky enough to live in a self-contained, small town where everyone lives within walking/biking distance of everything. Hell, most of us aren't even lucky enough to live in a city that has a decent public transport system. Last time I checked, Europe and the UK had excellent public transportation, not to mention lots of small towns where it's actually feasible to go places on foot.

Blame suburban sprawl. Blame the size of the country. Hell, blame the government for all I care. But don't blame those of us who have no option but to drive our cars while the oil companies keep making excuses for why they "need" to keep jacking up our prices. Last time I checked, the price of oil was actually on the decline, yet they're already predicting that we'll be paying over $4/gallon by the end of summer. Why? Because it's summertime when lots of people do lots of driving, and they feel they can gouge us because we have no choice but to pay.

Ah, capitalism.

Leaving on a jet plane

I think it's probably a good thing that I'm finally done with school, for many reasons. One of which is the fact that I always forget how much work it is to get ready for a trip until one comes up again. I always end up scrambling about at the last minute, culminating in me having to stay up until 2 or 3 in the morning the night before I'm supposed to leave on some ungodly 8:00am flight, which makes me pissy, which makes me argue about stupid things with the bitchy TSA people who all clearly suffer from delusions of grandeur.

But that's not the point. The point is that I've got two trips coming up, one to southern California for five days and the other to Syria for six weeks, and I'm determined that this time I'm going to be organized because really, I don't have much else to do these days. The funny thing is that while I love traveling, I hate packing and I really hate unpacking.

Now if I could only find a decent ticket into Damascus...

Well, I've finally done it

I've finally hit internet-rock-bottom. Not only do I have Facebook and MySpace accounts, but now I've got a blog of all things. What have I become? Surely not one of those annoying, cutesy, illiterate, mildly retarded attention-whores who ruin the internet for everyone by bogging it down with animated gifs with sparkles and various shades of nauseating pink, being sure to embed the latest seizure-inducing bubble gum pop chart-topper... right?

In any case, an intervention of some kind might well be in order.