I watched too much news in one day.
Sep. 29th, 2009 03:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
serynLet's see. Today I have a proto-post about my interest in pre-medieval history which has the blatantly unsupported thesis that Christianity caused the Dark Ages. (Yes, I really believe that. And I do, occasionally run across hard data which does not contradict that premise.) I don't think I need to continue more here since I'm not going to convince anyone with vitriol.
If I was going to convince people of something I believe passionately, I wouldn't start with "Christianity is full-fledged evil." I'd start with "Having children is immoral." And vitriol didn't convince anyone of that either. Weirdly nothing convinces women they don't want to get pregnant. They either come to that realization alone or they don't even think about how one in ten thousand women dies from childbirth in modern America. Talk about squicky! I cannot think of a single reason on Earth why anyone would want to do that when all you get out of it is a baby.
I made it out for lunch. My food was... adequate. Considering that it was less expensive than the restaurant appears that it should cost, I wasn't disappointed. If the dinner entrees start at $20, I'm not expecting lunches to be under $10. I had a monte cristo sandwich. It was bland. Like it was missing an essential component. I'd ordered fries separately. They were perfectly cooked, under salted, and hugely over-seasoned. Still. I had a nice table, good service, a view out over a lake and spent less than $20 total even after a generous tip.
Several people have complimented my hair. I don't do anything to it, so I don't understand. I smile and say thanks. It makes me wonder how bad it used to look that a scrunchied pony tail is worthy of comment.
The season opener for Law&Order had some really stunning stuff. Like how we took detainees into shower rooms and killed them viciously. That turns out not to be fiction. Appalling. I think our behavior with "enemy combatants" detained in secret prisons and not-so-secret prisons has been deplorable. I think the way the American people did nothing is also deplorable. I think the way Congress rolled over and passed laws saying if Americans complained they could be "detained" and sent to unregulated prisons on foreign soil was horrible. But what really got to me was the specific room they chose. There are things you do not want to emulate and one of them is killing lots of people in "showers".
I still don't understand why anyone thought it was a good idea to create a Jewish homeland in the middle east. It seems like North Dakota would have been a better choice for the political climate of the world.
Speaking of political climate... people are fucking moronic. Carter lost the re-up election and Reagan won, largely because of the American hostages in Iran. The Reagan administration proceded to have illegal arms deals between South American countries and Iraq. We armed Iraq with modern weapons so they could stave off Iran. Fast forward to Bush I, now Iraq is evil and well-armed with American-bought weapons. We should have felt a LOT more stupid than we did. After the first Iraq war, we gave a lot of weapons to Iran to help them stave off the evils of Iraq. Then we went back to fighting in Iraq because they have oil that Cheney's best buds wanted to get for free and none of them has a soul that could be tarnished by the deaths of millions in search of pure profit. Now Iran has nuclear weapons. Want to bet who sold those to them?
California wants to have part-time legislators. I think it would be an excellent idea if we could have 5 times as many of them and they only worked a quarter as much and did most of it remotely via web-conference. I think I should be able to have a personal relationship with my representative in the state legislature but that's not feasible.
I'd like to see a real competitor for Dianne Feinstein too. She caved on Bush II's Supreme Court nominees and didn't stand up for ANYTHING that I consider important. I think she's been in Washington DC for too long to remember that she represents California.
I'm more and more repelled by the health care debate. Everyone "liberal" keeps saying we need a single-payer government-run system. Except Obama's right out in front saying that system will pick and choose what kinds of things are covered... like contraception will not be. I don't think that's better health care if 95% of Americans have no reproductive choices other than abstinence or unwanted babies. If the health insurance "fix" is going to tell me I'm not an important contributor to society because I am female, I hardly see that as an improvement. Sure, I have money and I can buy contraceptive services for cash, but it's not likely those services will remain viable. Lack of coverage when everyone has the same coverage is going to make certain things quasi-illegal by common experience, regardless of legality. Seems like this whole problem could be solved if Congress would just regulate the health insurance industry. And it would be a hell of a lot cheaper.
If I was going to convince people of something I believe passionately, I wouldn't start with "Christianity is full-fledged evil." I'd start with "Having children is immoral." And vitriol didn't convince anyone of that either. Weirdly nothing convinces women they don't want to get pregnant. They either come to that realization alone or they don't even think about how one in ten thousand women dies from childbirth in modern America. Talk about squicky! I cannot think of a single reason on Earth why anyone would want to do that when all you get out of it is a baby.
I made it out for lunch. My food was... adequate. Considering that it was less expensive than the restaurant appears that it should cost, I wasn't disappointed. If the dinner entrees start at $20, I'm not expecting lunches to be under $10. I had a monte cristo sandwich. It was bland. Like it was missing an essential component. I'd ordered fries separately. They were perfectly cooked, under salted, and hugely over-seasoned. Still. I had a nice table, good service, a view out over a lake and spent less than $20 total even after a generous tip.
Several people have complimented my hair. I don't do anything to it, so I don't understand. I smile and say thanks. It makes me wonder how bad it used to look that a scrunchied pony tail is worthy of comment.
The season opener for Law&Order had some really stunning stuff. Like how we took detainees into shower rooms and killed them viciously. That turns out not to be fiction. Appalling. I think our behavior with "enemy combatants" detained in secret prisons and not-so-secret prisons has been deplorable. I think the way the American people did nothing is also deplorable. I think the way Congress rolled over and passed laws saying if Americans complained they could be "detained" and sent to unregulated prisons on foreign soil was horrible. But what really got to me was the specific room they chose. There are things you do not want to emulate and one of them is killing lots of people in "showers".
I still don't understand why anyone thought it was a good idea to create a Jewish homeland in the middle east. It seems like North Dakota would have been a better choice for the political climate of the world.
Speaking of political climate... people are fucking moronic. Carter lost the re-up election and Reagan won, largely because of the American hostages in Iran. The Reagan administration proceded to have illegal arms deals between South American countries and Iraq. We armed Iraq with modern weapons so they could stave off Iran. Fast forward to Bush I, now Iraq is evil and well-armed with American-bought weapons. We should have felt a LOT more stupid than we did. After the first Iraq war, we gave a lot of weapons to Iran to help them stave off the evils of Iraq. Then we went back to fighting in Iraq because they have oil that Cheney's best buds wanted to get for free and none of them has a soul that could be tarnished by the deaths of millions in search of pure profit. Now Iran has nuclear weapons. Want to bet who sold those to them?
California wants to have part-time legislators. I think it would be an excellent idea if we could have 5 times as many of them and they only worked a quarter as much and did most of it remotely via web-conference. I think I should be able to have a personal relationship with my representative in the state legislature but that's not feasible.
I'd like to see a real competitor for Dianne Feinstein too. She caved on Bush II's Supreme Court nominees and didn't stand up for ANYTHING that I consider important. I think she's been in Washington DC for too long to remember that she represents California.
I'm more and more repelled by the health care debate. Everyone "liberal" keeps saying we need a single-payer government-run system. Except Obama's right out in front saying that system will pick and choose what kinds of things are covered... like contraception will not be. I don't think that's better health care if 95% of Americans have no reproductive choices other than abstinence or unwanted babies. If the health insurance "fix" is going to tell me I'm not an important contributor to society because I am female, I hardly see that as an improvement. Sure, I have money and I can buy contraceptive services for cash, but it's not likely those services will remain viable. Lack of coverage when everyone has the same coverage is going to make certain things quasi-illegal by common experience, regardless of legality. Seems like this whole problem could be solved if Congress would just regulate the health insurance industry. And it would be a hell of a lot cheaper.
