journal

Really stupid, or *really* smart?

As I watch the mainstream media, and blogs from both sides begin to mobilize against our Prez over the UAE port issue, I can't help but feel wonderment at the serependipity of it all.

After all, the president is wildly unpopular, to the point of being toxic to candidates running for election this year. Republicans are on the run, in danger of losing majorities in both House and Senate...

What better way to distance yourself from a loser president than battling him over a clear, unambigous issue, like port security?

I think the president is throwing himself on his sword for the sake of his party.

It's an unbeatable strategy. Sheer, unmitigated, genius. It's like watching a chess master pull a checkmate with his last two pieces, and realizing he had started planning 20 moves ago.

Or, just really dumb and lucky. You decide.

My Gamer Fu is Strong

A new study documents how video game players have better brains.

A new study of 100 university undergraduates in Toronto has found that video gamers consistently outperform their non-playing peers in a series of tricky mental tests. If they also happened to be bilingual, they were unbeatable.

Unbeatable.

A Lesson of Moderation

This quote, written over 200 years ago, warning of the dangers inherent in surety of conviction.

... So numerous indeed and so powerful are the causes which serve to give a false bias to the judgement, that we, upon many occasions, see wise and good men on the wrong as well as on the right side of questions of the first magnitude to society. This circumstance, if duly attended to, would always furnish a lesson of moderation to those who are engaged in any controversy however well persuaded of being in the right.

- Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 1, 1787

I have been a little too sure of late, and have stopped listening to other viewpoints (well, only the wrong ones ;).

Elsewhere in the essay, Alex wrote:

... and the perveted ambition of another class of men, who will [...] hope to agrandize themselves by the confusions of their country...

It would be partisan of me to say who popped into my mind when I read this :)

POS

POS
Originally uploaded by carlosmorales.

Open Letter to Toyota

To Whom it May Concern,

I confess to some confusion regarding the recent Camry Hybrid advertisement, which aired during the Superbowl.

As a bilingual hispanic Prius owner, raising two children in the United States, I felt the ad was very tightly focused on my demographic. As I watched it unfold, equating bilingualism with Toyotas hybrid capabilities, it made me think of the many wonderful parallels between the two. Multilingual people have many advantages in todays world, just as having hybrid engines bestows certain advantages on the car. Likewise, just as having knowledge of more than one language is frequently a sign of sophistication, driving a hybrid is another way for me to express what I consider to be enlightened views about the world.

Imagine my dismay with the advertisement's punchline.

The implication that knowing English is somehow better than knowing other languages is unfortunate, and insulting. I readily admit that knowing two languages is always better than knowing one, and further admit the possibility that your ad was trying to convey this.

As a member of your target demographic, however, I'm sorry to say that in missing the undertones implicit in your ad, you missed your mark by a wide margin. If you're intention was to target hispanics, you've only succeeded in alienating them.

Carlos Morales

Its a dictatorship, stupid!

Plutocracy schumocracy... what they're whipping up is an old fashioned dictatoship:

Look. We have a President here who is making a claim of unlimited power, for the duration of a war that may never end. Oh, he says it's limited by the country's laws, but they've got a crack legal team that reliably interprets the laws to say that the President gets to do whatever he wants. It amounts to the same thing.

More scary bits:
Exclusive: Can the President Order a Killing on U.S. Soil?

Bush Authorized Domestic Spying Before 9/11

FindLaw:The Unitary Executive: Is The Doctrine Behind the Bush Presidency Consistent with a Democratic State?

Plutocracy, Theocracy or Kleptocracy

Driving home last night, listening to the latest depressing noise coming out of DC, it dawned on me... despite what they taught me, what they're teaching my kids, what the senators and the attached lampreys say, we are no longer a democracy.

Oh, we still wear the trappings of one. We 'vote' and stuff. At the local level, we still have a decent degree of real representation. But at the national level, not even close.

I'm not sure we were ever a real democracy, what with electoral colleges, etc. But I am certain we're less one now than ever before. Ever.

We're a plutocracy (bordering on kleptocracy) at best, and trending theocratic.

And it's our fault - we let them take the media back over... and the phone lines... and the networking trunks... and the airwaves. After all those battles, the riots, the sacrifices made breaking up the hearsts, the railroad tycoons, the oil barons, ATT, we let 'em get back together. We blew it.

Today, the slickest, most powerful mind controlling technology ever known to man is dominated by the same corporations which own our politicians. Ordinary people are no match for its powers, and so the public is easily led to believe that it's ok for the President to be unfettered by laws, that torture is justifiable... the list goes on. When the evisceration came, they hardly felt it.

And the internet, bastion of freedom? That freedom is not long for this world. When google and yahoo are finally co-opted (and they will be), what good will it do to have the freedom to write tracts like this one, if no one will find them (not that anyone is trying)?

And even the freedom to express (and be ignored) on the internet is in jeopardy. Already, Sprint and SBC are using the monopoly that our rulers granted them to make their first moves towards controlling the internet. The end game is finally becoming clear, even as those already penned delight in their spoon-fed infotainment, not missing the freedom they've gladly forsaken.

Bake me three!

A-ha!

We've lost our way

Last night, I heard that Cindy Sheehan had been arrested for wearing a shirt which said '2245 Dead', after being warned that it was against the rules. I thought to myself "what a fitting way to end a crappy day", what with Alito's confirmation, Coretta's passing, and Bushy the Clown's speech. It's a sign of how low my expectations for my country have fallen that I didn't feel more outrage. Suppressing free speech has become the status quo.

Then I read what really happened, in Sheehans own words (and really, I encourage you to read it too):

I was never told that I couldn't wear that shirt into the Congress. I was never asked to take it off or zip my jacket back up. If I had been asked to do any of those things...I would have, and written about the suppression of my freedom of speech later. I was immediately, and roughly [...] hauled off and arrested for "unlawful conduct."

Ask a soldier what they think about protesters, and they'll often say "we're risking our lives so that people have the right to protest", or something along those lines. This is a noble sentiment, and I'm proud that my compatriots are laying it all on the line for such worthy goals.

It's not working, though - their efforts are in vain. Even as they fight, our leaders are using their sacrifice as an excuse, stealing our constitutionally protected freedoms, the very thing they're fighting for, in their name.

I am ashamed for my president and his cohort. I despair for the fate of our country. I feel we've lost our way.

And I'm in the majority.

UPDATE: this person was also ejected (albeit in much nicer fashion):

Beverly Young, wife of Rep. C.W. Bill Young of Florida chairman of the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee was removed from the gallery because she was wearing a T-shirt that read, "Support the Troops Defending Our Freedom."

"Defending our Freedom", eh? Oh, the irony.