vote no on voting
it's voting day in many places about the nation today, a special election here in california, with some propositions which i really don't care to discuss... not that that has ever stopped me before

but, i'll keep it simple

propositions:

• 73 Abortion Notification - makes it so pregnant minors' parents must be informed and a 2 day wait must pass before said minor may get an abortion. i was under the impression that medical decisions didn't usually get made by minors, and really they shouldn't, unless we're going to change the definition, the legal definition that is, of a minor and of an adult. the key to being for this one, methinks, goes to that point, the medical decision thing... but, we're goign to have to make it a hell of a lot easier for minors to find access to judges to get around their parents, otherwise, it seems wrong to say, "oh yeah, you can get an abortion, you just can't decide to get an abortion." and, of course, folks against this one might cite the republican slippery slope to rid the world of abortion once and for all, so our population rises so high that we've got cheaper and cheaper labor all around the world, and in our gardens and in our kitchens and cleaning the bathrooms at our offices and all that. or they might cite women's rights, except if this is just an issue for women, then we might as well not support or detract it, if we don't happen to have vaginas... can't expect our support anymore than you can expect our derision if our gender isn't allowed an opinion. and, of course, going against this propostion, there are the scam possibilities, but i've already covered that, last week
• 74 Teacher Tenure - extends the time it takes to get tenure. since i don't get the point to tenure in the first place, i really could go either way with this one. ultimately, i'd say, as long as we insist on having public schools, perhaps we shouldn't fuck with their ways of doing things every damn chance we get
• 75 Union Dues - makes it so unions can't use money from dues for political purposes without consent of those paying the dues, which i would guess is sorta a given as to how unions run already, and is it just me, or does the government telling unions how to run themselves kinda defeat the purpose of having unions in the first place? people are going to need subunions to represent them within the unions soon
• 76 State Spending - ooh, the "California Live Within Our Means Act," that puts some kinda of math formula on how much the state can spend from year to year, cause you know actually doing that sort of thing practically just doesn't work in this day and age, what when we can pillage education money for other purposes and borrow money from other states and from the federal government and just make imaginary credit capital to spend when all of that runs out, and there's always disney dollars after that. arguably, this is a good idea, but it seems that once a state needs such an act, isn't it a bit late already to bother?
• 77 Legislative Districts - puts retired judges in charge of dictating district borders, as opposed to congressmen, but aside from population changes, why do the districts need to be redrawn anyway, and shouldn't population numbers be objective enough, assuming politicians are not lying scumsuckers--and that's a huge assumption--that we can objectively draw these things and--oh, i don't know--call special elections on a whim to make them official?
• 78 Prescription Drugs, Discounts - do we really need to medicate poor people? won't that just make more of them in the long run? and, won't that mean more unwanted pregnancies and more budgetary problems and more teachers needed, and... how about we have a new proposition for mandatory euthanasia if your income falls below $25,000?
• 79 Prescription Drugs, State Negotiated - and 78's evil twin, or good twin, or siamese twin... i swear, i just read a simplified explanation of these two propositions and i don't get the difference. but, i say no on anything that makes drugs cheaper. if poor people want cheap drugs, they need to get them on the street. that system has worked for centuries
• 80 Electricity Service - "Prop 80 addresses a number of aspects of the state’s electricity market: the regulation of Electric Service Providers and direct access, the procurement process, resource adequacy requirements, the renewables portfolio standard, and the use of time-differentiated electricity rates" and is really boring. vote no on boredom

and that's that

prop 73 - parents' right to know
ok, i'm against all propositions on principal, as i'm of a mind that we shouldn't be dictating everything by adding more and more laws, but there's a much better reason to be against the california proposition (and, i'm sure, similar policies put forth elsewhere) that makes it so a doctor has to inform the parents of a girl under 18 who wants to have an abortion. and, that much better reason is quite simple:

scam artists

see, there's a provision in the proposition that sets up a statutory reward of $10,000 to parents who were not properly informed (and, that's not counting any damages they might seek in court, of course, litigious society that we are). so, here's the problem as i see it: what about parents who deliberatly get their minor children pregnant then force those children to no only get abortions but to lie to their doctors or mislead them at least so as to keep proper notification from happening? hm? and we'll pay them $10k to do this? how many times can a teenage girl get pregnant in a year? i'd wager, giving her some recovery time and all, she could still probably manage 6 pregnancies a year, that's $60,000 a year family income just from knocking up one minor child. if you've got more children, you could become millionaires off this proposition. hell, welfare mothers with enough children under their care (not that children of welfare mothers are still in the house by the time they are teenagers, mind you) could knock them all up and rule the world. and, then they'll just get a new proposition getting them even more money for their abortions, and soon we'll be paying teen mothers outright not to have kids, like we pay farmers not to grow crops, and what will happen to god's dictum to be fruitful and multiply?

ultimately, the thing is, what would jesus do? would he deliberately get his own daughter pregnant just to mislead a good doctor for $10,000? well, i for one, think he wouldn't, but that's just cause i've heard carpenters can make pretty good money, so who needs all the stress of all those medical procedures and coming up with new ways to NOT inform parents?

running through some headlines
Now Playing: the soundtrack of our lives - origin vol. i
Report: CIA Has Secret al-Qaida Prison

yeah, no shit. was there anyone who didn't assume this one?

Put Your 2 Cents In: Stamp Prices Going Up

clever headline bit, useless story. stamp prices go up all the time. we're just lucky they aren't as high as gas prices just yet

Democrat: Alito Won't 'Chisel Away' Law

no, of course not. he's a republican. he wouldn't bother with a chisel when he can just firebomb the law

White House Ducks Prewar Intel Questions

how unlike them. they are usually so forthcoming about everything...

oh, and speaking of forthcoming, like jon stewart on the daily show last night, i'd say it's a problem when democrats use a closed session of the senate to talk about how republicans hide shit from the public. can we all spell h-y-p-o-c-r-i-t-e?

Asian Quake Death Toll Jumps Past 73,000

Four GIs Killed in Iraq; 20 Die in Bombing

if we can't generalize about races, there are no races
Now Playing: les miserables
can't find a reference to it online yet, so i'll say up front i'm not sure which coach said it, but there was a line from a press conference in the last few days about how black athletes can run faster than whites and this coach was saying he could use more black athletes, and apparently, people got offended, nevermind he was basically complimenting folks. it's an odd thing, we can't generalize about races but then, what's the point in noting races at all? nevermind, of course, that the usual races people bother to reference aren't even necessarily scientifically valid races, but something more like ethnicities or cultural breakdowns that just happen to coincide with certain shades of skin. and, for that matter, assuming blacks are good athletes, is that more an issue of "race" (muscular and skeletal structure, for example) or, as some say, is it a cultural thing, blacks only being able to make it in sports or music or gangs? and, how racist do i sound repeating that one?

the thing is, in order for anyone to get offended by a comment about his race, that person has to recognize the race in question in the first place, and then, in that recognition, do they not justify any and all generalizations about that race? obviously, there are generalizations that are inaccurate, but come on, these days we've got stastics out the wazoo that can tell us which races do what, and regardless of exceptions, we need to generalize to talk about groups. that's pretty much the only way to talk about groups. and, in the modern world, with global communications, the internet and whatnot, pulling us all toward a big conglomerate of a society, what other way is there to talk except about groups?

ah, why bother?

stallone: sly or just old?
Now Playing: green day - american idiot

rambo iv and rocky vi (actually, this one will be called rocky balboa apparently) are being planned at this time. sylvester stallone is 59 and aside from the contender this past year (which not that many cared to watch), is he even on anyone's radar anymore? i mean, i know we're in the big republican upswing (or, is it the downstroke now?), and it's about time for a good jingoist flick in theaters (not that we don't get one of those just about every month as it is, if not more often), but come on... rocky? rambo? is that really what we need? was the rock too busy working on doom to get a good action film going? where was vin diesel? where was nicholas cage? hell, where was antonio banderas... oh wait, he was making an irrelevant sequel to a movie i'm sure most people have already forgotten (since you, reading this are probably one of those people, i'll say for the record that sequel is the legend of zorro, second to the mask of zorro from 1998)

true enough, a good jingoist action flick or a good boxing movie (i mean, i enjoyed million dollar baby and cinderella man almost as much as the next guy) will be a nice change of pace next to the blatantly bad action films (see, oh, i don't know, stealth) and blatantly bad horror films (see house of wax or the fog or the ring two or... well, there's a whole damn list, growing longer everyday)--

and speaking of bad horror films, i should say i actually enjoyed most of high tension (although that one's french so it hardly fits this discussion) until that innane twist that made the part of the film i actually had enjoyed completely irrelevant and made for a seriously lacking climax... couldn't we have just had the lead actress beat the killer to death and leave it at that, you know, like the climax of the first episode of showtime's masters of horror last night?

and still speaking of bad horror films, in trying to explain how purposefully bad saw ii will be (though i think i've talked myself into seeing it in the theater and not just waiting to get it on my blockbuster movie pass) i think i convinced myself as to a certain brilliance on the part of last year's original, at least in the balls it had to be seriously fucking gory. i'm a fan of that sort of thing, as some might expect. digging through a presumed dead guy's stomach to get a key to release a bomb from your skull--that's my kind of movie. though, to be fair, i should mention that i think saw (the first one) would have been a better film if the flashbacks hadn't been there--coulda tacked them onto the dvd as short film extras or something, or website promotion material. two guys in a room talking about and eventually committing disgustingly gory acts--that works for me as well

anyway

stallone should stick to producing. even if he wants to produce a boxing movie, good for him. boxing movies tend to be pretty good (see the original rocky, dogfight, diggstown or the aforementioned million dollar baby or cinderella man for some good examples... hell, maybe i should check out against the ropes just on principal) so i'm ok with that. but, bringing back rocky balboa, after rocky v pretty much said he's dying of... well, whatever the fuck was wrong with him--i just remember the film putting forth the notion that one more fight would kill him... of course, then he had that one more fight, out in the street with that young upstart punk and he didn't keel over so, maybe the diagnosis was faulty. but, speaking of upstart punks, why not do a movie about that character working his way back from the obscurity of getting the shit kicked out of him by an aging, dying boxer to be the world champion? or, better yet, screw the whole boxing thing, and just get on with rambo iv but instead of the jingoist crap of rambo or rambo iii, actually get back to the themes of the original novel, you know, make john rambo a psychopath who wouldn't sell out to serving his country again if his life depended on it... and, by the way, were his actions in first blood (the film or the novel) anything close to being a vigilante (or would it be more of a, oh, i don't know, insurgent?)? cause that's what a press release is calling him in the plot for the new one--apparently, some girl gets kidnapped, and it's up to rambo to go all vigilante and save her, with rae dawn chong at his side, and leaving dead guys on planes and dropping josh lyman over a cliff and... oh wait, that one was already done, with that politician in the lead roll and that sitcom actress/softcore pornstar wannabe alyssa milano as the kidnapped girl...

what was i saying?

***

see the first installment of my new, other blog, "boring useless details" today

disaster relief... it's the new christmas!

let's state it simply. the new american way of not caring about the world or even the rest of our country all the time is to throw a bunch of money at that world or that country when disaster strikes. sue, relief organizations have existed for a long time, and sure people have made donations before. but, between the reaction to (and coverage of) the hurricane hitting new orleans and the tsunami earlier this year, it's a little pathetic, the size of teh divergence between how much we supposedly care now, when disaster strikes, as compared to how much we cared about, i don't know, the amount of poverty in new orleans or in southeast asia before these disasters

but, of course, we'd have to pay attention to more than just the live team coverage at the top of the news hour to be able to care, wouldn't we?

and, we just don't have the energy for that. we're too busy worrying about what new songs we should put on our ipods, what new ringtones we should put on our cellphones, what tome cruise and katie holmes are doing this week, what lie from george bush and his cronies we're expected to believe of late...

...

needless to say, i won't be donating any money, and not just because i can't afford it--send donations by paypal to robertegblack@hotmail.com, save us from this horror of life in southern california--but because i don't feel like fueling the hypocrisy of america. we run out and kill some of the peoples of the world, and sit back and watch american idol and dancing with the stars, and we wait for a disaster, nevermind the ongoing disaster that is the freight train of our culture and our war

fuck...

7/21 is just a joke

but, a hearty "nice try" to jill lawless of the associated press. at least, she's the only one i saw trying this with a headline, turning 7/21 into a 9/11 type "remember the alamo" slogan, nevermind that the whole 9/11 thing was stupid from the start here (regardless of how many people have embraced it). there's a 11 september every year, people. and, sure enough (i checked), there's a 21 july every year as well, even in england. so, stop it and stop it now, as dr phil might say.

that headline, by the way: Police Raid West London Homes in 7/21 Case

BE PREPARED... to die and/or be tracked
tv guide is reinventing itself to have less of the schedule and more articles

law & order producer dick wolf is looking forward, despite the cancellation of trial by jury, to doing more law & order shows, including a french version of criminal intent

four boy scout leaders died monday (and another, plus two workers, injured) when a ten pole hit a power line. apparently, they were teaching the boy scouts what not to do when erecting a tent near power lines. needless to say, the boys got the message. the day before that, a boy scout volunteer died from a heart attack at that same jamboree event (some big boy scout shindig that gets sponsorship from the department of defense, despite the whole requirement-to-accept-god bit of the boy scouts... it should be noted, of course, that a federal judge has said it can't sponsor it anymore)

and, while some folks in rural south dakota (as if there is any urban south dakota) are fighting to keep analog cell phones, it turns out that the fcc wants all cell phone service to be digital by 2008. and, in other cell phone/fcc/big brother news, the fcc wants %95 of wireless company's customers to have by the end of this year, apparently, phones containing chips that allow emergency operators to pinpoint a person's location... when a call is placed to 911. cause, certainly the ability to track cell phone users would never be abused, and of course, if the government were to use it for anything but rescuing 911 callers, we would certainly hear about it, just like we hear about it everytime the patriot act--recently renewed, by the way--authorizes them to check on all our buying habits and our library check outs

and, part of iraq's new constitution gives islam a major role in civil law, raising concern about women's rights in marriage, divorce and inheritance

oh, and london and egypt are apparently exploding all over the place. and, it turns out the london police have nothing still on that guy they gunned down in the subway

but, the space shuttle blasted into outer space this morning, and christianity is all the rage, so all is well

no fucking comment
"The House voted to extend indefinitely the anti-terrorist USA Patriot Act, while limiting to 10 years two provisions of the law that have become linchpins in the ongoing congressional debate: allowing federal agents to use roving wiretaps and to search library and medical records."

don't wear a coat in london

more explosions in london the other day and apparently, they're all freaking out now. a guy of asian descent dared wear a long coat on a warm day and plainclothes cops chased him down and when he fell down they shot him multiple times and he died

sure, it's possible he actually was a "terrorist" but the entirety of cause those cops had was that he had on a coat and ran from the police--note, of course, those police were not in uniform, and who wouldn't run from a bunch of guys with guns?

it should be noted that one witness said the man appeared to have "a bomb belt and wires coming out." of course, then you have to notice that after the fact, reports haven't mentioned that bomb belt and those wires actually having been there

and this witness comment should be noted as well: "they pushed him onto the floor and unloaded five shots into him. he's dead. he looked like a cornered fox. he looked petrified." that witness went on to say that the guy didn't have any wires, just a thick coat... in london. isn't it the way of things in london, weatherwise, that if you wait five minutes the weather will change? isn't that what they say? maybe, despite the heat, this guy just liked to be prepared. or maybe he's a big fan of columbo. or maybe he's mentally retarded. or maybe he's a terrorist who just happened to have on his coat but didnt' bring his bomb today...

do any of those things demand his death?