In My Room

Bush’s approval rating hits new low - Yahoo! News

According to the latest polls, Bush’s approval rating stands around 32-35 percent. It’s not surprising at all that Bush’s approval ratings are so low. What is surprising is that they’re not lower.

The war in Iraq is an expensive, intractable quagmire. The federal deficit has ballooned. The economy is still shaky. Bush’s domestic policy is in shambles. His worldwide popularity is in the toilet, and his domestic popularity is circling the drain.

Yet, despite all of this, a stubborn 1/3 of our country insists that Bush is doing a good job. This 1/3 roughly corresponds to the number of registered Republicans and/or evangelical Christians in this country. (I don’t have the numbers, but look ‘em up.)

Christ, all you gotta do is throw out some God talk, be faithful to the party line, and at least 1/3 of the country will come out for you. Unless George Bush is exposed as a baby-eating liberal Satanist in disguise, I doubt we’ll see those poll numbers get much lower.

Listen up America: Yesterday, millions of Mexican and other Latino immigrants stopped building your houses, tending your gardens, picking your vegetables and washing your dishes to take to the streets in large numbers and tell you that they’re tired of being treated like criminals.

America is a nation of immigrants, and unless you’re 100% Native American, chances are your ancestors came here on a boat for the very same reasons that Latinos and other illegals come here. And even though they may have come legally, your ancestors likely faced the very same discrimination and anti-immigrant sentiment that the Mexicans do today.

Like it or not, we live in a world where brown people of many different races work for comparatively low wages, so that you can maintain your standard of living. Guess who built that house you just bought in that nice suburban subdivision? That nice shiny office building with the attractive landscaping? Who picked your fruits and vegetables? Who slaughtered and processed your store-bought chicken or steak? Who keeps these and many other things cheap?

Obviously, immigration reform is a complex issue with no easy answers. But stricter penalties against illegal immigration would do little to address the 10-12 million illegal immigrants that are already here. They’re not going anywhere — the cost of deporting 10+ million immigrants would bankrupt the economy. Not to mention that many businesses, especially in the agricultural sector, would go bankrupt if not for a steady influx of immigrant labor. Better to find some way to integrate them into society, and address the issue of border crossings seperately.

There’s a lot of racism and xenophobia regarding this issue, much of it, not surprisingly, from the Republican Party and its supporters. (Latinos are yet another group they’ve managed to alienate.) Polls show that immigration has become a major concern among Americans. With all the major issues demanding attention, doesn’t this sudden emphasis on illegal immigration seem like a smokescreen to you?

This is not an issue that is going to be resolved by those with authoritarian and xenophobic motives. This issue requires forward thinking, and I don’t think the politicians in power have the ability to resolve this issue fairly. Good thing there’s an election coming up.

Clearfield, Pennsylvania — the town where I was born — claims the dubious honor of being home to the world’s largest burger. Denny’s Beer Barrel Pub had already captured the world record for the world’s largest burger at 6 lbs. The new, improved burger now weighs in at a whopping 15 lbs. It’s free if you can finish it in 5 hours.

Myself, I want to move to the town with the world’s largest veggie burger. Does such a thing exist?

As reported in this week’s Nashville Scene, two Tennessee state legislators, Sen. Charlotte Burks (D-Monterey) and Rep. Eric Swafford (R-Pikeville), have proposed a bill banning the sale or display of sex toys.

As John Spragens remarks, while legislators were occupied with restricting the right of adults to legally purchase dildos and vibrators, Tennesseans “died from a lack of health care, remained poorly educated and were among the most obese state populations in the nation.”

Aside from being ridiculously narrow-minded, the proposed sex toy ban would decimate a lively cottage industry — everyone knows how popular those women’s lingerie and sex toy parties are in the South! Not to mention that Nashville’s Hustler Hollywood, the Purple Onion and the World’s Largest Adult Bookstore would have some empty walls.

I propose that Burks and Swafford be educated on the joys of vibrating, phallus-shaped objects. Someone in their district(s) should send them a sex toy. For Burks, I recommend a rabbit vibrator. For Swafford, a vibrating butt plug.

U.S. Takes Aim at Online Gambling - Yahoo! News

Now, I’m willing to bet that a handful of you readers have partaken of online poker or some other kind of online wagering. While I don’t gamble very much, I do make a nice income from other people’s gambling activities.

Internet gambling is currently, and always has been, illegal in the U.S. But a slew of online gaming companies — some who are publically traded, such as online poker giant Party Gaming — have met the public’s desire for online gambling to the tune of $12 billion a year, much of it from U.S. customers.

Instead of legalizing, regulating and collecting taxes from online gambling, people like Virginia representatives Bob Goodlatte and Rick Boucher seek to criminalize it — a futile task considering that all online gambling companies do business outside of the U.S. where their activities are perfectly legal. Not to mention that this proposed legislation could conflict with a WTO decision that declared U.S. prohibitions on internet gambling as an unfair trade practice.

But let’s hear it straight from the horse’s mouth: “For too long our children have been placed in harm’s way as online gambling has been permitted to flourish into a $12 billion industry,” Goodlatte said in a statement. Hey, Bob? Kids don’t gamble; adults do. You’re basically telling adults what they shouldn’t do with their money in the privacy of their homes, in the name of “protecting the children.” Bullshit, Bob.

“These Internet gambling websites typically operate offshore and often serve as a prime vehicle for money laundering and other criminal enterprises.” Proof? Like I said, most online gaming companies are as reputable as Vegas casinos. They operate under the jurisdiction of their localities and international gaming authorities, and their random number generators are regularly audited by well-known accounting firms. By criminalizing them, you only make these unsavory activities more likely.

This isn’t the first time this bill has been introduced. It was voted down in 1999, due partly to the efforts of lobbyist Jack Abramoff. But even with Jack out of the picture, I think it’s unlikely this thing is going to become law, since it’s largely unenforcable and will do little to stop online gambling.

Whenever a political party comes into power for an extended period of time, it seems that party is eventually and inevitably plagued by scandal, leading voters to elect the opposition party in the next election. It happened to the Democrats years ago, and it will happen to the Republicans very soon.

And so it goes that Canada has elected a conservative prime minister and minority government, ending a 12 year rule by a Liberal party that has, obviously, become plagued by corruption and lack of voter confidence. For lefties, this is a discouraging development. We’ve always been able to depend on Canada for progressive policies and pissing off the Bush administration.

In the eyes of many lefties, Canada has become a progressive mecca, where pot is decriminalized, gay marriage is legal, and socialized healthcare is abundant. Of course, it’s still hasn’t been enough to trigger a lefty migration up north (as promised after Bush’s (re)election), where the winters are cold and hockey is the national sport.

Maybe we should have warned Canada against electing conservatives as a backlash against the ruling party. A lot of countries, including ours, have elected conservatives in recent years, and while it may seem an effective panacea to weary voters, it’s really not. I mean, look at what conservatives have done to our country in the last few years.

It’s too late for the Canadians, but for other countries who are thinking of voting conservative, I urge you to think twice. Unless you like the idea of George Bush getting another world leader as an ideological buddy, vote for someone else.

In the upcoming issue of the Nation, former Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman (who sat on the House Judiciary Committee during Nixon’s impeachment) lays out the case for a possible impeachment of President Bush.

The illegal wiretaps, the fudged rationale for the war in Iraq, the handling of the war, the torture allegations and the administration’s Nixon-like secrecy, paranoia and arrogance provide enough grounds to start investigating the president and bringing impeachment proceedings if necessary.

A Boston-area high school radio station has been pushed off the air by a California-based religious broadcaster in a recent FCC ruling. Maynard High School’s WAVM-FM has been broadcasting for over 30 years, and dozens of student DJs have gone on to work in broadcasting careers.

WAVM recently applied for a signal strength increase from 10 to 250 watts; a process which allows other broadcasters to bid on their frequency. The FCC in turn awarded WAVM’s frequency to Living Proof, Inc on the basis that they would be able to “provide first or second primary [noncommercial radio] service to the largest number of people in the community.”

Organized, monied religious broadcasting networks have been cannibalizing the non-commercial and low-power spectrum across the country for a number of years. Broadcasters such as Calvary Chapel (CSN International), American Family Association Radio, and EMF Broadcasting have built cheap networks of low-powered FM translators, which were originally intended to boost local radio signals in weak areas. These translators are used to retransmit nationally syndicated religious programming in areas where the broadcasters often have no local presence.

CSN Int’l, the largest of these broadcasters, currently operates 361 of these translators across the country. The Boston Globe article linked above notes that the president of Living Proof has ties to Calvary Chapel, which has previously been linked to Radio Assist and Edgewater Broadcasting, two large Christian broadcasting networks owned by the same ex-CSN employee.

Radio Assist/Edgewater applied for over 4000 radio translator construction permits during a five-day application window in 2003. The broadcaster has since been awarded over 1000 of these (free) permits, over 80 of which have been sold or traded for profit. DIYmedia reports that Radio Assist/Edgewater made over $800,000 trading translator permits, mostly to other Christian stations and networks.

Community and media activists have been pushing for years for low-power FM (LPFM), a format that would allow small non-commercial community stations to develop and prosper. The FCC approved the LPFM format five years ago, and since then, several hundred LPFM stations have sprouted up across the country. About half of these stations belong to churches and religious groups.

Activists fear that the rush of large religious broadcast networks for FM translator permits endangers the budding LPFM movement. The FCC instituted a freeze on new translator permits in March, in response to petitions from LPFM activist groups.

Another strategy of religious broadcasters has been to attempt to piggyback on small non-profit educational frequencies, many belonging to schools and colleges who are unable to broadcast 24 hours a day. These broadcasters are attempting to take advantage of an obscure rule that can force stations to share their airtime if they broadcast for less than 12 hours a day. Fortunately, these can be overcome if stations purchase automation systems that allow them to broadcast 24/7.

The WAVM debacle illustrates that the large religious broadcasters’ urge to evangelize comes at the expense of non-profit, community and educational stations. The FCC’s tacit acceptance of this situation serves to blur the boundary between government and organized religion. Churches have as much right to be on the air as anybody, but the actions of groups such as CSN, Radio Assist and Edgewater violate the spirit of non-profit community broadcasting.

A recent article in the Observer illustrates the irreconcilable gap between the impulses of ‘cultural relativism’ and ‘universal human rights’ in today’s liberalism.

(Cultural relativism) “promotes tolerance and respect for so-called minority opinions and beliefs, rather than respect for human beings. Human beings are worthy of the highest respect, but not all opinions and beliefs are worthy of respect and tolerance. There are some who believe in fascism, white supremacy, the inferiority of women. Must they be respected?”

…(Cultural relativism) follows the fine and necessary principle of tolerance, but ends up having to tolerate the oppression of women, say, or gays in foreign cultures while opposing misogyny and homophobia in its own… The alternative is to support universal human rights and believe that if the oppression of women is wrong, it is wrong everywhere.

That’s a lot to think about. Many people complain about liberal relativist attitudes, especially towards the Muslim world. On one hand, their cultural traditions deserve as much respect as ours. On the other hand, some of their practices include the oppression of women, supression of free speech and advocating the murder of non-Muslims. But does the existence of the latter necessarily invalidate positive attitudes toward the former?

And the problem with the alternative “universal” approach is that it can be applied towards any cause or idea, even when it’s not practical or desirable. Replace “the oppression of women” with “abortion,” for example.

Trade union leaders stormed out of the anti-war movement when they discovered its leadership had nothing to say about the trade unionists who were demanding workers’ rights in Iraq and being tortured and murdered by the ‘insurgents’ for their presumption.

Another problem with the left is the wide array of causes that often fall under the umbrella of liberalism. And everybody wants their cause to be important. It’s practically become a cliche that whenever the left gets together for a big anti-war protest (replace “anti-war” with any other big cause) the speakers on the podium shout slogans for every leftist cause under the sun. (See this recent Daily Show clip for an example)

“No more war!” (Thunderous applause)
“Energy independence!” (More applause)
“Pro choice!” (Modest applause)
“Israel out of Palestine!” (Weak applause)
“Fur is murder!” (Crowd mills about looking for the gyro cart)

This is why I’m not an idealist. Even though many leftist/liberal causes are admirable, the fact is that it takes popular support for them to become a reality. And that can’t be done as long as these causes remain the exclusive domain of secular leftists.

Things like this make me very concerned that our freedoms are being eroded under Bush and his sympathizers. A high school student’s anti-Bush photo was confiscated by the Secret Service after the photo department at the local Wal-Mart contacted police about it. The photo was part of a class assignment where students were encouraged to express their right to dissent guaranteed in the Bill of Rights.

This is not the first time something like this has happened. Far from it. Last year, a 15-year-old boy’s anti-Bush drawings were confiscated for similar reasons. Another student was investigated over an anti-Bush t-shirt. A girl was investigated over a post in her LiveJournal. And there’s many more that have never made the news.

The Secret Service is obligated to investigate any “threats” against the president, and they dutifully follow up on all reports they receive. But a person who expresses dissent against the president, no matter how tasteless that expression may be, does not automatically mean that person is a threat to the president.

If you have to report someone to the authorities simply because you disagree with their constitutionally protected political expression as it relates to the president, then you are a fucking pussy. You don’t like what that person is saying, so you’re going to subject them to questioning and harrasment by the Secret Service. Ultimately, it does little to make the president or our country safer, and it erodes our guaranteed right to free speech by instilling a climate of fear and intimidation.