On my semi-daily meanderings through the world of Jezebel, I found this interesting post on politics of all things. They came across a Canidate Matcher (it’s called the Match-O-Matic - FUN!) on ABC News and subsequently came across Mike Gravel’s campaign video which is, if i do say so myself, stunning (you can find it in the Jezebel post). I took the Match-O-Matic and was told John Edwards is my man followed by Gravel and some Cobb character. Seriously though, Gravel’s campaign video is stellar.

More serious though, a Match-O-Matic? Really? The interesting thing is that I’m not all that disturbed by this. I mean, our political situation is such at the moment that picking names out of a hat would seem to serve us just as well. Most of the candidates say very similar things on the “hot topics” and its all just a bunch of yada yada yada to me. Then again politics has never really been my thing. I don’t mean to say that it doesn’t matter who we put in office (the Bush administration showed this notion to be a fallacy) but more that this campaigns have little to do with how the candidate will operate once in office. When Bush got in office the first time, he ran on a domestic agenda, clearly his presidency will not be remembered by any real domestic initiatives. I’m not saying. I’m just saying.

The First Amendment in our Bill of Rights gives us the privilege of free speech, assembly, religion, etc (as I’m sure you all know). Freedom of speech has always been a tricky issue. Do you allow Klansmen to clean a highway? Do you allow Neo-Nazi protests? Do you allow buttons that protest school uniforms? Do you allow the president of what many would call a dictatorship to speak at an influential university?

Yesterday, the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, spoke at a widely protested session at Columbia University. My boss, a CLS (Columbia Law School for those not in the know) alum was outraged. Four people I rode up with in the elevator thought he should be able to speak and one even believed he should be let down to Ground Zero (I didn’t stay in the elevator long enough to hear what the others said). I’m not sure how I feel about all of this. On the one hand, I absolutely believe he should be able to speak if invited. On the other, I never would have thought to invite him. That’s the thing I’m unsure about. What did Columbia hope to accomplish with this invitation? Ahmadinejad was predictably evasive in his answers to questions and I doubt students walked away with any insight into his international ideals (at least none that they would not have been able to find in his various other speeches). The speech might have been better off as a PR lecture in how to avoid direct answers to pressing questions.

In the end, he spoke, people listened, people protested, people counter-protested, and I went about my day as normal, watched some Monday Night Football, some Heroes, Weeds, and Californication (do you see what they did there?) and slept easily knowing that the next day I could read all about the speech in the Times.

Michael Bloomberg served his time. On jury duty. All well and good. But I wondered what would happen if a mayor was actually picked for a jury. Like not a long six month insurance fraud trial or anything like that, but some short 5-7 day slip and fall case or something like that. Does the office of the Mayor just shut down? How’s pay worked out for those days?

This is a funny little tidbit I found in the NY Times about a unique punishment for naughty police officers in Bangkok. (What’s the capital of Thailand? Bangkok. *punches you in nuts*) Pink Hello Kitty armbands to the offending police officers. Intriguing I say. I think all police forces should look into such measures. Maybe you can get the police in line that way. Maybe have full pink uniforms ready. Intriguing. Or if not pink, fully sequined. In the words of Phil Sebben: “HA HA!”

Now, do you think Hello Kitty actually paid to have their armbands on police officers? Or did the police have to pay for the patent?

Seriously? Like for real? Now that the N-word has been symbolically determined as illegal - in essence, accomplishing nothing - apparently bitch is the next target as well as ho - if nothing else, this article taught me that it is, in fact, ho and not hoe. This is just overt censorship. The N-word I understand because it goes along with the whole “Hey, we’re sorry we had you in chains and beat you for a couple of centuries back there and then just generally discriminated” movement. But bitch? While yes, it is used in a derogatory manner, it is not nearly as steeped in offensive, degrading history and in no way deserves to be banned (however uselessly).

I would be incensed if anything like that went through. Hell, I’d lose an entire tag. What the fuck? But seriously, it makes absolutely zero sense to ban a word such as “bitch.” What if someone actually used it in reference to a female dog? Would that still be trouble? Or what about all those down ass bitches out there? That is a term of endearment. And it’s not even used just for women. There’s also an Eddie Griffin skit on a Dr. Dre album I believe where he describes the difference between women, hos, and bitches or something along those lines.

Anyway, outrageous.

Today, New York City was forced to release records on their coverage of protest groups surrounding the 2004 Republican National Convention. There’s some interesting things in there and a definite win for us, the little people. Well, a win of sorts. It basically is more just a pat on the back because for all the good it does, there’s no one to really hold accountable so punishments (DEATH) and so there’s nothing that really will change. This whole “HA, you actually were bad people” thing is a nice revelation, I suppose, but the fact that there were no WMDs didn’t exactly change much. These types of practices will most likely continue and probably get even more convert. Fun. Fun. Fun.

I found this clip through Jezebel (yes, I sometimes peruse celebrity gossip and fashion). Basically it involves the AtCenter Network asking anti-abortion advocates what they think the legal punishment should be for women who have abortions if abortions were made illegal. Not one has an answer. One even goes so far as saying that she never thought of the women involved in the abortion.

It’s a damn good piece of reporting.

I do not pretend to understand politics. Mostly, honestly, because I don’t want to. Especially campaign politics. It seems like the type of thing where you’re forced to lie, to go against core beliefs, and just pander to the masses for votes. I guess that’s what a republic does to you. Like here, Obama is forced to show the iron fist foreign policy approach merely so he can’t be called weak or as they say “naive.”

Perhaps this is what makes youth so disillusioned about politics. In our youth, we stick to our guns, sometimes stupidly so (mostly stupidly so) and bend for no man, woman, or smaller man or woman. To watch politicians essentially trip over themselves rhetorically is very disheartening, and that could be why a candidate like Nader held such appeal to youth. He said the same thing all the time and stuck to it, no matter how unattainable some of it may have been politically speaking. This lingual hop scotch tells us that our favorite candidates are not the political and idealistic stalwarts we thought (hoped?) they were.

In China’s continual dominance in…well…everything, They have now figured out a way to control the weather. There is nothing wrong with using missiles to clear out clouds. Nothing at all. And I’m sure there’s significant scientific evidence that this does nothing to the environment not to mention foreign relations. I assume the plan goes something like this:

1. Fire missiles.
2.
3. No rain.

Glancing through the Times today, you might have seen that Mayor Bloomberg has gotten the money to overhaul the 911 system in New York, all 1.5 billion dollars of it. The overhaul is long needed, apparently (I was not aware, I don’t call 911 all that often - though I do know the 311 is a crap shoot), but I have got to think that there is a cheaper way to do this. It seems like nothing can be done in New York City for under a billion dollars (and this does not count for the inevitable “We’re overbudget” announcement). I mean, have they even broken ground on the Second Ave line? Regardless they’re already a billion or two over budget and nothing’s gotten done yet. Yikes. I don’t know what the alternative is (or if there is one), and maybe it’s just my general ignorance when it comes to pricing city projects, but I mean come on. Do you really need to confiscate 8.9 acres in the Bronx for a 911 call center? There isn’t some office space elsewhere you could use. Isn’t most of the financial district still rather vacant? These are the types of things that i feel could help cut costs. But what do I know? I’m just some guy. That guy.