yup

Floyd:

When I saw that the president also invoked the words of Martin Luther King Jr. (“Martin Luther King once said, ‘The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice’”), I very nearly threw up. To quote an apostle of non-violence, who spent his last days standing with striking workers and railing against the American government as "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today" because of its murderous war machine, when you yourself are in command of that war machine, spewing out Vietnam-style death (and "targeted assassinations") in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan; when you are striving with all your might to defend, shield and in many cases continue to heinous torture atrocities of your predecessor; when you are pouring trillions of public dollars into the purses of the financial elite while letting millions of workers go hang; and when you yourself have made repeated statements that you will never take any options "off the table" when dealing with Tehran, including the nuclear destruction of the Iranian people for whose liberties and well-being you now profess such noble concern -- well, that seems a bit much, if I may riot in understatement.

rock on

as the blurg turns

i think one my primary uses of this blog has been to deal with changes. once i come to terms with the change, i lose the urge to write about it. this has happened repeatedly as frequent themes came and went: leaving my first job, poker strategy, poker life, career/grad school, atheism, political awakening, anarchism.

i'm kind of losing the desire to deal with political issues now, as i feel like i've 1) got things figured out and 2) have absorbed that understanding into my day-to-day psychology. the second point is more relevant to blogging because much of my blogging has been driven by outrage, and outrage derives from expectations. i'm still outraged on a moral level by a lot of things that happen in the world, but the outrage that primary drove the blogging was more about how other people respond to travesties, and now i have different expectations there.

anyway i think the kinds of changes i'm dealing with these days are not the kinds of things i'm likely to want to blog about. that's not meant to be ominous or anything; i'm just noting that i expect blog volume to continue to decline.

ratchet

here is a very nice explanation of the role of the two major political parties in the US. if you don't have 5 minutes to read that, take 20 seconds and read this summary.

textbooks

James W. Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me criticizes the way popular high school textbooks cover American History, and gives a great history course along the way. Here's an insider perspective on textbook publishing that makes it easy to understand why the books are so awful.

underdog strategy

Reminiscent of Arthur Silber's tale, here's a basic strategy for resisting the evil of Washington. I hope I live to actually see a state secede from the US.

waterboard him! crush his son's testicles!

good point: we're going to torture this guy, right? ticking time bombs and all that.

the reveal

Andrew Carroll is spending 9 days in jail for holding a plant.  Government is violence.

a year in photo

So we've been here over a year now. Time flies. We'll be here at least one more year, and I hope beyond that. I haven't posted many pictures in that time because my camera died a year ago, but here are some from Kira's camera.

The fresh-faced fellow catching the ball has an awesome beard by the last picture. The bald headed guy who threw it to him has flowing locks by the last picture.




Bubble Tea in Toronto:



Cleverly imitating a sign at Niagara Falls:



These dudes jumped over me as part of a street performance:



These dudes raised me, as part of reproductive investment:



Hattori keeps me company while I engage in scholarly pursuits:



Katsu does nothing to help my scholarly pursuits:




Horus ventures out from the safety of the chair for a quick picture:



From right to left, that's a trumpet, a glass of beer, an African drum, and Blake:



A party for our friend Leo before he went home to Brazil:



Mustache Release Party:





Appendicitis rocks!



A birthday/thesis defense party featuring the previously mentioned beard and hair: