Evict Bush!

Thursday, July 24, 2003  

We've Moved

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It's gotten to be about that time. The new site, Pacific Views, will undergo some changes in the next few days, but it's functional. And what more could we really ask of a site that will work (knock on wood) more often than it's broken?

Death in the Family

Send Cowboy Kahlil your condolences.

Nifty Botany Link & Updates

Our very thoughtful reader, Carolyn, sent in a pointer to the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens in response to a post I put up last week. I did end up finding what I needed, but interesting websites about botany are always appreciated. Thank you! :)

I am, btw, done with the insanely compressed botany class. Now I've started the insanely compressed inorganic chemistry class, and we're getting put through our paces. We just got introduced to Born-Haber cycles today (Born-Haber what? yeah, that's what I said), and will be tested on them Wednesday. Next time someone asks me if I'm crazy, it's clear that the only proper response would be "Why yes, yes I am."

Recommended Reading

Over at Alas, A Blog, Ampersand demolishes 'pro-life' lies about the UNFPA, and Bean has some suggestions about what to say to "I'm not a feminist, but..." women. (Formerly guilty.)

PLA has a rundown of government services we'd have to give up if we try to solve our budget problems entirely by cutting spending.

Over at Eschaton, yankeedoodle had some comments about a true chain of command vs. a circle jerk, lambert reminds us to Hail Seizure (of power, that is), and points out that the Bush administration's public smear of an alleged undercover intelligence operative may be coming back to bite them.

Body and Soul has a good post on the very bad situation in Liberia, one which I must admit to being even more than usually ignorant about. (Update: So ignorant, apparently, that I didn't catch myself originally typing in Nigeria instead of Liberia. [Smacks hand] Bad 'Tasha, no cookie.)

Dohiyi Mir on Senators who want some facts.

Billmon, smoking as usual, talks about threats of retribution for complaining troops, more saber-rattling against Iran and Syria, and points out that the FBI was tipped off about a guy who was reading this while standing in line for coffee. As someone said in comments, Toronto is supposed to be lovely this time of year. This snippet from the offending article has the irony meter screaming for mercy:

...The wondrous blessing God bestowed on Gustave Flaubert -- and on America's own great chroniclers of contagious stupidity, Mark Twain and H.L. Mencken -- is that they lived and died without imagining a thing like Fox News. ...

... With its red-faced, hyperventilating reactionaries and slapstick abuse of lame "liberal" foils who serve them as crash dummies, Fox News could easily be taken as pure entertainment, even as inspired burlesque of the rightwing menagerie. But the problem -- in fact, the serious problem - is that Fox isn't kidding, and brownshirts aren't funny.

...Murdoch is an insatiable parasite, a vampirish lamprey who fastens himself to English-speaking nations and grows fat on their cultural lifeblood, leaving permanently degraded media cultures in his wake. Rabid patriotism is a product he sells, along with celebrity gossip, naked women and smirky bedroom humor, in every country he contaminates. And a little "white rage" racism has always gone into his mix for good measure. ...

But often, when I think about the state of our country today, I'm reminded of this favorite quote from the investment world...

'Go for a business that any idiot can run--because sooner or later, any idiot probably is going to run it.'

... and I wonder how we're holding up.