Of all the places I’d really like to live, it’s not at the absolute top of the list, but it’s by far the most practical. It’s the closest to major metropolitan areas where I know people, and has by far the best job market of anyplace on my current short list.
Bellingham especially beckons at times like the present, when Portland suffers hot, miserable weather with poor air quality that makes me, with my allergies, suffer. It would be so nice to be able to spend weekends outdoors this time of year, instead of being cooped up indoors. It would be nice to not have to choose between getting sick as a result of falling asleep in a quiet room with an open window, or staying well at the cost of attempting to sleep through air conditioner noises.
I just hate sleeping in a sealed room full of machinery. A window open to a fresh, pollen-free sea breeze coming off the Strait of Georgia would be so much nicer.
While addressing it doesn’t require moving, I do also need to be mindful of the looming risk of becoming typecast as a Perl programmer If I stay in my current job for more than two years.
If only moving weren’t such a royal pain in the you-know-where, and it wasn’t consequently so easy to get complacent and rationalize that I have it good enough. That’s made all the more seductive by how much I like my current neighborhood.
The establishment media obsesses over Hugo Chávez’ desire for same. They ignore Alvaro Uribe, who is also trying to amend his country’s constitution to allow himself to run for an unprecedented third term as president.
And now we have news of the frankly stunning and impressive bloodless hostage rescues there. The US has already admitted helping the Colombians in this effort. One wonders just how much help was given, and if timing played any part in it. Is a July Surprise the Colombian version of an October Surprise?
Basically, that there’s an almost total loss of memory about what the holiday actually commemorates:
Revolution. Which, ultimately, is the only thing that drives progress towards a freer world. It even drives the “successes” of reformism: ruling elites almost never concede power because they’re nice; they concede some of it because they’re afraid of losing all of if they don’t.
Revolution with strong anti-corporate overtones. One of the big gripes of the colonists was how well-connected big businesses in England had acquired monopolies on trade with the colonies.
Rejection of knee-jerk patriotism. No unquestioning “loyalty to the crown” (which, after all, was the patriotism of the day) for those who signed the Declaration of Independence!
And what it wrought:
A slave society. Not a complete surprise, given how (to paraphrase one famous Englishmen) the loudest yelps for liberty were often coming from the drivers of slaves.
For white, male property owners. It wasn’t just the slaves who were left out. Women and “free” non-whites were left on the outside looking in, too/.
That changed for the better, but only in the face of radical action. Slavery didn’t end until after slave rebellions, John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry, and the long-running direct action of the Underground Railroad paved the way for the government to use the issue to capitalize on a trade-policy spat with the (mostly southern) opposition. Fourteen hour work days six days a week only ended after decades of strikes and rebellions and a few assassinations of ruling class figures. Blacks had to end business as usual in order to get the establishment serious about improving their lot in life. And so on.
But all of that’s ignored, as if there’s no more progress to be made towards freedom (which is apparently nothing more than a static gift from the past).
The biggest paper in the establishment media seems to think so.
Note how warrantless wiretaps and extra-constitutional wars are part and parcel of the self-proclaimed list of so-called “far left” objections to Obama.
This would be amusing if it weren’t so frightening. This is hardly an issue of “left” versus “right” here: it’s whether or not one agrees with the essentially fascist position that leaders should be exempt from having to follow the rule of law.
So, this is the outcome worth killing hundreds of innocent civilians (and destroying a nation's infrastructure) over: two dead corpses being returned two years after the fact, and Hizbullah stronger than ever.
And not to brag, but I told you so back in 2006: “…[T]he Israeli government is being both inhumane and, ultimately, self-defeating [emphasis added].” (Full entry here.)
Google for “mdc zimbabwe” and this is what Google comes up with.
Wha—? “This site may harm your computer?” Clicking on that warning comes up with a notice that clicking on the site name won’t go directly there, but to an explanation of why Google believes the site to be harmful to visit.
So I click on it and see an only slightly-less-vague warning. Plus an link to a more detailed explanation, which finally proves somewhat helpful: http://www.mdc.co.zw is loaded with malware.
I have a Mac, and 99.44% of malware is targeted at Windoze, but it’s obviously not the real MDC site. Which I then notice is right below the phony site in the No. 2 position.
I'd have to say it’s pretty obvious what’s going on here, given how the Mugabe regime has already stooped to far lower tactics than simply attempting to infect opponents’ computers with viruses.
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