my journal is a secret journal

[squamous]

There is some sort of interview with the first President Bush on the TV now, where he is getting glistening tears in his eyes. Looks like this was from around the time of the Gulf War - well, not too long after it. Unfortunately I didn't hear the questions that prompted this. Something about sending people into combat. Hrmmm.

Speaking of President Bush, Mike insists Bush was legitimately elected, which jibes with what I've read. I see people daily scoffing that he was not elected. Surely there is some objective answer (although... maybe not as court rulings were involved). I need to get to the bottom of this. Just like Obi-Wan Kenobi in Attack of the Clones, I must unravel the mystery.

Another topic for further study: this North Korean Gulag business. Holy Shit. I ordered a copy of "The Aquariums of Pyongyang" so we'll see. Will my heart be able to bear it?

Lookee:



These folks sell medical learning marionettes that make good old Rescue Annie look like a sock puppet. Check out the sorta scary images. Better that the professionals learn some insertion and catherization techniques on these models before brandishing anything at my most cherished zones, of course.

It is snowing tonight. Big fat flakes coming down. When I drove home from the office I couldn't see the lines on the road. It was almost 11 though, so there wasn't much traffic, and I live close anyway. It all ended well.

Comments

[gooddreams.livejournal.com]

does that guy have breasts?

[squamous.livejournal.com]

I think so... I think it's "versatile", so that you can use it to simulate caring for a man or woman, with some part swap-outs. Hmmm.

[paulcurtis.livejournal.com]

Looks like a do-it-yourself horror movie prop kit. I know I'd wet my pants of I got a knock on the door at night and this naked, blank-faced hermaphrodite thing were standing there.

[squamous.livejournal.com]

Hahaha definitely... one of the "toddler" ones looked rather eerie to me, too.

on the election...

[newfast.livejournal.com]

i'm reading "the best democracy money can buy" by greg palast. the first 40 pages are all about what happened in florida.

Re: on the election...

[squamous.livejournal.com]

Hmmm I looked up the book on amazon.com... interesting. What did you think of their account of the 2000 election? Looks like one thing that they bring out is the Republican tactic of purging the voter rolls of people who could legally be denied the right to vote, but who were more likely to vote Democratic. I did hear that supposedly they also flushed many people who absolutely still should've been able to vote. I dunno about you but if I lost my vote due to something like this, I would've been furious (also pretty creeped out). I had not heard about any hanky panky with machines or cards in predominately black voting areas; interesting. Of course the big Republican retort is the major networks called Florida while they knew that voting was still open in the (largely Republican) panhandle, and as a result sent a lot of voters home.

I was thinking last night that what I want is some non-partisan analysis of the election. Then I decided that might not be possible, especially as legal rulings were involved. Thanks for mentioning that book though. Maybe I can sit in a bookstore somewhere and read that chapter...

Re: on the election...

[newfast.livejournal.com]

i thought palast's account of the elections process was pretty good. i think its obvious where his sympathies are (with gore). but, i don't think that takes much away from the story.

after reading through it, its pretty clear that at least 2 or 3 of the key people involved intended to purge democrats from the voter rolls. palast talked about the company that was hired to find felons in the voter lists and remove them. the company (called "database technologies") was paid $4 million to do this. palast was given "secret" memos showing the criteria the company was supposed to use, that d.t. was told not to follow up with any of the individuals who were purged - even though that was a stipulation of the $4 million contract, and that d.t. was asked to match 90% of names (and then only 80%) and not to cross check identities in databases the company was originally contracted to search. Leon County FL did a study of the list of felons it was given by the state of florida, and found that the list was 95% inaccurate (the list was from the state of florida and contained 694 names). a lot of this was already reported by the bbc.. just not all together like it is in the book, i think.

there's a story in there about the folks that were turned away at the polls.. most of them just don't bother to do anything about it. if any of them are actually felons, they probably don't know that they do have the right to vote anyway. the state's been telling them that if they've ever gotten a felony conviction, that they don't ever get to vote again. even though the state courts have said that's bullshit. no one has called the florida government's bluff. just think, jeb bush wants to run for president.

its pretty revolting, overall.