So apparently, Billions of dollars belonging to Iraq are unaccounted for. I'm not saying that this was some conspiracy on the part of the Bush Administration...All I'm saying is, if you're gonna take the money and skip town, don't leave any of your men behind to suffer the consequences, and try to go somewhere where you're least likely to be found. Turkey, for exam... Oh wait...Nevermind.

Links via atrios and This Modern World.

I am so sick of Nader right now. I've been hearing all sorts of things, like members of the Republican party are helping Nader get on the ballot, and Nader doesn't care. The Reform party is supporting the guy. Now, Nader is still for the things he's always been for. But these are new times...

Right now, I would be happy seeing the US as a centrist nation again.

*sigh*

I try my best not to be cruel to animals.

But when those animals have the potential to cause serious harm to me, then I have to take exception. I'm saying all of this because we discovered a mouse in our kitchen a few days ago. We've had the problem before and thought it had been taken care of, so we simply repatched the place we thought they were coming in more securely.

Well, today I was cleaning out under the sink. I left the room for a split second and returned to see a small creature with brown hair and a white belly roaming around under the sink. When I moved toward him, he scurried between one of the cracks between the cupboard and the wall and disappeared. Patched hole rendered useless.

It does explain why the cats have been so adamant about that particular area of the kitchen though. And a part of me likes to believe that their presence is keeping our uninvited guest at bay.

So, open call. Anyone have any suggestions for mouse prevention or cruelty free traps? That actually work? I'm willing to give a few things a try, but honestly, it's not my responsibility, it's my landlords, and at this point, if he wants to kill them, that's fine. Better that than me or E coming down with some disease or virus or something.

I do not like weddings.

Hmmm...let me re-phrase that...wait, nope, I don't like weddings. I like the getting together with friends to celebrate thing, but I don't like weddings.

I came across this article: "Bridezillas Can Bankrupt Wedding Guests" The article talks about the ways modern weddings now bleed guests dry. The article lists a bunch of wedding-related events:

Engagement party
Bridal showers
Rehearsal dinner
The "Jack and Jill" (I never heard about this one before)
Bachelor/-ette weekend
Wedding

And it's expected the guests give money or gifts at every event... Although, for the amount the bride/groom are putting into the thing, they could probably put a healthy down payment on a house, including all the crap they registered for.

Down with the bridal-industrial complex!

Me, the only reason I would have wanted a wedding was to serve some really kick-ass catered vegan food.

Oh, man. Reality shows are bad enough. But then, they have to go and make sequals:

NYC Open Casting Call: The Swan 2

I found this gem when I was poking around the dc craigslist website. The Swan...I was going to write some pithy comments about that show, but I'm sure it's all been said my someone much more eloquent than me.

From another ad:

Established producer now casting for a political espionage show shooting this summer. Casting for this production is going on throughout the next few weeks. The filming will begin sometime in July. The show is about a covert, underground intelligence agency that recruits people at moment's notice to fight against any impending terrorism threats around the world.

I can just hear the pitch now... "You see, it's like that show Alias..."

I saw this gem in the Washington Post today: Foes Confounded by Limited Outcry Against Gay Marriage

A few snippets:

Across the country, evangelical Christians are voicing frustration and puzzlement that there has not been more of a political outcry since May 17, when Massachusetts became the first state to issue same-sex marriage licenses.

*snip*

...Evangelical leaders contend that the outrage is out there. They say it has not been felt in Washington because defenders of traditional marriage are still in shock, or are focused on winning state constitutional amendments against same-sex marriage, or are distracted by the war in Iraq and other issues.

It's worth a read. It goes on to talk about the efforts of conservative church leaders to rally their congregants against the concept of gay marriage. They're hoping that when the amendment comes up for vote in the congress, people will be more interested in the issue, or something like that.

I think that this means people don't care that much about what other people do in bed, at least not as much as the Church does and wants people to. That, and like it says in the article, people are more concerned about important things, like that the US has the highest child poverty rate of any industrialized country, or about the economy, or the war in Iraq.

J thinks that it's about the congress-critters who are up for election--they don't want to rock the boat until after the elections this November.

You can draw your own conclusions.

Is this out of some spy movie or what? I came across this item when I was reading Cursor.

An NGO (that's Non-Governmental Organization) called Human Rights First that has discovered about a dozen or so

secret U.S. military detention facilities reported in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Jordan, and aboard U.S. ships at sea

Here's the Reuters write-up.

Can I say, "whaaa?" It scares me that there are people being held in secret, without any assurances of their continued safety and the safety of their families, with little to no access to lawyers to determine what they are charged with. Even if some of these people are our enemy, if we (by which I mean the US) treat them outside the boundaries of international law, we are no better than the dictatorial terrarists we're so seemingly intent on stopping. I mean, weren't repeated violations of UN codes the reason the US went to war against Iraq in the first place? If we repeatedly go against internationally agreed codes of conduct, will someone be invading us?

"You hypocrite, you dish it out by you can't take it..."

Another beheading

Guess which country it happened in. I'll give you a hint: It doesn't begin with an "I".

I was at the bank the other day, and had a pretty crappy experience. In fact, it was crappy enough of an experience that I wound up going home, crying about it, and writing Citibank about it. I've decided to post the letter I sent to them here, for people to read. Basically, I was made aware that I am not and never will be a middle aged white man, and that I may never garner the respect that should be afforded to everyone, regardless of age, race, sex, finances, etc. If you read this, please let me know your thoughts.

To Whom It May Concern at Citibank,

I am writing to complain about the way I was treated at my local Citibank branch recently. I went in to my local branch to set up a new account. After a short wait, I spoke with a bank employee (a “client financial analyst” according to his card) regarding this account.

I requested that I be given information about the accounts that Citibank offers. He started to list some of the terms, and made some mention of a special offer in passing. At first he did not expand on that, having assumed, without asking, that I did not have the minimum deposit required to open an account under the terms of the special offer. After I made it clear that I was interested in learning about all the different options available, he did indeed expound on the various types of accounts available.

After I settled on an account, he started to ask me for information, that he presumably needed in order to set up the account. He asked me for basic things, such as address, phone number, and employer information. However, along with this information, he also started to ask me other, more personal questions, at least one of which is not needed by your bank. Among the questions he asked were about what country I was born in (this was after I had told him I was a US citizen, which is information I know Citibank needs to process my account), what city I was born in, and what the nationality of my parents are. At one point, I asked him whether he needed the information of where I was born to process the account, to which he replied no. However, he continued to ask about my ethnic background. The way in which he was asking these questions made it unclear whether questions like “who do you live with?” and “what is the zip code of your employer” were indeed used for setting up my account. Now, I have no problems answering questions that are needed to process my account. I also have no problems talking about my ethnic background to friends, in a social setting. However, I think it is inappropriate for a bank employee to be asking personal questions which do not relate to the business at hand, particularly when these questions are asked in a manner which is indistinguishable from the questions which are asked to provide account information.

Finally, after the account was set up and the representative gave me papers relating to the account, along with a new bank card, while I was still sitting at the desk, the representative left the desk, without saying “good bye” or thanking me for my business. When I finished putting my papers in my bag, I looked for him to shake his hand and thank him, and saw him behind a different counter, talking with someone, either another customer or a fellow bank employee. I wound up leaving the bank without any further conversation with him. I found this rather rude, and felt that my business was unappreciated.

The combined effect of this treatment is that I felt like a second-class customer. If I were a middle-aged white man, I believe I would not have received such treatment. As it stands, I am a young woman of mixed race, and there is nothing anyone can do about that. Although it is likely that no ill feelings were meant, such treatment is very much a problem. I feel I should be treated the same as any other customer, and not be asked irrelevant personal questions or treated rudely.

I do want to make it clear to Citibank that these types of behaviors are inexcusable. In writing to you, I am not asking for any sort of monetary compensation. Rather, I would like for you to take it upon yourselves to reaffirm your commitment against gender, racial, and age discrimination, not only in official policy but also in the way your train your employees to interact with customers. I have been a Citibank customer ever since I opened my first savings account when I was 16. If something like this happens again, I will have no qualms in moving my business to a competitor and telling others about this experience.


Sincerely,


If and when I hear a response from the bank, I'll post it.

Downright scary...

I found this gem on the veganporn website (all worksafe--the only thing that's close to pr0n on that site is the name): essentially, the government is incredibly secretive about the approval process for growing plants with drugs engineered into them. Wired news story here.

An excerpt from the wired story:

"...much of the information about the crops is kept secret, such as where they're located, how big the plot of land is, what pharmaceutical it will contain and the drug's potential hazards."

This is not a good idea, especially from a cross-contamination standpoint. What happened to the time I could sit & eat a plain ol' tomato, instead of a tofishmato, vaccine-tomato, or tomacco.

I really hope they're growing this shit in a specially designed greenhouse, planted in pots and not the earth, with a negative pressure gradient to prevent pollen from escaping. For some reason, I doubt this is the case... I may sound overly cautious here, but it's warranted, since this is unprecedented, and nobody knows what the real risks are.

So apparently, Canada has recently entered the wonderful world of deficits. To offset this, they're going to start charging a premium for healthcare. Now I understand the reasoning behind this, and really, $300-$650 isn't really that big of a deal. My problem is with politicians making promises that they shouldn't be. No politician should ever promise that they will not raise taxes or fees, because things happen, and a promise like that can very easily come back to bite you. Plus, the public needs to understand that their taxes pay for the structure of society.

Anyways, I'll try and post more about universal healthcare and why it should be a necessary function of government later. Work now.