Namaste, Bitches

Before the end of the summer, hopefully, I'll be getting a full hysterectomy/oophorectomy.

This is the best news I've had since I was 12.

That, and the return of Torchwood in July (although it's on Starz, which means I may end up selling the rest of my soul to Cox Cable), makes today a relatively decent day.

I've been continuing to watch the Reid/Angle horror unfold. Two commercials have been cracking me up, though.

Reid's got a commercial out about how Angle voted down mandates for doing background checks on childcare workers to weed out sex offenders.

Angle's got a commercial out about Reid stating that he wants to use tax payers' money to provide Viagra to sex offenders in prison.

How would she know that the prisoners who would be receiving Viagra are actually sex offenders? Did she do background checks on them?

Honestly, I think it's all stupid. I wasn't even going to vote because I'm an apathetic voter who only votes on issues in between presidential races, but I found out the mother-in-law is voting for Angle. I gotta cancel that shit out somehow.

Normally, I don't care about our local politics here in Nevada. I don't know who stands for what, or why. I didn't even know our current governor has been our governor for some time, now. I don't know what part of government governors serve in - House of Representatives or Senate or are those the same thing? I don't vote for people, I vote for bills. Raise room tax to 12%? Yeah, I voted on that. The last gubernatorial election? Sorry, missed it. Same goes for our Senators. I'm the average uninformed American voter.

This election year has been a little different. Rob & I haven't had a t.v. in the house for months, so at work in the break room I'm hit by a barrage of electoral advertising. Apparently it's our Senatorial election, and it's eclipsed our gubernatorial election. Namely, it's Harry Reid & Sharon Angle up there on the t.v., slinging mud. Every single Reid ad points fingers at Angle for being extremist and every single Angle ad points fingers at Reid for being, I dunno, too liberal or something?

I have had the news updates because of the internet, and I have seen a lot of Sharron Angle cutting her own throat. She stated that: "And these programs that you mentioned -- that Obama has going with Reid and Pelosi pushing them forward -- are all entitlement programs built to make government our God. And that’s really what’s happening in this country is a violation of the First Commandment. We have become a country entrenched in idolatry, and that idolatry is the dependency upon our government. We’re supposed to depend upon God for our protection and our provision and for our daily bread, not for our government."

I had to read it a couple times because I couldn't figure out why government assistance was in violation of the First Amendment & then my brain finally processed 'Commandment'. Ouch. Well, whatever else she stands for fell by the wayside for me. The minute anyone starts waving their religion in my face, they lose my vote. Every time I see one of her ads, I'm not paying attention to what she's saying about Reid - I just hear a voice-over of that blurb about the Commandment. Some people might think that if someone waved Paganism around in their political ads, I'd vote for them, but honestly I don't think I would. America should have a thick, rigid wall between church and state, and it doesn't matter what church is being waved around - the Catholic Church, Judaism, Islam/Muslim, Wicca, whatever. Don't stick your religion into your political agenda. Your platform may be related to your religious tenets, and sometimes that's a good thing, but I don't want to know about it when I'm deciding who I'm going to vote for on election day.

What I would like to see are ads that actually state what each candidate's platform is. Reid's website (Sen. Harry Reid) is, of course, more official than Angle's right now. It's got that '.gov' designation & looks like most other State of Nevada official websites. You go to 'Issues' & it shows support of healthcare reform & trying to keep Yucca Mountain free of nuclear waste, that kind of thing. It's neutral, which means it doesn't give a strong impression of how much he supports anything, and there's a lot of 'party line' on it - like a generic statements like: "While I am strongly opposed to illegal immigration and believe that our immigration laws should be strictly enforced, there is near-universal agreement that our system is broken and in need of reform". Of course, I haven't heard a damn thing about any of it with the t.v. ads.

Angle's site (Sharron Angle for US Senate) looks soooo amateur by comparison. The first thing you see at her site is an unflattering picture of Reid and when you click past it, it's full of Reid-bashing. Just lovely. Tells me so much about Angle. It looks like a mySpace page. Those 'friends of Sharron Angle' aren't doing her any favors. Clicking on 'Issues', the first thing I see is Repeal and replace Obamacare. Obamacare? Honestly? You used that on your webpage? I think that allowing people to purchase out-of-state insurance is cool, but I haven't heard a single ad on t.v. mention it. Of course, I also haven't heard that Angle supports coal & oil-based energy. Coal's time is over. I like being able to bear arms, but I think gays should be able to marry, so that's another point for and against - neither of which I've gotten from t.v.

Based on the websites alone, I'd have to go for Reid. But if I was gauging my vote off the t.v. ads, I think I'd probably try to find the candidate whose name I didn't recognize & vote for them instead.

I don't have kids. I don't like kids. But even I can see this for being wrong. Someone seriously needs to stop what this motherfucker is doing.

Normally, I'm a rational human being. I can understand, to a point, not stepping on cultural toes. Circumcision is a touchy subject because of the trampling of traditions and what-not, and as a Pagan I'm supposed to be all PC about my opinions on the whole thing. Politically incorrect as it may be, I abhor nonconsensual female genital mutilation in all its forms (if you want to carve up your own vagina, that's between you and your girly parts, ladies...) and I loathe the societies that practice it and the extreme methods of male circumcision that are out there.

However, this has no cultural amnesty in my eyes. This so-called doctor, Dix Poppas, a pediatric urologist working at Cornell University, is a butcher and a sadist. What's worse are the parents putting their daughters through this. I mean, what the fuck are they thinking? Does anyone actually think little girls compare clits in gym class or something? I've been in a lot of womens' locker rooms over my lifetime and never once has any woman or girl spread her lips apart & asked me, "do you think my clit is too big?" I've never asked anyone else, that's for damned sure (ok, yes, for me it's because I think my clit is too small, kind of like my nipples, but that's beside the point). Boys may very well do that... but girls? Huh uh.

Someone should hog-tie him and use his methodology on his penis. Sans anaesthesia. Maybe throw in his ears and fingers for testing purposes.

"Can you feel this, motherfucker? How about now?"

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The first memories I have of big news as a child were Elvis dying & the Jonestown incident. I heard about serial killers a lot, too. Ted Bundy & the Hillside killers, mostly, but also BTK, and later there was the Green River Killer and the Nightstalker. There was still talk of the Manson murders and the Zodiac killer in the early to mid-70s (especially because my family lived in southern California).

I call the years of my early childhood the Season of the Wolf.

Looking back, even with all that going on, my parents were not inclined to stress the whole don't talk to strangers ethic on me. None of that be home before dark, either - during the summer time my friends and I would still be yard-hopping at midnight. Maybe it was because the serial killers were interested in grown women and there were no strings of missing children at the same time. It might have been because I was a naturally skittish kid. I also think it's indicative of my parents' relative disinterest in having a child, or at least my mother's disinterest - my dad wasn't home much.

For the small things...

Nikon’s Small World Photomicrography Winners

The Pagans are Coming!

The article isn't that long or insightful, but the comments... I'm still laughing.

You wanna know why all us Americans are being forced into the digital television age?

Widgets.

Television advertisers want to put widgets on the t.v. that will help viewers interact with their products in a web-browser like environment. T.V. stations want to add things like stock tickers, weather widgets, you name it, into their broadcasts to keep people from surfing channels in search of more indepth or on-demand content. CBS has the sports report on it & you need weather? No need to change the channel, just look at the sidebar or pop-up panel activated by your universal remote!

Can you imaging pop-up commercials? You're sitting there, watching a show & bloop - pop-up tampon ad!

Yeah, I'm a little peeved at this whole thing. The US Government says 'yes, we're converting all televisions to digital' & 'you've got to pay for the box that will let you view the new, improved t.v. stations'. Granted, in order to watch t.v. in the first place, you have to buy a t.v. - but nothing says you can't go out & buy some $10 b/w thing with a dial on it at someone's yard sale or swapmeet.

Ok, yes, I do have my pure geek moments. We subscribe to Popular Science, & they've been talking about this Large Hadron Collider thing for months. They're hoping to recreate the Big Bang.

What I find strange is that scientists are talking about multiple dimensions and time travel as being possible - not just plausible, but possible. I am intrigued, excited and terrified, all at the same time.

It's this quote from Paul Tipton that sums my terror up: "Humans have never learned something and not used it"