The closer we get to November, the more political commercials we get. I heard one on the radio today for Sean Mahoney, running for congress.

Now, living where we are, it’s extremely common for us to get ads for other states — the station I was listening to covers VT, ME, NH, MA. Of course, the commercial didn’t say where the douchebag they were talking about was running for Congress, but as it turns out it’s NH. The commercial also never mentioned the word “Republican”, though that was telegraphed clearly enough. Why? Because the entire commercial was him going on and on about how awesome the new anti-Mexican Arizona law is and how he’ll protect us (lily white NH) from the invading hordes of Mexicans planning to race up from “the border” and, I dunno, rape and pillage or something.

I love how he called it “the border” and it was clear he meant the one down south, never once commenting on the fact that NH does actually have an international border of its own. But, you know, Canadians. No one cares about them.

It was one of the more offensive political ads I’ve heard recently. I’m sad that he’s not running in my district so I can vote against him! Jackass. Instead I probably get to vote against Charles Bass, a pro-choice Republican more liberal than half of the Democrats in Congress. Gah.

This article by the BBC is as good an analysis as I’ve seen so far to explain why the hell Americans behave in the dumbass fashion that we do.

I think they’re wrong in tracing it back to the 60s, however. It goes further back than that. There’s always been a deep suspicion in this country of intellectuals, that they’re secretly making fun or putting themselves above others. You are supposed to become rich and successful due to your hard work or your charming personality or your innate talent rather than your intellectual gifts. What do you need all that book learnin for? There’s a large segment of American society that is deeply deeply suspicious and resentful of anyone who dares think for themselves, or questions ‘facts’ that are presented with no proof or rationality.

True Story: When the H1N1 vaccine came out, there was some debate as to whether or not people should get it. There are some legitimate reasons to decide not to (egg allergy, bad reaction to previous flu shot, compromised immune system), but there were also a lot of absolutely ludicrous statements floating around. In the course of a discussion, someone actually said in all sincerity that the vaccine caused death in 1% of people who got it. The lack of critical thinking skills evidenced by this statement is astonishing. I don’t disbelieve that propaganda of that sort was out there — I just can’t believe that people believed it! But then, people see numbers and their brains shut off. 1%, they think, that’s a pretty low number, maybe it’s true. Except, of course, 1% of even just 1,000,000 (and by that point about 20,000,000 doses had shipped) is 10,000. Even the American media could not fail to notice 10,000 randomly dead people.

I didn’t really listen to it, but I got the highlights.

It all sounded very nice, but I honestly no longer have any confidence that our completely dysfunctional government has the ability to implement anything at all. There was a brief period last year when it seemed like the Democrats might have grown some balls, when they finally realized that people were angry and they had momentum. But as usual, they squandered it all with their usual spineless jackassery. The Republicans, on the other hand, were they to come to power are perfectly capable of passing most of their agenda — except their agenda is ruinous for the average American.

So it seems we’ve gotten to the point where it’s impossible to expect improvement; the best we can hope for is that the Democrats retain power so things aren’t made worse.

And that is really depressing.

Someone said to me earlier that they agreed change needed to occur but that they didn’t think the government was the answer. Fine. Then what is?

Businesses in the US behave as if their employees should grovel and simper that they’ve deigned to employ them at all, let alone grant them a reasonable salary, civilized working hours or any kind of benefits. Change will not come from there: they have no incentive.

Individuals in the US have no power of negotiation; there are so many people equally qualified for jobs, not to mention the fact that their health care is probably tied to their job, that they cannot make any demands without risking personal disaster. Change will not come from there: they have no possibility of success.

Labor unions, which wrought much change in the middle of the last century, have been gutted and their power is low. Change will not come from there: people have been on their own for so long they no longer imagine it could be different.

So I can only assume that the people who think government isn’t the answer are operating on the underpants gnome theory of improvement. Step 1: Imagine a better situation. Step 2: ??? Step 3: Fixed!!

This kind of pie in the sky crap has even less chance of working than trusting the government.

So since I find it morally offensive that my tax dollars are going to pay the salaries and health insurance premiums of these misogynistic Christianist jackasses, can I get an amendment added to some bill that prevents federal dollars from being used for that purpose?

Please?

More brilliant fiscal management from the Dubya administration comes back to bite us all in the ass.

Aside from the health insurance implosion I’m sure is on its way, this one may well turn out to be the biggest disaster they wrought.

Looks like daddy is upset that the citizens of NH decided to toss his little boy out on his keister.

Ha ha ha.

Has anyone else been following what’s been happening in Iceland?

The whole thing reads like a cautionary tale for the U.S. which unfortunately occurred too late for anyone here to draw any lessons from it. Aside from the fact that the dollar can’t (because of its greater importance to world markets) be let collapse quite as far as the krona, I’m afraid we’re on a course to follow Iceland down the path to economic disaster. 15% inflation here we come.

Ha. V. amusing indeed.

Sarah Palin Quote Generator.

We basically missed the whole primary season during our extended hospital stay, which is probably a good thing; the reports that leaked through were frustrating enough. In the end, I didn’t ever have to decide whether I was for Clinton or Obama, a choice I’m still not sure about.

Recent events leave me, in a word, stunned. McCain’s choice for vice-president is so astoundingly ill-considered, cynical and ridiculous that I am still boggling, over a week later. Do he and the Republican party truly have such a low opinion of Clinton supporters that they think she was being supported simply because she was a woman? That her actual positions on issues, her experience and her abilities meant nothing? That women are interchangeable and we would blindly vote for whichever candidate has a vagina?

Given McCain’s age and his health problems, it would have behooved him to make a more considered choice for VP. Say, someone with actual experience and qualifications rather than the pork-queen from Wasilla with her shiny new passport. Instead, he’s demonstrated his own desperation to become president without regard for future of the American people.

I’m just hoping that the backlash against Dubya and his parade of idiots didn’t peak too soon, back in 2006 and we have a clear demonstration at the polls that we see through McCain’s ploy and won’t be fooled by his attempt to pander to the extreme right and fake out women at the same time.

For almost as long as the internet has been around, geeks and other enthusiasts have been using it to share and make archives of “copyrighted” material. I put the word copyright in quotes there because a lot of the time the material so copyrighted is out of print or otherwise unavailable for the general public to use because of technology changes or other issues.

Recently, the Librarian of Congress announced several classes of material that would be exempt from DMCA under fair use policies for the next 3 years (at which point the exemption has to be renewed). Included was this:

2. Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and that require the original media or hardware as a condition of access, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of preservation or archival reproduction of published digital works by a library or archive. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.

So did all those archives of game roms just get protection from prosecution for copyright infringement? It certainly became harder to do so, in any case. I also wonder how Nintendo’s efforts to collect various obsolete and OOP game makers to make such things downloadable for Wii will affect what classes of items are affected by this. You certainly can’t buy a Commodore 64 any longer, but does the Wii’s existence make those games not a part of this group? As it reads, I’m thinking it doesn’t save them.