Though I cannot help but snark, “Why should the Chinese be afforded these rights and not the Iraqis?”

By the way, I wonder what kind of TerraPass these guys would need. Either way, I’m going to be attending their environment-killing events the next two days, so that means more car photos (yay!)

Lesson 1: This is the Web. Links are what make it work. Lesson 2: Cite your evidence. You should have learned this in j-school, or engineering school, or as a scientist, or a literary critic, or lawyer…

UPDATE: “Saddam himself was a WMD for Iraq.” And, a Jewish Conspiracy theorist!

Searching MEMRI’s video clips section for “Iraqi elections” pulls up lots of good stuff.

UPDATE UPDATE: Seeing this clip brings me back to one of the first points I ever made (see third post down) on this blog: how come so many other nations (or religions or ethnic groups) seem to hold grudges against one another for hundreds of years? I’m with Josh on this one—it’s in everyone’s self-interest if both the Israelis and Palestinians stop trying to kill one another. Al-Qaradhawi, despite his highly inflammatory overall point, said it himself: there’s nothing fundamentally incompatible between the two religions. It’s just that they still hate each other for things that started hundreds of years ago.

And rather than forget about it, each side continues to do things that piss the other side off; both sides have an insatiable desire to completely own Jerusalem and they’re willing to go the extra kilometer and fight for it. The general xenophobia that seems to exist in that part of the world is certainly a contributing factor. Though Americans can certainly be guilty of xenophobia, it doesn’t seem to cause a civil war, at least not in recent memory.

No, I don’t have a solution. How long did it take the civil rights movement to make an effect on the American conciousness? And the wars that took place in the general chronological vicinity were far-away matters. In the middle of a war on your own soil, with two groups who are overall so hostile to one another, how can the moderates meet in the middle and start the nonviolent revolution of ideas that the region so sorely needs? It seems clear to me that whatever solution finally takes hold in the middle east, it’s something that’s going to have to come from within, and convince the people who can be convinced and marginalize the few that are left.

In light of this, today, I wore the only orange shirt I have:

Best of luck to Ukraine. Hang in there.

Canadian companies hiring aerospace engineers and offering me more money than any American company? You know where to find me.

Do realize it would have to be a lot more money. It’s damned cold up there.

(Via Mr. Donovan at Arrgh!)

There’s no need to leave the country just because Bush won. We…well, okay, I won’t speak for everyone. But at least I still respect (most of) you. I believe that reasonable people can disagree. I just hope to see a return to discussing facts and reason over rumor and emotion.

Having just watched Kerry’s concession speech, I think it’s worth noting that he seemed…well, confident. I suppose that the extremests who supported Kerry only because they couldn’t support Dean won’t understand why that is, but I hope that the rest of the liberals in the audience see that and know that there is no coming apocalypse. The world continues to spin, the sun continues to burn, the squirrels still leave acorns strewn about campus.

Incidentally, did anyone else notice that Bush mentioned “reform the outdated tax code” (or words to that effect) in his acceptance speech? He can raise himself in my eyes from “pretty good guy” to “personal hero” status if he does in fact successfully pull that off. “Minor deity” is still available if he simultaneously reduces the deficit (but that seems extremely unlikely).

As both candidates closed: God Bless America.

For those who don’t know, Tradesports is a “trading exchange,” essentially a stock market for betting propositions. Tradesports has contracts on the upcoming Presidential election, so the value of the shares represents what the traders expect to happen in the election (as opposed to a poll, where a person expresses their desire rather than their expectations). George Bush is currently trading at 54.5, indicating that the traders believe there is a 54.5% chance of Bush being reelected.

The speculation is that the market is being manipulated to reduce the confidence of Bush supporters by forcing the share prices down. Why Soros? He’s done this before, making about $1 billion by heavily shorting the British pound, betting on a fall which he essentially induced—much like what appears to be occurring on Tradesports.

I find this worthy of posting because I think it’s interesting that a market can be essentially manipulated in this way, and I didn’t know about Soros’ British pound bet before.