Support Your Veterans, Take Them to the Zoo

This story greatly confuses me. I don’t know whether to go “Awww!” or get angry over the ridiculous pomp and circumstance.

For some reason, a Welsh battallion has a goat soldier…member…not mascot…I’m not sure. But its a goat, and his name is Billy. Billy is now a retired veteran of the Welsh battallion at eight years old.

Billy was not a mascot but a ranking member of the regiment. His main role was marching at the front of the battalion on all ceremonial duties.He spent two-and-a-half years overseas in Cyprus when the battalion was posted over there and has lived in Chester since their return. During his time in Cyprus, he was even disciplined and temporarily demoted from his rank of Lance Corporal to Fusilier for not marching in time during a parade for the Queen’s birthday. (BBC News)

Billy had his own little farewell ceremony where soldiers lined up to say goodbye as he was marched to his pen in full regimental regalia. But oh it gets better, because now the search is on to find a new goat to fill his position.

Gradumacation Gives Me More Blogging Time

It has been nearly a month since I last updated this blog, but believe me I had a good reason: Finals. Yes, I’ve finished up my undergrad experience by working on a project to bring a microfinance organization into China, building a case for religious peacemaking in Israel-Palestine, and designing an environmental cooperation program for South Sudan. Pretty exciting.

But now its all over, and I may spend vast quantities of time blogging worry-free while I rush to find a job. While I have missed blogging about things, I haven’t completely ignored what’s going on in the world.

So welcome back my readers!

Hiring Vegans to Be Your Butchers

I had thought about this during the VP debates…

Its a bit contradictory for a candidate to run for a high executive office position while at the same time crusading against the big role government plays in people’s lives. I understand the idea of reducing bureaucratic inefficincies, but at some level the way politicians like Palin present it is tantamount to saying “We don’t want to be held accountable for helping anybody”.

While I hate to use snippets from the Daily Show or the Colbert Report because I like to keep this blog as academic as possible, I think this one is fairly appropriate. First let me say, her look is awesome. She is just so cute and hip. Now onto the substance. In this interview, Maddow says the following:

• Agrees with Stephen that “the government has a role in governance”.
• “I think that when conservatives crusade against the government while they are trying to be appointed to head the government, I think that’s weird.”
• On Katrina, “They [the Bush administration] wanted people to believe the government can’t help you, even in time of a disaster.”
• “Its like hiring a vegan to be your butcher. Like, if you have somebody who is really against the idea providing you the services you’ve hired them for, they’re going to be bad at providing that service.”

This may be an over-simplification of conservative government ideals as portrayed by politicians, but I still don’t get it. I understand the idea of state’s rights as opposed to federal governance, but I don’t understand where the line is drawn. So until I figure that out, I will continue to think of Sarah Palin and her ideological colleagues as vegans applying to be butchers.

EDIT:

My friend Katie commented on this on Facebook. It’s a very nice defensive argument of republican ideas. Whether or not Bush or Palin could have come up with that argument on their own, I don’t know. So here’s Katie saving the day, in blue (because red might be too hard to read):

“I understand the idea of state’s rights as opposed to federal governance, but I don’t understand where the line is drawn.”

The line is drawn at the border between policies you agree with and policies you don’t. For example: how many people do you suppose would support a federal gay marriage ban who continue to argue that abortion laws should be left entirely to the states? Another example: slavery supporters tried to get the federal government to protect slavery, and when they failed and Americans started electing anti-slavery federal officials, all of a sudden they decided slavery was a states rights issue. These are both topics where the “hypocrites” held a belief I don’t agree with, so let’s use an issue I support, just to be fair: I got pissed off when the federal government dictated that education (over which the states have jurisdiction) had to be abstinence-only to get federal funds. However, I have much less of a problem with the federal government dictating other facets of states’ education policy (like the Anti Bullying bill).

And, as odd as it is that I’m defending Republicans (and defending changing the system from within, since my usual preference is just to defect and start laying the groundwork for my preferred system), I do think it’s reasonable to work from within the government to change it. They can use their vote to vote against any increase in government spending, government jurisdiction, government bureaucracy, etc.

Libertarians (small l, if it wasn’t the start of the sentence) aren’t anarchists. If anarchists ran for office, that’d be more odd than this. But libertarians agree that there should be a government, they just think it should be smaller. So, why not get elected and work to make it so? What other way is there to do it?

Punking Palin

I listened to the prank call made to Sarah Palin, and I gotta say wow. These two French Canadian comedians from a radio show called her office, pretending to be Nicolas Sarkozy the prime minister of France. The conversation itself was just weird. I feel really really bad for her staff. It reflects even more poorly on them than it does on her.

We can’t all just call up the candidates and pretend to be foreign heads of state can we? I mean, aren’t there ways to make sure that doesn’t happen? Palin handlers, you guys really dropped the ball.

W. : A Life Misunderestimated

Like the liberal commie pinko latte drinking leftie I am (not), I went to go see the movie W. last night. It was okay. Not as horrible as I originally thought it would be. I think much of the credit for that should go to Josh Brolin, who played W. as a man and not a comic caricature. The insight Stone gave us into W. as a man though was a bit too simplistic. That he got where he was largely because of his father, whether it was his father pulling the strings for him or just a drive to make his dad proud of him. Though we may not have a lot of insight into W’s marriage, the film itself is definitely lacking in that. Laura is a lovely and engaging character, but we have no real idea why she’s with W in the first place.

The best parts of the movie are the ones that are true to record. The war room scene in which Bush and other key players talk about an invasion into Iraq, I’m told, is based on the book Hubris which is built off anonymous witnesses to that conversation. It was very well done, and I found myself turning to Matt at one point and saying, “The spice must flow!” The scene where all the key players realize they made a mistake in building up the presence of WMD’s is also pretty good. W keeps asking, “Who’s in charge here?!” and no one has the balls to say “You!”

The movie is bound to stir up some controversy, as are many Oliver Stone films. However one may feel about the Iraq War, the original case to go to war based on the presence of WMD’s and links to al-Qaeda was weak and a later source of embarassment for the administration. The film, it may be argued, is an exaggeration of that embarassment. If you were against the reasons for war, you’ll enjoy the movie no matter what. If you’re going to see entertainment or even art, there are other movies out there.

PS. Everyone says Cheney is Darth Vader. I think he’s way closer to Baron Harkonnen. But maybe its only because they’re both in the heavy side. Cuz you know, all fat people look alike.

Comedy = Civility

I woke up this morning, and found the most seriously awesome thing that has just made my day.

Obama reveals he is really from Krypton.

McCain commends his strongest support base.

And McCain announces his radical new strategy to win the election.

My faith in humanity and American democracy has been reaffirmed.

Give Me a High Power Job

As I come closer and closer to graduation and the inevitable career lifestyle, I’ve just discovered the most brilliant strategy for landing myself a high power job.

When I go to interviews and I am asked about my foreign policy experience, I will say that everything on my resume is irrelevant in light of the fact that I can see Russia from my apartment.

That’s right, I live 3 houses down from the Russian embassy/compound. I walk past it all the time on my way to get groceries and recently I actually witnessed the Russian-Georgian conflict via Georgian protesters.

I demand that someone give me a high power job that puts me in charge of important national institutions. NOW!

Oh yeah, and give my roommate Cyn one too. And possibly my cat.

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog’s new location!

I originally started this a little less than a year ago through Blogger, but then realized WordPress was better.

Enjoy!

Squee!

Sci-Fi Geekery for this week:

Battlestar Galactica, squee!! That series just becomes more and more intriguing, and damn do they know how to keep me in suspense. And just how awesome is their last supper photo? (And no I do not count that as sacrilegious. Jesus and his disciples didn’t pose for that, it was just a renaissance painter’s imagining of it. It is not a religious artifact, just a piece of art.)

And…even more exciting, the new production of Dune. I liked the look of the Lynch version but not the script. I liked the accuracy and the casting of the Sci-Fi miniseries, but not the actual production itself. So I’m really hoping the new one will be a better combination of both. Herbert’s sons are set to co-produce, and that gives me hope.

And yes this is relevant to the blog because both (mainly Dune) contain lots of political allegory. Or at least that’s what I tell myself.

Ruh roh…

Bear with me folks, I’m in a college Shakespeare production this weekend, and am going mad with rehearsals in addition to class and well, being an adult and stuff.

Hopefully by next week, I’ll have the time and energy to write good substantive blog posts.