MUGWUMP

Mugwump's capitalist idea of the day:

I want to start printing up T-shirts to sell to tourists that say "My boyfriend (or girlfriend, or parents, or whoever) went to the United States of America and got waterboarded and all I got was this wet T-shirt."



























(photo altered and reprinted without any permission whatsoever from Bustedtees.com)

Urban Hunting

A WONDERFULLY written piece by Brendan Kiley about hunting for critters as food in metropolitan Seattle.

Game On

You can almost hear the starting pistol shot in the 2008 race for president in this speech on torture by the once and future Hillary Clinton.

Juan Mann

'Juan Mann' is the is the alias of a young man who became an overnight phenomenon when his "Free Hugs" Campaign became the subject of a music video by band "Sick Puppies." The clip was shown to the bands song "All the Same" and within 5 days of being online had close to 700 thousand hits. music video. He has since been interviewed and seen on several American and Australian news shows and in several newspapers.

The clip depicts a period of time in 2005, when Juan would tour various areas of Sydney, Australia holding up a sign that said "Free Hugs." After a small amount of time, various law enforcment and city officials were told to put a stop to what he was doing, based in part on a law intended to prevent sexual harrasment on the city streets.

A petition was started, and in a short time Juan collected over 10000 signatures, which he then presented to the city council. While no official word has come allowing Juan to continue, he has not been asked to stop since this time.

Just try not to tear up. I dare you.

Watching the Man burn

(thanks Matt)

Reviews are In

My friend John's film OUTSOURCED got a positive review on page 11 of today's Variety and a good review online from Moviepie.

I'm so proud. *sniffles*

How bad it's gotten

Andrew Sullivan writes:

If the U.S. government decides, for reasons of its own, that you are an "illegal enemy combatant," i.e. that you are someone who "has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States," they can detain you without charges indefinitely, granting you no legal recourse except to a military tribunal, and, under the proposed bill, "disappear" and torture you. This is not just restricted to aliens or foreigners, but applies to U.S. citizens as well. It can happen anywhere in the U.S. at any time. We are all at potential risk.

For the first time in my life the thought crosses my mind that I, a gay man who constantly rails against the Bush Administration to an intelligent but somewhat limited readership (compared to, say, Andrew Sullivan), could conceivably be made to 'disappear'. It is not paranoia. It is a reasonable conclusion in the state of our world today.

Welcome to your United States of America.

It's getting hot in here

Today we're going to talk about Global Warming. I DO believe it's happening. I don't claim to know why it's happening, but I'm willing to believe it's a combination of human industrialization, negligence, and waste, AND planetary changes that occur naturally over time.

I saw Al Gore's movie 'An Inconvenient Truth' over the summer and because I've had an open mind about this topic since college I was a bit disappointed in the film because it neither enlightened me nor offered up solutions to the problem. I was, admittedly, unmoved.

Yesterday however, Senator James Imhoff from Oklahoma (where the wind comes sweeping down the plain) gave a speech chastising Al Gore and the media for hyping global warming... and on Sunday, the Denver Post published a story which featured Colorado State University meteorology professor emeritus William Gray pronouncing that global warming was "a big scam."

To this I say, "So WHAT?"

So what if it IS a big scam??? Shouldn't we be actively researching and developing alternative renewable fuels?? Shouldn't we be polluting less?? Shouldn't we be exploring new technologies more?? Shouldn't we be weening ourselves off of Saudi oil?? Shouldn't we be leading the world in setting an example about how to live on this planet??

So shut your pie-holes Misters Imhoff and Gray. You may be right, but you're not doing anybody any good.

...and as an aside, let me quote the genius George Carlin:

"The planet is fine. Compared to the people, the planet is doing great. Been here four and a half billion years. Did you ever think about the arithmetic? The planet has been here four and a half billion years. We’ve been here, what, a hundred thousand? Maybe two hundred thousand? And we’ve only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over two hundred years. Two hundred years versus four and a half billion. And we have the CONCEIT to think that somehow we’re a threat? That somehow we’re gonna put in jeopardy this beautiful little blue-green ball that’s just a-floatin’ around the sun?

The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles…hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worlwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages…And we think some plastic bags, and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet…the planet…the planet isn’t going anywhere. WE ARE!

We’re going away. Pack your shit, folks. We’re going away. And we won’t leave much of a trace, either. Thank God for that. Maybe a little styrofoam. Maybe. A little styrofoam. The planet’ll be here and we’ll be long gone. Just another failed mutation. Just another closed-end biological mistake. An evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet’ll shake us off like a bad case of fleas. A surface nuisance.

You wanna know how the planet’s doing? Ask those people at Pompeii, who are frozen into position from volcanic ash, how the planet’s doing. You wanna know if the planet’s all right, ask those people in Mexico City or Armenia or a hundred other places buried under thousands of tons of earthquake rubble, if they feel like a threat to the planet this week. Or how about those people in Kilowaia, Hawaii, who built their homes right next to an active volcano, and then wonder why they have lava in the living room.

The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we’re gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, ‘cause that’s what it does. It’s a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed, and if it’s true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new pardigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn’t share our prejudice towards plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn’t know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, “Why are we here?” Plastic…asshole."

Bill Clinton's 'Purple Faced Rage'

Watch this,

then read this,

and then read this.

2008, get here now

Any political website you look at now is filled with polls and opinions about who the frontrunners are or will be for the 2008 Presidential race. Currently it's Hillary and McCain. I was thinking about how I might feel should either of them win and I was struck with a moment of such clarity and relief.

I realized that I don't care.

I mean, I do care... but just the fact that George W. Bush will no longer be President and we can finally start walking down that road of repairing the damage he's done sets my mind at ease.

We can rejoin Kyoto, we can rescind the torture bill, we can have actual diplomacy with not only Iran and North Korea but with the rest of the world.

We can begin to revalue science over belief (stem cell research and Terri Schiavo anyone?) and start to correct the myriad problems created by 'No Child Left Behind' and the new prescription drug plan.

We can reign in the deficit.

We can rebuild our respectability with other Western nations.

Finally, with Rumsfeld gone, we can actually begin to clean up our mess in Iraq (whether that means doing the job right or pulling out completely).

Rove may have something up his sleeve to throw McCain off course and Hillary's position could be usurped by Gore (talk about a 'reset' button) but with any luck it'll be one of these three candidates that make me say, "Fuck election day. Inauguration Day will be the day to celebrate."

--------------------------------------------------------

p.s. How long will it take to undo Bush?