Idiomatic Expression

Happy Guy Fawkes Night

In a great example of Saudi Arabian justice, a man tried to rape his Filipina maid. She stopped him by cutting off his wang.

She is in police custody, and he is resting comfortably after surgery to reattach the offending member.

Lets all take a moment to remember Margaret Elizabeth Taylor who died on November ninth of 2005, leaving her entire estate to pay off the National Debt! Maybe it will start a trend for those that are ashamed of the mess they are leaving for future generations of Americans.

Blame it on Cain
Don’t blame it on me
Oh-oh, oh, it’s nobody’s fault
But we need somebody to burn

I have a new bad habit… talking to telemarketers. Luckily they are not trying to sell me stuff, only get my opinion on various items. It all started out when one of the televised Virginia Gubernatorial debates claimed they would let Russ Potts in to the debate if he polled at 15% or greater. Being a supporter of multi-party democracy (where multi is greater than 2) I am still appalled that valid independent candidates are stonewalled in this country.

Yesterday I got a survey call after the Redskins game, and being in a good mood after the Redskins 52-17 win over the 49ers, I decided to participate. It was regarding the Israeli Palestinian situation, and other than the telemarketer (tele-sureveyor?) pronouncing Hamas as Hummus it went as well as a 20 minute phone survey can go. However, it really didn’t let me express my full opinion on the matter. So, just to set the record straight here is a bit of what I feel on this matter.

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One of the less savory aspects of downtown Vancouver is that a block from Gastown, one of Vancouver’s most hyped tourist traps, is an area defined by its missions, needle-exchange programs, and other outreach programs. This includes people passed out on sidewalks, aggresive pick-pockets, and other homeless people.

This area of Vancouver is still safer than most of DC, but it can be a bit unnerving to realize that the person that you just denied a handout too is now following you down the street, this happened on my first trip to Vancouver. A friend of ours ate at one of the downtown cafe’s in Gastown and the waitress asked them to put their camera away as they had already had one stolen purse, and three stolen tips that day.

The drug of choice in the area seems to be Heroin, which at least produces a mostly non-violent addict. In the most recent trip I ran into an aggressive, ultra-hyper, twitchy guy with an unlikely story (even more unlikely than most) and he insisted on showing me that there were no track marks on his arms. Even though from the look of his teeth, he was a crystal-meth addict. He walked with me most of the way back to the hotel, and the twitching was a bit concerning so I kept him talking. He realized that I was not buying his story as I neared my hotel and I was able to duck inside with only the threat violence.

Recognizing that outreach, needle-exchange, and suprevised injection programs do serve the public good, to what extent do these efforts draw additional addicts to certain areas, allow people to continue with self-destructive activities, and perhaps put law-abiding citizens and visitors at increased risk of violent crime? Perhaps the two people with degrees in Public Health could shed some light here.
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Tired of partisan politics? Tired of candidates winning elections on promises of a free lunch? Tired of candidates who run campaigns based on defaming their opponent? Tired of dissenting voices being silenced by the mainstream political parties? If you are, you may want to check out Russ Potts who is running as an Independent for Governor.

He may not click 100% with my politics, but he is the front runner for my vote in November.

I was planning not to comment on the elections, until I was completely decided on a candidate, then I read this quote from Kilgore regarding the gubernatorial debates:

“I support . . . voters [getting] a view of candidates that can actually win this election,”

When pressed as to whether this meant this was a no to including Russ Potts in the debates Kilgore said:

“That’s a no.”

Apparently someone is scared of the public hearing Potts’ message.

The Washington Post has a great piece by Dick Meyer, which describes the “nuclear” debate on judicial nominees as a symptom of systemic disease which is slowly killing the character of the senate.

The Senate has managed to conduct the business of confirming or rejecting federal judges with relative efficiency and only occasional controversy for some 200 years. That the Senate is now going nuclear (to use its own vocabulary) over this legislative chore is a symptom of a rather serious illness in the upper body.

I agree with his arguments, especially with the assertion that this Senate has not passed any legislation that will be remembered positively ten years from now.

The Pew Research Center has defined nine groups to describe U.S. voters.

• Enterprisers
• Social Conservatives
• Pro-Government Conservatives
• Liberals
• Disadvantaged Democrats
• Conservative Democrats
• Upbeats
• Disaffecteds
• Bystanders

I got pigeon-holed as a liberal, which I am not quite happy about. I would agree that I am a social liberal, but on monetary and budget issues I feel that I am a conservative. I wonder what category I would be assigned to if I was not strongly independent.

Find out where you fall. A write up entitled Beyond Red vs. Blue is also available.

If any of you go through the effort to take the quiz, please post the results. I would be interested if anyone finds their category an adequate description of their political views.

An interesting article in the Washington Post describes a pilot program to provide orange flags for pedestrians to use when crossing intersection without traffic lights. The program has met with some initial success, “early studies of the flag project indicate that when pedestrians did hoist the flag and march across Connecticut Avenue, motorists were twice as likely to stop for them.” Although interesting, I don’t think that in the long run this will provide a viable way preserve walking neighborhoods in the area. I would love to see more pedestrian over/under passes in the DC Metro area. These would allow easy access for pedestrians to shop or run to lunch without slowing down the already sluggish pace of traffic. This was one of my favorite parts of Taipei, and Xing Dian in particular was the use of pedestrian overpasses on most of the streets with four or more lanes.

If anyone from VDOT happens upon this, please put in a couple of pedestrian overpasses across Route 7 in the Tyson’s area. Being able to walk to lunch without dodging cars running the light at Westpark and 7 would make for a more enjoyable (if less exciting) lunch experience.