Politics

loganberrybunny posted this meme:

2008 Presidential Candidates: My favourites are (in order) Paul, Giulani, Clinton, Romney, and Edwards. Clinton, Romney and Edwards are all pretty much equal in my affections, although for different reasons. If it becomes a Clinton / Romney campaign, I'll be dithering until the end. Edwards has no real chance. Obama seems likeable, but I really can't see him as President without a few more years in the Senate or a governorship. The last sincere young man who was going to change Washington was Carter, so that colours my judgement. I would vote for roughly anyone over Huckabee.

Party: My natural sympathies lie with the Goldwater faction of the Republicans, although I'm not currently registered as a member.

Abortion: The debate really hinges on whether a fetus is a person under the meaning of the 14th amendment. I don't think so. Other opinions differ. I don't think the debate is worth the energy that's expended on it.

Affirmative Action: Absolutely wrong, under all circumstances. Every citizen should have equal rights under the law.

Alternative Fuels: I'm heartily in favour of ethanol and biodiesel, given that the United States can be a leading producer.

Capital Punishment: It should be used more routinely than it is. There are people (quite a lot of them, unfortunately) who lack the capacity to live among civilized folk. I think it biases the debate to term it 'punishment' - it's more of a preventive measure.

Censorship: Should be employed only when required for national security.

Cuba: The whole American refusal to deal with Cuba is frankly counterproductive, but politics being what they are, it's not going to change. Most people (myself included) don't especially care one way or the other, but there's a small group who care very passionately. I rather like Castro, actually. He's misguided, but honest, and I think he really does try to do what he believes is best for the Cuban people. Our refusal to trade certainly doesn't make life better for the average Cuban.

Current Administration (Bush/Cheney): I wish it were the Cheney administration, rather than the Bush administration.

Education: How can anyone be opposed to education?

Electoral College: It worked a lot better before the reforms of 1968.

Flag Burning: Burning a flag (provided it's done safely, and it's your property) is protected speech.

Foreign Policy: Much of the Middle East, and Iran and Syria in particular, would be improved by heavy, sustained bombing.

Free Trade: Good within limits. As with all things, we should be evaluating trading practices as to whether they benefit America in the long term, rather than whether they're fair in and of themselves, or whether they conform to some philosophical ideal.

Gay Rights: Every citizen should have equal rights under the law.

Globalization: Same as Free Trade.

Gun Control: The Second Amendment has nothing to do with private ownership of guns - it allows the States and jurisdictions to maintain their own armed forces as a safeguard against Federal tyranny. Private ownership of weapons is irrelevant to that. That being said, I rather like the Texas model of an armed society, where honest citizens are empowered to kill the dishonest when needed.

Healthcare: Our current system has a lot of faults, but by and large works better than others. I certainly don't want to go the Canadian route, or heaven forfend, the English one. Something does need to be done about the greed of the drug companies, though.

Illegal Immigration: We need to make a serious effort to hunt down and deport or imprison every last illegal. We won't catch them all, just as we can't catch every child molester or murderer. The fact that we can't be 100% successful doesn't mean that we shouldn't try.

Marijuana Legalization: The government shouldn't be prohibiting recreational drugs at all. They might have a legitimate role in regulating their production and sale as they do alcohol and tobacco, but whether to use them should be an individual choice.

Media Bias: The media is biased toward stupidity and shallowness. This is a function of the nature and influence of mass entertainment, especially television, rather than any political leanings.

Minimum Wage: It solves more problems than it causes. A society shouldn't allow honest and willing workers, however unskilled, to fall into pauperism.

Outsourcing: Same as Free Trade.

Right to Die: This is a basic human right. The government has no business controlling something like this.

School Prayer: If students wish to pray, that's their own business. Government has no business setting aside prayer time, or otherwise encouraging (or discouraging) prayer.

Social Security: Is heading for a trainwreck, but I've heard no workable ideas on how to fix it.

Stem Cell Research: I'm heartily in favour of it. This is another area where Bush has betrayed America to appease pressure groups.

Supreme Court: By no means a perfect system, but it works reasonably well. It's hard to imagine a way to correct its faults without introducing other problems as bad or worse.

Taxes: I'd mind paying taxes a lot less were it not for the conviction that much of the money is simply wasted.

The Constitution: The written Constitution was discarded in 1861. I don't necessarily think the Lincoln administration was wrong to do this - they were dealing with unprecedented problems, and an emergency requires people to act outside of normal strictures. The Civil War is long over, though, and it's time to either put the written Constitution back into force, or else admit that it doesn't meet our current needs, and write a replacement that reflects our actual practices. I don't see either happening soon.

Unions: Employees should be free to join unions, but employers should be free to fire them for it as well.

United Nations: Is good at administering aid after disasters, but otherwise causes more problems than it fixes. It's probably not salvageable.

War in Iraq: We had this won, then threw it away. I'm completely disgusted.

Welfare: A catastrophe. We need to end the handout system, and require people to work for what they recieve. The concommitent to this is that government needs to ensure that a job is available for everyone.

Wiretapping: Should be freely employed when needed for national security, and with some reserve at other times.

In the Post-Decemberish Season

Apparently the Brits have never seen bread bowls before.

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The New York Public Library's collection of pictures about Punishments of China. If you search by subjects, there's an incredible store of pictures here, reference pictures for almost any imaginable subject. You can get pictures of stuff like Hairstyles, Handbags, Handguns, Harbors, Harps, Hats, etc. many of them sorted out by period and region. It's all the fascination of sitting in the library poring through books of old pictures, but online :)

The "Collections" section has some amazing stuff too - thousands of cigarette cards, book covers, Japanese prints, etc...

A series of rather emotionally needy looking Qats from Players. You can tell from looking at them that they want to be petted. I'm guessing the backs told about the breeds.* I love the idea of someone saving up his cards, and slowly building a collection of Qat pictures. A lot of the cigarette cards are touching in their choice of subjects and art. I can see working men saving the cards on topics that interested them, in an age when it was hard to come by coloured pictures.

*Edit: They do. There's a 'View Verso' choice that I'd overlooked.

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Baby Otter in Phoenix. Has oliver_otter been to see her?

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"We need supplies up here urgently particularly of cooking oil..." I've noticed and remarked upon this before. Every time there's a disaster or unrest in Africa or South Asia, cooking oil seems to be one of the primary relief supplies. A bottle of cooking oil lasts me two months or so. These people apparently go through the stuff at an enormous rate.

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How they colour baby chicks. I had no idea. I always thought they were just bathed in dye. You used to always see these on sale around Easter in the early to mid 60s. In a few weeks, their feathers grow out in the normal colour.