Protesting Lawyers?

So you probably already know that the government in Pakistan is in turmoil. The main leader, President Musharraf, who is also the head General, was re-elected a few weeks ago. It is apparently against the Pakistani Constitution for the President to also be the head General. So Musharraf promises to step down as General, but hasn't done it yet. Then the Pakistani Supreme Court was to vote on whether or not Musharraf's re-election was legal, and reportedly, were going to rule it wasn't on Sunday. But on Saturday, Musharraf declared a "state of emergency" and fired half the Supreme Court Justices. Immediately, international and domestic outrage began. Protestors took to the street and thousands have been arrested. TV has all been turned off except for Government-run news channels, and internet and cell phone access has been on and off.

This is clearly a terrible situation for Pakistan, and it could have big global implications, since there are a lot of delicate political situations involving Pakistan. For example, nukes vs. India. Or Afghanistan issues.

But I managed to find something humerous about this when I first heard about it, and it still remains funny to me. That is the image of lawyers protesting. In America, I think of street protest as the realm of the hippie (or post-hippie these days). On the other hand, I picture a lawyer kind of like an anti-hippie - the most straight-laced person around. So to me it is just funny to think of a bunch of lawyers as protesting hippies, or even hippies as lawyers. I guess it just goes to show how all countries have their own unique cultures.

"Beer Track" Voters

I just posted about this over on My Life With Beer, but I need to continue on a different angle over here.

The overview: beer track voters are supposedly poor democrats who care about unions and making ends meet, while wine track voters are supposedly rich democrats who care about global peace and more cerebral issues. This really pisses me off. I am a beer lover, but I would fit into their wine track.

This differentiation just shows how wrong stereotypes can be, and how it can really turn off people you don't want to turn away. It also is a way that the entire government itself works to promote the interests of huge companies, such as Budweiser. It is clearly Bud Miller Coors fans that are the beer track voters for the most part. It's like they don't even know about craft beer, which is up to 5% of the market now, and growing about ten times faster than the overall beer market.

It reminds me of the NASCAR Dad's thing from last time. I am a NASCAR fan, a dad, but I am NOT A republican who wants to go to war, like the NASCAR dads were supposed to be. Sometimes it seems that the so-called lberal media is more regressive since they constantly play off old stereotypes. Furthering these things in such a public way works to suppress any difference from the stereotype. In other words, as a NASCAR fan who is a liberal, I was sort of put in a state of limbo by the promotion of that stereotype of NASCAR Dad. It worked to alienate me from politics and NASCAR. Although I have recovered ;)

Now beer track voters alienate me from politics and beer. Although I will sooner discard politics than beer. I think I need to find acceptance of broad generalizations that must be made by people in the position of presidential candidates or media organizations. But then again, blogging is all about fighting stereotypes and getting the voice of the little guy out there. So here I am.

"wine track" beer entrepreneur
liberal anti-war "NASCAR Dad"

Middle School Birth Control

I can see how this school in Maine that is "giving birth contol pills to 11-year old girls without requiring parental consent" is alarming to many people. I read an article from Bill O'Reilly on it. Big surprise, he hates it. But even NPR had a story today (that I haven't listened to yet - not sure which show it was) basically asking "is this really okay for them to do?"

I think it is really important for girls of all ages to have access to birth control and good information about sex education. That is not to say that I want my daughter to be having sex at eleven years old, but if she were to be doing it, I'd MUCH rather she was on the pill than have her get pregnant.

The thing that really gets me about this is that the right will not allow these girls to get birth control pills (they would probably not even want the boys with condoms), and then if the kids get pregnant, they won't let them get an abortion (they say give it up for adoption - I have two kids, and I don't know how anyone could carry a baby for nine months and then just give it up for adoption - you become quite attached to that future baby). In fact, they are probably the first ones to provide judgement and unsupport to pregnant teens (and pre-teens in this case). On top of all this, they are the ones against sex education in the classroom (although even if I was going to send my kids to school, I still wouldn't rely on the sex ed they provide in there.)

Think about it this way. If a kid is having sex at eleven years old, there might be some sort of a deeper problem there. Could be anything from run-of-the-mill low self esteem all the way up to abuse. But something isn't right, and there's a good chance there's a parental rift involved there. So to require parental consent is just like putting up a big wall, and to require it would be to essentially prevent practically all of its intended utility (which I'm assuming is to reduce unwanted teen pregnancies.)

There's nothing wrong with sex. It is totally natural. Anyone who's ever had it can tell you that it is enjoyable, and they probably thought about it a lot before they had it for the first time, and possibly even more after they had it for the first time. Again, not that I want my eleven year old doing it necessarily, but at the same time, I don't think we should be viewing it in a shameful way that it seems to be protrayed most of the time.

If you want to act like there's no sex, and kids don't want to have it, then you do that on your own turf, but don't prevent my kid from getting essential tools for dealing with real life consequences of sex in a mature way.

I do not like Joe Lieberman

Every time I hear Joe Lieberman speak now I get so angry and feel sick.

He is just so wrong. I thought it was odd when he went to run for VP, but at the same time it was cool to have a guy from CT to run for that high office.

Then this past election, was where the crap really started. When he didn't win the Democratic nomination, he decided to run as an Independent instead. This totally undermines the system that we have in place. To make matters worse, he went and won. This shows that his support comes from the right, the people who can't vote in the Democratic primary. He's just a Republican in disguise. He is pro war, and votes with the GOP on war issues, such as troop reduction, etc.

I am not categorically against politicians who don't always go with their party line. For example, I really like John McCain (for a Republican). He is the classic Republican who wants to reach across the aisle to get important things done. Lieberman has sort of the same MO, but he has done it in a really sneaky way. If he wants to vote GOP, then run GOP. He could have won on the GOP ticket, but instead he tried to go for the Democratic nomination, didn't get it, but decided to bypass the system and play anyway.

On top of all this, I just can't stand to listen to him. He always sounds like he's about to cry, or like he just woke up from a nap. Then he's spinning all the war stats more than Bush does. He just needs to join the GOP where he belongs.

Bush Speaks

I hate to say it, but I believe part of what Dubya is saying today. He's talking about how congress isn't doing anything really productive. To me, this is a part of the extended extended campaign season for presidency. Congress is using its Democratic majority to keep anything from getting done. Partly this makes Bush look bad because nothing's happening, but at the same time it makes the Dems look bad because they're blocking things from happening in their passive-aggressive way.

But I actually like the way Bush is using his press address power to call out congress in their attempts to hold up meaningful work.

Now it is possible that he's just spinning the situation, and that there have been meaningful bills passed. If you can inform me of some progress made this session by congress, please set me straight. I would much rather feel that Democratic congress is good.

And now of course in the Q&A he is getting really defensive and impatient. I like it when that happens. The press keeps trying to trick him into commenting on something, and he keeps saying "you're trying to trick me", then he ends up frustrated.

Armenian Genocide

Keep in mind that I am against the war, and always vote for Democrats.

Speaker Peolsi seems to think that now is a good time to alienate a necessary ally of ours in the Middle East, Turkey. Apparently in 1915, the old Ottoman Turkish Empire killed millions of Armenians in an act of genocide as an attempt at ethnic cleansing. Sort of like the Nazis did to the Jews and like several other countries have done at various times in history. The Ottomans were overthrown by what is now the ruling group. But the current powers that be in Turkey reject the notion that there was a Genocide. They say it was a war. So I don't get why they don't just say "yeah, it was a genocide, that's why we kicked those other guys out". But OK they deny it. This is clearly wrong, and they ought to take the high road like Germany and admit the past is true and move on to the future. Nobody wants to hold anything against Turkey now for what they've done. We just want to call a spade a spade.

But now? Turkey has said that they'd get really mad at us if we do this. They have made it sound as though they might even go so far as to kick us out of their coutnry, which we're using as a stopping point on the way to the "War on Terror". I think people are even saying that they'll increase aggression on Kurds in Iraq if we do this to them. But Pelosi says "let's do it now". I heard in passing that she made some sort of promise that if it got past committee that she'd move forward with it. So maybe she's just stuck in a promise. Now wouldn't that be nice? A Politician keeping a promise that is hard to keep.

But still this seems to be another way the Dems are trying to be passive-agressive at stopping the war. First was the thing saying that troops had to either limit their tour length, or have a minimum off-tour interval (I can't remember which), which was clearly a way to force a drawdown of troops. Now this - if we can't work out of Turkey, it could threaten our Iraq operations and even create another front of conflict. (I actually heard someone call it a "second front" but I think we already have about 32 fronts going at once).

So while I want to call it a Genocide, do we really have to pass a resolution to make it official right now? But at the same time, if you can do something now, why not do it now? And if Pelosi promised she would, then she should also hold that promise. I just don't want to put at risk the lives of soldiers over politics. But I guess that's what Bush did when he started this war.