How appropriate....

Update (23:50 UTC 4 March 2006): I'm at MSP airport now and my uncle has apologized for sending this out. He's a good man, and I appreciated his apology as I know he'd do anything for anybody, if he could.

So I get this "the US shouldn't be in the UN because a bunch of countries hate us" email from my uncle. I'm at Amsterdam airport right now, and seeing this email forced me to respond. First, the email, then my reply.

On 4 Mar 2006, at 3:22 AM, Bernie's uncle wrote:

President Bush wonders why everyone is against United Arab Em. taking over our ports.

Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2006 10:26 PM
Subject: Fw: Attention Everyone

This oughta upset everybody:

How they vote in the United Nations:

Below are the actual voting records of various Arabic/Islamic States which are recorded in both the US State Department and United Nations records:

Kuwait votes against the United States 67% of the time

Qatar votes against the United States 67% of the time

Morocco votes against the United States 70% of the time

United Arab Emirates votes against the U. S. 70% of the time.

Jordan votes against the United States 71% of the time.

Tunisia votes against the United States 71% of the time.

Saudi Arabia votes against the United States 73% of the time.

Yemen votes against the United States 74% of the time.

Algeria votes against the United States 74% of the time.

Oman votes against the United States 74% of the time.

Sudan votes against the United States 75% of the time.

Pakistan votes against the United States 75% of the time.

Libya votes against the United States 76% of the time.

Egypt votes against the United States 79% of the time.

Lebanon votes against the United States 80% of the time.

India votes against the United States 81% of the time.

Syria votes against the United States 84% of the time.

Mauritania votes against the United States 87% of the time.

U S Foreign Aid to those that hate us:

Egypt, for example, after voting 79% of the time against the United States, still receives $2 billion annually in US Foreign Aid.

Jordan votes 71% against the United States and receives $192,814,000 annually in US Foreign Aid.

Pakistan votes 75% against the United States

Receives $6,721,000 annually in US Foreign Aid.

India votes 81% against the United States; receives $143,699,000 annually.

Perhaps it is time to get out of the UN and give the tax savings back to the American workers who are having to skimp and sacrifice to pay the taxes (and gasoline).

Pass this along to every taxpaying citizen you know. And send to your congressman, who should be disgraced but couldn't care less.

Disgusting, isn't it?

======

My reply:

Sitting in Amsterdam airport, waiting for my flight back to the U.S. after a month-long trip to India, I can say that we've got a lot better than they do. While our gas prices are around $2/gal, theirs are near $5/gal. And when you consider the disparity between the average income of an American and an Indian, you'll understand how much it hurts them more than it does us. We've got it good.

Americans like to talk about their "hard-earned dollars." Until we've seen someone breaking rocks with other rocks with their hands in order to lay a rockbed for a new highway, or someone breaking tiles with a small hammer in order to prepare for a new floor to be laid at the airport, we should just keep quiet.

Just go to a 3rd world country sometime. When you see old women, limbless people, and starving children begging for money, you might get why it's a good thing that our government gives this Aid.

By the way, India contributed aid after Katrina, so it's not like we're alone in this world. There are countries that DO care about us. And we should care about them, too. (http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/sep/08aid.htm)

Thanks,
Bernie

370HSSV-0773H

Programming note: tomorrow I leave for India. I'll be there until March 3rd.

Osama contacts Bush

After numerous rounds of "We don't know if Osama is still alive," or "I
really don't think about him much anymore," Osama himself decided to
send George Bush a letter in his own handwriting to let him know he was
still in the game.

Bush opened the letter an it appeared to contain a single line of coded
message:

370HSSV-0773H

Bush was baffled, so he E-mailed it to Condi Rice. Condi and her aides
had no clue either, so they sent it to the FBI. No one could solve it at
the FBI so it went to the CIA, then to the NSA.

With no clue as to its meaning they eventually asked Britain's MI-6 for
help. Within a minute MI-6 cabled the White House with this reply:

"Tell the President he's holding the message upside down."

Hey, wait!

You forgot Poland!

Flip-flopping.

Cheney in 1992:

"And the question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam (Hussein) worth? And the answer is not that damned many. So, I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the president made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq."

Bush-Cheney flip-flops cost America in blood

If the right can call Kerry a flip-flopper, then so can the left.

Just for the record - I don't see anything necessarily wrong with flip-flopping. That's what logical people do. When presented with a better piece of information it is OK to change your mind. I'm just getting sick of the right relentlessly bashing on Kerry and others for flip-flopping when they've done it on multiple occasions.

Hooray Liberalism.

Let's Not Devalue Ourselves, by Katha Pollitt

The truth is, most of the good things about this country have been fought for by liberals (indeed, by leftists and, dare one say it, Communists)--women's rights, civil liberties, the end of legal segregation, freedom of religion, the social safety net, unions, workers' rights, consumer protection, international cooperation, resistance to corporate domination--and resisted by conservatives.

Well put.

Alabama, land of RIGHTeousness

I've mentioned cases like this in previous journal entries, but I'm hugely opposed to ANY religious artifacts being on display at a government institution, building, assembly, or what have you. I'm all for separation of church and state, and I believe there is no place for religion in government. Alabama, of course, is no exception. Listening to Roy Moore speak is like listening to the Segregationist Gov. Wallace speak in the school door. I can just hear him saying "10 commandments in the rotunda now, tomorrow, and forever!"

Hey Moore, my girlfriend tells me that the Bible says you should kill anyone who works on the Sabbath. Why isn't this allowed in the constitution, or in Alabama state laws? Why are you a judge? I thought that was forbidden in one of the 10 commandments. Aren't there other rules in the Bible you should be following?

So I'm ranting, but really, this right-wing bullshit has got to stop, or I think I'll seriously consider moving to a place where society progresses, not regresses.

Here's another interesting opinion, from Slate.

I welcome discussion on this, pro or con, flamebait, or not.

Group sues Everett, Wash., over Ten Commandments display

A Washington, D.C.-based group sued the city of Everett on Wednesday for refusing to remove a 6-foot tall granite monument bearing the Ten Commandments from city property.

The story...

It makes me happy to see lawsuits like these. Yay 1st Amendment!

Woof?

It's always great to find a funny picture like this one. Poor Bush - after screwing over the world for the past 2 1/2 years, now it looks like you're beginning to go to town on your poor dog.

Damn crappy [insert country here] software!

After reading this article over on Salon, I wonder if you'll hear me sometime in the future complaining about crappy software primarily programmed by outsourced programmers.

I think it'd be nice if there were some sort of information available with the software that said "some outsourced programming from India, Ireland, Russia, etc. was used in the creation of this software." Of course, I don't think it'd do much to change my buying habits, considering I drive a German-designed, Mexican-made car, but still.

I've been lucky, so far. My company isn't outsourcing any programming or support jobs to other companies/countries. But, I have had been on some calls with other companies that do outsource to other countries. I'm not knocking the competency of the other programmers, I just worry that programmers could be going the way of the skilled laborer of yore.

If outsourcing really takes off and India becomes a major white-collar industrial power, are we going to start bashing them like we did Japan back in the 70s-80s-90s?

Democracy, Whiskey, Sexy!

Interesting article over at The New York Times regarding Iraqis' exuberance at their liberation. I'm watching Real Time with Bill Maher right now, and he was the one who tipped me off to the Iraqi, that when asked about what the Americans would bring to Iraq, responded: "Democracy. Whiskey. And Sexy."



That, folks, is why we liberate people. Halle-freakin-lujah.

Yay for our stupid politicians!

With all this patriotism and anti-French sentiment, I realized today that whenever I swear, I'll have to say "Pardon my freedom."

I'd like to thank the politicians for this. No, really - Thanks.