I just watched Children of Men on DVD. Good movie but a bit tough to watch at times. One of the DVD extras is The Possibility of Hope (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) which:

The documentary explores the intersection between the film’s themes and reality with a critical analysis by eminent scholars: the Slovenian sociologist and philosopher Slavoj Žižek , anti-globalization activist Naomi Klein, futurist James Lovelock, sociologist Saskia Sassen, human geographer Fabrizio Eva, cultural theorist Tzvetan Todorov, and philosopher and economist John N. Gray.

Very good stuff if you like thinking about the future, the nature of people or just like sci-fi and the ideas that inspire it.

No rant, just sad. If you are in Little Rock, there is a peace vigil tonight, weather permitting.

A few politicial vids that are going around.

1) If you just check out one, check out Lawrence Lessig’s 20 minutes or so on why I am 4Barack. He brings such a calm thought out reasoning to issues. Can you be a fanboy for a lawyer?

2)Yes We Can - Mashup of Barack’s speeches. Well worth a watch (even though celebrity endorsements usually deter me from a candidate) and the parody of it inspired john.he.is.

TrueBlue left the following comment on my Primary Voting entry:

I am not sure which of the three you should be most ashamed of.

1. You voted against Clinton?
2. Nader? How did that work out for you?
3. Kerry - can’t blame you for that, although, maybe if people wouldn’t have voted it for Nader, you wouldn’t have to have voted for Kerry.

I suspect that tb is really just having fun in my comments considering I know he did not get political until after BuSh took office and I don’t know if he even voted in ‘96 or 2000. But it gives me a chance to get on my soapbox so I’ll go ahead and tackle his points in reverse order:

3) No point here. Really just reiterating #2.

2) First of all - not Nader. There are a lot of 3rd parties. I did NOT vote for the Green Party. But more to the point of people who think Nader cost Gore the election and 3rd parties are bad and a waste of your vote, which is completely opposite of the truth. By now we all know that the electoral college decides our president and people elect the college and not the president. I’m not arguing that this is not utterly retarded and next to the 3/5 compromise the most boneheaded move the founding fathers could have made but that’s the rules of the game, for now. So your vote does not matter at all if the state you live in goes against you. In other words, if you live in Texas or Colorado and vote for a Democratic president, your vote might does not count towards electing a president, pushing an ideology, nothing. It is a wasted vote.
Now if you vote 3rd party, you know your guy is not going to win, I’ve never met anyone who thought differently. But now you’ve voted more honestly toward your conscience (which is kind of the point), and if by chance your team manages to pull a meager 10% of the popular vote - you’ve got both parties want to adopt the platform in order to get your votes. Your vote will count a lot more towards getting the ideas you support listened to. Voting 3rd party is the most honest expression of democracy and should be lauded instead of ridiculed. And no one cost Gore that election but Gore (and possibly Linda Tripp). He could not carry his home state, he had a f’ing retard as a running mate and was wooden on stage. Both Bush and Gore ran so far to the center is was near impossible to differentiate them and since they were both born as fortunate sons, I didn’t view it as necessary. But obviously BuSh thought running a campaign where he stated he had daddy issues and no respect for the Constitution would not get him elected and lied his way through the campaign.
1) If Clinton had not gotten elected in ‘96, no Lewinsky and Tripp, no Bush running in 2000 (no one challenges an incumbent president for the party nomination). Don’t know what kind of president Dole would have made but I know what we would have avoided and it’s tough to imagine getting anything worse.

Skin the Fox - Boycotting Fox News Advertisers.

I post this every year around this time. Skip out on Black Friday and Buy Nothing!

It’s that time again. The Jingle Bells run is a fun 5K run/walk to raise money for the arthritis foundation. I ran last year but was incredibly sick but still had an amazing time. This year I doubt my time will be as good but I’ve got roughly 3 weeks to train. I’m gunning for 29 min time but we’ll see. Anyway, if you want to donate to a good cause, here is my link:

http://LittlerockJBR07.kintera.org/jvweb

Clear Channel bans Springsteen’s new stuff - I like the boss and have heard mixed reviews of his new stuff but he’s not someone I go out of my way to listen to. But the fact that Clear Channel dominates so much of the industry is bad for artists and the public. Not to mention the founder is an Aggie. This guy is my new arch-nemesis.

BTW - if you want to complain to the FTC or email the commissioners, feel free.

Leadersheep - The ACLU has an online ad calling out the democratic leadership. The democrats are not the cock-hungry hypocrites that the Republicans are but being spineless is not really an upsale. The link is silly but hit the right chords for me to become a card carrying member.