Thursday, November 24, 2005

Thanksgiving

I'm thankful for many things:

• I'm thankful that I get to live in such a great country. I may nitpick the USA from time to time, but that's just how I show my love. Maybe I get that from my mom.
  
• I'm thankful for my good health (a little torn cartilage may literally slow me down but metaphorically I'm still going strong). My operation is in January.
  
• I'm thankful for the fact that I live in an age where expressing my half-baked political views for everyone to see can be accomplished with a few clicks instead of involving ink-stained presses and typesetting.
  
• I'm thankful that I have a job that doesn't bore me to tears. Whenever I get to employ a design pattern, my day is made. More broadly I'm thankful that I am in a position to participate in the economy in a way that doesn't leave me screwed over. (My girl-friend's a public school teacher.)
  
• I'm thankful for everyone fighting for us in Iraq and around the world.
  
• Lastly, I'm thankful to all my friends for putting up with my over the top political views. I mean, come on: Am I for real?

posted by Tommaso Sciortino at 9:23 PM
(3) comments

Sunday, November 13, 2005

I *like* Coit tower

[I]f I'm the president of the United States, ... I say, "Listen, citizens of San Francisco, if you vote against military recruiting, you're not going to get another nickel in federal funds. Fine. You want to be your own country? Go right ahead."

And if Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead."

Bill O'Rielly

My cubicle at work happens to have a great view of Coit Tower and I’m sure that if it blew up I’d have a great view of that too. But I think it’s fair to say it wouldn’t be in favor of any terrorist attack on San Francisco for all the normal reasons and for the reason that my great view of Coit tower is from a building next to the Transamerica Pyramid.

But I didn’t post so I could reiterate my disapproval of terrorism, nor to recap what a jack-ass Bill O’Rielly is, instead I wanted to talk about opposition to military recruitment. The official rational (and the legal basis upon which military recruitment can be limited in schools) is that schools don’t have to allow groups which discriminate on campus and that the Army discriminates unfairly against homosexuals. But lets be honest, this is probably only part of the story.

Personally, I favor allowing military recruitment on campus. But there is a fair amount of hostility toward recruitment from certain (small) sectors on the left. I’m no expert but I assume the bulk of these bans are on college campuses and are supported mostly by wide-eyed college activists. College is wonderful time to experiment. For most politically minded kids, experimenting leads to good old-fashioned idealism; the idea that one cannot possibly contribute to anything which is not 100% pure. This goes for lefties and righties alike though for obvious reasons there are more lefty kids on campus.

Usually idealism just leads to wasting one’s time. I remember learning about how the students of UC Berkeley NOW were going to protest a statue honoring women. According to them, the statue (which was a collage of various women throughout history) objectified women. Similarly, some college Republicans will patiently explain whenever you care to hear how Social Security, Medicare, and the Department of Education, are all actually unconstitutional.

I guess in the eyes of idealists, military recruitment is doubly splotched: one for discriminating, two for having done some not so good things in the past (even if they were under orders). This last one is particularly precient now as the Iraq war wasn’t such a good idea and the more soldiers we recruit for it, the worse it gets. I think it accounts for the banning of recruitment in ideological cities like San Francisco.

There are some other arguments I hear against recruitment. Some say it’s unfair to the poor since it sends them out to die while the rich stay behind. I don’t think that argument is operative since the average soldier is actually wealthier than the average American (probably due to the entry tests which filter out those who went to schools in poor areas).

This post is too long. In conclusion: O’Reilly is an idiot. Anti-recruitment people should get of their high-horse.

Update: BAD (and Rebecca outside the blog) explains that the "ban" isn't a band so much as a statement of intent to ban. I think the arguments still apply since it's still clear that many don't look on recruiting favorably.

posted by Tommaso Sciortino at 10:54 AM
(15) comments

Monday, November 07, 2005

Only punks don't vote

And by "punk" I don't mean a person who listens to a certain genre of edgy rock 'n' roll. I mean a person who's a big loser who wets his bed and lives with his mommy 'til he's 43 years old.

Tuesday is voting day. You have 8 referrenda on which to vote Yay or Nay. Don't know what they are? Look 'em up! Don't know where to vote? Look that up too!

Here's how I'm voting, in case my political persuasions were a mysterious enigma shrouded in a thick cloak of curiosity:

73-78: No
79-80: Yes

That wasn't so hard, was it?

I feel most adamently about 73. Unfortunately, I flew in from DC about an hour ago, and it's 2:14am to me right now, and I'm too tired and grumpy to write a tretise on how the passage of 73 helps no one and only promises to endanger girls' health.

On the bright side, I saw Tim Russert walk back from his lunch break last week! And I got to hang out in the C-SPAN control room and watch "Washington Journal" be produced!

By the way, DC is run by tools. More later.

posted by Rebecca C. Brown at 11:06 PM
(15) comments

Thursday, November 03, 2005

The Anti-Tax Revolt

Or should it be called the Anti "Tax revolt" revolt? I don't know. What I do know is that the conservative tax "revolts" of the 70's and 80's which lead to travesties like prop 13 here in California are finally now being re-examined by citizens who appreciate that society costs money. Specifically, Colorado has finally done away with TABOR, an insidious little piece of legislation which limited the amount people could vote to invest in their public infrastructure. That's liberal-speak for limiting taxes.

Of course, the whole idea that the original tax "revolt" was anything other than a plot by Big Business to slip out from their obligations while making America less competitive is kind of silly. I realize that conservatives like to pooh-pooh framing when our side does it but you've got hand it to them for doing such a good job framing the issue. Calling it a "revolt" makes it sound like Ronald Reagan and Grover Norquist stormed the Bastille instead of just pushing a plan with tons of money from special business interests.

Sure, when they passed prop 13 they talked a lot about little old ladies not being able to afford their property tax but the end result was that government shifted property taxes from business to people, specifically new home buyers. Since Prop 13 ensured that property taxes could never go up (more than a certain small percentage) once you bought the house, the only way to invest in California was to raise beginning tax rates. And since owning your own home is one of the greatest ways to get out of poverty you can imagine what that's done to our economy. Meanwhile, business unlike people could move out of a building in fractions (first moving out a third of your people, then another third etc) so as to not set off the property reassessment in Prop 13. The end result is the businesses in California don't pay nearly as much property tax as do people.

Hopefully, California can follow Colorado's lead.

posted by Tommaso Sciortino at 9:20 AM
(1) comments