http://search.deviantart.com/?q=by:DeMolama&section=today deviantART RSS for by:DeMolama en-us Copyright 2009, deviantART.com Wed, 09 Dec 2009 21:26:44 PST deviantART.com http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss http://s.deviantart.com/minish/widgets/apple-touch-icon-precomposed.png http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/11292497/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/11292497/ Tue, 02 Jan 2007 18:25:31 PST
This is DA's page, and their duly deputized admin is at liberty, and further has an obligation to fully and fairly enforce their terms of service. However, without throwing any stones, I am unhappy about this.

Not sure what to do about this, but i have a feeling I know where it's going.

]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/11097613/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/11097613/ Sun, 17 Dec 2006 18:06:59 PST
]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/8558667/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/8558667/ Sun, 23 Apr 2006 08:18:23 PDT
"babysit their civil war".

As a man who is not given to making moral or emotional arguments on matters of policy, I was absolutely stunned by the simple heartlessness of that statement, which i have heard from prominent Democrats including John Kerry twice in the last week.
So, having spinelessly signed on to a failing war, which i remember listeng to that vote, and except for Robert Byrd, i dont remember alot of Dem's arguing against it, they are now disowning the the policy that they spinelessly endorsed, AND THEY ARE BLAMING THE VICTIMS OF THIS FAILED POLICY FOR THE PROBLEMS THAT ANY MORON COULD HAVE PREDICTED WOULD OCCUR SHOULD SAID POLICY BE ENACTED.

This is a level of callousness that I generally associate with the Republicans.

I have always said that Democrats pander to people's guilt and compassion, and Republicans pander to their fear and greed. It appears that this may be in the process of changing.

/me spits
a pox on both our houses... ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/7931979/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/7931979/ Sat, 18 Feb 2006 07:11:11 PST well i am glad that the guy who VP Snarly shot in the face had the good sense to appologize to the VP for all the trouble he put him through
[08:48] i mean
[08:49] snarly has secrtet meeting to attend, and torture to authorize...he doesnt have time to deal with some old coot who was stupid enough to put his face in the way of the Imperial Shotgun Pellets
[08:50] poor snarly
[08:50] life is so unfair
[08:53] yeh
[08:53] screw'd isnt it
[09:00] * DeMolay stabs Tri in the throat for a cigarette
[09:01] NOW APPOLOGIZE, BITCH
[09:01] YOU GOT BLOOD ALL OVER MY KNIFE
[09:01] AND YOU DONT HAVE ANY GODDAMN CIGS
[09:01] heh
[09:01] im sorry -_-
[09:02] damn right you are ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/7909606/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/7909606/ Wed, 15 Feb 2006 18:25:01 PST i didn't have to punch the wife OR smoke anybody's liver. she was so happy, i'm happy(but stabby...stabbier than usual), life's good. and stabby.
god bless the nice people of Nicorette.

it's easy to be cocky after 5 days, and time will tell. the Nicohadeen are a notoriously wily and persistent adversary. ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/7877296/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/7877296/ Sun, 12 Feb 2006 19:29:28 PST at the moment I would tear all of your livers out in turn with my teeth if i thought i could light one of them and smoke it and get lovely, delicious nicotine.

When I got the Wife diamond earrings for xmas, while it was not required, I was honestly expecting something along the lines of happy tears and/or sex. Her immediate reaction was to say, "What I really wanted was for you to quit smoking."

She is so romantic.

Well, vday is tuesday, and i been chewing nicorettes since friday at 5pm. Since I only really smoke in my computer room with the door colsed and she dont come in much, I may be able to maintain the element of surprise. She could be humoring me too. She's pretty sharp and I must smell hella different.

It's not like she nags me all the time, but she does work at an oncology lab, and is a worry wart to begin with, so I know it bothers her alot. It is only for her that I would or could do this, and the gum helps, but its being able to tell her that I haven't had a cigarette in 4 days on Tuesday is what kept me pure this weekend.

If this does not get me my tears and/or sex, i am punching her. ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/7807116/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/7807116/ Sun, 05 Feb 2006 09:02:43 PST This week has seen rioting in the Arab/Islamic world in reaction to a cartoon or cartoons which depicted the Prophet (a)at all and (b)in a context or contexts which may or may not have held him up to ridicule. I have not seen these cartoons, but have heard widely varying descriptions of the content and context. This has provoked a number of thoghts in me.
On the one hand, though I am a devout and frothing atheist, I generally feel it is not helpful to go around offending people on the deep and irrational, and implaccable, level that religious offense represents. It is particularly unhelpful in a conflict which one or more of the participants regard as religiously motivated. Whether the rioters are right or wrong, this outcome was hardly unforseeable.(on a side note, David Brooks is still an asshole)
On the other hand, I have all of the sympathy and positive regard for these rioters as i did for the Merry-Christmas-Taliban, that is none. Just becuase you devoutly believe in your primitive tribal superstitions and are bound by their tenets does not me that I have to be. Perhaps the problem is not so much religion(which I DO believe IS a problem) as the idea that you can violently redress verbal offense.

Iran-
The war drums are beating, the buzz is building, the basic motivating lies are being repeated uncritically until they become assumptions. Get ready, it's coming.
The big lie is this: it's not that we don't want Iran to have the same rights as any other soveriegn states to pursue whatever internal development policies it wants, it's because they will share nuclear technology with terrorists. The administration in the past has specifically cited Al Qaida as a group with whom they might share, but I am starting to see a bit more ambiguity.
Now let me address the Al Q/Iran axis. This is just foolish. All of the religious and political differences that existed between Saddam and Osamma and which were cited as reasons that the two would not cooperate(which as it turned out, they didn't), exist betwen Al Q and Iran, only moreso. Not only do Iranian Shiites and Wahabbis just frigging hate each other(each group regarding the other as apostates and usurpers), but Al Q and the Jihadi movement in general is largely made up of Arabs(not toally) and the Iranians are ethnicly Persian. Americans may not know the difference, BUT THEY DO. In fact, two weeks ago a bomb exploded in a southern Iranian city just before president Amedinajad was set to visit; one of the theories was that the bomb had been planted by the locals who belong to an oppressed minority within Iranian society. Anyone tell me the ethnicity of this oppressed minority? That's right. Arabs.
There are armed groups whom the Iranians do support, Hezbollah, Hammas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad. I saw US News and World Report call these 3 groups "the most dangerous terrorists in the world". Dangerous to whom? Compared to the Jihadis, these 3 groups are incredibly centralized and disciplined and their war aims, the destruction of Israel, are quite limited. I understand that the obligation to allies is quite important in this world, but for quite some time the Israeli-US alliance has been quite one sided and problematic for the US, and the Israelis certainly pursue their own interests heedless of it's effect on their allies(which all states can be reasonably expected to do), while the US government has seemingly pursued Israeli interests with equal vigor and heedlessness. I do not consider Israeli interests all that important, at least not more important than US interests.

Hammas-cracy-
It's a good thing that the US government came out this week stating flatly that we would not deal with Hammas if it reamins the organization that it is. If there is one thing that the United States CANNOT afford to start doing in it's effort to promote democratic change in the middle east, it's to start dealing with freely and fairly elected governments.

Virgin Wool-
How do they know?


ok, i am ranted out. ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/7169231/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/7169231/ Mon, 28 Nov 2005 16:06:09 PST ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/7094818/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/7094818/ Sun, 20 Nov 2005 08:05:12 PST In the time that the war has been going on, I have come to think that this war is going to be much worse for the United States than Vietnam was. In Vietnam, the US inserted itself into a pre-existing conflict where the area was already about quite mobilized and chaotic, and when the US pulled out, there was a centralized, organized state-player to come in and impose order and prevent the country from degenerating into a failed state a la Afghanistan. Yes there was score settling and the Boat People got fucked, but again, it did not turn ito Afghanistan or Somalia.
In Iraq, the US kicked over the ant hill of a functioning state and there is no third party capable of imposing order if we leave. The Saudis won't do it, they have problems and priorities of their own. Ditto the Syrians. Incidentally, neither one of them has the muscle eiother. The Kurds would NEVER tolerate any Turkish involvement, and if the Turks tried, their worst nightmares about thier Kurdish troubles would come true. I don't think that the Turks lack the will or brutality to fight that fight, but whatever effect it would have on Turkey and the world, it would make a meaningful Turkish intervention in Iraq impossible.
Does anyone believe that the US would sit still for Iran's moving in to Iraq? Maybe someone does, but I don't.
One of the reasons that the US is hated in Afghanistan is that after the war against the Russians, which we no shit assisted them to win and which assistance did buy us some no shit good will at the time, we just left them with their power vacuum and heavilly armed warlords and didnt lift a finger or say a word while things got so bad THAT THE GODDAMN TALIBAN LOOKED LIKE A GOOD IDEA! That is to say, we helped kick over the ant hill, and then left them to their fate.

Gettig to the title of this post, John Murtha is a fucking asshole. He voted to kick over the ant hill and now he beats his breast about how badly its going. A guy on my bus tried to tell me Mr. Murtha was on the right track. I told this guy that I play alot of stratgey games on my PC, and when i launch an attack that goes badly, usually i go back to my last saved game and either adjust my tatctics in order to avoid the mistakes i made. I also pointed out that probably 200,000 Iraqis have already died, AND THIS WAR IS NOT A FUCKING GAME AND YOU DONT JUST GET TO WALK AWAY FROM IT WHEN ITS GOING BADLY.
We should not be there in the first place, but leaving the Iraqi people to their fate at this point would make the strategic bliunder of starting the war in the first place look positively wise. ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/6564380/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/6564380/ Wed, 21 Sep 2005 14:28:29 PDT
My only consolation is this, he is old and will be dead and in hell soon.

Eat Shit, Mr. Norton. ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/6412384/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/6412384/ Sun, 04 Sep 2005 09:28:26 PDT why is my internet so crap lately?
[12:24] illegal immigration?
[12:24] gay marriage?
[12:25] yes, of course
[12:25] those gays
[12:25] and those arabs
[12:25] * Oboe shakes fist ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/6412112/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/6412112/ Sun, 04 Sep 2005 08:42:58 PDT Dis-gus-ting things you'd never an-ti-ci-pate..." -B-52's, "Party out of bounds"

The finger pointing has begun.

The reasons for the tragedy in New Orleans are manifold and nested. You can tick off a series of federal decisions(war, deploying the NG in Iraq, stripping the levee money) which made this into a fiasco as well as a catastrophe.

But who is responsible for these decisions? Who put in power politicians who promised tax cuts and expanded services? 70% of...who?...supported this war? Who has been supporting the proposition the "Government is the problem" since 1980? Who, again since about the election of Ronald Reagan, have repeatedly supported "entitlement refrom" which could best be summarized as "Operation Fuck The Poor"? Who elected these guys who all the fingers are pointed at?

YOU DID! I DID! WE DID!

In a nation where the most popular financing products going are "interest-only" mortgages and balloon-payment car loans(both of which are marketed with the word Smart in their name), how can anyone be surprised that levee money(long-term, abstract investment) was stripped away to fund a (until quite recently and to some extent still) very popular war?

Have 70% of US families sent a child to go fight in the war that they supported? If they had, how many more LA National Guardsmen would have been in LA?

I am generally so cynical and know enough world history that it is quite difficult to make me feel shame about being an American. When people in other countries criticisize our imperial ambitions(which i do not support), I generally point out their own history and that this is the way all nations behave.

Today I feel shame. I feel shame at living in a nation of children who refuse to take responsibility for thier own actions. I have said it before, and i repeat it now there is no Them, there is only US. ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/6390330/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/6390330/ Thu, 01 Sep 2005 17:39:58 PDT the more things change, the more they stay the same

We live in a time of epic irony. In the last week, an administration which has made some pretty bad decisions and was already beset by war and high gas prices, was struck a possibly mortal blow by mother nature.

The spike in gas prices and percieved (though i think wrongly so) slow government response in the wake of the hurricane have hurt the president more than 6 years of lies and mismanagement. It's really ironic too, because both things are not within his control.

Let's review:
Ken "Kennyboy" who?
Secret Energy Task Force what?
Ignoring Al-Qaida while planning to invade Iraq in the runup to 9-11-01? no problem.
Torturing prisoners? who does that? the french?
"Bankruptcy Reform"? did we do that? its reform, so it must be good.
Start a foolish imperial adventure? its resolute leadership.

what brings this guy down? an act of god and forces of market greed far beyond his power to influence even slightly, let alone control. (and if anyone can explain to me how the president can bring down gas prices, I'd love to hear it)

Its like ancient cities where the king was regarded as the embodyment of the land, like the character of King Arthur in the movie "Excalibur". When Arthur was having his dark night of the soul, the land was barren. If the King is bad, the crops fail.

People have not changed a whit in 10,000 years. ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/6242913/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/6242913/ Tue, 16 Aug 2005 11:52:36 PDT According to the BBC World service, hordes of porcupines are on the move and destroying crops. They are also apparently burrowing into graveyards and pushing the bones of the dear departed to the surface.

AIDS, war, famine, poverty, genocide, corruption, drought, coloniztion, de-colonization...and now...porcupines.

WTF God? ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/5500557/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/5500557/ Mon, 30 May 2005 09:02:57 PDT
General Dallaire was the commander of UN forces in Rwanda during the Genocide, and the book is a harrowing and scathing indictment of the outside world's indifference to to suffering in areas of the world where, in the words of the UN survey team, "the only resource they have is humans."

Without challenging the premise of the book, or letting the world off the hook, I would like to point out one thing that occurred to me about 3/4 of the way through the book. It was not the blue-helmets swinging the machettes. It was not multinational corporations or oil companies or an uncaring world that slaughtered 800,000 people. It was neighbors who slaughtered their neighbors.

What can you do when that happens? I don't mean that in terms of what is legal under internatinal law (which sort of frowns upon strong 3rd party military interventions without invitation), and lets just assume for 1 second that the world actually cared enough to do something...What actions remain within the realm of possibiliy when half the population decides to cut the other half up with machettes?

When it became aparent to UN troops on the ground that lists of people were being drawn up in order to facillitate more efficient slaughter, should the UN have dropped in paratoopers to go whack the ringleaders? Would that have worked? I suppose it might have been better than the nothing that was done

And for those who think it was just a racist thing, I would also like to point out that the Bosnian War went on for five years before the half-assed NATO "intervention", which cost the Cheniks nothing, and basically took the map-lines that were in place at that time and made them permanent. The entire Croatian War went on without the rest of the world lifting a finger, except of course for the weapons sales...

It is easy and satifying to regard this as some moral failing on the part of the rest of the world. It is also remarkably naive. Perhaps a better lesson to take away would be how fragile societies are, and how we are never very far from being chopped up by our neighbors. ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/5196157/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/5196157/ Tue, 26 Apr 2005 15:48:39 PDT
This book is making me really angry.

The book is a blistering indictment of the US government and media's treatment of the issue of terrorism. He faults the Bush administration for, among other things, taking 3 weeks after 9-11-01 to hit Afghanistan, thus giving the Taleban and Al-Q time to disperse their forces before the attack which they knew would come. What he mostly faults them for is a "willful ignorance" which shows up in so many specific examples from not drawing upon the truly extensive expertise on Afghanistan which was available before the war, to the whole "Why do they hate us?" thing.

He points out that much of the information needed to effectively answer these questions and formuate an effective policy(as opposed to what we have now) for dealing with Al-Q is already available in the public domain, which he refers to as "open source information".

It's not his indictment of the policy that is making me crazy though, I have kind of reached a hate-plateau with the administration.

What kills me is how much of this stuff I already knew. I mean, I am an idiot...I am some guy who bought some books and read them...in terms of actual study, I took 1 college class in Warfare in the mid 1980's, and terrorism was 1 or 2 days(though i remember it well and it was VERY instructive).

How can anyone not know this stuff? How can anyone not WANT to know this stuff? ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/5066667/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/5066667/ Tue, 12 Apr 2005 04:40:37 PDT America was winding down the process of learning lessons from the Vietman war, and the Contras were fighting the Sandanistas.

While I understand that in the new Culture-of-life-repulican-majority world, history has no value, I need to point out 2 things that are in the news today that were in the news then:

A) John Negro-fucking-ponte. He's a lying scum. He ran the Southern Front in the Contra war, and then lied and lied and lied about it. And then he lied about it some more. Great guy if you need a dirty war run quitely.

B) The Army is considering "shorter, more frequent" tours of duty to help deal with burnout amongst the troops. The tour of duty in Vietnam was judged, at the time, to have been a mistake. They figured out that every year, they were taking all of the guys who had learned how to fight effectively in Vietnam and sending them home and replacing them with a bunch of guys who had no clue. Hmmm.

But again, none of this means anything. History has no instructive value. ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/5009228/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/5009228/ Tue, 05 Apr 2005 16:57:44 PDT
Mr. Carr's defines terrorism as a form of warfare in which non-combatants are directly targeted by combattants in an effort to undermine said the enemy's will and ability to fight, and the main thesis of the book is that it is a form of warfare that doesn't work.

Among the niftier points that he makes is that the sucsess that Rome enjoyed in empire building was achieved in spite of how brutally they waged war, rather than because of it. He points to rational self-interest as the main arguement against the targeting of non-combattants, rather than some moral objection, and points out that historically, the morally based or as i will call them "faith based" efforts to impose any sort of restraint on the waging of destructive war have been absolutely the least effective.

He argues that the party to a conflict that resorts to targeting non-combattants first and does it the hardest always loses, and loses big. ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/4922370/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/4922370/ Sun, 27 Mar 2005 07:30:22 PST ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/4885010/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/4885010/ Tue, 22 Mar 2005 19:41:50 PST

Mostly, I am a land mammal from upstate NY, about 200 miles from the nearest ocean. My beach time has been minimal, and mostly limited to the daytime in Florida.

The night we got there, we sat on the beach around 10pm. The hotel lights were fairly minimal in back of us and we were just looking out into the carribean, towards central america i think-but it was waaaaay over the horizon.
It was like looking into the void. Out on the horizon, the only way to tell the black of the sea from the black of the sky was that there were stars in the sky. It was so very big.

For a second, I could forget the people that afternoon who had been talking on their cell phones to their pals in Venezuela from right where i was sitting, and i could forget that 12 hrs ago i had been about 20% of the circumference of the earth away from that spot...

For a second I was that Babalonian looking out and seeing the Great Mother. It suddenly made concrete sense to me why so many mythologies embody the great primordial universe universe as the ocean. The Babalonian "goddess" Tiamat came to mind. In the beginning there was only Tiamat, at peace and at rest and undisturbed. Then one day, the gods appeared, just like that, and Tiamat was troubled.

Anyway, there she was, looking back at me, making me feel at once very good, and very very very smalll.

I actually did say, Oh Tiamat, you are so very very very very very Very big.
I hope she has a sense of humor. ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/4788657/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/4788657/ Fri, 11 Mar 2005 19:08:37 PST
In the last 3 weeks, we have had 2 hysterical phone calls that my wifes father was in the hospital, and one that her sister had a lump on her breast. Thankfully, all of those situations have turned out not to be crises and resolved themselves satisfactorily.
My wife has been having some major changes at work which while also satifactorily resolved, have proven somewhat stressful and only resolved themselves this afternoon.
On Tuesday, we found out that our boy cat, who has some severe chronic health problems but has been in remission for a year, seems no longer to be in remission. We are leaving him at the vets for some tests and to try out a new drug while we are away. This has been extremely stressful, and has not resolved itself at all, and satisfactory results-while not necesarilly impossible or even unlikely-are in no wise certain.
I believe that today I even experienced my first panic reaction from smoking pot, which is something i have heard and read about, but in 20+years of smoking, never experienced. I always tell people that i don't get anxiety; i am whats called a 'carrier'. Quite an experience which, on the whole, i do not recommend.

So tonight, me and the wife are sitting on the couch, fretting. Frettin the cat, frettin the trip, frettin dad's health and sisters boobs and jobs and on and on, fret fret fret.

I finally smiled at her and said, "It'll be OK Honey. Our 5 day vacation in the Carribean is not the end of the world. We'll get through this." We laughed. Laughing is better than whining.

So. Now that I have been all vulnerable and self-disclosing and all, I am going for some naked mia tais on the beach. See yas 19thish

PS-I know what a middle class whinatribe that was. Really. What do you think your average Fallujan or Darfurian would give to have such problems, eh? I am like a man complaining that the newsguy won't let me buy a 50cent paper with my $100 bill...But even i get to have a moment of self pity. I'll be an adult again when i get back. ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/4728358/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/4728358/ Fri, 04 Mar 2005 15:03:47 PST
They are intimately related, but hardly interchangable.


Damn i am deep...someone needs to write tis stuff down.
...wait... ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/4702613/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/4702613/ Tue, 01 Mar 2005 13:31:57 PST He was very upset that the supreme court had struck down the death penalty for juveniles. He was also insenced that another court had issued a ruling that requires the govt to either charge alleged dirty bomber Jose Padilla with some crime, or let him go.
He was outraged that these courts were injecting "mere morality" into matters of law and government...

So of course, he must support gay marriage, don't you think? Maybe Rush turned gay when he was on drugs. ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/4699368/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/4699368/ Tue, 01 Mar 2005 05:58:58 PST Hmm. Now, why is this story not all over the place? Why on earth...(/me sputters) Where is the outrage?
I mean, I dont care that he smoked dope. I am smoking right now. But how, precisely, does a person who has seemingly damning stuff about powerful public figure get persuaded to turn the stuff over to that person's counsel? That was the first thing that Lucien Goldberg did with her tapes of Monic Lewinsky, right?

The admission itself is nothing, and it is a testimony to the childishness of the American Electorate that it is even perceived as a potentially embarrassing issue.
I would REALLY like to know what, if any, pressure may have been brought to bear on Mr. Wead to get him to turn over the tapes. Maybe it was nothing at all, Mr. Wead is not exactly unfriendly to the president or his ideas...but still...this just smells odd. ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/4671960/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/4671960/ Fri, 25 Feb 2005 17:09:49 PST
What can i possibly add to that? ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/4501727/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/4501727/ Sat, 05 Feb 2005 07:26:35 PST
"The whole world is seeing that the car bombers and assassins are not only fighting coalition forces, they are trying to destroy the hopes of Iraqis, expressed in free elections. And the whole world now knows that a small group of extremists will not overturn the will of the Iraqi people. (Applause.)"

I remarked to my friend Bob that that was quite a statement, since the winners of that election had not yet been determined. I further wondered aloud what the US would do if the We-Love-Iran party won.

Well, as returns are coming in, it appears that the most pro-Iranian party is, in fact, winning and the party led by Interim PM Allawi is "a distant second".

It will be interesting to see how the "small group of extremists" in Washington D.C. reacts to this. ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/4403536/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/4403536/ Mon, 24 Jan 2005 14:51:07 PST
I came into office with much noble rhetoric about service and progress, yet spent my entire time in office pursuing a global ideological conflict, and more or less ignored domestic policy.

I dragged the United States into an ill advised war in a far off country for dubious reasons and in the face of plentiful information available to me at the time which showed the whole idea to be folly. With the exception of a few brave souls in congress, the people and legislature supported me all the way, and a quiescent and fawning press corps played along, writing "Good News" stories about how well it was all going.

I wore my religion on my sleeve.

I was surrounded by potential scandals involving my personal and business life, yet a quiescent and fawning press corps concentrated on my image, and simply declined to cover my dirty laundry.

I dragged the world to the brink of annihilation, twice.

Who am I?



I want to see some guesses before i put the answer up. ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/4385142/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/4385142/ Sat, 22 Jan 2005 12:28:26 PST
that is the number of hours until i am standing on the beach in Aruba. ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/4325232/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/4325232/ Sat, 15 Jan 2005 08:32:56 PST
What a load of bollocks. This matter involves two other groups of bad actors who remain, to date, unindicted co-conspirators.

Group number one consists of the current administration, who simply re-defined actions which if done on our troops would be called torture and war crimes, as acceptable in the context of the Global War on Terror. Specialist Grainer, who is deserving of punishment and who is not without his own guilt, has been thrown to the wolves in order to protect this group.

Group number two bears far more of this guilt for these crimes than anyone else. Through the actions and inactions of this group, the conditions were created which allowed everything else to happen. This group is funny, insofar as they have explicitly demanded that the GWOT be fought with a high level of brutality and a low level of scrutiny, and then when that minimal scrutiny brings back to them the ugly reality of the level of brutality that they have demanded, they howl their indignation and punish the instruments of their own policy. Of all the parties involved, they bear the most responsiblity and accept the least. They are the prime mover of the attrocity.

I am referring to, of course, the American People. This is our doing. ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/4218316/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/4218316/ Sun, 02 Jan 2005 06:40:11 PST
I suppose that nothing is impossible, but it is also my understanding that there has not been an even remotely like a tsunami in the Atlantic since well before the last ice-age, if ever.

But its in the news, and soccer moms are fretting, so lets do something ridiculous to make ourselves feel safer.

Personally, I am put in mind of a bit from Sesame Street:
Burt finds Ernie with a bannana in his ear, and asks why.
"It keeps the alligators away from Sesame Street."
Incredulous, Burt points out that there are no alligators within 1,000 miles of Sesame Street.
"See", Ernie says, "it works." ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/4142747/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/4142747/ Fri, 24 Dec 2004 06:04:22 PST
Surely, if a divinity whose message was one of forgiveness is looking down on the US today, it weeps. Not only is there the whole morass of the was this country deals with the rest of the world, but as a nation we have started to deal with each other in a way that can be charitably described as adversarial. It is the era of the "They" statement. All problems involve "Them". There is nothing that "We" have to do except to make "Them" start acting right.

This is Jihadi thinking. It also makes for irreconcilable existential conflicts.

I see it on all side of all political divides. You want to alienate your fiends and colleagues? Wait until the "They" statements start, and the assert the fundamental humainty of "Them" and that maybe "We" have some responsibility for coming to some common ground with "Them" so that whatever problem can be solved.

While ditto-heads and bible thumpers seem to have an instinctive fear of engaging me in discussions, and rightly so, this trick also works on Lefties, with whom I generally agree.
A gentleman in my office no longer discusses politics with me since i told him that I did not think that running a new bus line out to a recently opend WalMart constituted "subsidizing WalMart's labor costs", and asked him if he considered the bus i ride every day to be subsidizing labor costs for the state of NY, for whom I work.(This was right after a study found that WalMart's wage policies cost the State of CA $80million because so many WalMart employees are on welfare and utilize low-income health insurance programs, so it was very popular to bash WalMart that week) I also find it hysterical that Mr. Progressive was seemingly advocating the idea that people without cars should not be able to work or shop at that store, which is somewhat removed from the urban area of Albany.

But I digress. No problem was ever solved by figuring out what "They" need to do.

And on that note, I am going to visit family inn Philadelphia. Those people need to move closer to where I live. (see how ridiculous that sounds?)

Happy Hollidays. ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/4112241/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/4112241/ Mon, 20 Dec 2004 15:20:27 PST
This song (The Bumper of my SUV) is a veritable symphony of just bone crushing, prideful ignorance.
The premise is that the narrator is given the finger by a minivan driving soccer mom, because the poor narrator has a USMC sticker, you guessed it, on the bumper of her SUV. It goes on to sing about how noble the Marines are, and how they sacrifice for us to be free, and ends with the singer saying that she hopes that evil finger-bitch thinks about that "as she's picking up her children from their private school".
To make the story of this song that my wife describes as "sounds like something that Peggy Hill would write"(from King of the Hill), even better, apparently, her fan club had people calling radio stations nation-wide, and saying that they had a relative in the military and requesting the song. Big scandal. (Dubious practices in the music industry?? I am shocked, SHOCKED I tell you.)

Now, as someone who constantly has and fights the urge to give people in SUVs the finger, I can tell you that in my case at least it is not out of disrespect for the US military. It's because their gas guzzling vehicles make the kind of war we are fighting inevitable, and I want to give them the finger because I think they are too stupid to see the connection.
In an long term sense, wars over resources are inevitable anyway, but it does seem silly to squander resources that we are already fighting for. It seems ludicrously, murderously, pathetically and ultimately self-defeatingly silly.

So if anyone in Red America reads this, it's not your bumperstickers that I hate. ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/4101020/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/4101020/ Sun, 19 Dec 2004 08:10:52 PST Do I hate Donald Rummsfeld? Oh my heavens yes.
Do I think he is without a shred of integrity or conscience? You Bet.

Is this mess Rummy's fault?
Well, Rummy did not order himself to ask General Shinseki for plans to invade Iraq. It was not Rummy who told himself to send back the Army's plan 3 times until we got the "Sweets and Flowers" scenario, which General Shinseki8 was asked to resign for not signing off on.

Rummy is a piece of human offal, but it is not him who the American people should be pissed at.

President Sparky is the responsible party, and all you people who voted for him are responsible too. I hope you're happy. ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/4058312/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/4058312/ Mon, 13 Dec 2004 14:01:10 PST For a living, I work for the Dept of Motor Vehicles, in an office where we take complaints about the automotive industry. Part of the job is talking to both parties and trying to mediate the problem.

This morning, just as I was waking up, I clearly remember saying in my dream, "It Writes The Check.", like "it puts the lotion in the bucket" from Silence of the Lambs.

I'm not sure how to interperet that, except that its probably a bad day to be a sleazy car dealer in my home state. ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3963864/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3963864/ Wed, 01 Dec 2004 12:07:09 PST
This is an old old parable:
3 blind guys encounter an elephant. One guy grabs the trunk and says, oh, it's a snake; second guy grabs an ear and says nono, it's a bannana tree cuz i have a big bannana leaf in my hand here; 3rd guy puts his hand on one of the elephant's legs and says nono, it's a banyan tree, i have the trunk right here in my hands. They get together and talk it out and decide that its an old crusty bannana tree with a snake hanging out of it.

I have just been reading a sort of new age'ish theory that all of time occurs both simultaneously and "in rings". The speaker states that this theory explains all paranornormal phenomina, because whats happening is sort of a bleed over between rings. Its a classic new age mish-mash of scientific theories and cherry-picked religious symbols, and really, is just as loopy as any other cosmology which seeks to explain the "paranormal".

The 3 blind men and their inital impressions are the classic religions, all insisting that their particular view represents the entire truth.
Their consensus represents the new age thing, which while it takes into account information from a variety of sources, the sources themselves provide flawed information, and even taking them all into account, it fails to precieve the elephant as an elephant.
--------------
(everything i wrote afer this was crap)
--------------

(/me closes his eyes and makes a boon bestowing hand gesture) ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3884083/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3884083/ Sun, 21 Nov 2004 07:19:26 PST
Maybe they think that they can appease us.

I paid $200 for a meal that was not hardly as delicious as this irony. ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3859693/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3859693/ Wed, 17 Nov 2004 18:01:00 PST
On an individual basis, I can understand it. Individuals often act more nobly than the situation absolutely requires simply because they can and they feel like its the right thing to do.

But I am a really cynical guy, and I am not sure that I have ever observed this individual nobility as a historically significant force, and it seems like when those noble individuals gather themselves into big groups, thier nobility gets replaced by the absolute lowest common denominators of human behavior. The individual seems to be able to forget that the baby that he is rushing into the burning building to save is a Croat and he's a Serb; the group, it seems, never can.
I find this to be true across cultures and throughout history. I am not a l337 historian or anything, but i have read me some books since i got into greek mythology in 1st grade.

It has recently occured to me that a book on this subject might be quite interesting, sort of a historical study of why nations do "the right thing".
I am trying to come up with historical examples of when a nation did what is generally regarded as being "the right thing".
I've got the emancipation of the slave in the US and the US's entry into and particiption in WW2.
I am stuck there. These are rich grounds for my thesis that nations act in their own selfish interest at all times and "the right thing" has absolutely nothing to do with nothing, however I need more exapmles(5 preferrably) and i need examples from countries other than the US.
I suppose I could look at various attempts at collectivizing agriculture in China and the USSR, which were done with the best of intentions on paper, but i am not sure as either that either of those has that rosy-propaganda-glow-of-rightness.

I need input on this please. I need examples of nations or large groups having done what is widely viewed as having been "the right thing". the more widely held and cliche this view is the better.

if i get printed you get an ackowledgement, if i get rich i will send you hookers. ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3808176/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3808176/ Thu, 11 Nov 2004 08:59:12 PST I told her that I supposed that that was true, but what I was seeing out there in the chat-rooms and on the pages was exactly the opposite. People were, in my experience, not so much coming together and valuing each other’s diversity so much as they were splitting into smaller and shriller groups of self-selected, like-minded people. Peace-punks and Skin-heads were not using the net to build bridges, they were using it to talk amongst themselves, and if you ever tried to cross lines and start “a dialogue”, you were likely to be greeted with an avalanche of flames, not rational discussion.
Cable TV has sort of done the same thing. It allows people to spend their whole day without ever seeing any message with which they don’t agree. All of the talk during the campaign about how Fox news viewers were deemed likely to vote versus CNN viewers or PBS viewers is an illustration of this effect.. I am not saying that people were any better informed in the past, just that they had all heard basically the same set of lies on the news, as opposed to one of fifteen-bajillion carefully tailored and targeted sets of lies.

I think that this has something to do with the way people are reacting to the election. People just hear messages which they agree with, and so Kerry supporters can’t imagine how it could have happened, and Bush supporters see it as the merely the inevitable coming to pass. ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3793717/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3793717/ Tue, 09 Nov 2004 13:27:30 PST
US and Iraqi forces are now bravely re-taking the town of Falluja from...ummm...the residents of Falluja...


How the fuck do you re-take a town from the people who live there? I guess...no, i don't guess...I just have no idea how people can hold this thought in their heads without going insane from the inherent contradiction. ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3773936/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3773936/ Sun, 07 Nov 2004 06:23:37 PST Now, the rationale for using these types of weapons on a populated urban area is that after months of warnings, anyone who is left in the town is a terrorist or a terrorist supporter. This is the reasoning of monsters.
When Osama issued his famed declaration of war on the US, he did not, in fact, justify the killing of non-combatants. What he did was to re-define all US citizens as combatants.

To steal a parable from Roger Zelazny's book, "Lord of Light":
A famous doctor spent many years studying a horrible disfiguring disease. One day he looked in the mirror and discovered that he had contracted it. Ah, he said, but on me it looks good.

This DOES NOT look good on us, America. ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3753909/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3753909/ Thu, 04 Nov 2004 16:00:30 PST
If America wants to be world power, which rightly or wrongly she apparently does, Americans cannot reasonably expect to be ignorant and succsessful... something about getting where you are going and knowing where you have been.

Luckilly, there exists a tremendous historical resource for de-classified government document dealing with US foriegn policy on the web: The National Security Archive [link]
These documents show what was done and why, in the words of the men who did it. Administrations of both party are there, again, in their own words. My favorite document is the CIA's own after action report on the Iranian Coup of 1953[link] which put the Shah upon the Peacock Throne with US assistance, where he reigned until 1979.

Can anybody tell me how the Shah's rule came to an end?
pft. why would anybody want to know that?
I have to go now. The Apprentice is on. ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3744510/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3744510/ Wed, 03 Nov 2004 15:12:21 PST
In my office, where we take complaints about $500 used cars, it is axiomatic that you get what you pay for.
I hope that this result will, in the fullness of time, be regarded as a wise purchase. I don't think it will, but I didn't think that Bush would win either.

/me shrugs
It's tough to hope that you are wrong. ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3715261/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3715261/ Sun, 31 Oct 2004 09:41:52 PST Where do these people come from? I suppose that being 40, I have memories of Watergate and Iran Contra and any number of other scandals that your average 18-25 or 30 yr old might not. And I suppose being a history geek, I may have read some more stuff...but where the fuck do these people come from?
For my job, I take complaints about the automotive industry for the NY Dept of Motor Vehicles, and people are constantly calling me with tales of how they are so upset about the 250k mile, $400 Ford Windstar that they bought last year did not turn out to be the cream-puff that the USED CAR SALESMAN assured them it was. I once told a person like this that, in the business we have a technical term for such assertions; we call them, you know, "obvious lies", and generally, every word that comes out of any saleman's mouth should be regarded as one of them.
Apparently, John and Jane Q. and their offspring have forgotten that, you know, politicians lie. They lie in order to get people to do things that they don't think they could get them to do if they told the truth. At this point in history, with so much information so freely availabe, it is difficult for me to regard this seeming ignorance as anything other than willful.
I mean, I know that noone gets up in the morning and says, gee, how can I be more ignorant today...not everyone thinks that politics is any more interesting than I find NASCAR to be. On the other hand, the NASCAR champ doesn't get to send the children of the Q. family to die on foriegn soil...

this entry gets it's name from a Who song, which i've been wallowing in lately. It statrs,

Sun shines
people forget


VOTE OR I WILL KILL YOU. ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3707545/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3707545/ Sat, 30 Oct 2004 09:55:48 PDT ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3649643/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3649643/ Fri, 22 Oct 2004 15:19:00 PDT
I propose a Misanthrope Party. I am not sure that we promise to be any less corrupt than the present guys, and to be truthful, clubbings of political opponents will go way up.

But I can promise you a couple of things.
A) With me you will know what you are getting. I will never piss on your leg and tell you that it's raining. I will tell you that I am issing on your leg, and if you have any problem with it, you can discuss it with my Constiuent Relations Specialist, Mr. Club.
B) I will entirely reform the criminal justice system. There will be one crime: Stupidity. It will be a capitol offense. This will help our country in so many ways, from the obvious genetic benefits right down to reducing traffic congestion. If you live, you will thank me.
C) My administration will provide health care and convienient mass transit to every single citizen. Use of these services will be mandatory, and compliance will be ensured in the usual manner.
D) All religions will be accorded absolutely equal status by my government, by which I mean being ruthlessly and gleefully destroyed. Personell assigned to this task will have specific instructions to taunt and gloat.

Thats it for now, I am still open to bribes on the rest of the platform, well, there will be no pro-life or anti-gay planks, but the rest is up for bid. ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3636210/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3636210/ Wed, 20 Oct 2004 16:44:03 PDT But Progressives like me only marginally better, so it's not like I am biased.

Today on the bus, one of my afternoon cohorts managed to summon all sorts of righteous indignation over the idea that Carl Rove would put pressure on Republican Secrataries of State to withhold certifying the vote in their state for GWB's advantage.
I pointed out that Kerry, whom I will vote for and endorse with a frenzied enthusiasm, is just as much of a conniving scumbag as the president, and asked him why he thought that the Kerry campaign would not be trying to do the same thing with Democratic Secrataries of state? He didn't answer, but I am not sure whether it was because he was abashed or because he was trying hard not to slug me...

I have also figured out that my cat interprets certain of my body language as being an approaching tornado. His behaivior makes perfect sense now. ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3609172/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3609172/ Sun, 17 Oct 2004 08:13:55 PDT
All SUV's which are not primarilly (a)used off-road, (b)used to tow a boat or other trailer, (c) used for the commercail purposes that they are federally designated to perform, will be confiscated and their owners will be shot in a kneecap of their choice. If there is a "support the troops" ribbon-magnet on the vehicle, the owner will be shot in both kneecaps.

Non-voters will be thrown into naked dog-piles. This will be televised.

Non-voters who are also owners of prohibited SUV's will be raped to death by bagers. This will also be televised.

With a little co-operation, I think we can make this a positive experience for everyone. ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3593783/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3593783/ Fri, 15 Oct 2004 04:06:25 PDT [link] ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3582905/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3582905/ Wed, 13 Oct 2004 16:59:56 PDT 9- Operation Counter-Productive Thunder
8- Operation I Meant To Do That
7- Operation LaLaLaLaLa I DON’T HEAR YOU LaLaLaLaLa
6- Operation Changing Rationale
5- Operation Faith-based Military Planning
4- Operation Being In The National Guard Aint What It Used To Be
3- Operation Intelligence Failure
2- Operation Sweets and Flowers
1- Operation Enduring Quagmire ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3574994/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3574994/ Tue, 12 Oct 2004 16:50:30 PDT [link]

BRING EM ON!
[link]
[link]

SPREADING LIBERTY!
[link]
[link]

OSAMA CAPTURED!
Oh, no, wait.
Osama is still on the loose. ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3557551/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3557551/ Sun, 10 Oct 2004 13:36:10 PDT I wish I could french-kiss each and every one of you! ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3556429/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3556429/ Sun, 10 Oct 2004 10:55:02 PDT /me sits hitting his refresh button ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3536260/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3536260/ Sat, 09 Oct 2004 18:05:36 PDT I hate the SUV. I consider them wasteful, unsafe, and excessively polluting. I hate the whole image that they are marketed with, that you need a huge "off-road"capable vehicle to drive around the suburbs, because you never know when you may need to drive through the woods. I hate that they are sold as passenger vehicles, yet are subject to the federal rules which govern trucks and commercial vehicles, and which are considerably looser in terms of safety and pollution than the rules governing passenger cars.

But what I REALLY hate is the "I Support the Troops" ribbons on huge, 10-12 mile per gallon SUV's. Really, I really hate that, and I'll tell you why.

OK, so you buy a ribbon and send $5 or $10 worth of goodies to some soldier who is dodging car bombs and RPG's in Baghdad, and then you stick that magent on a vehicle that guarantees that we will be fighting wars in the middle east forseeable future. Great. Very helpful. Way to pitch in.

It's not America that I am pissed off at. It's fucking Americans. ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3519821/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3519821/ Tue, 05 Oct 2004 15:01:43 PDT
I am also consumed by guilt, because all of my posted work, with the exception of "Space Jaguar"(which only 8 ppl have bothered to view, one of whom was my mom...)and the text pieces, consists of the works of others, which I have cut, manipulated, and put clever text on. While there is a legal case for Fair Use, and it is satire, it's not the copywrite issues that have me down. It's the fact that there is so much incredible original work here, I am beginnig to feel like a fraud.

The way I am going to redeem myself is by making a full body cartoon out of the Space Jaguar picture. Ironicly, I did not make the pyhsical object behind the digital photo that is the starting point for this piece, but I did take the pictue and am working like a dog to make a body to go with the head, SO THIS IS MINE. MINEMINEMINE!

Sometimes ego can be a positive force. ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3501001/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3501001/ Sun, 03 Oct 2004 07:58:34 PDT (thanks to Oboe, Dram, and DoomsdayXXX)

10-a cabbage would not have invaded Iraq
9-cabbages respect international treaties
8-No more John Ashcroft
7-cabbage doesn’t answer to big business
6-the only oil cabbage takes interest in is salad oil
5-cabbage doesn’t make you ashamed to be an American
4-cabbage doesn't ruin the education system
3-if you were hungry, a cabbage would feed you
2-cabbage doesn’t give the French legitimate reasons to be angry with us
1- No More John Ashcroft ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3474172/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3474172/ Wed, 29 Sep 2004 15:34:58 PDT Well, the State of California, which is about the only state that has stricter regulations than NY, has recently announced 2 things:

1) they are beginnig to regulate CO2, which is absolutely ground breaking
and
2)they are apparently demanding a 25% increase in mileage from manufacturers(i have not seen this in print). the mileage increase is a "fleetwide" requirement, meaning its an average of the mileages of all the vehicles the company makes, so a company could introduce 1 or 2 fully electric vehicles and continue to sell gas-hog SUVs.

New York State has already said that we would adopt these new Califoria standards, once the legal challenges are done.

This is important to everyone reading this and is quite likely to effect the life of everyone in the U.S. It will result in less oil being used, resulting in less dependence on oil in general and imported oil specifically, thus making middle eastern oil fields less strategically important, which in turn reduces the likliehood that you or anyone you know will have to go dodge IEDs in Iraq.
Also, the Fed under GWB have done absolutely nothing about Greenhouse gasses in general, and CO2 in particular...nothing except reneg on the previous comitments of other US administrations and his own campaign pledge to reduce CO2 emissions. If NY and CA adopt these regulations, that represents somewhere between 10-15% of the population of the US and the auto manufacturers are unlikely to either stop selling cars in these states or make their cars to more than one specification, so it is likely to result in most or all vehicles sold in the US conforming to these standards. Politically, its bloody beautiful, because the States are using their power to take on a big issue, ie CO2 emissions, which the Fed is ignoring.

I know that this is boring to you, but it's news, and its amazing what you can get excited abut if it's your job.

Cheers ]]> ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3458988/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3458988/ Mon, 27 Sep 2004 15:17:22 PDT ~DeMolama http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3457651/ http://DeMolama.deviantart.com/journal/3457651/ Mon, 27 Sep 2004 11:45:19 PDT I'm not sure if my figuring this out is a good thing or a bad thing, but we'll all find out soon enough. ]]> ~DeMolama