tsujigiri

The editorial comments of Chris and James, covering the news, science, religion, politics and culture.

"I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day." -Douglas Adams

Saturday, September 28, 2002

Today I visited the world's largest mall here in Edmonton. It has multiple amusement parks, several mini-golf courses, a go-cart race track, two Radio Shacks, an undefined number of stereo shops, a shop devoted to blacklight stuff... you name it. I bought this kick-ass yin-yang hologram watch while I was there:

kick ass!

There's also a water park with a simulated beach, and (as you can see), an aquarium tank with live dolphins:

fake beachdolphins

As if all this wasn't enough, the mall was full of crazy manequins, like oddly colored plus-size models, or these post-nuclear children:

creepy children

Children are supposed to have heads! And their legs just don't bend like that! Creepy!

The Iraq war is already in full swing. According to this article:
"Earlier this year, a British journalist asked Bush how exactly he was going to get rid of Saddam Hussein. He replied, "Wait and see." The journalist, like many of his colleagues, may well still be waiting - for lack of ability to see that the war is on. Some high-speed, high-intensity strikes may later be called "The Iraq War", but it began no later than March."

Friday, September 27, 2002

Here it is: the full text of Bush's National Security Stragety (start banjo music now). Bush and his cronies have handed down a security doctrine so bold that you'd almost think they'd forgetten that they had absolutely no discernible mandate from the people based on the 2000 election results. Why, all indications are that Bush didn't even really win that election. But that apparently won't stop him from behaving as though it had been a landslide. God save the Queen.

New opinion poll on the potential war with Iraq. If heavy casualties are projected, there isn't even majority support among republicans. Looks like they're going ahead with this anyway.

Would you favor or oppose taking military action in Iraq to end Saddam Hussein's rule?
Overall -- 64 percent favor, but that drops to 33 percent if the United States must act without allies.
Republicans -- 77 percent favor, dropping to 43 percent if no allies.
Democrats -- 42 percent favor; 13 percent favor if no allies.
Independents -- 65 percent favor; 38 percent favor if no allies.

Would you favor or oppose taking military action in Iraq to end Saddam Hussein's rule, even if it meant that U.S. forces might suffer thousands of casualties?
Overall -- 48 percent favor, but that drops to 25 percent if no allies.
Republicans -- 66 percent favor; 20 percent favor if no allies.
Democrats -- 35 percent favor; 13 percent favor if no allies.
Independents -- 47 percent favor; 24 percent favor if no allies.

Censorship lands at UCSD (article here). Apparently linking a "terrorist" web site from your own site may constitute material support for terrorists. A UCSD student group has been ordered to remove a link to FARC (a Columbian revolutionary group) from their website. I guess this is the first sign of things to come. Terrorist or not, providing a link to information from a group is not material support and I'll be God-fucked if anybody's gonna tell me what I can and can't link. So in solidarity with this UCSD group (sadly called the Ches Cafe Collective), I will link FARC from my weblog from now on.

Okay so I had a lot of really cool shit to say, and I typed it in and hit "post and publish" and instead of doing either of those things, fucking blogger just decided to throw out my words, which which the world will now never know. I'm too distraught to retype. Fucker.

Wednesday, September 25, 2002

Check out the ECE building up here (remember, this is just the ECE building)... It has a ceiling, and working toilets, and nobody is welding over my head or putting up caution tape or walking around in a haz-mat suit near my office or anything. And there's no asbestos warnings to be seen! And the network works and the power doesn't go out all the time...

ECERF building at U Alberta

I saw this ad in the Denver airport. Its for a product called Salesgod. "transforming your merely human salesforce into... salesgods." "Pray that your competitors don't use our empowering software." So this is religion in its final, evolved form.

Salesgod

Tuesday, September 24, 2002

Well, I'm in Canada now... It's been a big crazy day that started with a plane full of elders on their way to NYC. For some reason they couldn't sit in the seat numbers indicated on their tickets. Three elders sat in the row in front of me. When a sister whose seat was assigned to that row showed up, the elder said, "My ticket is for 17a, you can go sit there..." The girls said, "Oh, that's okay. We'll just sit here," motioning to my row. "Can we sit here?" they asked. "Uh, I guess so," I said. I should have said, "Why don't you just sit where your damn ticket tells you to." Then the guy who was supposed to sit there showed up and they told him to sit in 17a. I had hoped to be rescued from Mormondom by a young woman in clearly non-Mormon business-atire (i.e. non-matronly), but she ended up having to sit in a sandwich between elder Double-Wide and elder Pyle. It occurred to me that most stages in Mormon life appear to be various adaptations of Junior High School. If I ever see Mormons who appear to have matured beyond grade-school, they tend to be grandparents. Maybe the church lets you get serious and grow up after your kids have all left the nest.

At the Canadian airport I had to walk past the customs dog (a Dave). He got all excited about me and walked a circle around my legs, ensnaring me with his leash. "Oh, shit," I thought. "Does this mean I get strip-searched?" The customs guys waved me through. I guess he just liked me.

Monday, September 23, 2002

End of the Innocence... This isn't quite new news (a couple months old), but the two pictures below are of the infamous Mars Face. The one on the left is the original image from the 70's, and the one on the right was taken this year.

mars faces

Sunday, September 22, 2002

"Why you gotta get all meta-phuckin-physical?" (from the film "Bones")