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There must be some kinda way outta here
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Scamalot | ||||
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as well as the first presidential debate, Senator Obama has opened up a commanding lead over Senator McCain. In fact if the election were held today it would come down to 10 states, and only one would need to go for Obama, in order for him to win. In fact the times are getting so bad for McCain that he has now pulled out of Michigan, effectively giving up on any hope of winning the state’s 17 electoral college votes.
As it stands Obama is predicted to be on 264 votes, to McCain’s 174. 10 states are in play, equalling 100 more votes. Below is the list of what states each candidate is predicted to win, along with the all important undecided list.
Likely Obama: CA, CT, DE, DC, HI, IL, ME, MD, MA, NY, RI, VT (157 electoral votes)
Lean Obama: IA, MI, MN, NH, NJ, NM, OR, PA, WA, WI (107 votes)
Undecided: CO, FL, IN, NV, NC, OH, VA (100 votes)
Lean McCain: MO, MT (14 votes)
Likely McCain: AL, AK, AZ, AR, GA, ID, KS, KY, LA, MS, NE, ND, OK, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, WV, WY (160 votes)
For McCain to win, based on these predictions he needs to win every state in the undecided list, as well as all the states that he has at the min, where as Obama needs to keep his states, and win just one other.
A candidate needs 270 votes to win the presidency meaning McCain now has an uphill battle. There are 29 days till the votes are casted, two more debates will take place between now and then )the next one is tomorrow night and is a ‘town hall meeting’ meaning that anything can be asked of the candidates. McCain now has to win these debates – that’s not have a good performance but win the debates hands down and hope that a few of the likely Obama states will go back into the undecided list.
Hagel, who has in the past openly criticized the Bush administration over its handling of the Iraq war, has been tipped as a possible Secretary of State of Defense, if Obama wins in November. His comments noted her lack of foreign policy experience specifically her lack of visits outside the US – she’s only had a passport since last year and her idea of preventing global conflict is to note that Russia is next to Alaska.
Speaking of this comment, US satire show Saturday Night love returned last Saturday and poked fun at both Sarah Palin and Senator Clinton;
- Mood:
sleepy
Out of the 50 states, only 1 (Massachusetts) allows people of the same sex to marry, whilst 9 other states including California, New Jersey, Vermont, Connecticut & Oregon allow civil unions or domestic partnerships (although Oregon’s law doesn’t come into affect until 1st January 2008).
Meanwhile (as of May 2007), twenty-six states have passed constitutional amendments explicitly barring the recognition of same-sex marriage, eighteen of which prohibit the legal recognition of any same-sex union. Nineteen additional states have legal statutes that define "marriage" as a union of two persons of the opposite-sex. The territory of Puerto Rico ratified a similar statute in 1998. Worldwide the situation is pretty much the same; only few countries allow same-sex ‘marriages’ whilst many more allow either civil
unions or domestic partnerships.
Full marriage, for homosexual couples, is only available in The Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, South Africa & Spain. Interestingly the Israeli parliament is considering recognizing gay marriages that are performed in other countries, whilst simultaneously not allowing them to be performed in Israel itself.
But within America there is a potential legal argument that revolves around the founding fathers and the constitution. In 1776 the founding fathers wrote;
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” – The preamble to the Declaration of Independence
Now this statement, that all men are created equal, is not mentioned within the constitution, in fact the first mention of anything of its kind is not until the 14th Amendment;
“No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; Nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”
But surely the fact that the founding fathers said this, and were forming a country whose ancestors had started it to escape persecution, would suggest that they felt that everyone is equal, and therefore everyone deserves the same rights.
However, the Christian right in America don’t feel that way, and it’s because gay rights aren’t mentioned within the constitution. And their basis for not allowing gay marriages to take place in the state is that the bible doesn’t allow it, and as long as the republicans hold onto either control of congress or control of the white house, this will never change. So all of this is happening in America, despite the founding fathers ideal of having a country where the Church was kept separate from the State, and although that is true in some instances, like school prayer, no-one has been able to keep the church out of politics. The republicans rely on the Christian right to be the bass of their party (thanks to Karl Rove) and that is why it is unlikely that a republican presidential candidate will come out (pardon the pun) and support gay marriage in any form or another.
So if gay marriage is not going to happen, why are states banning any form of recognition for same sex couples? For that I don’t know the answer although more and more states (although this so far is limited to the states round the edges of the country which usually vote democrat) are beginning to allow same sex couple to have either of the alternatives. For instance there are 5 states considering proposals to allow gay couples to have civil unions/domestic partnerships, including New York (which already recognises Gay marriages performed in countries where they are legal), Maryland and Illinois.
Some places have gone further than that, e.g. Massachusetts and the city of San Francisco , which temporarily allowed gay couples to marry, until it was stopped by the Californian Supreme Court, which also declared all the marriages to be illegal. American opinion is split on the issue, and has been for some time, although the nation’s opinion is changing. Most people would favour a ban on gay marriage whilst allowing couples who have made a long-term commitment to each other to have civil partnerships.
A 2004 CBS Poll showed that most people favoured no recognition for gay couples, a Pew Poll from 2006 has showed that more people are supporting equal gay rights.
So with opinion changing perhaps that means that the politicians will change their minds, or perhaps the Christian right will continue to get their way. Personally I think the latter will happen, for now at least, but at some point in the future there will be equal rights and equal opportunities for all in America.
This week however was different as it showed clips from an interview Cheney did in 1994 (when he was considering running for president at the elections in 1996) and he was talking about why America should not have gone into Iraq and removed Saddam, specifically citing that it would be a mess, the country would split up, violence would ensue and no new government would be able to maintain control. Here is specifically what Mr Cheney said;
(http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eand
“Q: Do you think the U.S., or U.N. forces, should have moved into Baghdad?
Cheney: No.
Q: Why not?
Cheney: Because if we'd gone to Baghdad we would have been all alone. There wouldn't have been anybody else with us. There would have been a U.S. occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq.
Once you got to Iraq and took it over, took down Saddam Hussein's government, then what are you going to put in its place? That's a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government of Iraq, you could very easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off: part of it, the Syrians would like to have to the west, part of it -- eastern Iraq -- the Iranians would like to claim, they fought over it for eight years. In the north you've got the Kurds, and if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey.
It's a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq.
The other thing was casualties. Everyone was impressed with the fact we were able to do our job with as few casualties as we had. But for the 146 Americans killed in action, and for their families -- it wasn't a cheap war. And the question for the president, in terms of whether or not we went on to Baghdad, took additional casualties in an effort to get Saddam Hussein, was how many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth?
Our judgment was, not very many, and I think we got it right.”
So, hopefully the video will make a little more sense now;
Now all of Jon Stewart said near the end is true. There are people in the world, including those in this country, who question your patriotism, or even your ‘loyalty’ to a country you live in, when you disagree with a governments proposals, whether they be about terrorism and the war in Iraq.
In 2003 I opposed the invasion of Iraq, on the grounds that were presented to the British people – which were that Iraq had stockpiles of WMD that could be launched in 45 minutes. My objection to invasion was this;
There was no evidence that they did have these weapons, at this point anyway (Although I am fully aware the Donald Rumsfeld went to Iraq at least twice to sell Mr Hussein WMD.)
And we have no right to independently decide who should be removed from power and who should not. It is a job for the international community and not a handful of countries. And if America wants to be the worlds policeman perhaps they should go police Burma, Sudan and Zimbabwe were millions of people are being effected by dictatorships and military violence that has killed thousands upon thousands of people. Oh and by the way if you want to spread democracy to the world, remove the military dictatorship in Burma and place _ in her right-full role as the democratically elected leader of that country.
All of this can be added to the fact that we had not (And have still not) found Osama Bin Laden (This might seem a little petty but we can put Paris Hilton in Prison but cannot find a 6ft 5 Arab man on dialysis. Here’s a clue US army he is the one attached to the luggage and not blowing it up). What’s more the right ridiculous theory that Al-Qaeda was in Iraq is complete and utter s**t. Saddam Hussein despised Bin Laden (It would be the only thing that he and President Bush would agree on if they had ever met). Would it not have made more sense to concentrate on finding him and the rest of the leadership of Al-Qaeda, instead of p***ing of more people of the Middle East, who will now join up with these fanatical groups that hate everything that we live and stand for.
But despite all of these valid reasons, whenever a liberal mentions theses to conservatives (and especially neo-conservatives) they paint us as soft on crime, soft on terrorism, and willing to negotiate with terrorists. This from group of people who have no problem with the death penalty, and cannot understand why people don’t agree with. And by the way my opinion on this is; society has a right to punish, and not a right to kill.
To that effect they (conservatives) simply cannot simply conceive that they are not the only political view point in the world, and continue to blame liberals for all the world’s evils. The greatest irony to this is that without liberals they would not be able to speak out against government policy they don’t agree with (for the sake of an example lets say global warming), as no-one would have freedom of speech, or freedom of religion, or the right to free association.
- Location:Lincoln, UK
I am ofcourse talking about The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert
The musical follows pretty much the same plot as the film;
Anthony "Tick" Belrose, a.k.a. Mitzi Del Bra, a drag queen, accepts an offer to perform at a casino in Alice Springs, a remote town in central Australia. After persuading his friends and fellow performers, Bernadette Bassenger, a.k.a. Ralph – a recently bereaved transsexual woman – and Adam Whitely, a.k.a. Felicia Jollygoodfellow – an irritatingly flamboyant and obnoxious drag queen – to join him, the three set out for Alice Springs in a large tour bus which Adam/Felicia christens "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert". Guy Pearce plays Adam/Felicia, Terence Stamp plays Bernadette/Ralph and Hugo Weaving plays Tick/Mitzi.
along the way you learn that these movie characters are not, the perfect specimins you would see in an hollywood film, but rather normal people whith flaws and secrets that they have hidden from their friends and families throughout the years. along with that you see three gay people coping with the the fact that their bus breaks down, in the middle of the australian outback and left stranded
The film and musical end with the completion of the run of performances and the 3 friends climibing to the top of one of the hills in the outback, in drag
this is not the first time that a hit australian show has been taken to broadway. in 2003 Hugh Jackman led an all star cast in the Broadway production of 'The Boy From Oz': which chornicles the life of flamboyant and homosexual australian singer/song writer Peter Allen
But unlike the Boy from oz, The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert may face a tough challange making money on Broadway, and that is because Peter Allen was very successful in America, even having his own run in Radio City Music Hall, and subsequently to this day still has a massive fan base. The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert simply doesn't have this base, and more over many potential cutomers may not know the story of the film/musical, where as the fans of peter allen know the story that, that musical tells (which is basically peter wants to be a signer, Peter discovered by Judy Garland, Peter marries Liza Minneli, Peter and Liza break up, Peter makes it big in America, Peter dies. there is some other stuff in there but thats the bare minmum of the story)
So only time will tell wether or not The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert can follow in the success of The Boy from Oz, but even if it doesnt make it, there will always be the film for eveyone to see
Boris' first appearence on Have I Got news For You
Boris playing Football - its a shame no-one told him that
with the government looking to change the way that we get power in this country, a decison with inevitable environmental consequences, we are faced with a dilema. do we risk a possible nuclear disaster in this country, or do we countinue to use fossil fules that pump billions upon billions of tons of CO2, as well as other pollutant gasses, into our already polluted atmosphere?
So how does nuclear work, i could go into a long rant about the technicallity's of it all, during whichi would most likely get it all wrong, but instead i found this video which pretty much explains it all;
What happens is slighlty better explained by the picture below. The Nuclear Fuel Cycle begins when uranium is mined, enriched, and manufactured into nuclear fuel, (1) which is delivered to a nuclear power plant. After usage in the power plant, the spent fuel is delivered to a reprocessing plant (2) or to a final repository (3) for geological disposition. In reprocessing 95% of spent fuel can be recycled to be returned to usage in a power plant (4). 
the are both postives and nergative to nuclear, the negatives being fairly obvious. the Chernobyl disater, and the accident on Three Mile Island are evidence of what can go wrong with nuclear power. the effects of chernobyl are still being felt today, with the radiation levels still high around the cite itself, and the fallout of the radioactive cloud felt all over Europe. there is anecdotal evidence that the effects of the cloud have meant that you are now more likely to be affected by cancer than you were before the blast.
despite the obvious negatives, and the possiblilty of nuclear meltdown, or any other number of problems at a nuclear plant, countries do choose to have nuclear power stations; 
The majority of France's power comes form nuclear power stations, with 80% of the country's power coming form 58 power stations dotted around the country. And becuase of the use of nuclear power, france has the cleanest air of any industrialized country, and the cheapest electricity in all of Europe. the cleran air is what the governemnt are looking.
Obviously renerwable energy sources don't produce C02 emmissions, but they currently can't produce the same amounts of electricity as as the power plants we have now, which is why need more to be able to replace the fossil fuel power stations we have. However thats not going to be enough to be able to power the national grid.
Thats why we have a choice, nuclear power is emmissions free but it carries a substantial risk. However we will eventually run out of fossil fuels, as will the rest of the world, and with unstabable nature of the price of oil, the same could happen to coal or natural gas. that is why we need an alternative, so that we are not caught up in an international crisis over fuel, rather we become a independant nation with our own ability to sustain our selves.
But, is nuclear the way to do this. do we risk a potential disater, to become independant?
- Mood:
drunk
2006 dinner:
2005 dinner:
& finally From 2000 President Clinton's "Final Days":
- Mood: sleepy
