Well, with the goddamn rootin' tootin' jagoff back for another term, things look a little bleak. I pained to see Kerry concede so quickly; if anything he should've learned from the last election that was stolen from the Democrats and saw it through. Here is an article suggesting (as I suspected) that the vote was probably rigged in Bush's favor. It makes sense to me, especially in contrast to the mainstream media's reports that "young people didn't turn out to vote" (bullshit) and the huge disparity between exit polls and the reported results. Brilliant that the company in charge of the electric voting machines was a HUGE contributor to the Bush campaign and even said that they were going to help put him back in office, and that again, minorities were targeted, intimidated, discouraged and had their votes magically disappear on Election Day. Unfuckingbelievable. I doubt much will come of this; the media won't say much because I'm sure the big networks were complicit in some way; and with our "go free on a legal technicality" system, once you concede, there's probably no chance of justice.
Also worth reading is this article about the election from our mates across the pond; a bit harsh but a true and stinging reminder of what ignoramii comprise a good hunk of our population.
In non-election-bitterness-related news, I'm slowly updating and adding to various parts of my site; you may have noticed the new "photo feature" buttons to the left (which basically un-buried a lot of stuff that was only linked to in the weblog archives and not anywhere else in the site) and the ugly Vegan Food Photos buttons above. I've reconciled myself to sort of liking WebPics for the convenience it offers, though I'm not wild about the style options...but expect to see more photo galleries appearing soon as I race to fill the measly 400mb limit on my server with ever more photos of food, friends, signs, roadsides, cats and family. May be looking to switch ISPs at some point, as I feel 400mb for $25/mo. is a hosting rip-off, though I dread a switch as I can't imagine it going smoothly, especially with the trouble/data corruption I had with Movable Type last time my server got changed.
I also added a rudimentary "Housing Development Name Generator," based on the same weak format as the "Chinese Restaurant Name Generator" above it. If someone wants to send me the script to EASILY plug the information in and have it so that you click a button and it randomly generates them, be my guest. Otherwise you have to cope with my lazy, half-assed method.
Speaking of new content, I just added a gallery of photos from the trip Ryan and I took to South Dakota 2 years ago. I don't even remember where a lot of them were taken, but it's better to show them than not. Maybe one of the last rolls of "film" I ran through my pre-digital camera. A dying art, I tell you. Only 21 shots to represent 4 days or so of traveling! Jesus Christ, how did I ever live? Not to mention the color-correction required from the shitty processing.
Trying to learn a few words of Hindi in preparation for our trip to India in January. Remind me not to order "Jhaat ka bhaaji" next time I'm at Arya Bhavan! Bought a CD set of 33 languages on 33 CD ROMS, it was only 50 bucks, but has a pretty bad design (and only basic words, not really an awesome tool). It has Hindi, Polish, Vietnamese, Chinese, and most major world languages, so that may come in handy again in the future as I travel to foreign lands.
Vanessa's pledge drive starts tomorrow, so wish her luck and call to support Chicago Public Radio (moreso if you actually live in Chicago and/or listen to it). That's all for now friends.
Posted by pj at November 9, 2004 10:41 PMI know here in Oregon it had to be rigged in Kerry's favor. We have mail in ballots. I'm pretty sure the U.S. Postal service was a huge backer of Kerry/Edwards.
Posted by: Chris at November 11, 2004 10:29 AMI know everyone and their grandmother has a web host to recommend but i've been using dreamhost since '96. You won't get "DOMAIN REGISTRATION AS LOW AS $8.88" or some bullshit like that but you will get reliable service and double of what yer getting now paying half as much. All my friends and people i do sites for are on Dreamhost, nobody has had complaints. That sounded like a big ol' SPAM -heh, no really it's just lil ol' me!
Also December 4th will be the two year anniversay of the Vegan Meetup AND it will most likely be at Arya Bhavan. How can you resist?! :)
You seem to be doing well, i am happy.
Posted by: daveDandy at November 11, 2004 10:57 AMSadly, I don't think there was a "fix" on the election this time. I think fear was very effectively used. The next day on NPR, there was a gay man from San Francisco stating that, despite Bush and Republicans against gay rights..."we need President Bush for this war." We also know that quite a few people in America are afraid of gays...so this mention of "morals" was also turned into a fear thing.
Both sides did do a good job of "us against them" and recruiting voters, so I don't know...I haven't seen any good evidence of a fix, but plenty of evidence of a lot of people frightened by deception and voting stupid. It wouldn't surprise me if there was a fix...and it would make me feel better because it's hard to accept more than half the voters reelected this idiot after such a piss poor job performance.
For now, I'd like to call on a boycott on OHIO. Yeash...a blue collar state that lost so many factory jobs...and they still voted for him?
Posted by: Andrew M. at November 15, 2004 12:46 AM