This is as funny the fifteenth time you see it as the first."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:iamgerg:210582","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/iamgerg.livejournal.com\/210582.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/iamgerg.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=210582"}}],"title":"iamgerg @ 2010-06-01T14:00:00","published":"2010-06-01T18:00:31Z","updated":"2010-06-01T18:00:31Z","content":"\"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.\"
-- John Rogers"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:iamgerg:210184","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/iamgerg.livejournal.com\/210184.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/iamgerg.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=210184"}}],"title":"Different views","published":"2010-05-08T02:35:56Z","updated":"2010-05-08T02:35:56Z","content":"Aquarian Weekly
5\/12\/10
REALITY CHECK
James Campion
ARIZONA CALLING
How Law 2010 Pushes Immigration Reform to the Brink
\"Though many people will disagree, I believe Senate Bill 1070 is what's best for Arizona.\"
- Governor Jan Brewer upon signing into law Senate Bill 1070 on 4\/30
Upon the launching of my web site in the early months of 2000, a 3,000-word screed from a concerned Arizona law officer was posted on its now defunct Sound-Off page. It emphatically stated that if in the following decade the United States government didn't do something about the state's \"sieve border security\"; there would be \"terrible bloodshed\" and \"dire consequences\".
Bingo.
Fast forward those ten years, and Arizona now has a Wild West showdown of murderous proportions, whose death toll rivals the slaughterhouses in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A grievous dereliction in the federal government's duty to provide for the common defense and preserve U.S. sovereignty, long derided in this space, has reached such a pressure point in Arizona that its local government thought it necessary to enact what amounts to an abject mockery of constitutional law.
SB1070, rubber stamped by Governor Jan Brewer, is nothing more than a hand-cupping, throat-shredding scream for help.
Mission accomplished. For the bellow has been heard loud and clear.
Worded very much as the last vestige of survival, stemming from a Mexican drug lord war spill-over which has resulted in a plethora of random beatings, stabbings and collateral violence against Arizona's citizens, the 1070 Law could not have hoped to survive a national outcry of racial profiling and unconstitutional tyranny, but more importantly the bevy of ensuing lawsuits and a predictable Washington intervention.
Fact is Brewer and the Arizona Senate ran out of legal and sane options. Because no one in an ostensibly free society could accept Law 1070 as a sane or legal option; in fact, the thing is so completely irresponsible, it even leaves the police at risk.
To wit:
The law lists a Context of Arrests; in other words, the fashion in which the Arizona police are to enforce it: Routine policing (bar brawl, speed trap), Routine suspicion (no hunches), and Not relying solely on race.
How then, you may rightly ask, is anyone going to effectively round up illegal aliens, of which by the way there are -- according to the Office of Homeland Security (your tax dollars at waste) -- 460.000 in Arizona today, without racially profiling, working on hunches, or going beyond \"routine policing\"?
The answer is they cannot. Thus, the 1070 Law is set up to fail, or at the very least, set up to cause illegal search and seizures, police-state abuses, and those rough-and-ready lawsuits. Truth is the damn thing is an atavistic draconian national embarrassment.
And yet this brilliantly directed showpiece by Arizona lawmakers, fronted dramatically by their governor, has now fully engaged the federal government and our president, who correctly pointed out in numerous speeches hence the law's ridiculous constitutional liability and hardly a concrete answer to what now amounts to a new and improved concern for Immigration Reform.
Once again: Mission accomplished.
The mere fact that the president is on this subject, faced with massive oil spills, a Tennessee flood disaster, a Time Square terrorist plot, and the endless financial reform histrionics, is a bell-ringing success for crazy bill gone even crazier law.
Make no mistake about it; because of Arizona's desperate and wholly reckless legal hissy fit, the nation's eyes are now squarely focused on what has been an escalating problem for states bordering Mexico. It is no longer merely an argument about fining businesses who employ illegal aliens, their free health care or running under the radar of national security and other tertiary criminal activities. Now it's lunatic drug dealers and gun runners blasting away at suburbanites; mothers and children being hacked to bits on street corners and the elderly bludgeoned by thugs who waltzed unhindered across our border.
This is why 70% of Arizonans back the law, just as you would too, if you were frightened for your life. Intellectually, there is a reason to raise eyebrows, as I surely did in the months following 9\/11, as Air Force fighter planes whizzed the East River or tanks remained parked outside the Lincoln tunnel. Overkill? Police state? Or a reasonable response to a horrible breech of national security.
There is little arguing the law's ratification as anything other than unconstitutional chicanery or the wild plea for federal assistance long overdue, but it does come with some precedence.
Since 1940, federal law has dictated that aliens must carry papers, such as U.S. citizens keeping passports at the ready in foreign countries, including all of Europe. Moreover, since 1976, the Supreme Court has recognized that states may enact laws to discourage illegal immigration without being pre-empted by federal law. As long as Congress hasn't expressly forbidden the state law in question, the statute doesn't conflict with federal law and Congress has not displaced all state laws from the field, it is permitted. This is why Arizona's 2007 law making it illegal to knowingly employ unauthorized aliens was sustained by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Basically, it seems, Arizona can do whatever the hell it wants, save Martial Law, which is pretty much next.
Ah, that is until the vagaries of carrying out the law -- the whole reason we have laws is the penalty levied if said laws are broken -- then a great deal of problems arise. And the backlash is going to be expensive in an economic downturn.
Therefore, without further ado, I give you, with the teeth of a rabid dog, the federal government's time to face the music. Suddenly, amidst the wrangling over Health Care Reform and Financial Reform, bailouts and stimulus packages, here comes a state begging Big Government to do its job or else.
Don't think this will not be an issue come November when the Live Free Or Die set and their candidates of choice weight in on its aftermath, from civil libertarians to xenophobes.
Mission accomplished."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:iamgerg:210117","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/iamgerg.livejournal.com\/210117.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/iamgerg.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=210117"}}],"title":"iamgerg @ 2010-04-27T20:40:00","published":"2010-04-28T00:40:13Z","updated":"2010-04-28T00:40:13Z","content":"
I know there are a lot of fans out there, I know some of you write fan fic, (Which I actually understand now because holy crap are there things I wish were explored.)
But seriously, why do you think Harry is so engaging to people. I could find a number of books on my shelves that I would choose over Rowling... I understand the fascination with the world, it's intriguing but surely there's more to it. What has Rowling done that's so captivated people?
I don't get it."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:iamgerg:209279","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/iamgerg.livejournal.com\/209279.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/iamgerg.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=209279"}}],"title":"iamgerg @ 2009-07-06T13:36:00","published":"2009-07-06T17:39:55Z","updated":"2009-07-06T17:41:36Z","content":"Writing a paper on the connections between science and science fiction, between the birth of the atomic age, and the end of the Apollo project. I'm looking for inspiration\/motivation anyone feel the urge to free associate about this topic?
ETA: Lest you think I'm trying to get someone to write my paper for me, it is mostly finished, I just need some things to fill in the edges, and when you look at something for a month, it all becomes like static on a dead channel."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:iamgerg:209141","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/iamgerg.livejournal.com\/209141.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/iamgerg.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=209141"}}],"title":"From the Air Show. (Bonus points if you can identify the last plane)","published":"2009-06-23T06:31:45Z","updated":"2009-06-23T06:31:45Z","content":"
![\"A](\"https:\/\/img.photobucket.com\/albums\/v216\/iamgerg\/Random\/DSC_1039.jpg?t=1245738436\")
![\"Snowbirds\"](\"https:\/\/img.photobucket.com\/albums\/v216\/iamgerg\/Random\/DSC_2107.jpg?t=1245738338\")
![\"One](\"https:\/\/img.photobucket.com\/albums\/v216\/iamgerg\/Random\/DSC_1777.jpg?t=1245738524\")
"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:iamgerg:208549","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/iamgerg.livejournal.com\/208549.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/iamgerg.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=208549"}}],"title":"An ethical question.","published":"2009-03-29T22:58:00Z","updated":"2009-03-29T22:58:00Z","content":"I am listening to an internet radio station (Pandora.com) that is not available to Canadian IP addresses because of licensing litigation by American record companies. I am listening to it through a program designed to overcome content censorship in countries such as China.Is it ethical for me to bypass content regulations regulated by trade legislation? If it isn't, is it then legal for us to provide tools for this to happen for political content in other countries? Keeping in mind, that I am not generating or disseminating this content, I am simply listening to a publicly disseminated broadcast.
If it is ethical, is it then ethical for private interests to block such content under normal circumstances?
(for those of you who download I'm sure this isn't a tough question. But those who recognize the problem with downloading, I'm interested in what you think.)"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:iamgerg:208157","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/iamgerg.livejournal.com\/208157.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/iamgerg.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=208157"}}],"title":"Something to ponder","published":"2009-03-18T15:50:28Z","updated":"2009-03-18T15:50:28Z","content":"Does the Second Amendment allow for the protection of the people only from the the tyranny of government, or does it protect the people from the tyranny of corporations that undercut that government?
Do people have a right to take action against corporations that oppress them, or just governments?
If corporations are individuals under the law, can a corporation be imprisoned \"by the judgment of his peers?\"
If an institution invests a sum into a company that exceeds the value of that company, is it un-capitalist to demand a say into the running of that company?
If a government uses its power to limit a market, is that any less capitalist than if a corporation uses its power to limit a market?"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:iamgerg:207902","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/iamgerg.livejournal.com\/207902.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/iamgerg.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=207902"}}],"title":"iamgerg @ 2009-03-05T01:42:00","published":"2009-03-05T06:59:10Z","updated":"2009-03-05T06:59:10Z","category":{"@attributes":{"term":"security governments australia britain"}},"content":"As the US moves away (in theory) from some of its more draconian security measures other countries have decided to go in the other direction. Following Britain's <\/a> lead, the government of New South Wales<\/a> in Australia has decided to
Maybe the government has always been this creepy and I just never noticed, but it seems to me that many governments seem incapable of understanding the fundamental rights of their citizenry."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:iamgerg:207739","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/iamgerg.livejournal.com\/207739.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/iamgerg.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=207739"}}],"title":"I am lacking in creativity lately... I blame it on school.","published":"2009-01-26T03:30:39Z","updated":"2009-01-26T03:30:39Z","category":{"@attributes":{"term":"photo"}},"content":"
So until I join the teaming masses of the undead, I still plan to go into next year making the best of it... Waiting for my chainsaw scene.
Happy New Years everyone."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:iamgerg:206660","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/iamgerg.livejournal.com\/206660.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/iamgerg.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=206660"}}],"title":"Financial reporting as it should be.","published":"2008-11-27T00:36:10Z","updated":"2008-11-27T00:36:10Z","content":"Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick<\/a>"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:iamgerg:206373","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/iamgerg.livejournal.com\/206373.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/iamgerg.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=206373"}}],"title":"iamgerg @ 2008-10-03T15:18:00","published":"2008-10-03T19:48:14Z","updated":"2008-10-03T19:48:14Z","content":"So in order to secure a loan for $700 billion the US Government voted to raise the legal debt ceiling to 11.3 Trillion Dollars. This is bad enough I suppose, but it makes you wonder, how did they end up with such a round figure. I mean it isn't like the amount is around 700 billion, it's $ 700,000,000,000.00 on the nose. So how did they come up with that number? Well in an interview with forbs.com<\/a>, a Treasury spokes woman explained, \"It's not based on any particular data point... We just wanted to choose a really large number.\"
I know Americans have guns, and I know that there are militias that don't trust the government, so why hasn't anyone decided to start a revolution against the government."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:iamgerg:206330","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/iamgerg.livejournal.com\/206330.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/iamgerg.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=206330"}}],"title":"iamgerg @ 2008-08-13T17:49:00","published":"2008-08-13T21:58:26Z","updated":"2008-08-13T21:58:26Z","content":"So there was a propane explosion in Toronto.
Before there has been complete picture of what happened.
Before an investigation had been completed.
Before any contributing factors had been established.
Before the initial cause could be determined.
Before an investigation had even truly begun.
Before one of the victims had been positively identified.
Before one of the firefighters had been buried.
There were three separate class action lawsuits filed.
...and people wonder why I have no faith in humanity."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:iamgerg:205552","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/iamgerg.livejournal.com\/205552.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/iamgerg.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=205552"}}],"title":"Australian population figures explained by John Meredith","published":"2008-04-03T17:37:25Z","updated":"2008-04-03T17:37:25Z","content":"\"I eventually came ashore here in Hong Kong, some 35 years ago, due to a rather stunning revelation. I was posted ashore for a while by my company to study this new art called containerization. We were experimenting with the first use of containers on services to the tropics. I remember part of the tests entailed painting some containers black and the others white to see how they reflected the tropical sunshine and handled heat and humidity. One trial entailed sending a consignment of rubber condoms some to Sydney in white containers and others to Melbourne in black containers to see which of the contents survived the journey. A later study of birthrates in both locations provided the answers. It\u2019s why Sydney is now more crowded than Melbourne.\"
John Meredith
(The University of Western Ontario\u2019s annual Hong Kong Convocation on March 30)"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:iamgerg:205112","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/iamgerg.livejournal.com\/205112.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/iamgerg.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=205112"}}],"title":"iamgerg @ 2008-03-13T17:33:00","published":"2008-03-13T21:39:22Z","updated":"2008-03-13T21:39:22Z","content":"I would call my Prime Minister a Pussy, but I might get sued for Libel.
I relish the day when that (in the opinion of some) anal retentive control freak is removed from office.
Be thankful for your cowboys and philanderers America, you could have ended up with an economist."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:iamgerg:205019","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/iamgerg.livejournal.com\/205019.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/iamgerg.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=205019"}}],"title":"Thesaurusgate","published":"2008-03-07T00:23:57Z","updated":"2008-03-07T00:23:57Z","content":"Has the media reached the point where they are unable to exhibit even the most basic abilities when it comes to language... every minor political kerfuffle has to be something-gate. City councilors get Elton John tickets before anyone else and we get ticketgate, the Prime Minister's chief of staff says you shouldn't take a campaigning politician too literally, and we have NAFTAgate.
Now I understand buzzwords, truly I do, and had this trend been spawned by some MBA infested corporation, or from the social underbelly of a silicon valley tech farm, I could understand it, but this comes from those who claim to make a living from the exploitation of the English language. How can anyone have anything but contempt for such non-sense."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:iamgerg:204759","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/iamgerg.livejournal.com\/204759.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/iamgerg.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=204759"}}],"title":"Damn.","published":"2008-03-03T05:21:32Z","updated":"2008-03-03T05:21:32Z","content":"Jeff Healy Dies at 41<\/a>
He was one of Canada's most gifted musicians IMHO, never mind the fact that he has been blind since the age of one.
I don't know how well known he would be outside of Canada (he did have a platinum album in the US), but if you ever saw the movie roadhouse with Patrick Swayze , he played the musician Cody."},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:iamgerg:204446","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/iamgerg.livejournal.com\/204446.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/iamgerg.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=204446"}}],"title":"In light of recent events.","published":"2008-02-21T17:17:44Z","updated":"2008-02-21T17:17:44Z","content":"\"All my friends are fuck-ups, but they're fun to have around.\"*
*note, this in no way resolves them from at times deserving a swift kick in the ass!"},{"id":"urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:iamgerg:204284","link":[{"@attributes":{"rel":"alternate","type":"text\/html","href":"https:\/\/iamgerg.livejournal.com\/204284.html"}},{"@attributes":{"rel":"self","type":"text\/xml","href":"https:\/\/iamgerg.livejournal.com\/data\/atom\/?itemid=204284"}}],"title":"Geek art","published":"2008-02-08T02:57:56Z","updated":"2008-02-08T02:58:28Z","content":"This<\/a> makes my geek heart happy"}]}