This-n-that

Interesting article about a journalist's life in Iraq, courtesy of today's Doonsbury. I suspect this one is going to be linked to in a lot of places.

men_who_slash. A new community for, well, men who write slash. Male/Male pairings, not F/F, but any fandom, original, or RPS is welcome.

The Supreme Court is going to consider rules on displaying the 10 Commandments in government buildings. File this one under yet another reason why you should vote.

Women denied vote, candidacy in Saudi Arabia. This bit in particular depresses me:

Women are capable of voting and making the right choices," said Ahmed, a 22-year-old marketing graduate. "Why aren't men and women equal in this issue?"

"We aren't," countered her friend Sarah Muhammad. "We have so little interaction with men that we will vote with our emotions, choosing candidates for their looks and sweet talk rather than for what they can deliver."

Rima Khaled, 20, said Saudi women are not used to playing a role in public life, and many social and traditional restraints should first be removed before they can.

"What's the point of voting?" she asked. "Even if we did vote, we would go home to the men in our lives who will have the last say in whatever we do."

So let that serve as a reminder why we women in the US should never take our right to vote for granted.

A current poll has 49% of likely voters voting for Kerry, 48% voting for Bush, and 1% voting for Nader. This would inspire me to grit my teeth and glare at Nader voters if not for the fact that these polls don't get people with cell phones, and are thus missing a lot of the youth vote.

My hope springs eternal.

198-what?

You know, you'd think they wouldn't try this twice, but you'd be so, so wrong.

Bush ad appears to be news story

( WASHINGTON - The Bush administration has promoted its education law with a video that comes across as a news story but fails to make clear the reporter involved was paid with taxpayer money. )

Stop the world, please, I'd like to get off.

You may also be interested in Guide Urges Catholics to Shun Kerry. Because if you're pro-gay rights, you're going to Hell, but if you're pro-executing the retarded then Jesus thinks you're A-OK!

Don't mind me as I start digging a hole to Canada.

Slightly bitchy, slightly altruistic

Guys? I appreciate the sentiment that y'all are trying to show, but if you're going to go through all the trouble of spamming your friends page with a large photo over and over and over again (because there's more than one of you, and let's please remember not everybody has DSL or cable), maybe the least you can do is make the photo link to something that actually does something?

The Matthew Shephard Foundation.

PFLAG

ACLU

These organizations actually do something to try to prevent gay bashing. The link y'all are sharing is just a link to some HTML code. It does nothing except share a picture.

Just a thought.

Updated profile

Finally got around to updating my profile page. Tweaked some stuff, and added a few bits. But just to make sure everybody reading this now is on the same page, allow me to present:

***

THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW:

1. No need to ask if you want to friend me. I'm not shy.

2. No need to feel bad if you want to defriend me. I won't take it personally.

3. If you friended this journal because you love the talk about politics, be aware that there's also a lot of gay porn. (See also: #2)

4. If you friended this journal for the gay porn, be aware that there's also a lot of talk about politics. (See also: #2)

4a) Gay porn typically means slash, which means fanfic written about two male characters who'd very much like to see one another naked. This also sometimes means fic about real people doing the same thing, and sometimes means fic about fannish characters who are so out of character that you'll wonder why I'm even bothering to call it fanfic. I cut-tag and warn accordingly. If you click on the cut tags and don't like what you see then you've pretty much only got yourself to blame for that one. (See also: #2)

5. If you friended this journal for the porn and the politics, be aware that there's also going to be a lot of posts about cooking, my family, my cats, and whatever the hell else flits through my mind up to and including "Did you know tomato plants smell like tomatoes?". (See also: #2)

6. If you disagree with me, my opinions, or anything else about me, you're welcome to flame me all you like. I can take it. If you flame anyone who comments in my journal, regardless of whether or not I personally agree with their opinion, I will step in and start deleting your posts. Discussion amongst yourselves is fine. Flamewars are not. (See also: #2)

7. My posts are 99.999999999% public. If you want to know me, or my context, it's all right there for anyone who's interested. As I write for myself, and my friends, I don't take the time to footnote absolutely everything and do things like explain that it's okay that I just cracked a joke about big-breasted, blonde, semi-pagan, semi-Catholic, Scotch-Irish-Italian, former Republican, still bisexual girls who live in the suburbs 45 min outside of New York City because I am one. I'm sorry if anything I say comes off bad out of context but, well, that's why we call it out of context. My journal, I write how I want to. You're welcome to go "Hey!" if you want, but that's the writing style that you're going to get here. (See also: #2)

8. If you've made it this far, you may now have pie.

9. Nice to meet you =)

***

I think that about covers it. Now to go snuggle with my cats, grab a shower, and then go to bed. Not at the same time, obviously. I'll post on belly dance class #4 tomorrow.