blah to the world

[verbicide]

Jeff sent me an article about the Pakistani woman who was sentenced to a gang-rape by her village because her brother allegedly had an affair with a woman from a neighboring village. Which, it turns out, was a bullshit charge. I remember reading about this case a year or so ago. It was interesting to see a follow-up. It makes me homicidal.

Greg was telling me the other night about how people in Florida, so grateful for federal aid, are interviewing that even though they disagree with the way Bush has done things and disagree with his policies, will vote for him to show their gratitude. The mind boggles.

I feel like the squirrel from The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe who loses its head: "He can't win! He can't win! He can't win!!" Speaking of which, can't wait for that movie to come out.

From nikkinewsnet:

On a lighter note, a survey reports that people watching the Daily Show scored higher on a political quiz than viewers of the Dave Letterman and Jay Leno show. You can even take the quiz yourself.



You got 5 out of 6 correct on your first attempt.

Excellent work! But when do you sleep?

Check your score against these averages:
"The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart viewers - 3.59 correct
"The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno viewers - 2.95 correct
"Late Show" with David Letterman viewers - 2.91 correct
No late-night comedy viewing - 2.62 correct

I didn't actually find the quiz hard and was surprised how low the numbers were. I missed: "John Kerry says that he would eliminate the Bush tax cuts on those making how much money?" I picked the highest number, and it was the second highest. In retrospect, I felt very 'duh' about it.

Comments

[paris-of-priam.livejournal.com]

I found all of those debating rules pretty amusing. I remember when I was young I used to think that there must be some sort of RULES governing Presidential debates written into THE CONSTITUTION or something! WHen, in fact, the rules are just whatever the two parties can manage to agree on, after weeks of negotiations. Sort of like the way they used to organize 'gentlemen's DUELS' in the 19th century! Swords or pistols? Shirts on or shirts off? Firing at ten paces or twenty paces? One shot only, or re-loading for two? The challenger is expected to bring two pistols that are exactly the same, while the challenger gets to choose which one he wants to use, etc.

So, I thought it was amusing that they had a rule about how neither candidate was allowed to use a 'riser' or platform shoes etc. to appear TALLER than he actually is. I'm pretty sure the Kerry people insisted on that one, because Kerry is six inches taller than Bush. But then, they had podiums be ten feet apart. I'm pretty sure the Bush people insisted on that one, and refused to accept the rule about no risers or platform shoes UNLESS the Kerry people agreed to have the podiums ten feet apart. Because, looking at the candidates, if they're ten feet apart it's pretty difficult to actually TELL that Kerry is taller. In order to see that, they have to be standing closer together. I'm sure Karl Rove was conducting experiments with a focus group before the debate, to see just what was the minimum distance that the podiums had to be apart before you couldn't tell that Kerry was taller. Feh!

Apparently, however, there was a rule about 'no reaction shots' being permitted, but only CNN (or one of the other networks) had agreed to follow that rule. So that they would only show a shot of the guy who was speaking. And that's why I deliberately chose to watch it on CBS, because I knew that CBS would probably ignore that rule. (At least, if DAN RATHER had anything to do with it! ;)