I'm not sure how I feel about this.

I've recently been seeing quite a few ads for a children's book entitled Why Mommy is a Democrat, advertised as "The book George Bush doesn't want your kids to read!"

After checking out the website, I definitely wonder about the wisdom of the book. Obviously, I'm not going to question any parent's right to buy this book and read it to their children if they choose, nor their intentions in doing so. I just can't help but wonder why you would want to instill "Democrat" in a child, instead of focusing on the values themselves, and let them worry about party affiliation when they get older.

One thing that bothers me about the book is that, just based on the sample pages, it seems to oversimplify political positions a bit in a way that makes Democrats the "good guy." A children's book has to be simple, but giving a child a false impression of the world can sometimes make for more difficult explanations later.

Of course, I do have a rather different upbringing than many I know. My mom is a dedicated Republican, while my dad has been a longtime Democrat. Upon hearing of this, one of my friends once commented, "no wonder you're a moderate."

I'm Big in New Zealand

As part of a recent forum topic, I was doing a couple of Google searches on myself. My real name is fairly common, it seems, so I decided to look it up based on the nickname I commonly use: "Sxeptomaniac". The name is, so far, unique to me, but among the expected results, I got a bit of a surprise. It seems a columnist for the New Zealand Herald found some of my words worth quoting in an opinion piece about relaxed grammar and spelling online. I'm quoted right at the end of the piece:

While I was surfing the net, looking for English language massacres on message boards (they're there and simply too numerous to list), I found a great debate going on between Geek Culture forum members who were taking a new member to task for failing to use basic grammar and correct spelling in his postings.

Sxeptomaniac put it best: "Spelling and grammar are about organising your thoughts in ways that will make sense to others without requiring them to consciously work at it. That's why lack of grammar and spelling is seen as rude here; you're asking us to expend extra effort to read your posts, because you were too lazy to expend that effort yourself when typing them."

Couldn't have put it better myself.

It's pretty fun to find how a little comment of mine ended up in a newspaper all the way across the Pacific.

Of course, the part of me that is quite anal about my writing can't help but think how my wording could have been just a little bit better.

Barack Obama

I've recently been getting interested in the Draft Obama movement.

What I think really stands out about Obama for me is that he doesn't use hot-button issues the way many career politicians do. Many use little sound bites (involving easy, one-sided answers to complex problems) in order to signal to certain groups of people that he/she is "one of them." They then reinforce those kinds of opinions by repeatedly pushing those buttons in order to reinforce support among those who have the same view, while further alienating those who do not. It's the politics of the last 14 years.

I'm definitely ready for something different.

Never happier to be using Linux

I recently was reading through this article on Windows Vista's content protection. If it's even half as bad as the article suggests, Vista is going to be one of the worst operating systems ever. This article didn't have anything better to say.

Overall, Vista's content-protection functionality seems like an astonishingly short-sighted piece of engineering, concentrating entirely on content protection with no consideration given to the enormous repercussions of the measures employed. It's something like the PC equivalent of the (hastily dropped) proposal mooted in Europe to put RFID tags into high-value banknotes as an anti-counterfeiting measure, completely ignoring the fact that the major users of this technology would end up being criminals who would use it to remotely identify the most lucrative robbery targets.

I've never been happier to be an Ubuntu user. Unfortunately, if the author of the article is correct, I won't be able to dodge the increased hardware costs. If it is that bad, I suspect a new branch of hardware manufacturers dedicated to non-Windows users will open up.

Content protection is getting way out of hand. It's gotten to the point where it's often easier and safer to pirate content rather than purchase it. I'm going to stick with legal alternatives myself, but I wouldn't be surprised if, at some point, I end up buying protected versions of music or video, then downloading the pirated versions for actual use. If things continue down the present path, what option will I have left?

Thoughts on Steve Irwin's environmentalism

Like many, I was saddened and a bit surprised to learn of Steve Irwin's sudden death last week. However, given his familiarity with the reptiles he typically handled, I always figured that if anything happened to him, one of them wouldn't be the cause.

The odd thing is reading the mixed opinions various environmentalists have of Irwin and his career. I was initially a little surprised that environmentalists would dislike him, but it makes sense on further reading.

Take the words of Germaine Greer, for example. She writes as if wildlife is supposed to be seen from a distance, and Steve Irwin's love of getting close to wildlife was harmful to it. The epitome of her rant is that "The animal world has finally taken its revenge on Irwin."

Frankly, I think Greer's opinions are a perfect example of the absurdity of a certain branch of the environmentalist movement. These are the same kinds of people whose ideal of nature is to imagine "a world without humans." That imagined world is an absurdity from a philosophical standpoint. A world without humanity would have no-one to consider it beautiful; by imagining it, we are imposing a value judgement that is human to the core. The contradictory nature of this kind of anti-human environmentalism is exactly why they so often fail to be able to even communicate with political opponents.

What Steve Irwin understood better than many leading environmentalists is that, in truth, environmentalism is a selfish endeavor. I say this not to discredit the movement, but to explain why it is truly so vital. Saving habitat, preventing global warming, preventing extinction of various species, etc. is about protecting humanity and the quality of life many of us enjoy. We can damage the environment all we would like, and it will eventually recover, in a different form; however, we would not. Environmentalism is also about beauty and our heritage, and protecting it for the same reasons we would protect the Mona Lisa. Steve Irwin understood the beauty of wildlife, and sought to share that, and instill a desire to protect it for our future, as well as for our descendants. I believe that those who portray environmentalism as an altruistic endeavor do it a disservice, turning away some who would otherwise be more sympathetic.

So, we bid farewell to Steve Irwin, a man I consider to be one of the great true environmentalists of our times. The animal world was lucky to have you as long as it did.

Cindy Sheehan to run for senate?

So, Cindy Sheehan, the infamous (to Republicans) woman who is most famous for camping outside President Bush's ranch thinks that maybe she should be a senator?

She lost her son in Iraq, so I can see why her attacks on Bush could come from personal grief. I do sometimes wonder about those who seem to use her as some kind of figurehead for the anti-war movement, though.

Can she win a senate seat on her anti-war platform? I highly doubt it. California certainly is home to some of the most liberal people in the country, but it also has a decent population of conservatives here in the Central Valley, and a sizeable population of moderates spread throughout. Sheehan might make a decent showing, but she's a little controversial to do well, and I don't think she'll get much support at all if her only platform is "bring the troops home right now."

There is the possibility that she could get elected if she were to show that she has a political stance that actually has something to do with California itself, and not just Iraq. Senator Feinstein, who Sheehan would be running against, would have to basically throw the election, too. Feinstein is a pretty well-entrenched incumbent, and she hasn't made any major mistakes which would significantly erode her support, either.

The last thing I have to wonder is what Cindy Sheehan thinks she can do if she were to win the seat. At that point, Bush would only have two more years in office, and Sheehan would be a brand new senator with no prior experience in political office (as far as I can tell). By the time she could really get much going, Bush would be out of office. I suppose she could make an effort to try Bush for war crimes, but I don't see there being much support for that.

When I look at it from the perspective of the above, there is the possibility that Sheehan will not run at all. It could be that she is actually trying to pressure Feinstein into supporting her agenda in the senate. It would actually be a lot smarter than fighting it out. If she can pressure an experienced incumbent into going along with her, Sheehan will gain far more than trying to do it herself. However, she is not a person I would equate with subtle political maneuvering. She so far has wielded what power she has the same way Southern Baptists often do: like a bludgeon, and often a bit clumsily.

Political Party Test

You scored as Democrat Democrat 75% Green 67% Socialist 58% Anarchism 58% Republican 50% Communism 25% Fascism 17% Nazi 0% What Political Party Do Your Beliefs Put You In? created with QuizFarm.com

Interesting test. I doubt it's that accurate, as I think I don't fit as a Democrat any better than I do as a Republican. I also can't imagine why they would even bother putting Nazi on the test, as so few people are likely to test as that.