'Tis the Season... for Charity!

Hey folks. I know we're just getting started but it happens to be the Holiday Season, which is a great time to think about giving to charity. My wife and I were watching "The Last Word" with Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC tonight and he had a segment shown here on this fantastic charity through UNICEF called Kids In Need of Desks. The charity helps school age children in Malawi acquire the most basic of education infrastructure. Please check out the link and give if you can!

Big Books Are Scary

From TPM:

Minutes later, in one of the most chortling colloquies of the 111th Congress, Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Mark Kirk (R-IL) gloated over the defeat of the spending bill.

Kirk, the most junior member of the Senate asked, "Did we just win?"

McCain responded, "I think there's very little doubt that the Majority Leader of the United States Senate would not have taken the action he just took if we didn't have 41 votes to stop this monstrosity."

Kirk continued, "so for economic conservatives, a 1,924-page bill just died?

"A 1,924-page bill just died," McCain responded laughing.

Can I just ask why the length of the bill is more important to Senator Kirk than the actual spending contained in it? Does a bill become a poor bill at a certain page limit?

This is a test post!

I am just typing out a test post before we fully get started. I want to make sure the proper notices go where they are supposed to go.

Again...I don't want to keep harping about it but...

CNN has posted this article about the Great Firewall of China...

For many overseas reporters now in Beijing, covering the Summer Games has turned into an Olympian task.

We go through tedious security checkpoints to cover events and conduct interviews even as we deal with bureaucratic and linguistic barriers. But we face one particularly irritating issue: China's limits on Internet access.

Despite Beijing's earlier promise to allow open reporting and unfettered access to information, Internet access remains erratic and unpredictable. "It's so counter-intuitive to find the Internet restricted, even if only selectively," one western journalist told me in Beijing.

Last week, colleagues working in the Media Press Center faced a blank computer screen whenever they clicked on sites deemed sensitive to the Chinese authorities -- like Amnesty International and Falun Gong.

That is attributed to China's sophisticated filter system, also known as the "Great Firewall."

Why the paranoia? Pro-democracy activists, as well as advocates for Tibet independence and the spiritual group Falun Gong, have Web sites carrying information and views that the Chinese authorities deem "subversive."

Not to heap it on ...

Here is a very interesting OP-ED in the Washington Post this morning talking about the perception "chasm" between how China views itself in the world and how the rest of the world views China. Give it a read.

Disturbing Olympiad

Okay, it is a little bit frightening that there was an explosion killing 16 people in China the week that the Olympics are to start. However, it is even more frightening that the Chinese response has been to lockdown and detain journalists who were in the area of the explosion.

Please, again, someone remind me why China gets to host the Olympics?

I understand the importance of the global economy and free trade, but surely, while our country, at least, is apparently spreading a democratic message across the globe and rooting out tyranny, does it make sense to send our athletes to compete in a country that has not yet awoken to the toll of the bells of human rights? It is tacit acceptance of China's atrocious human rights violations when we go and we further empower their already dominating economy.

Why are we filled with such cowardice?

Of course, I know the answer to that. We need China. We need their growing "consumer class," their industrial capacity, oh, and, um . . . they own a grossly enormous portion of our national debt. So, there is that too . . .

I understand it all to a certain extent. But our response is as pitiful as it is predictable, and it is a shame to see us again fall short of our ideals. But I am not an idealist really, and so I've become accustomed to the reality of our being in bed with this repressive Chinese regime that we so depend on in our international economics and politics. I bitch about it here because it is what I do. I always bitch about China. I was bitching about China back in high school when I consistently wrote letters to President Clinton and Michigan Senators Levin and Abraham, imploring them to deny China "most favored nation" trade status. But alas, we see how well that has worked out. And no matter all of the pragmatic and practical reasons for our continued support of China (notice I say support and not engagement--I support pragmatic engagement with China), it still bothers me to see us turn a blind eye to their domestic oppression and repression and their support for the genocidal regime in Khartoum. In fact, it makes me sick . . .

Speaking of sick . . .

The Hiatus is Over

I should have probably informed the avid reader of this blog (both of you), why it is that I have not posted since early July. The reason for my hiatus is that I recently sat for the Virginia Bar Exam, which was July 29th and 30th, so the whole month of July was largely a wash.

How was the Bar you ask? Well, it was a painful reality for the second summer in a row. Last summer I took the Michigan Bar (and passed) and this year Virginia. In all honesty, I know that hindsight is 20/20 and that my passing the Michigan Bar probably makes it seem easier in retrospect, but it also felt easier when compared to the Virginia Bar this year. I felt more prepared this time around, and still utterly useless in the face of a creditor's rights question snuck in right before the lunch break on the first day.

We shall see how I do in Virginia, but for now, that is my explanation for my absence.

Thanks to all who helped me and offered their support during my studies, (again, both of you).