Anyone remember that the reason we invaded Iraq was supposedly because they presented an immediate threat to the US, with their supposed WMD’s? Oh, Iraqis are dancing in the streets? Looks like our pre-emptive, unilateral invasion of a sovereign nation was justified. Maybe if Russia invades and kills Bush, I’ll dance in the streets for them, and justify their invasion of us.

The logic behind people’s thinking that this is now a just war, because some residents of Baghdad are happy is so patently absurd on its face that it boggles the mind that such a high percentage of our citizenry can be so god damned stupid. We invaded a sovereign nation. We did not prove that it presented an immediate threat to us. We deposed a bad guy, who we knew was a bad guy, that no one questioned. We walked all over their military, something no one quesitoned would happen. We did so at the expense of alienating our allies, spending well into the trillions of dollars (by the time our nation-building exercise is complete), and creating a new, pre-emptive doctrine for “self-defense” that upends the concepts of real “self-defense.”

It is staggering to me, to believe that people are so unwilling or unable to see the consequences of what our nation has done. It boggles my mind that people *support* this nonsense, and it is obscene, to me, that I can be labelled “not supporting our troops” or “unAmerican” for even *questioning* why we would undertake such a monumentally stupid course of action.

Fuck you, President Bush. Fuck you and your Republican cronies, who have manipulated the nation with fear, with intimidation, and by using the memory of the tragedy of September 11th. Fuck you, Ashcroft, for the Patriot Act (and its potential sequel) and fuck the Congress for allowing this to happen. This is no democracy, this is capitalism run completely amok. The real test of our nation is whether we have the capacity to understand what we have done, and bear the consequences, starting with removing this criminal administration from power in 2004, and bringing those responsible to justice.

Starting with the incompetant leader that was foisted on us.

Hm. So I sorta chickened out at the last minute, and cancelled the car donation. There’s some chance I can get a relatively cheap engine replacement, after which I can either fix up the rest of the car, or sell it. Either way, if the engine works, it’ll either be worth more as a donation, or it will be useful to me for longer, or it’ll get more in a private-party sale. It’s hard to say. Regardless, the little car’s sitting in my work’s back lot, where it’ll stay ’till it can be repaired. Hopefully, I’ll know something more soon.

An open letter to the rest of the world:

Dear Sir/Madam/etc.:

I’m sorry. I’m sorry that the country I live in has waged a unilateral, preemptive war in Iraq, based on no proof of an immediate threat to our country. I’m sorry we have an unelected leader who is a right-wing ultra-“conservative” zealot, who for some reason or another believes that there’s an omnipotent being backing his actions. I don’t know what lead to that delusion on his part. I’m sorry we’ve completely screwed your country, whether you’re “with us” or “against us”, and whether we’re dropping bombs on your country, or merely have coerced your military to send members of your country to die along with ours, for this pointless slaughter.

I’m sorry I haven’t personally been able to do anything about it, try though I might – I send letters to my elected representatives, and though some manage to speak out for me, most of them are real disappointments, more concerned with their own political survival than doing what’s right. I’m sorry that I won’t get another substantive chance to speak out, by voting, against this sham of a President until next year. Honestly, that date can’t get here soon enough. I’m sorry that by then, the war will likely either be over, or have cost us, and everyone else, thousands, if not tens of thousands of needless deaths.

I’m sorry that there’s so many people in my country who are so blindly ignorant that they support this nonsense – believe me, I don’t understand them any better than you do. If I could fathom the staggering ignorance it takes to believe that Iraq was somehow behind the attacks on 9/11, or that a pre-emptive war based on no evidence was somehow “self defense”, or how invading a country when the inspection process was in full swing would be beneficial, perhaps I could understand the causes behind this mass idiocy, and work to correct it. But unfortunately, I have no understanding of why so many people are so completely mentally crippled that they are unable to understand the consequences of the country’s actions. I guess perhaps our educational system has failed us, or we spend too much time watching TV, or something. Whatever it is, I whole heartedly apologize.

I’m sorry that we’ve squandered our role as a partner in a multilateral world. I’m sorry that we’ve backed out of international treaties, that we’ve ignored the pleas of countries really in dire need, in order to blow up Iraq. I know it seems senseless to you, and it does to me, too. I don’t really have any good explanation for it. I hope you can believe me when I say that I don’t support this administration, that they do not speak for me, that the actions they commit aren’t in my name. I hope you can understand that these are the actions of a tyrannical madman and the people controlling him, and not what we want out of our country’s leadership. I hope you can understand that I will do everything in my power as an individual to make sure that his reign of tyranny ends as quickly as possible, and I hope that one day, we can mend the fences we have broken, restore the alliances we once had, and work together, in a multilateral way, to achieve a peaceful world for everyone.

Until then, I again offer my apologies.

Had the Mitsu picked up from the gas station it was sitting in, and towed to the back lot of where I work. Sad thing, that poor little car. Have a lot of good memories with it, from driving to and from San Jose, when my girlfriend still lived down there, and all the places it’s taken me. It worked hard, was great fun to drive, and unfortunately, now it’s dead. Hopefully, the car will still give some people benefit – it’s going to be donated to the California Council for the Blind, and whether they rebuild it, or take the parts that are working, and find them new homes, hopefully, my first car will keep providing people with utility and happiness for some time to come.

I think what I’ll do about getting another car is save up a bit, and get a classic Mini, and spend some time rebuilding it. Went and test drove one this weekend, and it was a blast to drive. Probably will cost about $5K to get one in decent shape, then more, but spread over a longer term, to fix it up so that it looks and works really sharp. Hopefully, this will be a car to learn on, since mechanically, it’s much simpler than the GT, which was always a bit daunting. But, I can’t afford it right now – too many house expenses to worry about and such, and so, it’ll have to wait a few months.

So, earlier this week, my car kicked the bucket. Apparently, a broken valve, and a possibly bent crankshaft means that it’d cost more than it’s worth to have it completely inspected and then repaired. As a result, I’ll most likely be donating my car to one of the vehicle-pickup charities, like the California Council for the Blind (no, they don’t drive the car away, and yes, that joke has been made). What next? Hard to say. Fortunately, I have a car accessible to me pretty much whenever, so immediate replacement hasn’t been a huge necessity. However, I would like to have a car, and though I can’t afford one of the newer Mini Cooper’s, an old one might do the trick. Hard to say, though, whether I’ll a.) be able to afford it, and b.) be able to fix up one I could afford properly. We’ll see, though, I suppose. 😀 The 3000GT is dead – long live the 3000GT. I really liked that car, and though it gave me a lot of mechanical difficulty, was always fun to drive. I hope that the CCftB gets good use out of it, and is either able to fix it up, or find its still-working parts (of which there are many) a good home.

As if to drive the point home, congress has now officially shown that they’re nothing more than a bunch of whiny, petulent brats. Shut up, kids. Please – don’t say another word – every goddamn second you fucking speak, you embarrass the entire goddamn country. Dammit.

It’s kinda weird, I was watching TV the other night, and someone on the tube was talking about how “wrong” it was that people were talking like “they were ashamed to be an American.” Got me to thinking, because I *am* ashamed to be an American right now, and I don’t think that it’s wrong. Sure, I’m proud to have a voice in my government, I’m glad that I have the freedom to say stuff like “the President is a moron,” and all in all, I’m really happy to live in a relatively free state, with relatively few restrictions on my personal freedoms, in an innovative and creative society. However, *right now*, can I really say that I’m *proud* to be an American? No.

Why? Blame it on Bush & the Administration. Can I feel proud I’m a member of a society that thinks that the UN is “irrelevant” when it doesn’t suit their whims? Can I feel proud that my country is pushing for war in a country on the other side of the globe for reasons they can’t even decide on themselves, much less convince anyone else of? Am I proud that the best evidence we can come up with is vague, or plagiarized, or easily contradicted, yet we still push headlong for war, despite the protests of our own people? Am I proud that our President wasn’t elected? Am I proud that our freedoms are being squashed, the public manipulated like a herd of sheep, and the class divisions in this country getting larger by the minute? Of course not.

Is that wrong? I think that you’d find a lot of Americans would spit something like, “Love it or leave it,” or, “If you don’t like it, get the hell out.” I would think that there’s nothing less American than not voicing your opinion, and staying put in the hopes that one can make a difference. That’s one of the great benefits of American society – the freedom to dissent, and the freedom to express your utter disgust with the leaders in charge. You are responsible for them, because (at least most of the time) you put them there. Sure, Bush is a pitiful, brain-dead pretender to the “throne,” but it’s the American thing to do to tell him that we think he’s a failure, and that he makes us ashamed. Ashamed to be an American, and proud of it.

So, as many of you know, our house has been undergoing some … upgrades, and as a result, the air in the house has been rather dusty, a good portion of the time. A couple days ago, my computer started making some horrible noises. Normally, I leave it on all the time, but I started having to turn it off because I was a.) worried that the cooling fans would seize up, and the system would overheat, and b.) the noise was keeping me up at night.

Turns out, the problem was that all the fans in the machine were shot, or needed some cleaning. The CPU heatsink fan was so gunked up, it’d get “stuck”, even though the bearings were actually still alright. After cleaning that out, and purchasing a pin heat sink, rather than the fin style that’s more common (the pin heatsinks are really, really cool from a heat-dissipation perspective, and surprisingly, substantially more efficient at heat exchange than the traditional model. On top of that, I know the guy who invented them, so it’s sort of entertaining, in that respect). I bought a kit with the pin sink and a fan, but the fan was SO LOUD that you could hear it in the dining room, on the opposite side of the house from the computer. So, I cleaned out the old fan, and mounted it to the new sink, and things were good. Mounted the crazy-ass fan to the old fin style sink, and now I’ve got something if I wanna overclock my old Celeron, which I really don’t.

But, that didn’t fix the problem. I knew the muffin fan in my power supply was gunked up, so I opened up the power supply, and took out a giant dustball that happened to contain a fan. Blew out the power supply, too, and promptly started sneezing. I mean, this thing was pretty much a block of solid dust, not unlike what you’d find in a vacuum cleaner bag. But, I put in an Antec Blue LED muffin fan, so now the back of my computer glows blue. No, I wouldn’t have gotten it, except for the fact that it was identical in price to all the other fans, so it didn’t seem to matter. ‘sides, it looks cool, sorta, when all the lights in the house are off…

But still, the really irritating noise persisted. So, after poking around a bit, it turned out my video card’s processor fan was the culprit of the nasty grinding noise. The problem is, when my computer’s on its side, and running (which is what orientation it’s in when I’m working on it) the fan’s quiet. But after about 30 seconds upright, it starts making some really hideous noises. Took off that fan, blew out the clogged up heatsink, and felt the rotation of the fan. Sure enough, the bearings in this little fan aren’t sealed, and the bearings were shot. All crunchy on the inside. Another trip to CompUSA got me a not-quite-right-sized replacement, but it was good enough to screw in in a way that held it on ok. Higher powered fan, too, so that’s good, ’cause that card (GeForce2 Pro, Hercules) gets pretty darn hot.

So. That’s every fan in the system. My computer’s still not particularly *quiet*, say, but at least it doesn’t sound like I’m running over cockroaches with a go-kart anymore.

Man, there’s definitely something frustrating about living in a house that’s constantly under construction. I’m more or less ok with it most of the time, or so, but there’s definitely a desire to have this whole project finished already. I mean, there’s not a completely ludicrous amount of work to be done. Mostly new drywalling, and dealing with floors and such. Not utterly terrible stuff, just hard to do while living in the house. There’ll be a point where we move rooms around, and start ripping up the place a room at a time, but it’s not a particularly speedy process, say. Still, the problem is more or less just a lack of “moved in” ness that’s getting to be pretty frustrating. Ah, well.

It’s definitely a little weird trying to blog, and switching between politics and videogames. It sorta makes both look ridiculous. Videogames, in the face of some world politics look like, well, a waste of time, and politics, on the other hand, just looks so absurd that it makes many videogames look like somber, serious works of art. It’s strange. I mean, if you’d written a movie based on Bush’s presidency, no one would buy into it – the premise would be too utterly ridiculous. Yet, here we are, and real life has utterly trumped any sort of fictional media. I dunno. So I’m not really sure what to write about, in a sense, because I’m not sure if anyone’s actually reading all this nonsense anyway.

The knee: The knee’s getting better, slowly. I’m recovering from a January operation to fix up some cartiledge and ligament damage that was getting un-ignorable. I’ve got about 70% of my range of motion back, and I can walk relatively normally now, which is good. Nothing weird has happened to the knee yet. Essentially, I can do almost anything but carry loads up stairs, or squat. Which makes working on the house a bit of a pain in the ass, at times. But whatever. No big shakes.