why am i yelling?

Let’s see … what’s been up the past few weeks?

I haven’t given enough of a shit to read into the “don’t touch my junk” stories. I have no issue taking my shoes off, taking my laptop out of its case and getting scanned. I’ve been singled out once or twice (far less than I expected considering I’m brown) and gotten a pat down and that hasn’t bothered me either. The full body scanners do creep me out - not so much because it’ll see through my Body by Victoria Secret bra (seriously people - the best bra ever) but because it pushes us in the direction of technology that scans RF IDs (already implemented in warehouses for inventory purposes). If our credit cards or driver’s licenses start coming with RF IDs - a lot of information will be scan-able to virtually anyone persistent enough to figure out how to do it. I guess I protecting my medical history and social security number ranks a bit higher than a bunch of low-paid TSA employees getting to see a 24/7 peep show.

Shallow note of the week - which I’ve already tweeted about - TONY PARKER AND EVA LONGORIA ARE GETTING DIVORCED. I guess Tony Parker realized he’s a legitimately talented basketball player and his wife starred on a crappy TV show.

RE Obama returning from Asia without the economic commitments he wanted to get - if the US’s goal is to get China to raise the value of the Yuan it’s not going to happen any time soon. Even though the Federal Reserve has a lot of sway in manipulating the value of the dollar here, it still involves a level of democracy. I am not bashing China’s form of government in any way here. All I’m saying is that they have no incentive to raise the value of the Yuan because people are FLOCKING to them for good since its value is so low.

LOVE LOVE LOVE the kid who asked Obama why he doesn’t consider Pakistan a terrorist state. It’s a complex issue - America’s allied with a ton of countries not on the up and up in the past. The world needs to admit to itself that there is a faction in Pakistan that is hell-bent on maintaining uncertainty in the region and aiding extremists from Afghanistan. They could be doing it for so-called righteous, religious reasons or they could be doing it because the US is pouring a ton of money into the country. Despite the fact that there are _some_ Pakistanis who are sympathetic with the cause of the Taliban - it definitely doesn’t excuse unannounced US drone attacks within their borders. I vaguely remember reading something about sovereignty in my junior high social studies class …

The Facebook/MySpace announcement - So, now I can share messages between my Facebook and (non-existent) MySpace pages? MySpace needs to realize it is DEFUNCT in terms of social media - regardless of the number of users they have. Their pot of gold is the way they give artists a way to present their music, tour dates, videos, etc. Facebook does NOT have this - their fan pages for bands are grossly inefficient. They let me post messages about the band and discuss it with other fans, but that’s not what I want to do. I want to load a page - see a list of a band’s most popular, recently released songs and if they are on tour. That’s IT. Bottomline - Facebook and MySpace need to merge and Facebook needs to incorporate MySpace’s media management/presentation functionality (including the ability for an artist to style their page - sorry Facebook - I can only take so much Tahoma, grey, light blue and white).

So Republicans got control of the House? It’s really not the end of the world. This country has thrived during periods of time when different parties controlled the House/Senate and Executive branch. What _is_ of concern is the fact that insane uber-libertarian/social conservatives like Rand Paul won a senate seat. Thankfully, I can still have faith in this country after seeing the grossly unqualified Tea Party-er Christine O’Donnell lose to Chris Coons in Delaware. It was a little disconcerting reading Meghan McCain predict O’Donnell winning over Coons in a predominantly blue state. I enjoy reading her column in the Daily Beast, but today’s was a little too “by the books” when it comes to conservative rhetoric.

This country is having a knee jerk reaction to the last two years of a Democratic President, House and Senate. A lot of it probably has to do with the fact that the stimulus package was enacted prior to the health care overhaul. This ended up allowing Republicans to claim that the Democrats did nothing to create new jobs and improve the economy. Of course, whenever someone brings up the fact that the stimulus package was passed - the go-to response by opponents of it is that it hasn’t worked. Our country just experienced its deepest decline in economic welfare in its history - it’s going to take a bit more than 1.5 years to resuscitate it. Regardless of that argument, knee-jerkers (what I’m calling the folks who suddenly decided our country was headed in a horrible direction) will look at the health care legislation and consider it a giant waste of money and/or violation of constitutional rights. They’ll also mistakenly associate the TARP bail out with the Obama administration (even though it was passed at the end of 2008 - prior to him taking office).

Frankly, I think the fact that Democrats maintained control of the Senate after two years of the highest unemployment/foreclosure rates _and_ the passage incredibly socially progressive legislation is a sheer miracle. What’s the worst that could happen? It’s not like they (the conservatives) can repeal the health care bill (although they might be able to repeal parts of it). Just the simple fact that it got passed put it on the radar of the population and made money hungry insurance companies realize their policies will come under scrutiny.

Like I said - it’s not the end of the world. The uneducated bigots that have come to the forefront of the Tea Party movement scare the crap out of me (the rational members that preach fiscal conservatism don’t, of course), but I don’t feel like they’re going to get too far (considering their own party is skeptical of their qualifications). Plus, with the Republicans in control of the House - it will be far harder to play the blame game come 2012.