On Which I Pontificate on a Splendiferous Multitude of Topics

This Whole Olympics Thing
This whole Olympics thing is coming to a boil here in good ol' SF. My opinion: the Olympics are about countries coming together in athletics. The ideal time to lambaste China would have been when the International Olympic Committee was deciding to put the Olympics in Beijing. But ya'll screwed up and didn't argue against it well enough, so now that's where it is.

To put up a fuss when the torch-bearer goes by is just juvenile. China's human rights problems are significant and well-documented, but the guy/gal carrying the torch has nothing to do with that.

This sort of touches on my problem with protesting generally. It seems pretty useless about 90% of the time. If you want to change something, you change it. You don't sit on the curb and yell. It's the 4-year-old in the toy store approach to getting your way.

Protesting does have its place, in my opinion, where the harm is immediate and local. Some guy is arrested unfairly; some politician is holding a vote on a community issue. But China, my friends, is not local. Nobody in San Francisco can do squat about China's human rights abuses.

Those Goddamn Bicyclists
Listen, I like riding a bike. I wish I had one. But it does not give you a license to ignore both pedestrian and traffic laws. Riding through the intersection against the green light and making me jam on the breaks, and then flipping me off, means that dear God are you lucky I wasn't having a crappy day or you'd be pinned under my front tire right now. Ass.

This problem is more endemic in the Bay Area than anyplace else I've lived. You may have heard about some of the problems we have on Critical Mass night. I hate it, because I really do support riding to work and all that jazz. But that holier-than-thou, I yield to no man or vehicle attitude negates every good intention you idiots may have.

Stop Supporting Hillary You Morons
She is not a bad person. She would be a good candidate, if we did not have a better one. She is not the best candidate and she is not worth putting in the White House simply because she is a woman.

There is no reason not to vote for Obama. He has as much experience as Hillary (her "35 years" is worth about as much as my 30), he is more honest, and he is much smarter than the last "inexperienced" President. That guy needs to be run out of town on a rail, or something.

Hellooooo Ladies
Because you people complain that I don't talk about my personal/social life enough around here. Fair enough. But is a not-so-subtle but completely uninformative remark about an upswing in my dating life really better than nothing at all?