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Jul. 17th, 2008
(no subject)
Jul. 17th, 2008 11:28 amI am so completely lovin' Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog! Thankfully, they've added enough bandwidth to allow me to see chapter 2 today instead of tomorrow when demand dies down.
(no subject)
Jul. 17th, 2008 11:28 amI am so completely lovin' Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog! Thankfully, they've added enough bandwidth to allow me to see chapter 2 today instead of tomorrow when demand dies down.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/africa/articles/2008/07/17/zimbabwe_economys_woes_keep_adding_up/
The German company that has been providing parts and paper for the Zimbabwean mint has stopped doing so, which is already causing a crisis that's going to get worse.
Fidelity Printers is Mugabe's lifeline. It prints the money to pay the police, soldiers and intelligence organs that keep the regime in power. Lately, the money has been used to set up a network of command bases around the country staffed by liberation war veterans and youth militias, paid muscle to terrify the population into voting for Mugabe in the June 27 presidential runoff.
If the regime can't pay the security forces on which it relies, it would face economic paralysis - and potential collapse.
Zimbabwe's economic meltdown harks back to the collapse of its major export industry, commercial farming, after Mugabe's controversial land reform program early in the decade. That left the nation starved of foreign exchange, but government spending went on.
How did it do that? It printed money. But printing more and more money without an increase in productivity fueled rampant hyperinflation.
As hyperinflation spiraled last year, Fidelity printed million-dollar notes, then 5-million, 10-million, 25-million, 50-million. This year, it has been forced to print 100-million, 250-million and 500-million notes in rapid succession, all now practically worthless. The highest denomination is now 50 billion Zimbabwean dollars (worth one US dollar on the street).
And a columnist in the Globe, Kevin Cullen, writes:
As for the sanctity of marriage, does that refer to the 50 percent that end in divorce or the 50 percent that don't?
I never understood how this became a liberal/conservative thing. I thought gay marriage was something the religious right would try to foist on gay people. You know, so gay couples could be miserable like the rest of us.
What could be more conservative than being monogamous and raising kids, living an existence that is about as exciting as being a penguin on the Galápagos Islands?
A lot of people oppose gay marriage on religious grounds, and they are perfectly entitled to. But, as I recall, the Puritans who first settled Massachusetts were followed by generations who gradually stopped believing that God sat around thinking of ways to smite sinners. And, then, of course, there are many people who don't believe religion should be used to dictate the laws of a democratic republic.
Is this a great country or what? And because this is a great democracy, the people who still get worked up about gay marriage can work to vote out those in the Legislature who have voted at each turn to enshrine it in law.
Of course, they tried that two years ago and got their clocks cleaned. They're entitled to try again, and good luck to them. But at some point, a good fight becomes pointless. Every generation, every century, what was perceived as "normal" or "mainstream" changes, and there's no going back.
You're certainly entitled to not approve of homosexuals, but if you think they're going to go back into the closet to spare you your discomfort, you don't know human nature and you certainly don't know human history.
And if you think that once a civil right is recognized by the state's highest court you can somehow change it back to the way it was, or that you can get a popular referendum so a majority can strip a civil right from a minority, I own a bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in.
Some who oppose gay marriage are deeply principled. Others are bigots. But they share a common cause. Their cause in Massachusetts is dead.
It's over.
Get used to it.
And if you don't like homosexuals, don't marry one.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/07/17/tilting_at_windmills/
The German company that has been providing parts and paper for the Zimbabwean mint has stopped doing so, which is already causing a crisis that's going to get worse.
Fidelity Printers is Mugabe's lifeline. It prints the money to pay the police, soldiers and intelligence organs that keep the regime in power. Lately, the money has been used to set up a network of command bases around the country staffed by liberation war veterans and youth militias, paid muscle to terrify the population into voting for Mugabe in the June 27 presidential runoff.
If the regime can't pay the security forces on which it relies, it would face economic paralysis - and potential collapse.
Zimbabwe's economic meltdown harks back to the collapse of its major export industry, commercial farming, after Mugabe's controversial land reform program early in the decade. That left the nation starved of foreign exchange, but government spending went on.
How did it do that? It printed money. But printing more and more money without an increase in productivity fueled rampant hyperinflation.
As hyperinflation spiraled last year, Fidelity printed million-dollar notes, then 5-million, 10-million, 25-million, 50-million. This year, it has been forced to print 100-million, 250-million and 500-million notes in rapid succession, all now practically worthless. The highest denomination is now 50 billion Zimbabwean dollars (worth one US dollar on the street).
And a columnist in the Globe, Kevin Cullen, writes:
As for the sanctity of marriage, does that refer to the 50 percent that end in divorce or the 50 percent that don't?
I never understood how this became a liberal/conservative thing. I thought gay marriage was something the religious right would try to foist on gay people. You know, so gay couples could be miserable like the rest of us.
What could be more conservative than being monogamous and raising kids, living an existence that is about as exciting as being a penguin on the Galápagos Islands?
A lot of people oppose gay marriage on religious grounds, and they are perfectly entitled to. But, as I recall, the Puritans who first settled Massachusetts were followed by generations who gradually stopped believing that God sat around thinking of ways to smite sinners. And, then, of course, there are many people who don't believe religion should be used to dictate the laws of a democratic republic.
Is this a great country or what? And because this is a great democracy, the people who still get worked up about gay marriage can work to vote out those in the Legislature who have voted at each turn to enshrine it in law.
Of course, they tried that two years ago and got their clocks cleaned. They're entitled to try again, and good luck to them. But at some point, a good fight becomes pointless. Every generation, every century, what was perceived as "normal" or "mainstream" changes, and there's no going back.
You're certainly entitled to not approve of homosexuals, but if you think they're going to go back into the closet to spare you your discomfort, you don't know human nature and you certainly don't know human history.
And if you think that once a civil right is recognized by the state's highest court you can somehow change it back to the way it was, or that you can get a popular referendum so a majority can strip a civil right from a minority, I own a bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in.
Some who oppose gay marriage are deeply principled. Others are bigots. But they share a common cause. Their cause in Massachusetts is dead.
It's over.
Get used to it.
And if you don't like homosexuals, don't marry one.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/07/17/tilting_at_windmills/
http://www.boston.com/news/world/africa/articles/2008/07/17/zimbabwe_economys_woes_keep_adding_up/
The German company that has been providing parts and paper for the Zimbabwean mint has stopped doing so, which is already causing a crisis that's going to get worse.
Fidelity Printers is Mugabe's lifeline. It prints the money to pay the police, soldiers and intelligence organs that keep the regime in power. Lately, the money has been used to set up a network of command bases around the country staffed by liberation war veterans and youth militias, paid muscle to terrify the population into voting for Mugabe in the June 27 presidential runoff.
If the regime can't pay the security forces on which it relies, it would face economic paralysis - and potential collapse.
Zimbabwe's economic meltdown harks back to the collapse of its major export industry, commercial farming, after Mugabe's controversial land reform program early in the decade. That left the nation starved of foreign exchange, but government spending went on.
How did it do that? It printed money. But printing more and more money without an increase in productivity fueled rampant hyperinflation.
As hyperinflation spiraled last year, Fidelity printed million-dollar notes, then 5-million, 10-million, 25-million, 50-million. This year, it has been forced to print 100-million, 250-million and 500-million notes in rapid succession, all now practically worthless. The highest denomination is now 50 billion Zimbabwean dollars (worth one US dollar on the street).
And a columnist in the Globe, Kevin Cullen, writes:
As for the sanctity of marriage, does that refer to the 50 percent that end in divorce or the 50 percent that don't?
I never understood how this became a liberal/conservative thing. I thought gay marriage was something the religious right would try to foist on gay people. You know, so gay couples could be miserable like the rest of us.
What could be more conservative than being monogamous and raising kids, living an existence that is about as exciting as being a penguin on the Galápagos Islands?
A lot of people oppose gay marriage on religious grounds, and they are perfectly entitled to. But, as I recall, the Puritans who first settled Massachusetts were followed by generations who gradually stopped believing that God sat around thinking of ways to smite sinners. And, then, of course, there are many people who don't believe religion should be used to dictate the laws of a democratic republic.
Is this a great country or what? And because this is a great democracy, the people who still get worked up about gay marriage can work to vote out those in the Legislature who have voted at each turn to enshrine it in law.
Of course, they tried that two years ago and got their clocks cleaned. They're entitled to try again, and good luck to them. But at some point, a good fight becomes pointless. Every generation, every century, what was perceived as "normal" or "mainstream" changes, and there's no going back.
You're certainly entitled to not approve of homosexuals, but if you think they're going to go back into the closet to spare you your discomfort, you don't know human nature and you certainly don't know human history.
And if you think that once a civil right is recognized by the state's highest court you can somehow change it back to the way it was, or that you can get a popular referendum so a majority can strip a civil right from a minority, I own a bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in.
Some who oppose gay marriage are deeply principled. Others are bigots. But they share a common cause. Their cause in Massachusetts is dead.
It's over.
Get used to it.
And if you don't like homosexuals, don't marry one.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/07/17/tilting_at_windmills/
The German company that has been providing parts and paper for the Zimbabwean mint has stopped doing so, which is already causing a crisis that's going to get worse.
Fidelity Printers is Mugabe's lifeline. It prints the money to pay the police, soldiers and intelligence organs that keep the regime in power. Lately, the money has been used to set up a network of command bases around the country staffed by liberation war veterans and youth militias, paid muscle to terrify the population into voting for Mugabe in the June 27 presidential runoff.
If the regime can't pay the security forces on which it relies, it would face economic paralysis - and potential collapse.
Zimbabwe's economic meltdown harks back to the collapse of its major export industry, commercial farming, after Mugabe's controversial land reform program early in the decade. That left the nation starved of foreign exchange, but government spending went on.
How did it do that? It printed money. But printing more and more money without an increase in productivity fueled rampant hyperinflation.
As hyperinflation spiraled last year, Fidelity printed million-dollar notes, then 5-million, 10-million, 25-million, 50-million. This year, it has been forced to print 100-million, 250-million and 500-million notes in rapid succession, all now practically worthless. The highest denomination is now 50 billion Zimbabwean dollars (worth one US dollar on the street).
And a columnist in the Globe, Kevin Cullen, writes:
As for the sanctity of marriage, does that refer to the 50 percent that end in divorce or the 50 percent that don't?
I never understood how this became a liberal/conservative thing. I thought gay marriage was something the religious right would try to foist on gay people. You know, so gay couples could be miserable like the rest of us.
What could be more conservative than being monogamous and raising kids, living an existence that is about as exciting as being a penguin on the Galápagos Islands?
A lot of people oppose gay marriage on religious grounds, and they are perfectly entitled to. But, as I recall, the Puritans who first settled Massachusetts were followed by generations who gradually stopped believing that God sat around thinking of ways to smite sinners. And, then, of course, there are many people who don't believe religion should be used to dictate the laws of a democratic republic.
Is this a great country or what? And because this is a great democracy, the people who still get worked up about gay marriage can work to vote out those in the Legislature who have voted at each turn to enshrine it in law.
Of course, they tried that two years ago and got their clocks cleaned. They're entitled to try again, and good luck to them. But at some point, a good fight becomes pointless. Every generation, every century, what was perceived as "normal" or "mainstream" changes, and there's no going back.
You're certainly entitled to not approve of homosexuals, but if you think they're going to go back into the closet to spare you your discomfort, you don't know human nature and you certainly don't know human history.
And if you think that once a civil right is recognized by the state's highest court you can somehow change it back to the way it was, or that you can get a popular referendum so a majority can strip a civil right from a minority, I own a bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in.
Some who oppose gay marriage are deeply principled. Others are bigots. But they share a common cause. Their cause in Massachusetts is dead.
It's over.
Get used to it.
And if you don't like homosexuals, don't marry one.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/07/17/tilting_at_windmills/