No Parking

Don't like Al Gore or George W. Bush? Vote for Harry Browne. I probably won't be, however. Iowa (and its 7 electoral votes) may still be up for grabs, and I don't want to undermine Gore's chances by casting my vote for Browne. You could say I fall into this category:

If you vote for Al Gore because you're afraid of the religious right, your vote will be interpreted as an endorsement for all the plans Al Gore has made for running your life.

I don't agree with that statement, since by that logic, a vote for Harry Browne is an endorsement for all of his plans. I agree with many of the libertarian positions, but like every other party, there are things I just think they're plain wrong about, for example, this:

Bring the troops home from overseas where they breed anti-American resentment — and quit relying on our overwhelming national offense, create a secure national defense, withdraw from all international organizations and mutual-defense treaties, and allow other countries to manage their own affairs.

So we should withdraw from the UN and NATO, give up our bases in Okinawa, Korea, and Cuba? That's a bad idea, mister.

Looking to kill three hours? I watched Magnolia last night. I think I muttered "this is weird" about ten times during the movie. It certainly is weird, but I enjoyed it. It's one of those films that's very hard to describe. I think that it's about life, death, regrets, suffering, love, guilt, and frogs, but not necessarily in that order. I gave the movie 8 out of a possible 10 points over at IMDB, but I can easily see how people could hate this movie.

I don't want to go off on a rant here, but sometimes the University I work for really ticks me off. Today, they've closed the parking lot where I normally park, a privilege for which I pay $90 a year. Are they doing maintenance on the parking lot? Construction? Flooding? Nope. There's a ceremony this afternoon to dedicate a memorial on campus, and they want to let the visitors use our parking lot. Of course, there is a parking lot already dedicated for visitors, but apparently they decided that it wasn't close enough to the memorial site. But, they told us, that for today only, we could park in the visitor lot. How generous of them.