Bonfire night/obligatory election comments/fire alarms

[enismirdal]

Had forgotten it's nearly bonfire night, until an almighty racket sounding a bit like and air raid began outside. Then I realised, darn, it's that time of year - everyone get ready for a full week of nightly BANGBANGBANG. I am not a great fan of fireworks. Yes, they are pretty, but so is slash art (or other art, if slash isn't really your thing); however, pictures of hot, kissing Elves don't injure, kill or disfigure people ('EWW' reactions don't count). They don't scare pets (really!), they don't disturb the sleep of 3rd parties, they don't damage property.

Consequently, I intend to 'celebrate' the 399th anniversay of Mr Guy Fawkes and his happy little friends' failed attempts to blow King James to smithereens by printing off pretty Elfy pics and sticking them up on my pinboard.

On the subject of the election: what has Blair said about the result? Something delightfully noncommittal and 'nice', I'm assuming? I wonder what he actually thinks. Does Bush have an army of brainwashed minions that live in a cupboard for 4 years straight, and then are let out only at election time? Cos I honestly haven't met anyone who has declared that they voted Bush. EDIT: OK, now I have! See comments! My flatmate expects riots, and not just in the States.

I propose that since who the president of the USA is has such a measurable effect on the rest of the world, all residents of Planet Earth should be allowed to vote.

And I think my carpet is a black hole. Everything that falls on to it seems to disappear.

Over the week-end a student removed the detection head from the fire
alarm system in the vicinity of her room in the vain hope that she could
cook undetected. In so doing, all the other occupants of that area were
put at risk. The student concerned will pay for the charges involved in
calling out the engineer from the alarm company and an additional amount
for the inconvenience caused to all those, students and staff, who were
inconvenienced when the alarms were triggered.

I wish to make it very clear that irresponsible actions of this nature
which put the lives of others at risk will be viewed by the College with
the utmost severity. Repeated actions of this kind could lead to the
individual concerned being denied the right to College accommodation.

Comments

[hermeneut-me.livejournal.com]

I second the idea that everyone on the planet should get to vote in their elections!

[aperfectdot.livejournal.com]

I am proud to say that I voted for Bush. Both times in fact. I feel that Bush is what our country needs right now. I just finished reading another american's rant that we put homeland security ahead and fear ahead of what is right. I have to agree with her. I feared Kerry. The first thing he would do is remove the patriot act that was put in place on 911, then he would pull our troups out of Iraq and turn that country over to the UN. Then he would farm out all of our jobs until there would be no amaerica. And if you think that pulling our troops out of Iraq would be a good thing, just ask the troops themselves. They didn't vote for Kerry. They know our presencse is needed over there. They know our presence is WANTED over there. If you live under our laws and the aftermath of the election, then by all means, come and vote. But since you don't, remember, not everything you read in the newspapers and see on tv is true. Speak to Americans, talk to our soldiers, then you will get a truer picture of what just happened. And another note, everyone that voted for Kerry, voted for the for one of two reasons. 1) He wasn't Bush (not a valid reason in my mind, although I have been guilty of that thinking myself) 2) They are for abortion and gay marriages. With all the constitutional ammendments passed by the states, even if Kerry did anything, it wouldn't matter. If the states don't recognize it, it didn't happen. I have many gay friends and probably many more that I do not know are gay. I will say this. I am against gay marriage. But I am not against civil unions.

Sorry I have filled up your lj with this.

Mirfain

[fhtagn.livejournal.com]

Marriage is a religious ceremony. Civil unions, as I understand it, are merely the legal cement which makes the marriage performed in a church into something recognised by the law. [This may not be the way the laws are worded but it's certainly the spirit.]

Surely then it's up to individual religions to decide if they want to marry two homosexuals? On the other hand, if society is prepared to acknowledge that the legal status of two people whose sole claim to each other is that some crackpot preacher muttered a few archaic words over them is equal to to two people married in a full Bells and Smells ceremony in St Paul's, surely the sexuality of the matter is irrelevent and same sex couples should be granted the same legal rights and responsibilities?

On the subject of Iraq I'll say little, because I feel it's a case where logic has little place on several of the sides (and yes, there are a lot of them). Personally though, I fail to see why an invading army under constant attack and a government supported only by outside intervention can be construed as wanted. On the other hand, empires are inherently unstable and collapse. ::grins:: I can wait.

[fhtagn.livejournal.com]

http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/K/KiplingRudyard/verse/p1/oldissue.html

I never could resist eternal truths, especially not when beautifully written.

[crazyca.livejournal.com]

I do not wish to attack you or anything...
But did you know that until 1991 Croatia was in quite a similar position as Iraq?
Besides the fact that the American troops helped us, there have been rapes and murders done by their side, also. But I am not getting into that.
What I am getting into is that they came here to kill the communism and spread the democracy as something good.
What do most Croats think right now?! "I wish we stayed in communism and never met the "joys" of "freedom" and "democracy"!
Trust me, Iraqi think the same...
American troops are not needed there. I doubt anyone was. They might have brought some good things, but the general account is under zero, sadly. I assure you from my own oppinion.

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

Well...I do believe that there were some horrendous human rights atrocities being committed in Iraq under Saddam, which means that now some people will be benefiting a lot.

Of course, even more and even worse atrocities are being committed in China every single day, especially to the Falun Gong followers. And no-one seems to be starting a war on China ^^

Also...I guess Croatia didn't allegedly have Weapons of Mass Destruction, whereas, of course, that was the main reason given for starting the war in Iraq. Also, apparently, a load of BS, but that was 'why' it began.

[mirien.livejournal.com]

Two things bother me about that reply.

The first is the sweeping generalisation that the troops did not vote for Kerry. They didn't? None of them? I respect your right to comment, but I fear that such a generalisation is both dangerous and inaccurate. Likewise the comment that they know a military presence is required in Iraq, OR that that presence is wanted by the Iraqi's. Beware the blanket comment, they are so seldom wholly true and they can be so destructive.

Note, incidentally, that I keep my own opinions on the war to myself.

Also, it is possible to do the duty you signed up to do and still be against a war, you would do well to remember that. My guess is that if you had indeed spoken to all the troops as your comment seems to blithely suggest, you would have realised that.

Secondly, I respect wholly your right to your opinion, but do you not think it ever so slightly tactless, and that is a word in favour of several other, far less charitable words I could use, to plaster your opinion on gay marriage on the internet given your friends? With comments like that, you have proved yourself no friend to any of them.

You say you are not against civil unions, but you are against marriage. Marriage should be a commitment based on love and the honouring of another. The state has no right to dictate where or between whom that should happen. What concerns me most about your opinion is that you seem to place the power of the state above the sanctity and sacredness of marriage and the right of individuals to make a commitment. That smacks to me of the kind of attitude that had a whole country nodding while a dictator set himself up to murder those he did not wish in his society.

And that does not even begin to address the fact that you have chosen to air your opinion in a public forum. The opinion is one thing, and that both sickens and worries me, but I respect your right to it despite the concerns I have voiced above. But airing it? I'm sorry, but that to me is utterly unacceptable.

Mirien

[aperfectdot.livejournal.com]

Does it matter one iota that I happen to know and speak to many in the military, including two nephews, and 8 cousins, several of whom are serving in Iraq. The ones on active duty are not the ones screaming about the war. They are the ones that voted for Bush. If you speak to them, you may ask them yourself.

[aperfectdot.livejournal.com]

Oh and another thing. Since when is it unallowable for one person to voice their opinion? Isn't that what a dictator would do?

[girlofthemirror.livejournal.com]

To lighten the tone...

Fireworks are fantastic! How can you not love the way that the first firework is always 'Ooohhhh' and the second is always 'aaahhhh'?

As for Bush, well whatever I think of him, it is up to Americans. So as I am not in the least keen to become one of them, I can just be pleased that he doesn't run my country (well, only runs it by proxy anyway). I dislike Bush as a polititon and I realy stronly disagree with most of his policies. But, what I was most worried about was that Kerry just conceded. Surely in a proper and democratic election you count all the votes and then see who has the most, rather than counting some of them snd then one of the people decideing to give up?

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

I think the American voting system is horrendously complicated, but seems to involve states making up their mind who they are voting for as a state, and only about 3 states actually seem to have any chance element in who the state as a whole is supporting (electoral colleges or somesuch - don't really understand it). And I think it had reached the point where basically, Kerry couldn't win whatever. So he probably just wanted to get home early and have a cup of tea!

I'm tending towards the opinion that they are both not nice people really, but Kerry might take a year or so to fully blossom into insanity, so the world might get a year's break, maybe.

[feanaros-house.livejournal.com]

Let me see. After Henry VIII and through to your Poor James, Catholics were not allowed to practice their religion as it was punishable by death. If they did not swear that the King was the head of the church, all their land and property was forfeit. Catholic religious establishments were not just closed but pillaged and often religious were killed. Fines that were an enormous amount were levied on poor people who did not attend Anglican services. To be a priest or to harbor one was an automatic death sentence. To extract a "confession," Fawkes and the others were tortured on the rack and in other ways. They were denied a Catholic priest before their sentence was to be carried out, a very significant thing to a Catholic. Their sentence was to be hung until they felt themselves choking to death and then to be cut down alive and disemboweled and cut into four pieces. Ah, you wish to celebrate this?

As to the other negative comments here about Americans and gay marriage, I will not dignify them with a comment.

Celebrimbor

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

Actually, you do have a very good point there. *realises that altogether, people pretty much sucked in the 17th century (except the ones who rebuilt St Catharine's college, who were probably OK)*

I guess it's just a 'tradition' that lost meaning a long time ago. Was probably actually forced on the British population in the first place.

I suppose I can just stick up Elf-pictures anyway...maybe tomorrow, since that way my pinboard gets brightened up all the sooner.

[fhtagn.livejournal.com]

The celebration is, in theory, celebration of the fact that traitors didn't murder the rightful King and Parliament. Very Patriotic and all that rot. Ambrose Bierce had it best. These days, most people don't know who the hell Fawkes was, and the celebrations are refered to as Firework's Night. Mind you, people still celebrate the fact that some semitic partisan was nailed to a dead tree because he opposed the formation of religious bureaucracies. Go figure.

Religion and politics are always a bad combination. Agnostic politicians are the way to go. They can't offend any religion any more than any other in their uncertainty. ::smiles::

The travails of the Kafflicks were always about money, not religion. Likewise the Jews in Europe. The religious aspect took quite a few years to settle in and now it's just tradition.

Legality and justice were not then as they are now. They were a lot scarier however. This may or may not be a good thing.

[edith-the-hutt.livejournal.com]

When did this blog start getting political? And where's the Elvish homoerotica?

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

LOL! I am actually really enjoying this as long as the debate remains intellectual and the arguments justified!

And don't worry - I have just this minute received the latest chapter of my twincest ficcie back from Ms Girly, so that'll be going up in the next day or so, I hope!

[aperfectdot.livejournal.com]

Oh and one reason you do not know many that voted for Bush is that most are afraid to say it. See what has happened here as an example. I have decided I do not give a hoot any longer and will darn well voice my opinions as I please.

[senji.livejournal.com]

See what has happened here as an example.

So, dissenting opinions scare Bush voters?

It's not as if people have threatened you with bodily violence, cursed you and the ground you have walked on, or even mildly flamed you and called you a moron; they have mearly engaged in civilized discussion with you.

[kali921.livejournal.com]

Wow. I just read this, being behind on LJ due to RL important political stuff. I do not think you have *anything* to apologize for - as an American, it makes me see red when others censor themselves after simply stating their honest opinion.

I loathe Bush. The person who stated that all of the military voted for Bush is extrapolating using a very small group of people - and it is ludicrous. One cannot retain any credibility and make statements like that.

I say if your views offend, offend, offend then by all means continue to offend. It's your LJ. This has been a mild discussion compared to most on LJ about Shrub's reelection, and you've probably seen my LJ as to how I feel about it.

Don't back down, don't apologize. Your opinion is valid and as an American, as cheesy as it sounds, I'll fight tooth and nail for anyone's right in the world to express their opinion.

[feanaros-house.livejournal.com]

This lady is not being told that she is not entitled to her political opinions but that we disagree with her opinion that it is fine for her to write slash, role play slash and enjoy slash as a sexual fantasy while at the same time espousing that marriage is between a "man and a woman" and that real life gay men and women should not be allowed a religious ceremony for their marriage. As she chooses to play in the slash sandbox, we express our opinion that her view is at best hypocritical.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/feanaros_house/4489.html

Respectfully,
Maglor

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the support *huggles* but in this case I do feel my apology was due. If my view had been based on detailed of analysis of the policies of both candidates and extensive talking to people of all views, then I'd probably be qualified to form an opinion. In this case, however, I really wasn't talking from an informed POV. I haven't even seen a TV since the end of September, and the British media is not exactly impartial on the matter. And with that background, I should have been far more careful about jumping in with tactless and generalised statements.

[feanaros-house.livejournal.com]

*Walks in with a huge stack of bourbon creams and some white malteasers for good measure and plops them down for Eni, carefully avoiding her "black hole" rug!*

How are you, sweetie? Let's you and I sit here and munch candy.

Love,
Maeglin

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

How about my ragrug? *sits down on it next to Maeglin and greedily takes a handful of white maltesers to hide before anyone else gets them* Can I get you anything? (I have squash, coffee, Lady Grey, echinacea or regular tea, or I can poke the flatmates to see what they have in!)

I'm fine, thank you, and definitely in favour of eating candy!

*hugs*
Eni

[millynoldorinwa.livejournal.com]

*gives Enis a hug* I totally agree with you, my sweet. I'm glad to see that some of my friends actually seem to share my pov on politics. I was a little shocked to see how many of them don't.

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

*hugs back* I quite liked edith_the_hutt's opinion on it all: "The trouble with elections is that politicians always win."

I think he may be right...