Also heard Ken Hutcherson filed another initiative Friday to repeal the state's new gay rights law. What's up with this guy? He doth protest too much me thinks.

Chavez is as big of a creep as Bush. Both are elected dictators and they both can go to hell.

"Now listen up, missy..."

I've been gone so you may have already discussed it and I don't know, but... what's everyone's take on these two school levys the city wants us to vote on? I'm starting to have my doubts about the school system's capability to use money effectively, and I'm not sure, even as a non-homeowner, I want to maintain inflated property taxes just to give them more money to throw away.

Plus, apparently, some of it's going to be used to expand facilities for privatized programs. Sounds to me like a jack. Plz advise if you believe this is not a jack, and why (concrete reasons, plz, none of that flowery plea-to-emotion bullshit about how children are our future.)

Also, congrats to Chicago Fan for his Bears returning to the Super Bowl after a brisk 21 year absence. Congrats to Archie's kid too, but sorry dude: like the Saints, I have a feeling the Bears are gonna spend SB XLI beating the crap out of a dome team in Miami's less than ideal conditions (even if it will be warmer than Chicago). Bears by at least two TDs.

@Gomez:

I agree. But I would . . .

For a dictator, Chavez has a funny way of acting like one.

Overwhelmengly elected, unlike Bush.

Was hit with a coup financed by the US and the Venezuelan right wing, and was put back in power by the people that elected him

The media in Venezuela is runned, controlled by the private sector who are anti Chavistas as they come. Major papers, radio and their silly Tv stations are runned by multi millionare conglemarates, there is no attempt in Venezuela to silence them or to confiscate them. They were the first ones to applaud the coup. They continue to operate freely and there is no ban on them. The private sector in Venezuela continues to operate freely,

Chavez Changed the Venezuelan constitution so that people in Venezuela can decided whether they wanted him to finish out his mandate. He won that election overwhelmingly. Can you honestly see president Bush having a special election today asking people if they want him to finish his mandate?

Chavez than ran for re-election and won by a huge majority, in one of the biggest turn outs in Venezuelan history.

Say what you will, about Chavez, hell he migt even be a despot in the future, he is certainly a caudillo, but he has done a lot for the poor of Venezuela. Not that anybody here cares, they just want the oild. He has done more than any other goverment in the history of Venezuela, and what the Chavez reality reflects is that the so called Free market reforms and free trade agreements are not working for the majority of the poor in Latin America. Chavez, Lula and Evo Morales represent dissatisfaction with the status quo and say what you will, it is the only time when the poor’s concerns are actually being heard.

The US and the US media and the public had no problems with the Venezuelan dictators of the past, the ultra corrupt governments including Carlos Andres Perez and others of the 80’s and 90’s that sunk Venezuela, deeper into poverty and corruption. The fact is what scares the US is that the poor of Latin America are going left, not in the old traditional violent overthrow left, but a left that is building a common latin American market, and is subsidizing programs for the poor.

Funny what ticks gringos off. Or how easy they can fabricate enemies for national consumption here.

By the way, if president Chavez referred to her as señorita (referring to her non married status) than he was actually not being disrespectful. If he, however, used “missy” in English, than that could be a diss, but since English is not his language he could have been trying to say miss. By the way Condie called Chavez all kinds of names, like despot and tyrant when she was there for the OEA meetings so why the fuck does he owe her respect?

Here is a real diss from Boondocks:

Condoleeza is a skeeza!

Clearly oil not oild. =(

Oh, Pats! You were my real desire. May God damn the Colts.

Great game nonetheless. Peyton did manage to kill the Pats with those two looooong drives in the third quarter. Chewed up the clock and burnt out the Pats' D. Fuckery, goddamit.

So, Chicago Fan, I am solidly now giving my broken sword to Rex and The Bears. I'm on your team for the Super Bowl, but for different reasons than you are (yours are permanent, mine are temporary). Go Bears!

The gender imbalance in China and India is scary in so many ways. Female infanticide aside (and that's disturbing enough), what's gonna happen when both countries have an army of several million frustrated young men with no reasonable chance of ever finding a mate?

Fun facts:

1) If the Bears win Super Bowl XLI, then the Seahawks' last two postseasons will have ended at the hands of the resulting Super Bowl Champion.

2) The two head coaches, Lovie Smith of the Bears and Tony Dungy of the Colts, are the first black head coaches to make it to the Super Bowl. Obviously, the winner will become the first black coach to win the Super Bowl.

I bet Chicago Fan ( like ALL Chicago "fans") was ripping Rex a new one for the first 40 minutes of that game.

I think Gomez is Ron Fairly.

True Doug -- But I got all snared up in Rex's Haze Of Confidence II, watching some of those balls start to come off his hand with utter effortlessness.

The Bears D clears an area and puts down the scatters of sand, alls Rex has to do is smile and get the soft-shoe going. Cute kid, look at him.

To clarify -- True Doug@12

Manning is Joe Montana.

I like both teams, and the Bears kept getting dissed all year, but got it done. It should be a fun superbowl as long as the Bears D continue to play like men amongst boys.

Other than Trent Dilford, the Chi has the worst superbowl-bound quearterback ever! Maybe even worse than Vince Ferragamo from the Rams back in da day.

SeMe #7 good post. Now if Mexico and its citizens could run its politics the same, and the government there actually gave a damn about the poor and did something to help them.
I never thought about much , i just considered Chavez some asshole Dictator just because our media up here and the politicians call him one.
You proved us wrong in that assumption and taught me alot. I'm looking at all this differently from now on.
Still if the Mexican people would stop pouring over into America , just because its"better up here" they should look to the Venezualans about what Pride and trust in ones own country in Latin American history. Maybe we have a hand whats going on in the government in Mexico and are just as responsible for the desperate reasons immigrants want to come to America. Thanks again SeMe for you interpretation of Chavez. Thats alot more believable than what the Media goads us into thinking. The same way they did Castro. He's even bent a little and our Government still gives him no love. He's so old and were still freaked out by him. I'm not.
Though they could use some new refrigerators down there. And for some reason I still do not trust Chavez. But, alas , it isn't my country. If the people want him ,they can have him.

Hey DOUG, did I ever tell you about my 4 run rule?....

Chavez was elected, so he should stay in power. He's still an amazingly undiplomatic asshole. My only concern is that he's now going to nationalize a bunch of industries and grab a bunch of power with new, executive-friendly laws. Next step: control the media (ala Putin in Russia), have an election board ferret out the competition (ala Iran) and pretty soon you have a democratic dictatorship (ala Cuba). You trumpet your "free and fair" elections, when in reality there's only one party that's in power. But, if elections do remain truly free and fair, and dissenting voices can be heard and dissenting parties can campaign, I have no problem with Chavez and his poor-friendly policies.

@tsm: maybe China will allow gay marriage. Although one would think that the value of women would increase (eg, through dowries) due to their rarity, and it would more balance out. China will be a very interesting place over the next 20 years.

Hawks lose. Chargers lose. Go Bears!

tsm and him,

I saw a great documentary on PBS last week "China From the Inside," and the Chinese women's rights advocates they interviewed said they believe that the gender imbalance will actually cause more sexual assaults and violence against women because something like 20 to 40 million men will never be able to have wives (or even female sexual partners?).

Allowing same sex marriage would be great for Chinese gays and lesbians, but it really does nothing for the majority of Chinese heterosexuals who have no romantic or sexual feelings for other men or women; these two unrelated issues have become strangely conflated. I’m gay and I would never marry a woman, and I would expect that a straight man would have no interest in sex or marriage with another man. It’s just not a choice.

And the culture there is so different --they have billboards advertising abortions which surprised me, but any frank talk about sexuality is largely taboo.

Males are favored because they are expected to take care of aging parents who may have no other resources at retirement. According to the Chinese activists, the solution is for China to implement a Western style social security system since they currently have no safety net. This would eventually lead to gender balance, but not soon enough to avert the inevitable gender-pocalypse we'll see in the next 20 years.

This problem will solve itself when China calls our debt with them, takes its 450 million man army and invades North America. The surplus of men gives them a huge attrition buffer.

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