How To Be a Spy, Part I

In today's Spy Lesson, we'll be learning how to dampen an S.T.R.-Elektronik HT2003 Intercom's AC Buzzer to an acceptable volume level.

If you, like the Spy Master, like sleeping, and you, again like the SM, hate people waking you up with obnoxious bells, use this handy tip to increase your Spy-sleep by 30%. That means 30% more rest for nocturnal spying activities!


"Eunuchize" your HT2003's AC Buzzer

1. Identify Unit
   The HT2003 intercom system is made by S.T.R.-Electronik. The Spy Master's Learning Unit is a brown, two-piece intercom with the following basic parts:
   
   • the intercom base, attached to wall, with two buttons:
     • a 'key' button on the left,
     • and a 'red block' button on the right
   • a telephone-like receiver, attached via a curly telephone-like cord


2. Open Unit
   Remove the receiver and let it down to the floor. This will open the circuit to the main board, so this might cause unexpected problems, such as blocking other people's calls. However, since most of your spy-activities will occur late at night, this shouldn't be too much of a problem. Just be aware that if you shock yourself and scream out in pain, passersby in the street may hear it over the loudspeaker and your cover will be blown. (1)
   
   Pry off the outer cover of the unit by inserting a screwdriver in the upper-right and upper-left hand corners and depressing the internal plastic hooks holding the cover on. Remove the faceplate by pulling down from the top -- the bottom hooks will disengage automatically this way.


3. Find the AC Buzzer inside
   Here's a schematic, which will show you what you're looking at now. You want to find the AC Buzzer, which is a drum with a metal plate connected to it. The metal plate will overhang the front or top of the drum, which it collides with, making that buzzing noise. That's the thing you need to dampen.
   
   The AC Buzzer might be labeled "AC12V." It will have two pronged-foot contacts on the bottom and one feeder wire running to each foot. If you remove the whole panel from the wall (via the corner screws), you'll see that you can remove the AC Buzzer by unscrewing the securing screw on the reverse of the wall plate.


4. Eunuch-ize
   Three methods are acceptable. The first is the most drastic and will render the device impotent. The second solution is to dampen the sound. The third solution is replacement.
   
   • Kill the circuit by either:
     
     1. removing one or both of the feeder wires. Insulate contacts with electrical tap and then fasten them separately to the back of the plate. Cautious spies try to avoid breaking anything they don't have to.
        
     2. removing the AC Buzzer. Unscrew the fastening screw on the back of the wall plate and disconnect the contacts. Pack-Rat and Klepto spies will keep the AC Buzzer around for later use.
        
     3. or cutting the wires. This is the Bad-Ass spy thing to do, as it involves wire-cutters and that oh-so-cool "click" of the wire being neutered. Very bad-ass, indeed.
   • Dampen the AC Buzzer with a bobby pin (or a paper clip). Run the bobby pin across the contact plate on the AC Buzzer, so that the bobby pin lies flat against the drum, but also has one arm in front of the plate, as well. This will prevent the plate from bouncing up and down and "clacking." The plate will move a little, and you should get a distinct, but quiet, buzzing noise from now on.
   • Replace the buzzer with something else. This is the Prankster spy's favorite way to go. The AC Buzzer works off of a 12-volt line, so be sure to put another 12-volt noisemaker in there.


5. Reconstruction
   Put the whole thing back together. A good spy always has a lookout on the street to test the newly neutered buzzer. Wipe down everything to make sure you leave no fingerprints. Hop into your spy-helicopter on the roof, and get the heck outta dodge.

Mission accomplished. Good work, cadet. Take the rest of the day off.



---------Endnote---------
1. Everybody knows real spies don't cry out in pain.

The Cheat is Not Dead

I'm so glad the Cheat is not dead.

More Wondeful Things

• Megawatt already got onto the Wall of Sham (see right, below), but this post was worth a direct link. Bonus Point: A friend of mine is from Ingolstadt, and this was news to him, too.


• From a different time:
  
  [Abolitionist James] Forten told [newspaper editor William Lloyd] Garrison that the paper had quickly "roused up a Spirit in our Young People, that had been slumbering for years, and we shall produce writers able to vindicate our cause." (1)
  
  Not soldiers -- writers. Beautiful!


• I was baking pies (2) from last Friday until this past Wednesday night. It was great. In the process, I turned my lappytop into a convenient Jukebox in the kitchen, where I proceeded to blare Nina Simone's croonings all over the building. Damn good stuff, that. She's beautiful and fiesty; her two-disc anthology is well worth the money. (Also available via iTunes Music Store, for those of you Apple- and iPod-enabled.)


• Hans (3) told me a joke last night that was pretty funny, even though I didn't get it at first:
  
  Präsident Bush sagte zu einer ABC-Journalistin, dass Iraq viele Massenvernichtungswaffen gehabt habe. Sie fragte ihn, warum er das noch glaubte, wann keine Vernichtungswaffen gefunden wurden, und die meisten der Welt glaubte, dass Saddam solche Waffen nicht hat bauen wollen, oder zu mindestens hat er nicht bauen können?
  
  Der Präsident sagte bloß, "Wir haben doch unsere Quittung gefunden."
  
  Har har! Suck on that, Rummy! (4)


• I must say:
  
  Ladies, you made Thanksgiving one of the best I've ever had. Truly impressive, massive efforts were involved, and I was surprised at how comfortably and warmly everything was pulled off. Much love to you all, and thanks for your hard work. It truly made Bamberg feel like the South Carolina that we all love, if only for one day.

-----------Endnotes---------
1. "The Liberator and the Shaping of African American Tradition, 1829-1832" from The Origins of African-American Literature, 1680-1865. Bruce, Dickson D., Jr., Ed. p. 194. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2001. Emphasis mine.
2. Pies, apple. Thank you very much for the recipe, Mom!
3. All (or at least most) of the names printed here are changed to protect both the innocent and the really, really, really guilty.
4. I might get invaded if Rummy ever reads that. Let's be glad I don't google too highly. If you've translated it, but it still doesn't make sense, read this.

And for the record, he was finished well before he started screaming bloody murder . . . .

"[Howard] Dean [is] best known for one of the most stunning political meltdowns of all time, transforming himself from persumptive nomineee to red-faced man-banshee in a matter of minutes." (1)

I now rely on The Daily Show to provide all my English-language, American news.



------------Endnote----------
1. Helms, Ed. The Daily Show with John Stewart. "Helms - The Democrats' Political Bind." http://www.comedycentral.com/tv_shows/thedailyshowwithjonstewart/. Nov. 21, 2004: (original air date unknown). Emphasis mine.

Scr(e)am

I thought that I would take a break from my long-winded anti-Empire propaganda for a minute and applaud a truly great American institution.

Go NASA! I love you guys. You take all the fun of being a 14-year-old boy interested in blowing sh*t up, and make it Science. That is undeniably awesome.

Congrat's on a successful flight. This is also undeniably awesome. I would hope for continued funding for stuff like this, but the Moon will be fun, too, once we get there. (Keep an eye out for these guys, though -- they're bad news up in that 'hood.)

Anyway, as far as cool toys go, I'd like to build my own Scramjet. If I ever got rich, I'd play with this kind of stuff, too.

For more cool physics, chemistry, politics, humor, and other internet-y crap (all in a language you don't know!), check out Megawatt. (Don't be afraid of the Fetishism.)

Politics on Three Continents

Bush, Blair Unconvincing, Repeating Catch-Phrases

Neither one said anything interesting in yeseterday's press conference. Of course, that's not surprising, but here's a quick recount of their press conference:

• A two state solution
-- Israel and Palestine, "side-by-side" in democratic "harmony." What's new about this? Absolutely nothing, but humor points for to PM Blair for getting called out during a private interview by a reporter who pointed out that a two-state solution was "not new." Mr. Blair's response was something along the lines of, "Yes, well, but you see, this time [unstated corollary: now that Arafat is dead] we expect the Palestinians to embrace democracy -- and we never dreamed of that during Oslo!" (1)


• Democratic States
-- Again, why is "democracy" suddenly the key word, now that Arafat is dead? Was he holding up Israeli democracy? Does that mean that the Knesset isn't a democratic body? (Does that mean we get to invade Israel, a country that we've been arming for 50 years, and overthrow Sharon? That would be exciting!)
-- More importantly, though, wasn't Arafat elected? Sure he wasn't perfect, but:

Recognizing Mr. Arafat's failure to control violence among his people or to initiate helpful peace proposals, I use the word "legitimate" based on his victory in January 1996 by a strong majority of votes in an election monitored by the Carter Center and approved by the occupying Israelis. -- Jimmy Carter

Blair went so far as to say that the new elections to be held in 60 days would be the "first marker" for democracy in Palestine. Where were these guys in 1996? Of course, the real point of all this bluster was to put some pressure on Mahmoud Abbas: by casting the deceased (and therefore, helpless) Arafat as the Barricade to Peace (2), Abbas is going to be flushed out of the bushes to meet with Israel. Let the arm-twisting begin!


• Triumphalism!
--Lesson #1: When things aren't necessarily going your way (3), point out the successes of history. Bonus points if you can get in some from before you were born!

The Short List of Democratic Successes to Fall Back On:

• NATO-Expansion
• The Democratic revolutions in Eastern Europe (1990's)
• Germany, post-WWII
• Japan, post-WWII
• Afghanistan (4)

Things Best Left Unsaid:

• Somalia
• Darfur
• Rwanda
• Germany, post-WWI
• The British Invasion of the Middle East, post-WWI
• (Nuclear) Pakistan
• (Nuclear) North Korea



• Foreign Policy Thoughts
--Despite what CNN International initially reported last night, President Bush did not set a timetable for the peace process.

I think it is fair to say that I believe we've got a great chance to establish a Palestinian state, and I intend to use the next four years to spend the capital of the United States on such a state.

(...)

There is no other way to have a lasting peace, in my judgment, unless we all work to help develop the institutions necessary for a state to emerge: a civil society based upon justice, free speech, free elections, the right for people to express themselves freely.

The first step of that is going to be the election of a new president. And my fervent hope is that new president embraces the notion of a democratic state.

I hate to put artificial time frames on things. Unfortunately, I've got one on my existence as president. It's not artificial; it's actually real.

And I'd like to see it done in four years. I think it is possible. I think it is possible. (Emphasis mine.)


--The most interesting comment by far, however, was Blair's Bush Doctrine Corollary:

[W]hen I was first a member of Parliament . . . there was a view in foreign policy that you dealt with countries on the basis of whatever attitude they had toward you, that really whatever they did within their own countries that was up to them and didn't really make a difference to your long-term relationship.

(...)

There is not [international] stability of any true, long-term kind without democratic rights for free people to decide their government.

Obviously, this is an incredible reversal, not only of foreign policy, but also of the concept of sovereignty as it has developed over the last 200 years. This is, of course, the obvious next step of Preventionism -- state-building and democracy-seeding to ensure freedom for the "oppressed." There's also something inherently Orwellian about this concept of "free the people through bombs." Give them peace by blowing them up?

CNN Screws Up

CNN.com and CNN International were both reporting last night that Bush had set a 4 year time table for a Palestinian state, which, as you can see above, simply is not true.

This problem has been getting on my nerves for some time now, and I think I'm going to rant about it.

CNN, and other 24/7 news "outlets" (just plug in your toaster! YAY! News toast!) seem to have a tendency to jump on a story before all the facts are in. Why? Well, the primary reason is the general desire to break the story. That may be all well and good in a newspaper environment, where the cycle of news is 24 hours long, and the first chance to break a story comes at 5 a.m., but in a 24/7 news cycle with four or five major competitors, the pressure to put out a story as quickly as possible will lead to corner-cutting.

The first things to go by the wayside are fact-checking, independent confirmation, and editorial review. Obviously, in a breaking news story, not all the facts are going to be known immediately. That's forgiveable, to a point. However, as the coverage of Arafat's death points out, double-checking information is also being left out of the process. Thus we get days of reversals: he's dead, he's not dead; he's in a coma, he's awake; he'll be taken off of life support, he'll remain on life support. (5) In the end, it seemed like news outlets were being led around by Sula Arafat's obfuscations. CNNI, I believe, was more susceptible to this because of the added pressure to "get it live, as it happens."

Personally, I'd be much more satisfied with accurate "dead" news.


Maybe Ying xiong Isn't so Slavish After All

I saw this movie a couple months ago, but it just popped into my conciousness again this morning.

One of the criticisms that I've repeatedly heard leveled at the film is that the director, Yimou Zhang, gave up his criticism of the Peking government for a fawning picture about the "glorious" unificiation of China. After some reflection, I think this may be a little too harsh.

It seems that he got in some sharp barbs that may not be so obvious. Take the clamoring voice of King of Qin's Court, for instance. Nothing could represent the lock-step of the Politburo's policies better than the singular voice of the court accolytes. Their screaming insistence that the Nameless be executed could just as easily be the mindless destruction of the Glorious Revolution, which crushed so much of the independent spirit of the Chinese people. It's especially poignant that the King and Nameless have reached some measure of understanding and empathy with each other's plights; the King's decision to kill his "kindred spirit" could be Mao's betrayal of his people with the Revolution's edicts.

Furthermore, the overall plot of this film, which is razor thin to begin with, really rests on the "unbeatable" sword skill of Nameless. This is just silly. It's such a cartoonish and childish conceit, that it is remarkable in its ridiculousness. Add to that the rather obvious color-theory which permeates the cinematography, and you get a film which is almost screaming "take me only at face value!" And if we do take this film at face value, we miss the fact that Nameless is the Hero.

He is not the martyr killed in the King of Qin's quest for hegemony. Rather, he is the self-sacrificing Everyman who recognizes the power of the King's goal and is willing to die to help the King realize it. Broken Sword and Flying Snow are anachronisms, literally left to die in the desert of broken kingdoms.

Yimou is obviously a supporter of the Unified China he portrays, but he's no friend of it's government. The clue is in how he portrays power in the film. The King's Court is little more than a chorus of self-interested vengence, enacting a punishment that the King himself is obviously pained to declare. The very manifestation of Qin's power is in its arrows, those vast walls of death. But how is it used? In an attack on the "greatest" calligraphy school, a center of learning, knowledge, reason, and peace; in the assassination of Nameless, who is a proponent of the King's own vision. These are brutal misuses of power that he is portraying -- it seems to be the cannibalism of a culture for the consolidation of power.

Think Falun-gong. Think Glorious Revolution. Think political prisoners. Think Beijing 2008.

I think this film needs a bit more credit than it's been getting.


------------Endnotes-----------
1. The clip of this Blair interview was broadcast on CNN International last night, but I cannot seem to find the original. The interviewer was dark-haired, female, and I'm pretty sure she worked for the BBC, but I wouldn't bet the farm. If anybody can find a transcript, I'd appreciate it.
2. Speaking of Barricades to Peace (from Ha'aretz)...
3. Can you say "martial law?"
The security measures, which plunge the country into a state of martial law not seen since the U.S.-led coalition authorities handed power to an interim Iraqi government on June 28, will give authorities the power to arrest and detain people without trial and also impose night-time curfews in "specific hotspots,'' Daoud said. (Emphasis mine.)
4. OK, so maybe Afghanistan's just a work in progress, but that doesn't mean it's not too early to declare is a stunning success, right? Right? Guys, you there? Hello....?
5. I'm not suggesting that CNNI was the only outlet falling for this stuff -- even the French didn't have a clue what was going on.

[Ed: Originally published w/o title. Title added at 14:33 NET.]

More on Electioneering

Dave Pentecost (weblog) ostensibly worked with Michael Moore's ominously low-key Video the Vote program.

Pentecost was in Ohio monitoring a polling station in a black neighborhood. He posted a reaction to his experience last Wednesday. Here's the rather inconclusive footage that Pentecost is offering as a first glimpse. (Video clip in Quicktime format.)

I'm still sitting on the fence on this one. It's hard to tell exactly what is going on in most of the scenes, especially the ones with shadowy white men talking on cell phones. Overall, it seems like chaos is the main culprit for the screw-ups, although Pentecost also blames undertrained or careless poll workers. That chaos seems to stem from these unidentified "challengers" who are prowling around, but whether they could be identified and tied to any Republican organization is doubtful.

In the end, it seems like a brilliant tactic: mess with the voter rolls, but just a little; send in challengers to stir things up, but don't press too hard; send in another group of "challenge adjuncts", who are later thrown out. Each case causes just a bit of chaos, just a little confusion, and distracts from the voting proceedures just a tiny bit. Repeat in the entire state of Ohio....

If that's what we're really seeing here, then it's a form of voter intimidation that probably isn't even prosecutable under current law.

This is the dumbest thing I've ever read. But that eye-strain chart is kinda sexy-looking....

*Sigh.* I have problems with advertisements that quote "research."

"Ambient Light Technology
Research has proven that proper viewing conditions enhance detail, color and contrast."

Emphasis mine, link.

Snow Falls in Flurries

I woke up this morning to a drizzly, sleety rain. I was a little disappointed.

I went out clubbing last night and ended up walking home with some other students around 3 a.m. The air had been cold when I had set out on my way to the club earlier, but now, several hours later, the cold had become numbing. The air had become more humid, and we could see our breath clearly, even in the dark. Someone had mentioned that snow was forecast for the morning, and crossing the Löwenbrücke, I could believe it. The air smelled damp and sharp, as if Fall was about to be crystalized.

So the drizzle this morning disappointed me. The cold air outside my window convinced me to linger in bed much longer than I should have, and I had to hurry to bundle up before striking out for class.

Outside, however, the drizzle was coagulating into real snowflakes. As I walked through the Dom quarter, the flakes gathered mass. Over the roar of passing cars, I could hear them pelting my umbrella. The streets were wet, but the cold had not penetrated between the cobbles, and so the obvious danger of icy streets was not yet a problem.

During my class, I mostly ignored the professor droning on about various newspapers. Instead, I watched the sleet gather into a real snow flurry. The flakes grew and grew until they seemed to obliterate everything else in the window. As soon as possible, I re-wrapped and headed out into it.

The flakes were big, lumpy conglomerations -- the product of "warm" freezing. The drifted lazily through the streets, flung this way and that by the airstreams of trucks and pedestrians. The downward motion was gentle, unconcerned, and lugubrious. This was water in no hurry, water that was willing to let itself be pushed about, drift to and fro on somebody else's whim.

My umbrella offered no real challenge to the puffy debris. As I forged through the mess, the flakes curled under my strategically angled shield and lit on my clothing. So much for staying dry!

Bamberg did not seem to be concerned with the weather. Life went on as normal; cars filled the streets, even though they were occasionally covered by small snow drifts (if they had come from the south) or ice (if they had been parked for a while). Several shop owners, including one man who would not be scared away from his open-air vegetable stand, told me that they would stay open through the snow. It was coming down in earnest now, but still not collecting on the streets.

By the time I had finished procuring groceries and had returned to my apartment, the snow had reached a climax. The flakes were still big, but they were descending even faster than before. The wind had died down somewhat, and that left the snow to fall straight down, uninhibited. It was starting to collect on roofs and bridges, coating them with sugary powered. The cathedral looked a little like a gingerbread house from my kitchen window, albeit the most elaborate gingerbread construction in a thousand years.

Two Months is a Long Time to go Without...

But never fear, for Germany provides everything you could want!

For instance, the brewery up the street.
For instance, the clubs.


The Deadliest Tango Always Involves Revolvers

Two Months. That's how long I've been outside the Empire. (Two months ago officially fell either last Friday or Wednesday, depending on whether you go by the Date or the Number of Weeks method.)

Progress Meter

German Proficiency: Level Up!
New Language Skills:
Rudimentary Frankish -- the ability to use "a weng" and "nett" in casual conversation
Café Communication -- the ability to understand the rude and hyper-efficient German waitresses
Newspaper Understanding -- the ability to stare blankly at newspapers for a while, then actually understand an article

Political Awareness: Level Up!
New Political Skills:
Enfranchisement Bonus -- Germans respect a politically active person
Political Awareness -- rudimentary understanding of current issues in German, Europe, and World
Political Opinions -- haltingly explained, often polarizing due to hilarious misunderstandings

Food: Level Up!
New Food Skills:
Eating Frankish Cuisine -- enjoyment maxed out; can't get any better than a nice, big Schnitzel (with side of Pommes)

Entertainment: Level Up!
New Entertainment Skills:
Clubbing -- knowing where to meet the locals is half the battle
TV -- watching the Simpsons in German is one thing, but understanding the words that are coming out of your TV is a whole other deal
Movies -- about the time you sit through the first movie where you understand the plot, the character's names, the setting, and 90-95% of all the dialogue, you know you've made it

So, in order to make the most out of my two months here, I'm going to let people cook me fajitas for dinner tonight. Then, I'm off to Morph to be obnoxious on the dance floor.

Anybody up for that Tango?

One Hungry America

"Let's face it, there are two different Americas, two diametrically opposed set of values." -- from KRISTOF Responds, #654.

The Myth of the Polarized Empire

In truth, there are 300-plus-million Americas. That's a fact. For every person, be he a poster-boy, apple-cheeked class president; be she an illegal, dark-haired immigrant bent over a South Florida field of pepper plants; be they the illiterate, gun-toting offspring of poverty in inner-cities; be they the wealthy, priviledged sons of bankers, lawyers, and Senators; each of these people has a unique idea of what America is to them.

Each idea of America is a multi-layered conclusion based on the individual's background, experiences, prejudices, and desires. Everyone percieves political issues through a set of filters: news outlets, personal relationships, candidates' speeches, and local gossip. And just as the contents of a can of peaches are thoroughly processed, so too are these issues. They are strained through every person's Idea of America, sometimes slipping right through, now breaking the strainer, maybe getting caught in the mesh every once in a while. And just like a can of peaches, the quality on what comes out hinges on the quality of what went it.

The real Problem of american politics is that we don't have the right words to describe this process. "Democrat," "Republican;" "liberal," "conservative." These are all catch-alls. These are abstractions which obliterate crucial distinctions.

This is the "Great Divide." Washington warned us against a Party system, and now we see why. The Imperial two-party system swallows 300-plus-million opinions and sluices them, boils them, cures them, and serves up two at the table. The idea that we are a divided country is ludicrous. In fact, we are a starving country; these gourmandes don't provide us with a miracle of Political Loaves and Fishes. Instead, all we are left with is a watered-down broth of "consensus." Savory and nuanced positions become bland, bread-and-butter politics. Creative solutions are over-salted and served with Pork.

For me, America is the Empire. It is a land steeped in the blood of it's own native peoples, human chattel, the idealogues who emigrated, and those unfortunate souls caught up in events beyond their control. It is the Empire of economic opportunity, which despises poverty but treats it as anathema. It is the Empire of tolerance, where everybody has a right to their own way of life, regardless of how reckless that lifestyle may be. It is the Empire of brutal punishment, where the theft of packs of gum and candy bars can put a man in prison for the rest of his life. The Empire is home to some of the most beautiful natural wonders in the world; it is home to Indianapolis, a town so ugly that it should be scraped off the Earth. The Sun Belt and the Rust Belt. Raleigh Fingers, "Mr. October," Mark Maguire, and Sand Koufax. The Red Sox and the Yankees. Hockey in the north and high school football in the South. Portland, Oregon, and Roswell, New Mexico. Apple pie, grits, and soul food. An italian restaurant in Ohio; all the bad Chinese food in all the suburban malls, everywhere. Best Buy and the local music shop. Wal-mart. Microwave popcorn. Sunsets on the West Coast, sunrises on the East Coast, and the blistering sunny, summer afternoons in the mid-West.

Sum that paragraph up in one word. I fucking dare you.

Das amerikansiche Reich

Kerry did the right thing. We could already see that he had lost early last night. It was clear long before Bush won Florida.

"If Everything is lost, then it is time to start looking around, checking under the sofa, and trying to find It again."


OTHER THINGS
Love Gore Vidal. But I was using the term "Empire," first.


SOME QUESTIONS THAT NEED ANSWERING
Voter intimidation: CNN says the election went "smoothly." In fact, they insisted that that was what was happening. Is this true? How many people were disenfranchised, and who was responsible?

[4 Nov., 2004, EDIT: Here is an editorial with what looks like the first information on possible voter fraud and/or disenfranchisements. It doesn't at all suggest that anyone was specifically targeting race, although it does imply that the worst problems were in minority districts.]

The Mandate: It looks like the Republican party won in a minor landslide. That would mean a mandate. However, if the Democrats were truly asleep at the wheel, does that mean the mandate stems from only half the country?

When will we be getting answers?

Certain Recent Events

THERE IS NO REASON NOT TO VOTE

Goddammit, if you're reading this, chances are you're an Imperial. And if this is the case, you had better do or have done one of the following:
1) Vote tomorrow. No excuses.
2) Already have voted via absentee ballot/early voting/etc.

Need a reason? Sex.

It really does not matter to me who you vote for. Either way, the Empire is on the wax, and I have no particular faith in one candidate over the other to return the Empire to an even-handed foreign policy. Regardless, this is certainly the most contentious and dirty election cycle in recent memory, and that means you should go out to the polls and show support for something. Just for fun, pretend that you have an informed, self-reflective opinion.


In Other Rants

NB3 is no longer closed due to disease. Unfortunately, this means that the sign is gone, as well. So, no fun translation practice. Sorry kids; better luck next time.


So Long and Thanks for all the Profanity

Sorry about the above profanity, but I'm all riled up about tomorrow night. It's truly frightening. I'm all jittery with foreboding....


Thank God for This Alcohol which will be Provided [to] Us

Election night party in the Fernsehraum tomorrow night. Alcohol will either comfort us in defeat or lubricate the largest festival in recent TV-Room memory.