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For those who might not possibly have been aware, the Olympic torch was supposed to come and be run through San Francisco today. Given the massive protests and conflict that happened in London and Paris, people were a little concerned as to what might happen in San Francisco, which is probably the most liberal city in the US. The protesters all got ready for a show down on both sides. It was the Tibetan exiles and their supporters, versus the Chinese supporters and well, the Chinese supporters. The first group had to run away from their homeland when the Chinese seized control. The second group will defend this and be very pro-China, which makes me wonder as to why they're in the US and not China if China is so good?       Anyways, if you feel like unraveling the 300+ posts on Twitter, you can see what happened today. Probably the best summary was on The Chron who said:       ...After being hidden in a waterfront warehouse, bused to Van Ness and carried on a surprise route through the Marina to evade protesters, the Olympic torch's wild journey through San Francisco is over. Closing ceremony moved to SFO [the airport].       I have to hand it to the Chronicle. They really put a lot of effort in to this and the stakes were high because SF is the navel of Citizen Journalism and Swarm Reporting. Yet, they ended up with what seems to be the most complete coverage of this shitzkrieg. Go old media!       But that was the crappy part of all of this. The only people who saw the torch were those guarding it. They kept moving the route around and shifting the plans so that no one knew what was happening. The crowds were just aimless. While you'd want to follow one group because they had just consulted their iPhones and supposedly knew where the flame was going, they were just as clueless as anyone else. It looked like a bunch of sheep running from one street to another and then back until they even canceled the closing ceremony, leaving the thousands who came out to see it really cheated.       I'm sure that both in China and on a national level in the US, this will be seen as a success because there was no attempt to extinguish the flame and no conflict. Go figure. I bet there are no protesters on the plane that they carry the thing on either. Paris and London were 20-30 miles on an established route, whereas SF couldn't even handle a truncated three mile route.       Overall this was a complete failure and I hope shows badly on Mayor Gavin Newsom who seems more interested in which is the proper striped suit for the occasion as well as his future political career.

On April 13th and 14th, Italy hits the polls again and at the top of the heap of contenders for prime minister is of course Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's favorite idiot politician. Back in 2006, I was traveling through Croatia and followed the election that he thankfully lost to Romano Prodi. Most people thought it was the beginning of the end for Silvio. Ah but no, this brazen ass is back in the public spotlight and even considered to be the front runner to win the election again. It's a good thing his fraud trial was put on hold so, you know, he could focus on the election a bit more.       Anyways, the main reason that Berlusconi gets under my skin more than Sarkozy and to some degree, even more than Bush at times is because of the ludicrous things the man says. Whereas Sarkozy is a blatant racist jackass and Bush a moron, Berlusconi is rampantly obnoxious and filled with the thought his every word warms the Italian heart. Being that the election is mere days away, the quotes have indeed started coming with this heap of letters jabbing my eye yesterday:       "My Latin is good enough that I believe I could even have a lunch with Julius Caesar" source       Ah... genius. It's almost as good as the time former Prime Minister Aznar of Spain (super conservative, super Spanish nationalist) said that he spoke Catalan in private with friends.       Keep your eyes out for other beauties from Silvio in the next few days, especially if he starts to get desperate. In 2006 he called himself "the Jesus Christ of Italian politics" source. That was a gem.       As an added bonus and if you're really bored at work, check out Silvio dry humping a meter maid. He's got good form for an old bugger.

Recently, a family member was asking me about Kosovo and why she was hearing about it in the news so much lately. There are a lot of misconceptions about this autonomous region in the Balkans, which I thought I might as well clear up as best I can. Firstly, I need to emphasize that Kosovo is not a city, it's a country. Many people don't know this. The capital (in the Serbian language) is Priština. This is not a region in Bosnia. It doesn't even touch Bosnia and there are no Bosniaks living there. It's really amazing how many people think this.       While a small country, at a bit over 4,000 square miles, it is home to over two million people, which is three times bigger than neighboring Montenegro. The vast majority (92%) of these people are Albanians, who are Muslim. The next biggest group are the Serbs (5%) who are Serbian Orthodox in faith.       Geography and statistics aside, Kosovo is a tricky place. It currently is a part of Serbia, which has been the case off and on for many centuries. For half of the 20th century, Kosovo didn't even really exist and was just a part of Serbia with a growing Albanian population (Albania shares a border with Kosovo).       With Yugoslavia, there was a growing problem in that the Serbs were the majority population. It had been a delicate balance for some time to keep all the national groups (Slovenians, Croatians, Bosniaks, Serbians, Macedonians, and Albanians) relatively happy. In order to maintain this balance, Tito broke up Serbia to create autonomous regions that were Kosovo and Vojvodina (an area in the north of Serbia). These entities had almost all the rights of a full state in Yugoslavia, but were just shy of full statehood unto themselves. Following Tito's death in 1980, a power grab started happening in the eastern side of Yugoslavia with Slobodan Milošević rising as a new nationalistic leader for the Serb people. Once gaining a tight foothold in office, we worked to strip Kosovo and Vojvodina of their status within Serbia which had been granted to them with some constitutional changes in 1974.       This series of moves is essentially what sparked the whole collapse of the former Yugoslavia, which then led in to the war that lasted until 1995. At the end of the war, Kosovo was still very much a part of Serbia. Yugoslavia's downfall did little to help the Albanians that lived there. In 1999, Slobodan, who was still in power started to forcefully crush uprisings that were starting again in Kosovo as the Albanians, who hold a 92% majority of the population started to push for independence again. This time, Slobo brought down the wrath of NATO which beat the Serbs out of Kosovo and brought in the UN to administer Kosovo (as the UN Mission in Kosovo) for the last nine years in an entity that is colloquially referred to as UNMIKistan.       So, here we are today with the UN still there, but with the Kosovo Albanians set to declare independence any day now; possibly on February 17th. Beyond the fact that any part of another sovereign nation attempting to break away is a big issue, there are other issues that make Kosovo particularly tricky. One is that almost all of the EU and the US support independence for Kosovo, while Russia is adamantly opposed to it. All through this, I've wondered why the US and Russia have any say in the matter as it's strictly an European matter. But they do and so we have some large powers involved in this. Secondly, this isn't just some chunk of land for the Serbs. They see it as their birth place; a Mecca for Serbia if you will, due to the Battle of Kosovo. This is a battle which the Serbs actually lost and lost badly (which shows what the Kosovo independence process is up against) but they feel it marks the start of the rise of the Serbian nation. On this note, the Serbs vehemently refuse to cede Kosovo independence, which for them would be like stripping the US of Gettysburg.       So, here we sit and watch at to what will happen. There is no way that Serbia can risk a military confrontation with NATO or losing their bid to join the EU to try and keep Kosovo. Then again, there are many countries involved in the mediation of this. Will it be the catalyst to start up a WWIII like Franz Ferdinand's assassination in Sarajevo did to start WWI? Most likely not, but don't be surprised to see a lot of saber rattling throughout all of this as there isn't a lot of room in the Kosovo pie for all the fingers that want to be there.       Now that I've laid all this out, I wanted to close with a tasteless joke I read that fits the matter oh so well:              Four astronauts land on the moon. An American, a German and two Serbs.       The American jumps out and plants a flag on the surface exclaiming that US daring and money made their mission possible so the moon will belong to America.       The German pulled out the American flag and stuck in a German flag proclaiming that it was German scientific knowledge and technological precision that made the landing possible, so the moon was Germany's.       One of the Serbs reached into his pocket and pulled out a gun and shot the other Serb. Then he proclaimed: "Serbian blood has been spilled here, so the moon will be Serbian forever!"

I consider myself a liberal and given the mainstream view of what a "liberal" is these days, I'm extremely, way-left liberal. I believe in public education as well as health. I happen to like the environment a good deal, eat organic, recycle like a madman, and don't own a car. I don't buy new clothes or much of anything new as I don't find contributing to consumerism to be a worthwhile pursuit. I'm also thoroughly not keen on arms stockpiling or war in general.       Yet, when people who don't know me meet for the first time, they often think that I'm a conservative and possibly a smoker (the second half I just don't get). I might add that they assume this before they even speak to me. Why is this? The answer is obvious. It's because I keep my hair short, shave often, and bathe regularly, that I'm not seen as being some sort of tree hugger, even though I most certainly am. This view that the liberal is a smelly, dirty hippie is one that is continually promoted by the media. After all, it's much easier to paint one side of politics in to that group and the other side as suit wearing, bible thumping blow hards. It makes the job of the media much, much easier when you just have to cover two sides as opposed to all the gradations in between far left and far right as incorrect as this may be.       My ire was spiked by the fact that in Berkeley a protest is happening right now about some Marines recruitment center. I have no ideas as to all the details and frankly don't care other than the fact that the photos covering this clash of two sides (tree hugger vs. bible thumper) just continue this assumption that all of us in the Bay Area who are in the left, look like the guy shown below. This guy and I have nothing in common except our politics, yet he gets to represent my beliefs, while I don't. I'm just flat-out tired of this, but I doubt that we'll ever really see a solution to it, since only having black and white, right or wrong, left and right, is proving to be very profitable and no one would ever see fit to change it and get something like a coalition government in place to allow for all of the political rainbow to participate in the government. Oh and don't even get me started on rainbows and what they represent. I used to love them as a kid until that wasn't cool anymore either...

Yes, here we are again, having an election. It's not much of a surprise as we have had one every year in California for about as long as I can remember. Obviously, this year is extra special because not only is is a Leap Year, but we get the honor of two elections: one today and then our winner take all presidential election in November.       It's good that we are such an active democracy, but in reality, could we kinda compact these things in to one election every other year? I miss those days as do a lot of people it seems, since up until now, voter turnout has been pretty poor. Of course, the most pathetic election was the special election called by Schwarzenegger two years back that ultimately gave him a whopping good political spanking (which then allowed him to get re-elected in a "real" election) but at the same time cost the state millions of dollars to put on. Who needs universal health care when you can have elections, eh?       But, such as it is and people just keep having their elections each year. Being the good citizen that I am, I keep going to vote. This year, people are of course fired up due to there being no incumbent which hasn't happened in some 50 years or so. In the end though, I don't see it effecting the ultimate conclusion of the race. Bush and the Republicans did such an amazingly good job in handing the 2008 race to the Dems that if they don't win, they should close up shop as a party and the Greens get in there. It doesn't matter that Cheney isn't running       In some ways, I envy the Republican voters. They actually have a choice at this point between candidates who are actually different. For we who vote the Democratic Party, if you look at Clinton and Obama, there is almost no difference in their platforms. Their debates are like listening to someone try to tell you how last night's lasagna differs so greatly from the same lasagna reheated the next day. Ultimately, it appears that we get to choose being the white woman and the black man (take a look at that link, it's a great article.) Honestly, I'm happy with either choice as they'd be such a great chance from the bible thumping hick that we currently salute. It took me a long time to choose who to vote for in the primary, but I ultimately went for Obama as he's a fresh voice in politics, albeit one we know little about. If Hilary gets the nomination, I'll still be happy to vote for her, just not as happy as the women my mother's age who will be happy to see "hunk o'love", Bill back in the White House, even if just in the roll of First Man. I'm still waiting for this onion article to come true somehow.