I am having a very negative day. First of all, I'm trying my damndest to sit tight and wait for the London Mayoral Election Results, which look grim, which make me ponder whether democracy should in fact be a cultural value, or whether it's a conspiracy of sad liberals setting themselves up to be run by idiots and facists.  Particularly because I know two people who didn't vote, one of whom forgot, the other of whom couldn't be bothered.  I consider these people my friends, and yet on a very basic level I believe that people who don't vote are only fit to live in a dictatorship.  I despise the complacency of it, the casual disregard for the suffragettes, the taking for granted of rights which people in Zimbabwe and Tibet and Burma and China are suffering for - and dying for - right now.

Also, sat through a nice staff briefing presentation today which was a timely reminder that slavery is still endemic in Brazil.  China too.  Did you know that before?  Well, now you do.  It should piss you off.

Finally, I'm not sure if this continues the crushing negativity or injects an element of hope into the proceedings, I direct you to an NPR story featuring my friend Juan Hoffmaister.  You've got to listen to the audio slide show, which rocked my world with its ability to communicate some powerful truths with JuanPa's usual blend of passion and understatement.

Okay, so at the moment I'm watching BBC news live coverage of the Olympic Torch relay in San Francisco, where they've secretly changed the route of the torch, secretly, with absolutely no notice.  It is surrounded by soldiers and police, with media photographers being driven just in front of that in what appears to be a Duck Tours bus.  This is one of the most insane things I've ever seen.

Over the weekend a friend of mine informed me in his most dignified tone of left wing irritation that he finds it hypocritical that people in the US and the UK are upset about Tibet when their own countries are occupying Iraq.  Which is a point, yes.  But the thing that makes the Chinese government so much worse, above Tibet and Burma and Sudan, is the fact that it's a totalitarian, dictatorial regime.  It's NOT the same as all of the other imperialistic countries who get the Olympics (not, deep down, that I give a rat's ass about the Olympics), it's worse.  People in China can't even use the internet.  And this farcical media spectacle/fake torch run really drives it home, the cheerful way in which the Chinese government is happy to lie to paint itself as a legitimate government, to protect its own wizened grip on power.  It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.  What does it mean for the world that one billion people are living under a regime that purposefully misleads them and tries to teach them not to think too deeply about where the power lies?

Also, a voice labelled 'Olympic Historian' has just informed us that the Nazis invented the Olympic flame. Huh.  I did not know that.

Okay, in the past week I've been running across what seems to be story after story about animal cruelty.  Take, for example, today's article about the Ministry of Defence ending goat testing on submarines.  WHAT? We've been giving goats the bends? For how long? Why is my taxpayer money funding this?

There was also a great New York Times story about rehabilitating the dogs that were rescued from Michael Vick's pitbull fighting ring.  The scale of the abuse is just mind-blowing - including one who had all her teeth pulled out so she could be forcibly mated with other dogs. I just can't imagine how people can do this to other critters; it's such a small step between animal abuse and sociopathy.  At least a lot of them have loving new homes with places like Best Friends Shelter and BADRAP.

Finally, in a somewhat perverse example of animals gettin' their own back, a number of workers in a pork processing facility have picked up an obscure and debilitating neurological illness from - you guessed it - aerosolized pig brains. Okay, you probably didn't guess that. Also, you might feel like barfing. I know I do. 

ETA: I forgot to add a link to the story of Puddles who rose from the dead as Panchito. Which goes to show that sometimes people love animals a little too much.

So, as it happens, my bag was found. The nice dudes working at the train station (next door to the pub where the bag was stolen) called me, and I went to pick it up. The thief had dashed down into a quiet spot in the station, ransacked the bag, grabbed my iPod, and dumped the bag behind a fence in a kitchen midden-y type area covered in trash and used needles (yep, not using that bag again). So, in the end I got my keys back, and my mittens and hat. And the iPod is insured, so in theory I'm getting it back. Yay! And I still have an excuse to buy a shiny new handbag. Here's hoping I find one with similarly excellent pockets.

So there I was, in the pub, having a wonderfully pleasant dinner with Alison and my friend Ariana who is visiting from Boston, when a dodgy-looking guy brushes past our table. A split second later I check for my bag and it's gone. In the couple of seconds it took me to realize that my bag was, yes, definitely gone, the guy had ducked into the toilets, ducked out, and dashed out the door with my bag. RIchard the barman went after him but it was too late, he was gone. He'd clearly had an eye on the table and my bag for some time. By the super-duper hand of god, I had taken my wallet and phone out and put them on the table, so I still had them and wasn't too upset. I lost my gloves and hat, but Branislava knitted me a gorgeous birthday hat, so once again the gods seemed to be smiling.

All my keys were gone though, and soon enough i realized that I had left a birthday card in my bag with my London address on it. D'oh #1. We've got to change the locks. Now, as I'm going to bed, I've discovered that I can't find my iPod. It's exactly the kind of thing I throw in my bag every morning without thinking, so even though I haven't used it today I've probably been carrying it around with me. And now dodgy trench coat man is carrying it around with him. D'oh #2. And finally, I can't find my USB drive. I'm much more upset about the 'kyoto now' lanyard it used to hang on, because that's a memento from Bali - but there was loads of personal stuff on it. D'oh #3. That's the locks in Oxford need changing, then. And loads of my personal info wandering through the world.

Fucksticks.

Yes yes yes, I know I need to write about Fez but (a) I am lazy and (b) I am overworked, so I'm just going to do the briefest of brief news roundups.

First of all, the new SimCity Societies game takes climate change into account. Ooooooooooh. I wonder how many wind turbines I can build without imposing Sweden-style taxes. I haven't played a full game of SimCity since 1997, when it woke nurtured my inner dictator. If I bought it now, would I be able to resist playing it 24 hours a day?

Also, if you haven't seen a story about George the Giant Hedgehog, you have to visit the Wildlife Aid website right now. Then, if you're me, you'll dream of adopting yet another morbidly obese pet, and fantasize about volunteering there on the weekends and bottle-feeding the hedgehogs.

Finally, in a story that may make you spit blood, a Saudi Arabian 19 year old was gang-raped 14 times. Then she was sentenced to six months in jail and 200 lashes for being in the car of a man who wasn't a relative. This sort of thing actually makes me so homicidal it makes me want to bomb people. I'm an American, we do that.

The Guardian has a very good article about how Nestle is still evil. So, while I miss Polos, After Eights, and Kitkats, I still can't live with the little stains they leave on my soul.

Also, there's an anti-Nestle protest being organised outside their headquarters and Body Shop outlets (Nestle is a major shareholder in L'Oreal, which bought out the body shop) this Saturday. For more info see the indefatigable campaigners at Baby Milk Action.

Why do I keep reading about Iraq? Absolutely nothing else puts quite the same damper on my cheerful moods.

The horrendous thing isn't (just) the report, it's the bit at the end which shows the people in the reconstruction office to be complete fucking idiots.

April 29, 2007
New York Times
Inspectors Find Rebuilt Projects Crumbling in Iraq
By JAMES GLANZ
( read more )

I have to apply for a settlement visa in two months. (For all those who say 'but you're married!', yes, I know, but the home office really doesn't give a rat's ass. When you get married, you get a two year visa and if you behave yourself, you get to pay them another boatload of money at the end of the two years and get a settlement visa. Which isn't citizenship. I'm not even eligible for citizenship.) As of March 31, the fee was £330. Which is a whole lot of money, but I had some time to plan for it, and I had figured out how to eke the money out over a few months.

But guess what! As of April 2, the fee is £750! And the Home Office has broken me, so I can't even muster enough proper anger to complain about it. Now I'm just desperate to find the money. (Much love to maddy_harrigan, who told me about the fee rise, because otherwise I wouldn't have found out until the day before I was planning to send in my application.) I actually don't know where I'm going to get it, but I will get it because otherwise I have to gently boot myself out of the country and start the whole farce all over again.

AND I have to take the &%^$%##$%^& %^&*(R%^#$ 'Life in the UK' Test!!! I have done a lot of crazy things for love, in various states of inebriation and undress no less, but taking this batshit exam is going to be the craziest. Except maybe for paying $1500 to stay here. Well, the weather has improved recently, and I do like listening to the shipping forecast.

Ugh. I am tired of trying to set the Home Office website on fire with the power of my implacable stare.

In other news, as Jon Stewart still hasn't formed an exploratory committee (why? why?), I'm 'officially' coming out in favor of John Edwards. He's not afraid to talk about things that matter, like poverty and health care and climate change, he's learned a lot since 2004. He was totally wrong to vote for the Iraq war, and he admits it, forthrightly, which is pretty amazing when you think about it. He's been in politics for a long time know, he knows what he's doing and where the power lies. I've seen him speak and I trust him.

And I married the only other politician I can say that about. :-)

Huzzah! Scooter Libby has been convicted on four out of five counts!

Yes, I know he's a poor stand-in for his puppet masters, but it's so nice to see one of these nasty people get the sharp end of the stick. Although I would prefer it if it were an actual stick. Oh, I hope he goes to prison. Do you suppose he'll rat on Cheney to avoid becoming someone's bitch? A girl can dream, can't she?

Oh, Patrick Fitzgerald is my new morally righteous geek-girl pinup. Nice Irish boy.

Best of Wonkette:

9:07 — So, our beaten nation now overwhelmingly believes we are losing the War On Terror — which is pretty awesome when you think about it, because it means Bush & Cheney have ultimately succeeded in linking 9/11 with Iraq!

9:17 — Actually, wages for the vast majority of Americans have been stagnant for the entire six years Bush has been president.
9:18 — Ohhhh, now he wants to balance the budget.
9:18 — “Without raising taxes” … what about the taxes on health care?
9:19 — Well, five years ago we didn’t even have a federal deficit.

9:27 — Oh great, now he’s going to screw up states’ attempts to provide health care for the poor. Sorry, California and Massachusetts.

9:29 — Oh man, the Republicans are going to KILL Bush over this guest worker thing. Luckily, he has Count Chertoff and the armies of vampires for protection.

9:45 — Or, we could find our resolve and impeach your ass.

10:00 — Jesus christ we were hoping this would last like 20 minutes. Anyway, we’re going to start a war on AIDS and malaria now, so expect Africans to start dying in even greater numbers now.

10:06 — God bless. Then he totally brushed across Pelosi’s chest on the way to the handshake. Now on to Webb firing a gun at his television or whatever.

There's a really useful article in the New York times today about the cost of the war in Iraq.

"For starters, $1.2 trillion would pay for an unprecedented public health campaign — a doubling of cancer research funding, treatment for every American whose diabetes or heart disease is now going unmanaged and a global immunization campaign to save millions of children’s lives.

Combined, the cost of running those programs for a decade wouldn’t use up even half our money pot. So we could then turn to poverty and education, starting with universal preschool for every 3- and 4-year-old child across the country. The city of New Orleans could also receive a huge increase in reconstruction funds.

The final big chunk of the money could go to national security. The recommendations of the 9/11 Commission that have not been put in place — better baggage and cargo screening, stronger measures against nuclear proliferation — could be enacted. Financing for the war in Afghanistan could be increased to beat back the Taliban’s recent gains, and a peacekeeping force could put a stop to the genocide in Darfur."

The accompanying graphic really makes it clear.

Universal health care? Or 350,000 dead people? In what universe can the people who made these decisions ever call themselves Christians?

Analysis by Scott Wallstein and Katrina Kosec (putting the cost at $1 trillion)
Analysis by Linda Blimes and Joe Stiglitz (putting the cost at $2 trillion)
In pictures: University Bombings

Edited to Add: John Edwards has a petition going to call on Congress to stop funding for the new troops. Sign it!

Matt's Dad's beach house (where Matt and I just went on holiday) has no cable and no broadband. I survived five days without the internet! Yay me! I missed my beloved interweb.

The weather was relentlessly shit, so walks on the beach weren't that great, but I rediscovered the phone and actually called people for a change, which was great. We also watched an eclectic blend of DVDs: Buffy season 7, Firefly, Gilmore Girls, and The Wire. That new scarf is half done, and I even did some French homework. Though not much.

Meanwhile, I got really het up about the UK government blatantly discriminating against Bulgarians and Romanians. We have JobCentres in Poland but Romanians can only work in agriculture and food processing? WHAT?

("John Reid, John Reid, this is your conscience. I'm wondering how you sleep at night.")

Finally, I pray every day for a Democratic takeover of Congress. Perhaps then I might be able to decamp myself from this racist country to my native, marginally less racist, one.

While I can't say I'm hugely surprised about Anna Politkovskaya's death - any time I so much as looked at one of her books I said to myself, 'gosh, I can't believe someone hasn't killed her' - I'm still shocked and upset by it. It bothers me that people are still killed, with impunity, for telling the truth. She's not the only one, but I've read her books and what she was reporting on was important and terrible. It's all too easy to forget that the war in Chechnya still goes on, because it's so tied into things that we want to ignore like oil and nationalism and Islamic fundamentalism and warlords. It's like a conflict from another age, but it's not, and I worry that now she's dead the people there will have no-one who is willing to put their life on the line to speak up for them.

Coverage in:
BBC News Online
Moscow Times
Guardian
New York Times

Will they get away with it? Probably.