you know, the last time i checked, lying under oath was called perjury and came attached to some serious consequences.

i recognize that the concerns underlying the development of this product (and, let's be clear: this video is an advertisement. all the kids want the real doll! buy! buy!) are real. a lot of these comments are seeking to trivialize the issue. it's not a triviality. there's mountains of research into this.

however, you'll notice that several of these kids are deciding what the dolls' careers are based on their appearance. they may be being prodded a bit to sell the doll, sure. it's hard to know. but what they're saying is that the barbie doll must be a fashion model because of how she looks; the "realistic doll", on the other hand, can be an astronaut, if she wants, because of how she looks.

in other words, the kids are continuing to enforce the objectification of women. pretty much everything these kids are saying remains reflective of a heteropatriarchal order that categorizes women based on their ability to conform to male standards of sexuality.

again: there's a problem here. but it's not in the dolls, themselves, as physical objects. they're just molded plastic. it's in the way that the girls are taught to interpret the dolls.

and, if you want to get to the root of this, you need to change the messaging that girls get when they pick the toys up, not the toys themselves.

scandinavian women are going to continue to exist. and, in fact, the advanced social system in that area produces plenty of women that look like barbie dolls and work in law or medicine.

"i believe that people that are going to commit crimes shouldn't have guns" - george w. bush

this is a quote that was widely thrown around in the mid 00s as supposed evidence of mr. bush's lack of intelligence. i've never really seen the supposed stupidity in the statement. nobody doubts the truth of the statement. it may be a little obvious, but we're talking about an office that declares truths to be self-evident.

i've used it twice - in the unfinished curious george suite, and again in the sample version of the fourth symphony, because i wasn't planning on releasing the curious george suite (and now have). both of these uses preceded it's wide adoption by satirists.

i was taking a different perspective, though. it's one i've never seen anybody else use. i was actually focusing on the irony in the statement.

in fact, mr. bush was somebody that was clearly going to commit crimes. war crimes, as it turns out. therefore, by his own logic, he shouldn't have had guns.

of course, he did. which indirectly circles back around to it's more common satirical usage.

i still find the irony in it staggering. as an american, mr. bush probably didn't pick up on that...

"i believe that wars should not happen unless they are congressionally approved."

it seems like a rather different statement.

but it actually follows logically as a corollary.

that constitution down there is a bit wonky, though.

for all the talk of congressional approval, the reality is that the american form of government is designed to be a military dictatorship. i think that a large amount of the problems down there could be solved by merely grasping this simple point - the president is not meant to be in charge of civilian matters, but the commander in chief. that is, a military leader. and, while congress can act as a check on his power, he's constitutionally not far from being an elected military dictator.

the president can introduce legislation if he wants. and he can veto shit under limited circumstances. but it's not the primary function of the office. civilian things are actually supposed to be dealt with through congress. yet, millions of americans expect the president to set the domestic agenda. then, they get confused when it doesn't happen.

getting people to understand that the president is meant to be somebody that has guns and that they're supposed to deal with things like health care and decriminalization through various representative bodies would shift the focus back to where it needs to be to get things done.

the next step, then, ought to be to take away the president's guns.

but one thing at a time...