Kerry officially announces

But what we face today -- and what we must change -- is not simply a failure of policy. Today at the center of power, we have a radical ethic that ratifies and glorifies a creed of greed. Once, a great Republican president named Theodore Roosevelt took on those who abused their wealth and power; today's Republican president invites them in for secret meetings, sells out our environment, tolerates their abuses and lets them evade taxes by moving their headquarters to an offshore shelter that is nothing more than a post office box or a mail drop.

The full speech, at Salon. If you're not a subscriber, you'll have to watch an ad. Support Salon!

Kerry's not my candidate of choice, but he's off to an excellent start.

Boy meets boy (no finale spoilers)

I haven't seen the finale yet, so there are no spoilers here and please don't include any in any comments.

Salon (can you tell I'm loving the syndicated feed?) has an article on Boy Meets Boy which subjects the show to some pretty well-deserved criticism. It's an incredibly sanitized and in some ways homophobic version of a gay dating show. The very premise (that some of the "mates" will be straight) guarantees that the producers will rein in the dates and keep anything from getting too sexy, giving the game away.

The twist of BMB is really very cruel. I watched the episode two weeks back when it was revealed to James, and he just stared and gave a sort of hurt, sort of cynical smile and said "... wow". Who knows what was going through his head but I'm sure part of it was "y'know, there's enough of this in life--I had thought that here of all places I didn't have to worry about whether the guy I was falling for was straight".

Yeah, I keep watching. Guilty, yer honor.

Texas redistricting

(Of course, given the last presidential election, there's something audacious about Republicans arguing that the system is invalid because its party won the popular vote in Texas but lost the electoral vote.)

Heh. This from a Salon article suggesting that the Republican Texas redistricting scheme is about keeping Hispanics from dominating state politics. While in the short term the Republican plan would probably create seats minorities would hold, it would concentrate all the minority voters in those districts and preserve most of the state as more white-controlled--and, of course, give the Republicans more likely districts.

This as Texas is projected to become minority-Anglo in 2005 and majority-Hispanic in 2026.

And one of the Texas 11 went home yesterday. :-/