Expats Against Bush

Back

I'm back now from my week at the beach house, slightly more leathery looking, relaxed, and straining to overcome jetlag (coming off the transatlantic flight straight into work always sounds good in theory...) and to catch up on what I've missed while I was in No Internet Land. Suffice it to say I did not appreciate how much material the various US networks had ready-to-go for Mr Reagan's obituaries. Staggering.

I'll get something up today or tomorrow, but for now I thought you'd like this joke I received in last week's issue of Popbitch:

President Bush gets out of his helicopter in front of the White House carrying a baby pig under each arm.

The Marine guard snaps to attention, salutes, and says: "Nice pigs, sir."

Bush replies: "These are not pigs, these are Texan Razorback Hogs. I got one for Vice-President Cheney, and I got one for Defence Secretary Rumsfeld."

The Marine again snaps to attention, salutes, and says, "Nice trade, sir."

Holiday time

Hello all,

I'd just like to forewarn you that I'm off to South Carolina tomorrow for about 10 days for a bit of a break, and I'll likely be pretty sparse with the posting during that time. I hope nothing too untoward happens while I'm back that will force me into blogging action, but I'm sure discussions here will continue unabated.

Before I leave, I want to ask something: As of now, end of May 2004, what do you see happening in the November election? Will Bush's ratings continue to slide? Will Kerry ever capitalize on the tide turning in his favor? Will the election bear out the 1% theory (i.e. extreme polarization)?

EAB Forums are Live!

Just in time for your Friday afternoon browsing session, it's my pleasure to announce that the Expats Against Bush Forums are now in full operation and ready to be filled with reasoned, intelligent debate on the topics of the day.

The Forums can be found here: http://forums.expatsagainstbush.org/eve.

This is a standard UBB forum application which I'm sure you've all seen before. Just like normal, you'll need to set up a user profile for yourself, and then you can start posting away. There are some pretty advanced features of these forums so I'm sure we'll have a lot of fun as we go along.

I've set up some initial forums and forum areas, but I'm sure more will be added as we go along and things settle out. I've also seeded a couple of the forums with "starter" topics to get the ball rolling.

So what are you waiting for? Go chat!

Coming soon: EAB Forums

Just wanted to let you all know that I have arranged for dedicated Forums to be set up for Expats Against Bush - I am currently awaiting confirmation that hosting setup has been completed. This should allow a freeform (and I imagine lively) way for you all to verbally spar with each other.

On a side note, I am going on holiday Thursday through Monday (back Tuesday), so I should have these Forums in place and working by midweek next week. Obviously, that means that you probably won't see any new posts until next Tuesday either, unless someone wants to volunteer to post in my absence.

Back From the Land of the (sorta) Free, and the Home of the Brave (but terrified)

Well, that was an eye-opener. I spent three weeks at "home" in the midwest after living abroad for a year, and I have to say, it's nice to be back in London. I felt so isolated from the world, and the NEWS! My gosh, the NEWS was NOT news at all! Entertainment, perhaps, Propaganda, definitely, but most certainly not much actual NEWS. Everywhere I looked, there seemed to be indications that the "Terrsts" were coming, they were coming NOW, and if we didn't all submit to invasions of ours and others civil liberties, they were GONNA GIT US! Liberal media bias? Puh-lease. If it existed before, it certainly doesn't now.

Fellow expats (if there are actually are any here and it's not just pro-Bushites ranting), we should be glad to have this opportunity to look at our birthplace with open eyes. The average American living in the U.S. has to search hard and wade through so much to get an inkling of what is happening in the world! Even NPR is much tamer than I remembered.

Due to my marriage to a British man, I am one of those who will probably never move "home". But I'm still concerned for my homeland. I've already sent in my application for an absentee ballot, and I hope all you expats will do the same.

Side note: My brother is here on leave from Iraq, and we went and saw the screening of "Unprecedented", the documentary on the 2000 election. Very critical of both sides. Amazing how so many who've never seen it felt compelled to trash it! But that seems to be the way of the Pro-Bush side, bury everything, hope people forget.

(Luke, when are we all getting together? I feel the need for one of those self-exaulting, liberal back-patting festivals that we're always supposedly having!)

Merry Christmas

Expats Against Bush wishes you all a (Merry Christmas / Happy Hannukah / your flavor here) - if not in the embrace of your family, then at least in the embrace of someone near and dear to you.

Christmas Posting

Hi all,

Later today I am flying back to the States and will be there until the 29th of this month. I'm going to chill out, catch up with family and friends and shop for cheap clothes and gadgets. I'm going to eat my own weight in steak, and freeze my $%^*& off. In short, I'm going to have a normal family Christmas.

So for the next couple of weeks, my posting to EAB is going to take on a rather more leisurely pace, though it won't stop completely. If I can manage to drag my bloated carcass to a family member's PC I should be able to dash off the occasional missive.

I want all of you to do the same - go home, see your families, reflect on the year past, and come back in January refreshed and ready to go. I have some good ideas and initiatives I will be kicking off in the New Year, and I want you all to have a think over Christmas of what we can do once the election year kicks off properly. Things are looking a bit shaky on the election front at the moment, but as we all know a lot can happen in 11 months...

We're back

No thanks to TypePad (but thanks due to some bulletin board folks), Expats Against Bush is back online now. As it happens, somewhere within the domain redirection process from Expatsagainstbush.org the link broke down. Still no word on why this happened yet, but it looks like we're back in business.

Looking forward to your comments on the Saddam issue....

Typepad issue

Hi all, just so you know I am aware that the site is not displaying correctly at the moment and I have the TypePad support people on the case. You will be able to comment again as soon as we can get this fixed today - I'm sure you have some choice words ready to roll.

Commenting on the Absentee Voting guide

I am turning off comments on the Absentee Ballot guide, as I intend for it to be a static resource and with the length of time I envisage it being up, comments could make the page size unwieldy and add unnecessary clutter to what is meant to be a simple page.

You are, however, welcome to post your comments on it here. They will not be removed as long as they are polite and un-troll-like.