Vegan Etsy team give away

The first of the Vegan Etsy Team give away has started! You can go here to find out all the details, and how to play this round. Winner gets a dog treat cookbook by Emma's K9 Kitchen, and a collar charm from Starrlight Jewelry.

Good luck!

13 scary numbers about Climate Change for the 13th

Posted from the Environmental Defence Action Fund:

35%
Increase in the global carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels since the Kyoto Protocol was signed in 1992.

388.57 ppm
Average concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in May 2008, a record high.

541 – 970 ppm
The projected concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by 2100 under a business as usual scenario where we don't dramatically reduce global warming emissions.

260 – 280 ppm
Average concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere before industrial emissions.

50 – 200 years
Length of time carbon dioxide stays in the earth's atmosphere before it is absorbed into carbon sinks.

1000 years
Length of time changes in the earth's surface temperature, rainfall, and sea level will remain even after carbon dioxide emissions are completely stopped.

34%
Percentage that 2008's Arctic seasonal sea ice melt outpaced normal levels.

70%
Increase in the rate of Greenland's ice melt over the last five years.

1.7 days
Number of days earlier seasons are coming than 50 years ago.

1.5 million
Number of acres of forests in Colorado destroyed by the pine beetle, which is better able to survive warmer winters and is wrecking havoc in America's western forests.

$427 million
Amount spent by the oil and coal industries in the first six months of 2008 in political contributions, lobbying expenditures and advertising to oppose climate action.

0
Number of global warming bills passed by the Senate.

0
Number of global warming bills passed by the House.



See here for the full article and sources.

Positive Activism

As the welfarist movement becomes more sexist and racist with each stunt they pull, perhaps a brief discussion of some positive forms of activism might be worthwhile. Because at the end of the day it's not about how much publicity you can achieve, but how many folks you can get to understand that other beings aren't ours to use, consume, torture, and abuse.

Educate
Yourself first, so you can better help educate others in the future. If you're new to abolition animal rights; I would suggest starting out with Making A Killing: The Political Economy of Animal Rights, by Bob Torres; followed closely with Animals as Persons: Essays on the Abolition of Animal Exploitation by Gary L. Francione.

Engage in a dialog
With your neighbor, best friend, the person ringing up the vegetable that asked you what it was and how you "use" it. Places NOT for this however, is at a table full of flesh and the like. And have literature on hand to give away for that unplanned conversation you got into because of your 'Animal Liberation' tee-shirt.

Bake and share
Seems silly and easy, but a few dozen cookies and brownies brought into work or a late night study group can work wonders. So many people think that veganism is about "giving up" all these things, and constantly give me this as reasons why they could never be vegan. Showing folks that there's nothing to give up is a great way to positively advocate for veganism.

Leaflet
Even if you just find time to do it an hour every other week, you can reach so much people. And if you bring friends and cookies, it's really not that hard at all. Vegan Outreach has some great ones, or just make your own.

Display info in public areas

The eco-savvy route of leafleting. Any place there is a public board--the library, coffee shop, co-op; put up an eye-catching little flier with information.

Focus on your strengths, and be creative

You know that thing that they teach us in kindergarten; everyone is good at something? Well, it's true, and you can use that to achieve the best form of advocacy. Whether it's painting, writing, baking, talking-- whatever you are good at; think of ways you can convert that into activism.

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists

Monday's music of the moment: Ted Leo and the Pharmacists

Currently I seem to be lost in the punk/alternative style of them. They guitar is awesome, and the lyrics are politically charged perfect lines that could double as poetry. This is one of the few cases where some of the older stuff is just as good as the new. I haven't heard a song I didn't like yet, which is also rare.

Also, if you are into buying it; while I'm usually a big fan of the instant iTunes set-up, if you purchase it from the Touch and Go Records website they donate a portion of the profits to Food not Bombs and Democracy Now!.

The Angel's Share:

Down again-it seems a losing fight
Yet, down again, I sit, to try to write
An open letter to a President
Or melodies to help a girl pay rent
(We saved and saved, only to find them spent).

Vegan Samples

For any vegan crafters out there, Holistically Heather is putting together a little sample pack full of vegan crafting goodness. It is a great way to promote your work! Check it out :

http://www.vegansamples.blogspot.com/

The Little Black box

This month The Little Black box went vegan this month and was sponsored by the great Vegan Etsy Team that I'm happy and proud to be a part of. Everything in the box is vegan and eco-friendly and is a fun way to get a bunch of samples of a little bit of everything, which I always love.

Holistically Heather, who is also part of the team wrote a great review that can be found here.


Some of the things I sent in:

^peach and lime aventurine gemstone earrings

^green glass gumdrop bracelet

Support independent vegan crafters! And, broke students who hate waiting tables, in my case.

The Fallout

Monday's music of the moment: The Fallout

The newest addition to my iPod would have to be a few of this bands songs, particularly from their second album, Dismantlement.

It's pretty straight forward punk; maybe a mix between a slower, less revved up Good Clean Fun and some sloppy Green Day chords, but their lyrics are smart and it's pretty entertaining to listen to. My favorite songs are probably 'Riot Boys' and 'Bread and Freedom'. You can hear some of their stuff here, if you want a bigger listen than what iTunes lets you hear before you buy.

This is me pimping capitalism again (sort of)

Hopefully there are enough procrastinators around that this post is still somewhat relevant.

As many of the folks I know are likely to buy some sort of holiday card set anyways, I don't feel like directing people to essentially buy from a "better" place is totally out of line. I usually just make my own holiday themed cards around this time of year, but realized quickly my list was going to be too long for that sort of endeavor - so I found a compromise. I give money anyways to a few different environmental organizations, Peaceful Prairie (http://www.peacefulprairie.org/), ect; so I thought I would try to multi-task a bit better.

One of the websites I was at was featuring holiday-ish cards you could buy, with 10% of the profits going directly to charity. Well, honestly those cards were poor, and costly (10 for $15!!!) and I thought for that price it should be a bit more then 10, as I continued to think about it. But a quick goodsearch (www.goodsearch.com for those folks who haven't switched over yet!! It's exactly like searching yahoo! ) latter I had stumbled on http://www.cardsthatgive.org/charities.html which I really ended up liking. They organize everything by category, and have a quick key that shows you how much of the proceeds go directly to charity. I ended up with two different designs from http://www.healthebay.org/ ; and 50 cards for $30, a much better ratio!

^My favorite of the ones I got. Who can resist dolphins? Plus I can sneak in with winter greetings my favorite Finding Nemo quote, "fish are friends- not food". Too bad they didn't have any shark ones. Now I just have to remember to mail them out.

So for anyone who hasn't invested yet in holiday cards, try this out; or just save it for next year.

My etsy shop

With it being summer, and LSat's being over I found some spare time and so I started selling some jewelry I made. We'll see how that goes for a bit!

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5601067

Celebrities are an odd set of people

So in case somehow in your vegan bubble it escaped your attention (though doubtful)-- Oprah is totally going vegan.

For a month.

Lots of vegans couldn't be happier at this turn of events; but I'm, of course, extremely dissatisfied and practically offended. It would be one thing if there was just the statement that she was going vegan. Fine. That's great. The more the merrier, one down, only billions more people to go.

But for one, there is a deadline, and a pathetically short one at that. If some dude came up to me and said, you know- I'm going to reject sexism for a whole month!, I wouldn't exactly be doing cartwheels. And correspondingly I'm not now. I guess compassion is only good less then ten percent of the year? SO odd.

She isn't doing it to be compassionate anyways, though. It's this "cleansing" thing from a book Kathy Freston wrote that is so hippish, it has me shuddering. Admittedly, I've only seen the offhand soundbite on Ellen or Oprah that other folks have tagged for me, but that has been enough.

Freston was on Ellen explaining the whole book (in ten minutes or less) and she was perfectly complacent with a situation where a person would just pick one day of the week to go meatless ("Meatless Mondays" was her suggestion). I get people sometimes need a starting point, but that is ridiculous. Maybe Mondays will be my meatless day, Tuesdays will totally be all about rejecting racism, Wednesdays will be my super feminist day... you obviously get the picture. It's insane, and other being deserve more then that.

To top it all off, Oprah is making this big production of all that she's giving up, and a lot of the things have nothing to do about veganism. Caffeine, sugar (alright, some types), glutton--nothing to do with veganism. So understandably, it is just confusing the issue even more. My mom called me up, in fact, to tell me I've been doing it wrong all along-Oprah isn't drinking coffee because it's not vegan--and if I've been "cheating" all these years anyways, why won't I enjoy a little ice cream with her? This is me, banging my head against the wall.

Oh! And Pink is standing up for puppies!! Finally, folks are standing up for beings that have no one advocating for them.

Don't even turn the television on anymore

Objectified flesh covered in dead tortured flesh. Sure sounds sexy to me. Designer Tuleh, who was on America's Next Top Model made sure to mention it was, as he looked at the womyn clothed and surrounded by flesh.

Insert the obvious Carol Adams critique here. Particularly for me, as I looked at the images and heard the (shockingly) sexist and speciest commentary, was the part at the end of The Sexual Politics of Meat where she iterates,

"For women in the patriarchal culture...we have been swallowed and we are the swallowers. We are the consumers and the consumed."

Wrapping yourself in consumable to most flesh certainly drives this point home, literally saying consume me as you would meat.

I keep getting these mailings from Nigel Barker for the last three weeks or so (okay, so really probably the HSUS or some other messed up organization [why am I still on their mailing list?] that pretends to be "for the animals" sometimes--but my e-mail sender totally says it's from Nigel, so...) and I know that these e-mails contain pictures of super cute seals, so of course I looked at them. And they are, SO cute. Like a cold puppy. And I decided to move Nigel up a few points on my cool list because he has this letter that clearly states,

"Like you, I care about animals and I don’t ever want to see them suffer...Each year, hundreds of thousands of defenseless baby seals are brutally clubbed and shot to death for their fur—most of which is exported to Europe.I still remember the first time I saw the shocking images: conscious seal pups impaled on metal hooks and dragged across the ice, wounded seals left to suffer…some baby seals even skinned alive. I vowed then to do everything I could to stop this cruelty."

Replace the seal with another being and fur with flesh and the same thing is happening, only by the billions. So, how is this different again? Shouldn't you be vowing to stop the cruelty to these beings used in this shoot? I don't know how some people's heads don't explode with the disconnect they try to make their minds mold to.

So, I'm obviously not going to show some pictures of flesh on flesh, but I will show a seal pup:

and while you're at it, take a look at this cute cow because s/he is totally worthy of your compassion as well.

Issues with addressing groups

(This is the post in which I will pretend I haven't neglected my blog). I think it comes off a little they said, then I said, in parts; but bear with me-I'm trying to get on the blogging track:

So, a few instances have popped up recently that has made me think a bit. A fairly new co-worker asked me the other day if I was from "the South". Being confused at the seemingly random question, after answering in the negative I asked her why. Oh. Because I used the word ''y'all" when addressing my table, which was apparently weird if I didn't hail from there. After saying very vaguely that it is my favorite gender neutral address, I was told that they were all ''ladies" and I totally should have totally addressed them as that.

I don't know them, or their gender; so I would never address them in a way that took for granted that. The topic, much to my dismay, gets continued fairly often. Cries of, "you did it again!", and little remarks of how I'm a "crazy vegan (though I struggle to find the relevance of this particular quip-maybe just to further emphasize how crazy I really am?) feminist" gets repeated now, and I just seriously never envisioned this thing as labeling me as such. Is addressing a group with gender neutral language that extreme? Really? How depressing. I think my next dilemma quite possibly enters that category, but even so; I think it's something to at least spend a bit of time thinking about.

I finished a short presentation with a classmate and afterwards the professor exclaimed, "thanks girls, and now I believe you two gentlemen are next?". Okay. Even assuming that the classmate I worked with identified as female, and following presenters identified male--there is no positive or helpful interpretation of that remark. It wasn't "ladies" and "gentlemen" which could have been at equal levels I suppose; it was girls. And a lot of times I think of myself as a kid, sure, (certainly at school sometimes) but this seemed deliberately dismissive; especially when put so closely with identifying two males as the latter.

What really irks me even more, as I've been trying to pin down as I've been thinking about it, is that it all seems unnecessary to me. How is it relevant what gender the presenters were (especially in a situation where all of us are getting a grade)? Is it really important to classify my customers as male or female and address them as such? No.

If at first something fails catastrophically--throw more money at it

Just in case anyone needed another reason to hate zoos:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21919225/

Three polar bears have already died due to Buffalo zoo's neglect. This makes me sick to my stomach that the only folks who have voiced any real concern is PETA. Insert gagging noise here. They make a point to say that this is the first time in five years that they have asked that a zoo be shut down. I should be giving credit for their incompetence now? (But hey, look at how many womyn they've managed to objectify in that time!!)

The Buffalo News had a front page story on it the other day with various people defending the zoo (because the previous article detailing all of the zoo's neglect wasn't received well?), and reasoning that; hey this just means we should be giving them more money! I guess now the continued funding of the Iraq war makes perfect sense.

My slow fingers can't find the link right now, but pretty much the only effort being made is to (a) close down the zoo entirely, or (b) simply move the one remaining polar bear to another, "better" place. Which is oh so eerily reminiscent of the helpfulness of closing down Abu Graib, IE one place of torture, and simply rendering everything to another location.

I especially love how this article makes a point to say:

Fields said the zoo does not report every death to the media because animal
deaths are regular occurrences at a zoo.

Which is perfectly true. Other beings dieing for the sake of humyn entertainment does happen all the time. Every day. Nothing to see here folks, just walk away and return to your lives.

Stop thinking, you!

I've now seen the H.R. 1955 Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 bill which just passed in the House of Reps in about every internet reading place I like to go to. And, everyone is super shocked, its dubbed the thought crime bill; many understandable references to 1984. Honestly I'm shocked that so many folks are shocked, though. I parted with my first amendment rights with the Patriot Act, just like everyone else. And I watched as the fear that the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act would be used to prosecute peaceful AR activists, become a reality as the SHAC 7 and many other good folks found themselves in jail. Putting a web site up has already got people in trouble, this is hardly anything new. It's an essential dictatorships last lingering leap for finger holds into American law. I'm pretty sure it's only going to get worse. Hell, Gravel can't even go to debates now. I don't even like him, but I want him back. Keep the illusion up for folks that anyone can run for president. I do like though, how now all these ultra republican publications are getting worried about this, and totally seem to think that it is aimed at targeting them. That does get me laughing.



P.S: I don't think about any action, or inaction ever, and actually this blog is just random letters that my fingers type from time to time and I'm so a patriot and love our troops. So, you know, I don't and will never do anything this bill says I shouldn't do.

Go smoothie!

GGSE #2
ingredients:
apple
5 ice cubes
1 cup frozen grapes
banana
2 cups swiss chard
1 cup alfalfa sprouts
1 cup pea springs
2 small kiwis
1 tablespoon blackstrap molasses
1 tablespoon flax seed
.25 cup water

So this one definitely had a taste. It was sweet, and if "refreshing" was a taste, that would be it. Also it felt like little bubbles in my mouth, and I decided I liked a breakfast that did that. It has a slight bite as an after taste, but I think that’s because a few radish sprouts ended up in there. It was sort of green too! Only a murky one with little multi-colored specks in it. But not to shabby getting the color so on track on the second go. It did yield me two coffee mugs full, and by the end of the second one I was sort of getting tired of it and thinking it was a bit sweet.

Fat: 9, Calories: 655, Carbs: 142, Protein: 17, Vitamin A: 49%, E: 78%, K: 1155%, C: 446%, B-6: 126%, Thiamin: 66%, Riboflavin: 58%, Niacin: 42%, Folate: 63%, Iron: 70%, Zinc: 36%, Selenium: 18%, Calcium: 38%, Phosphorus: 58%, Magnesium: 106%

The Big Bang Theory inspired, very practical Great Green Smoothie Experiment

Recently, because of some of my favorite television shows ending (can you say Gilmore Girls?), and a few old ones I liked ending up not entertaining me this season for whatever reason (Numbers, for one); I've fallen onto a new show that I absolutely love: The Big Bang Theory.

Now, I'm not one to really blog about TV in the past, but it brought me to my newest quest, so an impromptu introduction was needed. The co-op was selling all these greens for unusually cheep price, so I ended up picking up way to many for a normal twenty-two year old to go through left to her own devises. So I was looking at my unusually large amount of chard, kale, dandelion greens, and spinach, watching said show last night trying to incorporate my unusually large collection of greens into dinner with, a...um salad because I'm (1)not too original late at night, (2) generally enjoy salads despite having to constantly answer clichéd remarks about it, (3)figured it was the best way to start making a dent in them (along with chugging down a few quality heirloom tomatoes).

Well Sheldon started a bunch of experiments, and one of them was achieving the best scrambled eggs. Which, eww, but it got me thinking along the lines of kitchen expirements. And, I have a digital camera! One that I haven't fully worked out yet, but what better way to learn. Additionally, I hadn't found any one single green smoothie that I had all the ingredients for or liked all the components, so fueled on by Sheldon, I have decided to pursue The Great Green Smoothie Experiment. Boring for every other person except me.

Ahem, without any further ado:

GGSE #1:
ingredients:
apple
1 cup frozen strawberries
1 cup frozen blueberries
banana
1 cup chopped kale
1.5 cup chopped swiss chard
1.5 tablespoons flax seed
dash of nutmeg (why not)
.5 cup soy milk and .25 cup water
1 tablespoon blackstrap molasses

So, on the positive side: it didn't taste bad. It was also frozen-ish which is how I like my smoothies. And it got rid of some green stuff, but I think I got a bit to happy with the fruit. On the cons: it wasn't green, which was, a huge disappointment. Purple would be a nice description, grey would sort of be more accurate. It didn't really taste like anything, mostly just frozen, however, only faintly like molasses. Maybe if I strained my taste buds a bit of strawberry.

But it was edible, even though I had no clue what I was doing! I just threw stuff into a blender. So, I'm quite satisfied with day one.

I suppose most people if they were not me would be interested in the nutritional information, and this being all "science-y" I guess I'll post an approximation, made by fitday, which is a site I sometimes use when I'm feeling particularly neurotic about nutrients. I'll try posting the pictures when and if I figure out the camera situation.

Calories: 506, Carbs: 109, Fat: 10, Protein: 13, Vitamin A: 132%, B-6: 115%, B-12: 38%, K: 1867%, C: 424%, Thiamin: 48%, Riboflavin: 54%, Calcium: 43%, Niacin: 24%, Folate: 36%, Iron: 64%, Zinc: 23%, Selenium: 15%, Phosphorus: 41%, Magnesium: 85%

Katrina's accomplices?

I thought, hands down this article would be getting into the failure of the Bush administration, race, class and gender issues...any number of ideas that I'm interested in always reading on. Katrina's accomplices?? I knew the answer to this question...

Unfortunately the author didn't. Instead, he decided to compare a parent leaving their child in a hot car to die; to a parents "decision" not to evacuate. Like folks in the Ninth Ward were like, well, I could save our lives, but I'm just not feeling up to it. He even mentions not having the resources. Only this was answered with, well; saying I'm poor never let parents who leave their children in cars off the hook. Prosecute Katrina victims as well. They lost a child, let's make them "really" pay with some legal consequences.

I'm mind numbingly floored at the inability to grasp class struggles. What it means that the majority(?) of Americans don't understand what it means to live in poverty day in and day out, to not have enough money for dinner or medicine; let alone the finances to back a trip. There was no decision. Folks who were left vulnerable in New Orleans weren't there because they choose it; society and capitalism pushed people there. And this administration did jack shit. How you can analyse the situation and find the victims at fault is really, truly beyond me.

Look at me(!!!): I can talk AR without objectifying womyn!!!

I'm going to preface this rant for just an unexpected moment with: I like Alicia Silverstone, I do. I like how she talks about veganism on popular shows, when asked for an interview, in a way that doesn't seem defensive, or angry; attributes that I inevitably end up producing whenever I'm trying to talk about it.

But seriously: she made awesome, totally articulate arguments for veganism--with her clothes on.

And I'm not to sure with what taking them off had to do with animal rights, especially in a world where this was done without a catch phrase of, "I'd rather go naked then wear fur" (not that this would make it a particularly better argument, but it would at least be a bit more explainable). Just talking about how awesome "vegetarianism" is, (because even though this is one of the rare times PETA uses a celebrity with a consistent advocacy, for some reason it's conveniently[?] left out and reduced to an advocacy that is still pretty down with exploiting animals) without your clothes (and wet!!! because wet naked is soooo much sexier then just naked alone) may, I suppose, somehow makes steps for AR, but a world where animals have rights, yet womyn are reduced to objects, is still a pretty sucky reality for me.

Though this doing things in actuality for animal rights is still a pretty weak argument for me. Naked womyn and PETA is hardly a new concept, surely the "shock" factor of which they claim this advertisement originally was supposed to do, is gone. Indeed, although it is breaking today, it isn't making any huge headlines (though it did warrant a few seconds on The View, but that was mostly so Elisabeth could tell everyone how not mad she is at Alicia, not to actually discuss veganism).

This isn't going to launch a new discussion of ethical discourse in America; it's just another situation where a womyn is being devalued as a person with ideas and feelings, and made into a sexual object where we can judge her physical attributes more accordingly. The fact that it has Alicia's face on it, the fact that she's a "celebrity", the fact that the ad is talking about vegetarianism is all rendered irrelevant when they're trying to accent her sexual attributes at the forefront. The blurb by the video ad on PETA's website by Alicia seems to be the final stamp on this ("I lost the weight" and "I look better now"), seemingly to advocate not to be vegan for any moral implications, but to use veganism as the method and the way to increase your sexuality, a way you too can render yourself fit to serve a male dominated fantasy.

And that fucking sucks.

I lose stuff too, but it's never really been that bad

I can appreciate that it is generally difficult to sometimes keep track of things, particularly when you try and move a lot of stuff at once. I seem to have left a souvenir at every hotel I've stayed at (a little gift to the maids, maybe, if you will). But it is 99 percent of the time, little things that didn't really make it too high on my list of priorities. I have a few things that seem valuable to me, so I make it a point to keep track of them. Cell phone? Check. Ipod? Check. Sunny Care Bear flip-flops I found for less then a buck in LA? Check. If I had a gun, or something with the possibility to kill mass people, that would also totally make that list.

So, it really confuses me when it's revealed that, (a) about two hundred thousand things with the potential to kill people are missing, and (b) it takes about two years for this to really be realized. When this first broke, I figured that I must grossly be underestimating how much weapons are being used in the first place. Several different sources are phrasing it as thirty percent though. We don't know where almost a third of our weapons are?? I need to find a word that means even less then incompetent, because this is so far below that word. Incompetent is the word I use to describe the new waitress's ability to effectively clean dishes. I need something greater when I try and conceptualize what not knowing where this many AK-47s are means.

What makes me even more shocked, is that a lot of folks when they talk about how frustrated it makes them, center an anger not at the damage said weapons could, and probably are, doing; but that their tax dollars are being wasted. I think about money fairly often; a lot of people on tight budgets probably do. But it is a new low of the American egotistical psyche to hear about loss weapons in Iraq, and to be worried about their wallet, not about the people who are most likely being shot because we have so much shit over in Iraq, we can't keep track of it.

Youtube debating makes me want to watch the Republican debate

I thought this was going to be one of those things that I get all excited about, then it turns out phenomenally bad and disappointing (Like when you stay up for days so you can both work and read the entirety of Harry Potter, only for that ending). But I had genuine fun watching the latest instalment of the democratic debates; and what's more I can watch all the replays I want on youtube because they sponsored the whole thing. Or something equivalent-I'm not sure how they really would do that, but I'm fairly certain CNN told me this was a fact several times.

Literally the only negative thing about the whole experience was that my tv guide didn't understand what was going on, and didn't list when and what channel the debate was on, so I literally spent two hours before the debate flipping through all these vaguely looking CNN and fox news channels trying to find it. Luckily, I found it with twenty minutes still left on their countdown--which is another fabulous idea. They had a timer going counting down for the last hour, giving it the anticipation level it justly deserves.

It all started out so spectacularly too, with a Chris from Oregon asking how all the candidates would be any different, with plenty of air quotes to go around. I think I'm officially in the Obama over Clinton camp (but obviously Kucinich over them all) indefinitely. Which I believe is a result of both Clinton looking more politically motivated and sideswiping important issues, and Obama just getting better at saying...the same lines he has been saying. (But really better at it; and seeing as they are good lines anyways...). And it really broke my heart when asked if she would meet with leaders (even and especially ones we are in conflict with) during her first year and office and she gave the most direct 'no' I think I've ever heard her say. Obama on the other hand, said it has been quite a ridiculous policy indeed thinking that we are somehow punishing countries by not talking to them. But, Kucinich is giving reparations for slavery, and its before the primary and he's still in it, so why am I talking about Obama?

Gravel, not to disappoint was as angry as ever, right from the get go; even after humbly thanking his youtube questioner for asking him a question because, "he doesn't get a lot". This was mainly concerning how everybody is getting funding, yes even Obama, from banks, (and well, he's not). I'm also confused how Edwards can say that he's, "on a journey" with an issue, and so therefore doesn't know his personal opinion about it (gay marriage), but he affirms his personal opinions shouldn't reflect policy anyways. Which, 'yeah!', I think; but why then is he answering every other question as per what he believes in?

In all of the funny moments, I think it is tied between the snowman (hmm--I just realized this word is gendered, but I'm not quite sure how to remedy that because snowmyn just looks weird and snowperson seems stupid...) worried about how global warming will affect the little snow...people... and when everybody had to "say a nice thing about the candidate on their left" as a feel-good tacky close to the debate (which, come on, I live for), Kucinich's remark of "hey, I was set up; there is no one to the left of me", was met by an unusually fast and witty reply from Anderson of, "we looked; we couldn't find anyone to the left of you". It doesn't get better then that people.

So I got this shirt now and have totally texted 'peace' to 73223, because that's really all Kucinich wanted to get across the entire debate (the latter, not the shirt-that was totally my idea).