It depends on what your definition of "is" is.....

With less than a month to go until the presidential election, John McCain and supporters have heavily criticized Bill Ayers, a man with some previous minor connections to Barack Obama.
Early in his political career, Obama served on some educational committees with Ayers. Ayers ultimately did donate a small amount of money, $200, to Obama's reelection campaign while Obama still served in the Illinois legislature.
Of course, this doesn't mean that Obama holds all the beliefs that Ayers had back in the day.
Back in the day, Ayers had a fondness for blowing stuff up, like the Haymarket Riot memorial in Chicago. Ayers also helped plan a number of other bombings elsewhere.
Naturally, once federal charges were dropped, this opened up a shiny new career for Ayers, in education.
In his writings, Ayers parses his words with all the skill you'd expect from a self-serving, narcissistic child of privilege. One of his money quotes?
Right here:
We were very careful....to be sure we weren't going to hurt anybody, and we never did hurt anybody. Whenever we put a bomb in a public space, we had figured out all kinds of ways to put checks and balances on the thing and also to get people away from it, and we were remarkably successful......Terrorists terrorize, they kill innocent civilians, while we organized and agitated. Terrorists destroy randomly, while our actions bore, we hoped, the precise stamp of a cut diamond. Terrorists intimidate, while we aimed only to educate. No, we're not terrorists.--Fugitive Days, Bill Ayers.
Guess that explains how Ayers got his nice, shiny professorship at UIC. Bombs educate people. On second thought, maybe that happened because his daddy ran Commonwealth Edison and was friends with Richard J. Daley.
Bombs sure educated a close friend of Ayers and his girlfriend in 1970. Three of his terrorist friends, including his girlfriend, were killed when a nail bomb they were building exploded, tearing them to shreds. Literally. Cops were only able to identify his girlfriend after they found what remained of her thumb.
Another thing I really dig is about Ayers is how others are fooled into parsing words like he does. Check out a recent blog entry from Eric Zorn, who writes for the Chicago Tribune: http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2008/10/what-is-and-isn.html#comments
By definition, a terrorist is someone who uses violence in an attempt to coerce others into different beliefs. Zorn justifies Ayers' actions by saying Ayers didn't want to kill anyone.
Riiiiiiiight.
So, let's sum up. All you have to do to become a respected professor is bomb a lot of shit, not mean to kill anyone, and have a daddy who's close friends with the mayor. This also works in never having to do time for your crime.
Ugh.
I'm not gonna even start on my disgust for both presidential candidates.

The bunny chronicles: Mops, Gollum and a food dish

Ever since the rotten little beast has taken up residence in my apartment, we've had a certain ritual whenever I want to get her back in her cage. She normally hides out under my bed whenever she's out of her cage. My bedframe is on wheels, so I would move the bed back and forth. Eventually, the beast would emerge, hop about happily, and finally return to her cage.
Recently, I said to myself: "Self, this is too much effort. You have a mop. Just put it under the bed, and she'll go home."
Right.
So, I tried this. The beast thumped, and instead of hopping back into her cage, she went between her cage and my CD case. From there, I'd try to get her back in the cage, but she'd thump again, then run away, darting back under my bed.
The subsequent second through fifth attempts had the same degrees of success.
Frustrated, I moved the bed back and forth, and naturally the beast returned to her cage.
I was not satisfied with this. Moving the bed takes effort, more effort than I'm willing to spend to get the beast back home.
I needed another plan.
Fortunately, I have cardboard cutouts of Ivanova from Babylon 5 and Gollum from the Lord of the Rings films. In my revised effort, I placed the Gollum cutout right next to the beast's cage. I also placed the Ivanova cutout right next to the Gollum cutout, placing the Ivanova cutout on its side. This created roughly a 6-foot long barrier, blocking off the living room area of my apartment from my bed. This meant when the beast emerged, her only choices would be to either return to her cage or go to the front hallway. Once she was in the front hallway, there was no escape for her.
Once I had the barrier set up, I again took the mop and placed it under the bed, moving it along until finally, the beast emerged. She looked around for a bit, didn't see her usual escape routes, and returned to her cage.
Victory was mine!
Naturally, when the beast returned to her cage, she was angry at being thwarted. So, she chomped on her food dish and threw it around her cage even more than usual.
I had to do something about this. First off, she wastes food when she does this. Second, she makes a lot of noise when she does this. I don't like hearing so much noise.
So I said to myself: "Self, you have superglue. Why not glue the dish to the plastic shelf it sits in?"
Yesterday, I finally did that after cleaning the beast's cage. For those who are worried about the rabbit eating glue, I only used the glue on the surface that contacts the shelf, not on a portion that she normally grabs to throw the thing around.
After letting the glue set for a while, I put the shelf back in her cage. I filled it with pellets. Naturally, the beast tried to throw it right away, but the dish stayed in place.
Victory is mine!
Or so I thought.
Shortly before I went to bed last night, I looked at the beast, and she looked right back at me. Standing on her hind legs, she tugged at the dish twice, finally loosening it and removing it from the tray.
I was gonna need another plan.
So, I again glued the dish to the tray. I left it out of her cage overnight, thinking perhaps the glue needed some more time to do its work.
Upon waking up today, I returned the dish to her cage, and again filled it with pellets. Right away, she tried to throw it again, but was only able to move the tray upon which the dish was glued. The dish was staying put.
Victory is mine....?
Time will tell if my plan worked.
Rotten little beast.

::edit, 8:29 a.m. Central time::
I've returned home. First thing I noticed as I got in the door? The bunny's food dish....on the floor of the cage instead of in the shelf.
I need a new plan.

The real reason Bill is voting Republican this year.

Warning: not safe for work. Funny stuff.