The Largest Minority

June 8th, 2009 by Manila Ryce

As a disclaimer I feel I should state that my friends worked on this and asked me to help promote their services, but regular readers know I don’t promote anything I don’t trust or believe in (Well, there was that one year I turned every post into an embedded advertisement for Crystal Pepsi, but those were different times. Different, caffeine-free times).

Mitto has been up for awhile, but I decided to actually sign up myself last night when my Facebook account got hijacked. Nothing big this time, but sending shady links to all your friends does not make you popular. Mitto is basically an online manager which keeps track of your various usernames and passwords. If you’re as paranoid as I am about your personal info I recommend you check them out. Plus, as a blogger who needs to share info with others, Mitto also allows you to share certain passwords.

I’m not getting paid to write this, but maybe if I refer enough readers they’ll offer to make my website just as fancy as theirs. It’s worth a shot. We need a serious makeover at The Largest Minority. Click the link a few dozen times. They really do offer a great service. Pay it forward.

May 3rd, 2009 by Manila Ryce

Proving the old stereotype that Asians are more efficient, Hatton and Pacquiao were scheduled for 12 rounds but Manny only needed 2. If you’re about to fight someone who can’t stop smiling, you’re in trouble.

Pacquiao was always supposed to be quicker than Hatton, but he was also a lot stronger — and a lot more accurate. He landed 73 of his 127 punches in the fight in a display that had to catch the attention of Mayweather, who earlier in the day said he would return to the ring for a July 18 fight against Juan Manuel Marquez.

Hatton, meanwhile, connected on only 18 of 78 punches, according to ringside stats.

“I’m surprised the fight was so easy,” Pacquiao said. “He was wide open for the right hook. I knew he would be looking for my left.”

Pacquiao had the perfect game plan for Hatton, evading his bullying rushes and then picking him apart with counter punches. The performance was even more stunning because Hatton had lost only once and has been a world-class fighter for years.

“Are you happy?” Pacquiao asked promoter Bob Arum in the ring afterward.

“You’re going to be the greatest fighter who ever lived,” Arum replied.

That would take some doing, but on this night Pacquiao staked a claim to greatness that few would have thought possible before he scored his big upset over De La Hoya last December.

source

November 24th, 2008 by Manila Ryce

If I were McCain I’d consider not having to deal with Sarah Palin any longer as a win. It’s unfortunate for Obama that he can’t say the same for Biden.

Maybe I’m sadistic, but I can’t wait until Joe escapes his handlers and blurts out some intelligence info to the world that’ll make identifying an undercover CIA agent seem as small as cheating at Guess Who, or gives a racist compliment to the president during a speech to the NAACP. It’ll be hard to outdo “clean” and “articulate”, but there’s a certain hope for audacity I have in Biden. The possibilities really are endless.

November 3rd, 2008 by Manila Ryce

Tomorrow I will go to a polling station in Princeton, N.J., and vote for Ralph Nader. I know the tired arguments against a Nader vote. He can’t win. A vote for Nader is a vote for McCain. He threw the election to George W. Bush in 2000. He is an egomaniac.

There is little disagreement among liberals and progressives about the Nader and Obama campaign issues. Nader would win among us in a landslide if this was based on issues. Sen. Barack Obama’s vote to renew the Patriot Act, his votes to continue to fund the Iraq war, his backing of the FISA Reform Act, his craven courting of the Israeli lobby, his support of the death penalty, his refusal to champion universal, single-payer not-for-profit health care for all Americans, his call to increase troop levels and expand the war in Afghanistan, his failure to call for a reduction in the bloated and wasteful defense spending and his lobbying for the huge taxpayer swindle known as the bailout are repugnant to most of us on the left. Nader stands on the other side of all those issues.

So if the argument is not about issues what is it about?

Those on the left who back Obama, although they disagree with much of what he promotes, believe they are choosing the practical over the moral. They see themselves as political realists. They fear John McCain and the Republicans. They believe Obama is better for the country. They are right. Obama is better. He is not John McCain. There will be under Obama marginal improvements for some Americans although the corporate state, as Obama knows, will remain our shadow government and the working class will continue to descend into poverty. Democratic administrations have, at least until Bill Clinton, been more receptive to social programs that provide benefits, better working conditions and higher wages. An Obama presidency, however, will make no difference to those in the Middle East.

I can’t join the practical. I spent two decades of my life witnessing the suffering of those on the receiving end of American power. I have stood over the rows of bodies, including women and children, butchered by Ronald Reagan’s Contra forces in Nicaragua. I have inspected the mutilated corpses dumped in pits outside San Salvador by the death squads. I have crouched in a concrete hovel as American-made F-16 fighter jets, piloted by Israelis, dropped 500- and 1,000-pound iron-fragmentation bombs on Gaza City.

read the rest of this post here

October 25th, 2008 by Manila Ryce

Anyone who’s been on the road with Ralph knows that the 74-year-old kicks the Energizer Bunny’s ass. He will campaign in 21 cities and towns across Massachusetts today in less than 24 hours. If he makes 15 speeches he’ll be in the record books, but Ralph is shooting for 21.

Ralph is scheduled to deliver 315 minutes of speeches today, and from what I hear, everything is on schedule so far. If you happen to be in Massachusetts, try and catch history in the making. You can see Ralph’s schedule here midway down the page.

Just don’t ask him to sign a napkin or pose for your camera phone that never works. The man is on a mission. You’ll ruin everything you selfish jerk.

Updates to follow.

October 8th, 2008 by Manila Ryce

I hardly write about my daily life here, but I’d like to share something that happened last night as I was out for a midnight bike ride. By the way, night riding is quite enjoyable and I encourage everyone who doesn’t live in Torrance, CA to try it. Not only does the underfunded local roadway have more nooks and crannies than an English muffin, but the police are constantly on the prowl for murderous bike riding gang members, apparently.

As some of you may know from at least one previous post, I’ve developed a habit of getting stopped by the police about every other week while out on my bike. Unfortunately, this continued harassment is a quasi-curfew imposed on young males which I’ve grown used to.

So during the usual Q&A with the police, it finally hit me how scripted the whole interaction is. There are 5 questions they always ask me and they ALWAYS come along in the following order: What are you doing out? Where do you live? Ever been to prison? You on probation? And finally, Got any dope or weapons on you? Then they leave.

The last question is almost thrown in there for comic relief and the cops usually say it in an almost teasing manner. You can never really tell when a cop is joking, but since all the officers who’ve asked me that question actually wait for me to give a respectful response before they agree to leave me alone, I’m inclined to think that it’s at least half-serious. What are they thinking? “Well, I didn’t get him on the previous questions, but maybe I’ll get him on this one!” Who the hell answers, “Yes”?

It seems like the ultimate exercise in futility - like in the movies when all your bullets bounce off Superman, so in desperation you throw your gun at him (not that I’m comparing myself to Superman, but I have been known to change costumes in telephone booths). You’ve already given up and this is your last ditch effort before you say goodbye. You know it and I know it. No one would ever say yes. Let’s drop the pretense.

Still, there must be some percentage of people who do answer: “yes, I do indeed have weapons and drugs on me officer” or they’d stop asking everyone this absurd question. Right? Anyway, the whole scripted affair and pointless line of questioning, where officer and suspect are simply going through the motions, left me a bit irritated with the charade of the system. Then I remembered I had recorded the presidential debates so I sped home to watch them.

September 8th, 2008 by Manila Ryce

Finally, a poll which includes ALL of the 2008 presidential candidates.
h/t to Anita Stewart.

September 8th, 2008 by Manila Ryce

• Dogma: I am God
• Dammit, I’m mad
• Cain: a maniac
• Harass sensuousness, Sarah
• Golf? No sir, prefer prison-flog
• Are we not pure? “No sir!” Panama’s moody Noriega brags. “It is garbage!” Irony dooms a man; a prisoner up to new era. (A reference to McCain’s birthplace, US terrorism, and his time as a POW.)