Hillary Clinton is a liar. No big news there. Recently she was caught lying about her Bosnia trip and I'm ok with that too. Really, it's Hillary, I expect her to lie. Remember when she said she was named after Sir Edmund Hillary? That's just the kind of person Hillary is. And that's ok.

What isn't ok is her lying about her recent lies. Lying about lies, that's just bad form. Hillary has done exactly that. Hillary stated that she "misspoke", she was "sleep deprived" and that she "say(s) a lot of things, millions of words a day". A good try, but these are just lies to cover up past lies. If she misspoke, misstated or was sleep deprived why did she make the same claim in December and February? Why were her lies part of her written speech? Why did she further lie by stating that she left the tarmac after greeting the little girl when there's photographic evidence that she didn't?

Seeing as how the past 16 years have been Clinton and Bush I'm used to lies. Maybe I could have even let her lies about her lies slide. Maybe. Where do I draw the line you ask? Shoddy math, that's where. I'm not asking our president to know anything about economics or the tax code or other important presidenty things. All I ask is for a little knowledge of basic algebra and that's where Hillary really effed up. She stated that she says millions of words a day. Really Hillary? Millions?

There are 86,400 seconds in a day. So what you're now telling me is that you can fit multiple millions of words into less than 100,000 seconds? Do you think you're Rebel XD or something? Either throw down with your mad rapping skills or admit you lied. Otherwise you're no better than Bush. The bad Bush.

I've decided that Mondays are picture days. There won't be a theme to the pictures, except they're all shots I've taken and most likely they'll have been taken in Portland, Oregon. I'm not skilled at photography but I see some interesting stuff so hopefully it will work out.
In the next week or so I'm going to try to add some structure to when I post, perhaps a "Why I hate you" Saturday, some kind of list on Thursday and maybe a free form post somewhere in between. We'll see.

Today, March 29, 2008 at 8:00pm is "Earth Hour". Presently I'm somewhat in shock that something like this has gained enough traction to be taken seriously. I guess I should be pissed but I'm not. Hippies sitting inside, in the dark, are better than hippies outside waving signs.

And really, if you want to shut off your lights for an hour, it doesn't harm me. It's just stupid, self congratulatory and accomplishes nothing. Maybe one day you can lie to your kids about how you stopped global warming with Earth Hour just like hippies claim to have stopped the Vietnam War by sitting around and smoking pot. Even Google is going to get in on the action by turning their background to black, because that really helps and they care and it's not a cheap advertising stunt.* Except when I do it, my background is dark because I care.

Here's the thing with "Earth Hour", it's counterproductive and I believe it's actually worse than doing nothing. Great, the lights are off for an hour, what about the other 8,783 hours this year? I guess we can forget about those since we participated in Earth Hour. Lets celebrate ourselves and how earth conscious we are!

Things we shouldn't encourage people to do with an hour: Replace inefficient light bulbs, carpool to work, buy local food, figure out your personal emissions, drink water from the tap, plant something or read some simple ways to actually help.

*Black backgrounds may use more energy on LCD screens than white (except my site, which is magical). Way to lead by example Google.

It's no secret that I hate hippies. A lot of people hate hippies so it's a fairly safe hatred to have, which is nice. I don't hate hippies because they're lazy, drug addled, simpletons. I hate hippies because they're disingenuous, rude and close minded. Hippies like to think that one of the defining characteristics of being a hippie is being open minded. It isn't.

Hippies use the term "open minded" to convince you that you should be open minded about things that fall into the hippie sliver; the very very small set of things that hippies believe in and are ok with. In Hippie parlance "open minded" is used like the word "share". They want you to share with them, they want you to be open minded about what they do. They probably won't share with you (sharing the sounds of the bongos doesn't count) and they certainly won't be open minded about anything that falls outside the hippie sliver. There will be plenty of time later to break down types of hippies, better define the hippie sliver and rant about their naivety but first I should define what it is to be a hippie.

Though many people have mistaken me for a hippie in the past I have never been mistaken for a hippie by a hippie. Because of this I believe I can help Normal-norms distinguish between hippies and real people.

There are 4 main characteristics that make up hippies; music, drugs, politics and fashion. Hippies have other common bonds and may swear that one of those characteristics is critical to being a hippie. It isn't. Just music, drugs, politics and wardrobe.

Music:

Hippies: Not unlike all the people of the world; hippies enjoy music. Hippies mostly like to listen to music made by other hippies. I personally think it's about the scene and not the tunes (see Bonnaroo) but lets pretend like that's not true. Hippies like jam bands, new blue grass (that's played by hippies) and hippie folk music. They like music they can dance around to whilst feeling the grass between their toes and the freedom of their home-made threads twirling in the wind.

Zervas: I've been to about a dozen Phish shows and have seen such bands as Widespread Panic, Leftover Salmon, Yonder Mountain and The Big Wu multiple times. I really like blue grass and old-timey music and I love outdoor shows. So if you discount my interest in rap/hip-hop I'm a hippie when it comes to music. 8/10

Drugs:

H: Hippies like drugs. A lot. Hippies enjoy weed, acid, opium, ecstasy and psilocybin. Some dabble in other drugs but crack and heroin are generally looked down upon. Weed, opium and shrooms are hardly ever looked down upon. They come from the earth. Man.

Z: I like drugs. A lot. I enjoy weed. I have dabbled in other drugs such as opium and ecstasy but I generally look down on them. I used to take psilocybin about ever year or two in an attempt to "center" myself. Although I'm presently an adult and my life doesn't center around them I'm clearly a hippie when it comes to drugs. 9/10

Politics:

H: Hippies think there should be no war and everybody should love each other. They vote for third party candidates that have no hope of winning or, more likely, they don't vote at all.

Z: I think there should be no war and everybody should love each other. I don't think it's going to happen but it's a nice idea. I voted for Nader, twice. Hell, I was even a campus coordinator in 2004. I majored in poverty (poli sci and philosophy) and believe that more money needs to be put into social services and education. I have hippie ideals but putting thought, planning and reality into my politics lowers me to a 7 out of 10 for this category.

Fashion:

H: Hippies like to wear clothes that look homemade, have patches and are made of hemp. Hippies like band t-shirts, peasant blouses, tie dye, jewelry, headbands and other useless accessories. Hippies like to wear light clothes as it's always summer in the mind of a hippie.

Z: I like clothes that are comfortable and sharp. I don't wear ties but I can often be found in khakis and a button up shirt. When I'm not working I tend to wear shorts and plain white t-shirts. I don't like logos and second to comfort is simplicity. I often wear a beard which does bump me up a few hippie points. I was pretty low in this category until Monday when I received a pair of Thai Fisherman pants from my girlfriend's sister. They are comfort city. Due to the new pants and the beard I'll say I'm a 20 out of 70 on the hippie wardrobe scale.

This places me at a solid 44/100 on the hippie scale. Which although fairly high means I'm not a hippie, as 51% is required to break into the Hippie Sphere. Although I'm 70% or above on the first 3 pillars of hippiedom being a hippie is like playing The Feud. You may think you're rocking it but the last round is the only round that really counts.

If you don't dress like a hippie, you're not a hippie. Plain and simple. Emo, Goth, Punk and Hippie. All pretty much the same thing, all are based on fashion. Sure people who don't want to admit they're fashionistas will quote Elliot Smith, Anne Rice, Sid Vicious or Ken Kesey but they're wrong. They may believe that the cause governs the fashion but it's simply not true. Give it a try some time, you'll find that a trip to Hot Topic or Goodwill will help you fit into one of the above groups more than any mindset ever could. The fashion is the thing and everything else exists to justify it.