Leftover Istanbul Photos/Wishes for the Holidays

Below we have a few more pictures from last weekend that I didn't get a chance to put in before, but first I wanted to make a little list for anyone out there who might be wondering what to get me this Christmakkuh/Festivus season. (Don't worry, if you don't have the suction/dinero for any of these I'll always settle for a donation to Heifer International in my name). Without further ado, these things happening in the next month/year/whenever would just make me happy:

• A major nation at least threatening to boycott the Beijing olympics. Peasant oppression is rising, the government is still violating the UN charter-granted rights of at least FOUR major regions to self-determination, the environmental maladies that affect mostly the rural poor are worsening, and the genocide in Darfur is being funded in large part by the sale of natural resources to...the Chinese. There has been nothing but lip service paid to these issues since promises of their melioration was made in order for China to secure its bid. So someone has to be making noise about this in the near future, right?
• For Trent Lott to get the Barry Bonds treatment. I want George Mitchell (Central Maine, holler!) to hand in his report on steroids in baseball, then start digging on Lott. There's gotta be something there, right? We know the guy is a first-rate scumbag, potentially racist (I thought his remarks about Thurmond were interpreted pretty harshly and were mostly just ill-considered) and has dished out more sleazy pork in the last few decades than Jimmy Dean, but he must have crossed some lines in legality in there somewhere as well I would think. He makes the Nevada senator from Godfather II look like Gandhi. If he ends up riding into the sunset to make another fortune lobbying with his son after this I will be rankled. Rankled I tell you.
  
• For Obama to become President. I know we need more woman leaders and role models in this country who wouldn't list "carpet bombing" as an interest in their personal ads. Hillary has an admirable amount of strength and resiliency. But she reminds me of Mrs. Coulter (not Anne, I mean Lyra's mom from the Golden Compass), she's just very jaded. Barack would give a huge infusion of the necessary hopefulness and reform that the country is begging for right now. But instead we are about three months from Obama going the way of Gov. Dean, because Hillary can raise money faster than a liquor salesman greeting sailors on shore leave. Please feel free to interpret points two and three as a plea for us all to work towards publicly financed elections.
• A tax on carbon emissions. When the Economist is pushing for government regulation in a way that would inhibit commerce, it's usually for a good reason.
  
• For the Patriots to scratch punter Chris Hanson for the Jets game, as proposed by the brilliant Bill Simmons. Please.
  

The shore of the Sea of Marmara on the southern side of the Golden Horn in Istanbul (the balloons were strung up as part of a circus-type game where you paid some kids who ran it to try and shoot the balloons with a bb gun, but I'm not sure if you won anything if you shot them [the balloons, not the kids])

The Topkapi Gate, entrance to the palace and the sultan's harem- the inscriptions on the sides there roughly translate to "I got 99 problems but a wife ain't one"

Me in front of the Bosphorus. I can't think of any jokes for this one, so I'd just like to thank Mom and Dad for the orthodontic work once again. Cheers!