January 2008
1/28/2008: Real estate developer Tony Rezko has been arrested and indicted for influence peddling, demanding kickbacks, and conspiracy. Which in and of itself is nothing to warrant media attention, but it turns out Obama has claimed him, in the past, as a friend and support for the last 20 years. Obama, following Rezko's arrest, has begun flushing Rezko's contributions out of his war chest as fast as he can. Again, nothing terrible there, just a bad character assessment on Obama's part, right?
But then I read a little further and saw that, shortly after Obama's election to the U.S. Senate, Rezko sold him a house for $300,000 below the asking price.
Yeah, that's right. A $300k discount. Enough to buy a whole 'nother house. Nice.
A few months later, Obama bought a sliver of the Rezko land to expand his yard. When asked about his association with Rezko, Obama said, "I did make a mistake by purchasing a small strip of property from him, at a time where, at that point, he was under the cloud of a potential investigation."
No, my friend, your mistake was being pals with someone whose business dealings were suspect, but your most noticeable mistake is going to be that house purchase. You can argue the timelines all you want, but the Republifreaks like Hannity, O'Reilly, and Limbaugh are going to latch onto that $300k discount and work it like a dog with a bone, because $300k is something people can identify easily and see the benefits of immediately. If they guy had handed you $300k in a canvas bag with a dollar sign on the side while standing in a dark, wet alley, it wouldn't have looked much worse than a context that can be so easily associated with Bill Clinton's Whitewater nightmare.
which, by the way, was a complete farce -- no one was indicted for anything directly related to the Whitewater land deal. The whole reason it came up in the first place was because the Clinton's didn't report the loss correctly. Get this -- they underreported it. That's right: they would have gotten *more* money back from the IRS if they'd reported it accurately. Forget to carry the 2, get your sex life exposed for the whole world to see. That's Republican politics for you...
Anyway, I digress...
Obama, good luck. Love ya; hope you weather this alright.
1/25/2008: In the fight against giving the telecomms immunity for violating our Fourth Amendment rights, I think it's important to know what side each senator has chosen. Here's the vote so far:
| Against You | For You |
|---|---|
| Hates Your Children | Loves Your Children |
| Akaka (D-HI) | |
| Alexander (R-TN) | |
| Allard (R-CO) | |
| Barrasso (R-WY) | |
| Baucus (D-MT) | |
| Bayh (D-IN) | |
| Bennett (R-UT) | |
| Biden (D-DE) | |
| Bingaman (D-NM) | |
| Bond (R-MO) | |
| Boxer (D-CA) | |
| Brown (D-OH) | |
| Brownback (R-KS) | |
| Bunning (R-KY) | |
| Burr (R-NC) | |
| Byrd (D-WV) | |
| Cantwell (D-WA) | |
| Cardin (D-MD) | |
| Carper (D-DE) | |
| Casey (D-PA) | |
| Chambliss (R-GA) | |
| Coburn (R-OK) | |
| Cochran (R-MS) | |
| Coleman (R-MN) | |
| Collins (R-ME) | |
| Conrad (D-ND) | |
| Corker (R-TN) | |
| Cornyn (R-TX) | |
| Craig (R-ID) | |
| Crapo (R-ID) | |
| DeMint (R-SC) | |
| Dodd (D-CT) | |
| Dole (R-NC) | |
| Domenici (R-NM) | |
| Dorgan (D-ND) | |
| Durbin (D-IL) | |
| Ensign (R-NV) | |
| Enzi (R-WY) | |
| Feingold (D-WI) | |
| Feinstein (D-CA) | |
| Grassley (R-IA) | |
| Gregg (R-NH) | |
| Hagel (R-NE) | |
| Harkin (D-IA) | |
| Hatch (R-UT) | |
| Hutchison (R-TX) | |
| Inhofe (R-OK) | |
| Inouye (D-HI) | |
| Isakson (R-GA) | |
| Johnson (D-SD) | |
| Kennedy (D-MA) | |
| Kerry (D-MA) | |
| Klobuchar (D-MN) | |
| Kohl (D-WI) | |
| Kyl (R-AZ) | |
| Landrieu (D-LA) | |
| Lautenberg (D-NJ) | |
| Leahy (D-VT) | |
| Levin (D-MI) | |
| Lieberman (ID-CT) | |
| Lincoln (D-AR) | |
| Lugar (R-IN) | |
| Martinez (R-FL) | |
| McCaskill (D-MO) | |
| McConnell (R-KY) | |
| Menendez (D-NJ) | |
| Mikulski (D-MD) | |
| Murkowski (R-AK) | |
| Murray (D-WA) | |
| Nelson (D-FL) | |
| Nelson (D-NE) | |
| Pryor (D-AR) | |
| Reed (D-RI) | |
| Reid (D-NV) | |
| Roberts (R-KS) | |
| Rockefeller (D-WV) | |
| Salazar (D-CO) | |
| Sanders (I-VT) | |
| Schumer (D-NY) | |
| Sessions (R-AL) | |
| Shelby (R-AL) | |
| Smith (R-OR) | |
| Snowe (R-ME) | |
| Specter (R-PA) | |
| Stabenow (D-MI) | |
| Stevens (R-AK) | |
| Sununu (R-NH) | |
| Tester (D-MT) | |
| Thune (R-SD) | |
| Vitter (R-LA) | |
| Voinovich (R-OH) | |
| Warner (R-VA) | |
| Webb (D-VA) | |
| Whitehouse (D-RI) | |
| Wicker (R-MS) | |
| Wyden (D-OR) | |
What I find interesting is that Clinton, Obama, and McCain didn't bother to show up to protect my rights. They don't sound like leaders right now, do they?
1/25/2008: You have to respect people that take on a cult of the Church of Scientology's scope and power. And as I find the CoS reprehensible, vulgar, power-driven and power-hungry, oppressive, and fueled by the ignorance of its membership and the greed of its highest leadership, I support Anonymous:
1/25/2008: Yesterday on Slashdot article, Microsoft logged fewer bugs and vulnerabilities for Vista's first year than it did for XP's first year. Okay. But everyone I've talked to hates it. It's a huge monster beast that will crush your puny Quad-core, 4+GHz, 2 gig SDRAM, 1 GHz FSB, high RPM SATA drive RAID 5 computer so badly that it's cool, pretty windows won't matter. After a single day of watching Vista crank away, you will hunger for XP (or Suse, or KDE, or Ubuntu, or OSX, or...).
1/25/2008: It seems that Dianne Feinstein can be bought. Her husband currently enjoys the benefits of a $50 million no-bid contract from the government, and as of the award of that contract, Mrs. Feinstein has become another Joe Leiberman Democrat, toeing the Bush line. In this case, she personally submitted the amendment to the FISA update bill currently being considered on the floor of the Senate that would prevent state and federal courts from hearing cases regarding the telecommunications companies' complicity in the warrantless wiretapping program between 2001 and 2007. Only the FISA court can hear the cases, and the FISA court's determination of wrongdoing becomes binding on all courts.
In other words, she put that decision in the hands of a secret court. Bush pretty much controls that court now, and the likelihood that the FISA court will find the telecomms guilty of violating the constitution are about as likely that Bush will pull the troops out of Iraq and turn over all those "lost" emails.
So in effect, Mrs. Feinstein is attempting to grant the telecomms retroactive immunity for violating your Fourth Amendment rights. She no longer represents you or your best interests. She represents the Bush cabal, bought and paid for, and she will no longer do the right thing for you children and grandchildren. She serves the Satan of American politics, George Bush, having sold her soul for the queenly sum of $50 million.
So much for integrity.
1/24/2008: To Dianne Feinstein and those senators currently campaigning for president, I ask that you show me that you represent me. Appear on the Senate floor and vote against any measure that would give retroactive immunity to telecomm companies that broke the law and violated the constitutional rights of the citizens of this country. Show me that you're not traitors. Show me that you're worthy of my vote. Show me, or next time I'll vote for your advisary, regardless of the party they belong to.
1/24/2008: Chris Dodd is filibustering the latest attempt by the GOP to offer telecomm companies retroactive immunity for allowing illegal warrantless wiretaps by the Bush administration. The bill can be found on the Library of Congress bills and resolutions page. Mrs. Feinstein's amendment, which would move adjudication of telecomm complicity to the FISA court rather than letting it be decided in a public court, can be viewed here. Once FISA has determined that the surveillance was "lawful," as described in the limited terms of the act (Did they *think* it was lawful>? Then it must have been!), no civil suit can follow in state or federal court. That's a helluva lot of power for a secret court, don't you think? Too much, if you're a true American.
The following video describes the situation:
Go to The Courage Campaign website for details on how you can contact your senator to do the right thing. I called Dianne Feinstein's office in Washington. It took two tries and a minute on hold, but I spoke to a real person and expressed my wish to be represented against further damaging my constitutional rights. I urge you to do the same.
1/24/2008: I forgot to mention that the "economic stimulus package" being worked up by Bush includes another one of those insulting, moronic rebate checks. Unfortunately, I'm not kidding. Bush thinks that throwing a few dollars at the paeons will make us all warm and glowy, that we'll feel better about the economy and start spending like crazy.
What crap.
1/23/2008: This is one of those topics that I wince at because it's so clear that Bush is entirely inept at it and lacks the mental capacity to ever master it. As such, change will not occur during this administration, even if Bush weren't so evil that he'd oppose it if he ever did grasp it.
(heavy sigh)... Anyway...
Bush is proposing a stimulus package, which will probably amount to huge tax cuts on the rich, a la Reagan's failed trickle-down economics, and the $150 billion proposed grants will go further to stimulating foreign economies than our own. Here are some salient facts to chew on about the percentage of imports this country consumes, courtesy of Mr. Lou Dobbs:
And let's not even get into what Ford's lack of quality has done to their sales and the image of "American made automobiles" in general. Y'know, I'd love to buy American, but the point is, for the most part, I don't have a choice. The shoes I want? Made in China. My computers and peripherals? Made in China. My car is a Pontiac Vibe, but it's the sister car to the Toyota Matrix, so where were the parts probably manufactured? Japan.
The powerhouse that was America has outsourced and offshored everything it used to do for itself. Are we surprised that all the trade agreements of the last three decades have weakened us? I can't imagine why.
Toss out NAFTA and CAFTA, stimulate industry in America, and we'll have the foundation for keeping our economy strong.
1/23/2008: True story: I'm a software architect, and in my last job we got a change request that had me shaking my head. In some context in the software, there was a dialogue window that would pop up when the user hit the Escape key and ask if the user wished to abort the process or continue. The request was to change the word "abort" to something else. "Halt," or "stop," or anything but "abort."
Someone in that office found the word "abort" offensive.
No, really. I'm not making this up.
Stupid as it sounds, I had to assume that this person, in her limited life experience, had never heard the word "abort" used except in connection with ending a pregnancy. I forwarded the request to my boss and asked, "Are you kidding me?" Of course, being the customer service expert that he was, he replied, "Afraid so," and we put it on our list of "fixes" that went out in the next release. It galled me to have to wasted time on it.
Good thing she doesn't work for NASA, or launches could no longer be aborted. Or the military, where missions would have to be halted or stopped but not aborted.
Political correctness is a desire to respect others and their differences. That's not what this was; it was just hypersensitivity to a word. We can't get the "N" word out of pop culture, but this woman wanted a high-end commercial software product altered to suit her raw sensibilities about abortion. Clearly a foaming-at-the-mouth, ignorant, religious whack-job.
Whatever.
1/22/2008: John McCain has been heard bragging that he was the only GOP candidate that was for the "Surge". That's not true, but what amazes me is that he's bragging about supporting a failed ramp up of an illegal war based on lies. Is that really what the members of the Republican Party want? Whatever...
In the last Democratic debate, Obama, Clinton, and Edwards argued about healthcare, race, Iraq, and even Reagan, but they are still pretending that what happened to the Constitutional separation of powers in our government, to our freedoms, and to the election process weren't worth discussing, as though they don't warrant concern.
Mike Huckabee: Religious whack job. Beating him would be a walk in the park.
Mitt Romney: I actually hope he gets picked so I can ride my father-in-law about supporting "Flipper."
Rudy Guiliani: Who?
Fred Thompson: Another religious whack job. Not a chance. He's no Reagan. But then, even Reagan wasn't Reagan in the second term; he just faked it really well.
And about Reagan: has everyone just forgotten how bad trickle-down economics was? Have they forgotten the Iran-Contra scandal, which indicated without a doubt that Reagan was either complicit or, as turned out to be the case, incompetent? What about HUD corruption? Or using the Superfund as leverage to get Republican candidates elected? Y'know what, nevermind the others, let's just focus on Iran-Contra. Six people were pardoned by George Bush Sr., some of them for lying to Congress, some for withholding information from Congress. And let's not forget the underlying premise: the United States government was illegally trafficking in military weapons and munitions to Iran to illegally fund rebels in a foreign soveriegn nation. Congress had set a cap of $24 million to fund the Contras, and Reagan decided to break the law and send them more, just sort of on the down-low. HE BROKE THE LAW, PEOPLE. That's not a president, that's a criminal! Apparently Operation Staunch, announced by Reagan on March 23rd, 1983, was just to cut off the flow of arms to Iran from other countries so we could corner the market. Either way, little Georgie Jr. apparently learned from his father that it doesn't matter how the government screws the people, so long as Republicans take care of their own.
Speaking of Iran Contra, did you know that the key player in that fiasco, Robert McFarlane, was quoted on April 18th, 2001, as saying, "I think in the Defense Department you may be seeing a little bit of a change, a significant change in how the Pentagon will contribute to policy formation, and that is that you have a very strong team, unusually strong team of service secretaries, who are usually irrelevant to the policy process. I think that'll be different in this administration." Is that a hoot or what?! The changes that Bush put in place were expressly geared towards bureaucratizing our security leadership, removing all former prioritizations of current threats, and steering our military might towards executing PNAC. His changes directly contributed to the success of the 9/11 hijackers. McFarlane is tragically stupid, inept, and a traitor to his country. Too bad he didn't finally manage a single success on February 9th, 1987. Idiot.
1/18/2008: I hear Dennis Kucinich was rejected by NBC for inclusion in the last Democratic Party debate. Even when ordered by a judge to give Kucinich equal time, they refused. What the hell?
Since when did it fall to the mass media to be the final arbiter of whose voice I'm allowed to hear when the people who are vying for the highest political office in the world are explaining and debating their positions on (at least some of) the topics that will affect myself and my family? NBC, kiss my butt! Let Kucinich on the air!! Equal time!!
Well, as a result, I boycotted the debate. If they can't play fair, then I don't want to hear what any of them have to say.
1/18/2008: I stopped by MoveOn.Org to see what was cooking, and I found this ad:
John McCain, I'm a patriotic American, and I don't want our troops in Iraq even one more minute.
Mitt "Flipper" Romney, I want the prisoners in Guantanamo processed by rule of law until it's empty, and then I want it dismantled.
Mike "Bible-Thumper" Huckabee, this is not a Christian nation; it's a religiously free nation, just like our founding fathers wanted.
What a trio of jackasses. Is this really the best the GOP has to offer?
1/17/2008: I didn't have my worst day ever today, but it was in the top ten. Nothing like having to do someone else's job for them, to the exclusion of your own, simply because they're inept and/or lazy...
Anyway, I needed this video. This has got to be, hands down, the funniest kid I've ever seen. I'm not sure, but I think the opening line reads, "Can you keep from laughing?" Check it out:
1/13/2008: Ever heard of Bob Graham? When I was growing up in Florida, he was the governor, and everyone loved him. He served eight years, a real man of the people, and then went on to the U.S. Senate where he served eight more. In 2004 he tried to garner the Democratic Presidential nomination, but failed. It was then that he decided to retire. He still serves his common man through his Bob Graham Center for Public Service.
No, no scandal, no controversy. Just a good man doing a good job at making the world a better place. Imagine that.
1/13/2008: Washington is a crime scene. We a president that will treat it as such: investigate, secure the evidence, indict the suspects, try the cases, and punish the convicted.
1/11/2008: Hey, guess what everyone! I found $30 billion!! No lie! It was in an official U.S. Treasury envelope with a Christmas bow on it, and the front read:
From George to Ehud
Hey big guy, you'll notice there's a big increase in there. Don't spend it all in one place!
I know, I know, surely it's not George as in George "I need another $70 billion from Congress or you're all cut-and-run, yellow-bellied dogs" Bush, and how likely is it that it's Ehud "Not the United States Military" Olmert, the prime minister of Israel? I mean, come on! When Bush was talking about cutting the pork and making sure our troops had supplies, he wouldn't put the state of Israel before our own men and women in the military, would he? At a time when "No Child Left Behind", George's program that left every child behind, isn't fully funded and schools are having bake sales so they can afford math teachers, he wouldn't really give away enough money to fund every class in American schools and give every teacher in the U.S. a $5000 raise to a foreign nation with human rights issues and a penchant for pissing off its neighbors by stealing their land, would he?
Surely it can't be so?!
Your Constitution has been violated.
Bush's administration has trampled your liberties.
They lied repeatedly to you and Congress.
They held themselves to be above the law.
There were never any WMDs in Iraq.
No links to Al Qaeda.
No ties to 9/11.
Bush, Cheney, and Condie lied to you.
You ignored the facts.
You re-elected a liar and a murderer by proxy.
But now it's time to show your support for
the troops.
1/11/2008: A year later, did the surge that we were all supposed to be patient with, the success of which would signal the beginning of the end of the Iraq occupation by U.S. troops, can now be gauged. I've been monitoring the surge over the last year, the scores of deaths, the complete lack of progress, the missed benchmarks, but rather than repeat myself, I'll let the ever-eloquent Keith Olbermann do it for me:
1/11/2008: "I have a dream, that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed, 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'"
I too have a dream, Dr. King, that one day we will not just apply that creed to those fortunate enough to live within our borders, but also in other nations. I dream that this country will not just attempt to rise high enough to wonder if that creed is possible, but will live it, assume it, and look upon those times when we did less and think them barbaric and beneath us. I dream of day when my children will see the world as their home, not just the United States of America. I have a dream that men like George W. Bush will not be countenanced by this nation, when evil men that prey on the ignorance and unreasoned base emotion of our people are relegated to the darker pages of our history. Not forgotten, no; remembered clearly, held up as examples of a dead era of corruption and greed, of gross self-interest at its worst extreme, of genocidal ambition and puppet leaders and a constituency mind-numbed by unfettered, corporatized, propogandizing media. I have a dream that this darkness we live under will pass, never to raise up again, that We The People will firmly place the reins of power outside the reach of such men and begin to walk unhindered the road to peace and tranquility.
I have a dream.
1/11/2008: John Kerry, the rightful winner of the 2004 presidential election, gave a glowing endorsement of Barack Obama yesterday, effectively snubbing his former VP selection, John Edwards. While this is certainly a positive thing for Obama, it's playing more as a high-visibility slap to John Edwards who has been struggling just to tie for second place.
Having said that, there are a lot of people in this country that are miffed at Kerry for not fighting harder in 2004. I'm not one of them; disappointed, but not outright angry. I'm not going to blame Kerry for Bush's sins before and after that election. But now that Kerry has made his endorsement, he needs to say as little as possible. Simply put, Kerry on the campaign trail is not something the Democratic Party as a whole needs.
1/11/2008: A couple of days ago Hillary Clinton showed she can roll with the punches and show the electorate what they need to see to convince them she represents them. Her victory there wasn't on par with Obama's 13 point lead in Iowa, but she edged him out just the same.
And on the dark side of the Force...erm, the GOP... John McCain, one of the few GOP candidates I respect, smacked down Romney and Guiliani. Not that it matters; no one, not even the die hard, vote-the-team, red underwear, foaming-at-the-mouth Republicans I know think the GOP stands a chance, but it's nice to see Mr. McCain making a decent showing.
My prediction stands, though: It's going to be Obama vs. Romney, and Romney is going to be knocked on his butt. If Obama is smart, he'll ask Hillary to be his VP. And when he's in office, he'll put Bill Clinton on the Supreme Court. (Which, by the way, would not be unprecedented. Taft served on the Supreme Court after he left office.)
1/4/2008:
A Ballpark frank, boiled, not microwaved.
Either Plochman's "Chili Dog" mustard, or real beanless chili and French's yellow mustard.
A fresh, soft hotdog bun.
Oh mamma...
Actually, the best hotdog I ever ate, bar none, left them all behind, was the one I ate at the first professional football game I ever attended. It was with my old friend Sean Barter (back before he got old and cranky before his time) in Candlestick Park (back before this stupid practice of letting companies purchase the naming rights to ballparks) watching the 49ers beat the stuffing out of the Rams. The crowd was great, Joe Montana and Jerry Rice were in their prime, the weather was cold and the dogs were hot. That was the best hotdog. I have no idea what brand it was or how it was prepared, but I could have eaten ten of them, or so my mouth kept telling me.
Good times.
1/4/2008: There's an article on Slashdot about a vaccine against cocaine. Apparently the idea is that they have figured out a way to meld a cocaine molecule with proteins take from a cholera virus. The immune system recognizes the cholera protein as coming from an invader, but when designing antibodies, it builds a template that also matches the cocaine molecule. In theory, a cocaine addict could take this vaccine, wait a couple of weeks, and then would be unable to achieve a high from cocaine because antibodies would bind to any cocaine molecules in the blood stream. That's not to say that the addict couldn't get high, but it would take a staggering amount of the drug to get any effect.
Sounds great, huh?
Except for a couple of things. First, unless I misunderstand the literature on this research, treated people would have difficulty getting benefit from any opiate-based pain killer. Second, and more importantly to me, it means the government can control your ability to use recreational substances from an age too young to make your own decisions about such things. Don't get me wrong, I'm no big fan of illegal drug use, but there's something that smacks of Prohibition combined with Big Brother here that really bothers me. It also means that the medical profession will be used to subvert your immune system to prevent you from making use of substances that may have a beneficial effect, all to fight a war against substances that you may or may not be adult enough to partake of on your own without hurting anyone and without your consent.
I know, I sound like one of those pothead, high school drop-outs trying to get marijuana completely legalized by describing the uses of hemp. I'm tired and I'm probably not expressing the dread that I'm feeling very eloquently. I'll try again later...
1/4/2008: Today George Bush peered into his crystal ball, blinked a few times, then pronounced the markets strong, but not strong enough to support any new taxes. This in spite of the fact that unemployment is skyrocketing again, our lack of trade leverage has allowed oil to top $100 a barrel, and the mortgage market has thrashed billions out of domestic and foreign investors.
Self-interest has him looking like a moron. Again.
1/4/2008: I hear Britney Spears was in the news again. I can't imagine why. Who cares? Here's something that really matters: George Bush has pardoned 113 people, drug dealers, murderers, arsonists, and bank robbers among them, during his hellish tenure, but Ignacio "Nacho" Ramos and Jose Compean, the border guards that were railroaded into prison for shooting an escaping drug runner in the butt, are still there. For doing their duty to their country, they are serving hard time. Mr. Ramos even took a well-publicized beating at the hands of a prison gang. Pedophile and bestiality fiction author, perjurer, and traitor to his country Scooter Libby gets a commutation, but these patriots are rotting in prison. This alone should be rewarded with impeachment, but Pelosi and Reid are protecting the worst president ever from the very beginnings of justice.
Who gives a crap about trashy people living up to everyone's worst expectations? I want those border guards released, and I want my elected officials to serve the interests of the country they represent.
1/3/2008: Wow! Barack Obama came from a distant second/third position to beat Hillary Clinton, the clear frontrunner, in the first 2008 caucus in Iowa. At 38%, he whupped Hillary and Edwards at 30% a piece. That's a solid lead. I hope he's ready for the beating that comes next. Hillary is going to enjoy a little hiatus from the ankle biting that goes with being the leader and is going to relish doling out the punishment. All Obama has to do is continue to be charismatic, upbeat, and inspiring, traits he was born with. Edwards, saying that the result shows that the nation wants change over the status quo, is positioning himself to squeeze past Hillary into the #2 spot.
In the camp of Darkness and Evil... erm... the GOP... Mike Huckabee rang Romney's bell with a 9 point lead, 34% to 25%. Guiliani withered on the vine with 4%, behind Thompson, McCain, and even Ron Paul. Apparently the foaming-at-the-mouth right wing religious whack jobs that Huckabee has been flirting with are still a force to be reckoned with as well as laughed at. Flipper Romney hellishly overspent on TV ads to no avail, and that just tickles me to no end.
So the lines have been drawn and the guys that look that most authentic are coming out the leaders. In my mind, that's a referendum on the lies that Bush has force fed this nation for the last eight years. People find the greatest solace and comfort not in the beat of a war drum, but in the truth. Mike Huckabee, backwards dark ages moron that he is, does come across as honest in his misplaced positions. I think we've seen the only caucus we need. The rest are mere commentary.
1/3/2008: I don't think Chris Dodd had a chance, but I honestly believe that was because of image, not because of sincerety, commitment, or patriotism. Chris Dodd was actually trying to live up to his responsibilities and do his job while running for president. I commend and admire him. He has dropped out of the race after finishing seventh, and for that I also compliment him for bowing to reality and getting back to serving his country in his capacity as a congressman. He is a true American.
1/2/2008: Mr. Stephen King: I just finished the "Gunslinger" series, and if you don't mind my saying so, you suck.
Okay, let's be honest: That series is the most original story I've seen in print in ages. In fact, it's more original and interesting than anything Stephen King has written in ages. But the ending leaves you thinking, "WHAT?!" Are you frikkin' kidding me?! It's one of those endings that kind of has to sink in. And if you carefully read the last few lines, you realize the ending doesn't actually suck. It does, because the story was such a saga. In fact, it was a saga reading the darned thing. What is that, like 10,000 pages total? Geez. But you realize that ...
Oh, nevermind. I don't want to spoil it for anyone. It's a masterpiece, it really is. But Mr. King, if I see you, I'm going to reach and... shake your hand. I've run into dozens of celebrities and never said a word to them, but for you Mr. Don't-invade-my-space, for you, the master of metafiction, I will will break my personal policy and make physical contact. Given this series, there's a poetic justice to it. Ka, if you will.
1/2/2008: After testing the waters and tentatively sending out little hints and suggestions, Huckabee has thrown himself completely into the life-begins-as-developing-sperm camp with the following completely idiotic, flag-wrapping statement: "The pro-life position was the one espoused by our founding fathers when they said that all of us are created equal, endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights. The first one they listed was life. Nobody has a greater level of intrinsic worth or value than another person. Being unborn doesn't make you less valuable."
Being an unchosen embryo at a fertility clinic means you get flushed down the toilet. Period, end of story (unless you want to follow the millions of unused embryos down into the sewage system to see what happens to them next).
Being unborn does in fact make you less valuable and, the earlier in the pregnancy, the less viable. Sorry, but it makes sense. Until the embryo has a functional nervous system capable of processing signals from the rest of its developing body, I can't see either its viability or its worth as a full human being. And you don't have this at the point of conception. The pregnancy can be stopped without pain or loss of life. Mike Huckabee would remove a woman's control over her body at the point in time when she had sex.
Bye bye, morning after pill. Bye bye, first trimester abortion. Bye bye, privacy and Fourth Amendment rights. Bye bye, doctor-patient confidentiality.
Welcome back, illegal and potentially lethal backstreet abortions. Because whether Mike foaming-at-the-mouth-religious-whackjob Huckabee wants to admit it or not, he will be personally responsible for the deaths of thousands of women each year if he succeeds at passing, "a constitutional amendment ... to ensure that every human being, from the moment of conception to natural death, is not denied equal protection of the law." Abortions will not stop, but Huckabees insistence on forcing his opinions on the women of this nation ensures that thousands of women will die each year.
Huckabee believes that this is a moral issue that is best decided by those who feel their religious beliefs trump everyone else's religious beliefs, "If abortion is a moral issue -- and for many of us it is, and I know for others it's not. So if you decide that it's just a political issue, then that's a perfectly acceptable, logical conclusion. But for those of us for whom this is a moral question, you can't simply have 50 different versions of what's right." This is his argument for passing a constitutional amendment that would make abortions illegal in all 50 states.
He's really making it so that women that can afford it will have safe abortions in Canada. Women that can't afford to make that trip will have illegal abortions here. And the less money a woman has, the more likely she'll be turning to the guy with no medical experience at all that says he knows how to abort a baby and can do it in his trailer for $100.
But Mike Huckabee's moral confliction ends once he's taken a stand on forcing women to have babies they don't want, possibly because they were raped, possibly because they simply can't afford to feed another mouth, possibly because the baby is grossly malformed. Mike Huckabee hasn't also decided to include in that amendment any verbage that would force people to adopt all the new babies that will show up at orphanages. You can't legislate morality.
Not that Huckabee stands alone. Every single GOP candidate, with the exception of McCain and Guiliani (I couldn't find information on them) has said they will, at a minimum, defund Planned Parenthood.
Wow.
So, really, if you're a Republican, your choices boil down to how little rights you want to have.
Nice.
1/2/2008: Y'know, I can't help but feel like, as funky as Kucinich is, he's a sincere, honest guy. Man, I really like him. He had the stand-up integrity to come right out and say, look, if we can't make our numbers, you need to support Obama. Anytime you are willing to take a rival that is similar to you, that will attempt to achieve your same goals, but that is, for whatever reason, pulling bigger numbers than you, and admit that they are a viable alternative, you're showing your true colors. You've sent the message that the office is bigger than the person sitting in it. The mantle of president has sure been tarnished during Bush and (yeah, I'm going to say it) Clinton's administrations, but the truth is, the office of President of the United States of America is one not worn lightly, and the person in that office should attempt to raise themselves above their personal shortcomings long enough to honorably execute that office. Bush certainly hasn't done it, using his authority, real and pretended, to chip away at our freedoms and damage our country's reputation and moral authority, to say the least. Clinton brought shame upon it with his publicly aired daliances. But Kucinich has shown us that not everyone has decided that the sullied mantle is worthless. He has picked it up, brushed it off, raised it up, and proclaimed that men will come and men will go, but the glory of the shining city on the hill must not pass from history.
No wonder his wife thinks he's a stud.
1/2/2008: Mike Huckabee joked in an interview on Tuesday that Bush didn't have a decent grasp on foreign affairs. That's reasonable, actually; Bush is a complete and proven moron when it comes to foreign affairs. Anyone want to argue the point? No? Of course not.
Oh, except idiot flip-flopper Mitt Romney. “I’m not sure if Mr. Huckabee meant the attack as a joke, but this is not the time to be mocking our president."
Mitt, you jackass. It's always a good time to mock the president. He needs to be mocked continuously until he's been dead, so many centuries down the road, that he's been completely forgotten. One should never utter his name without preceding it with, "the Monkey Faced Frat Boy," and following it with, "the worst president in history," and it should always be in reference to the stupid or just plain evil crap he did while in office, because, frankly, that's all there is to talk about when talking about Bush anyway.
1/2/2008: Somalia, the country where American troops were ambushed and killed, inspiring the movie "Blackhawk Down," which, when shown in Somalia, elicited cheers when the Americans are shown dying, is begging for help with its current refugee crisis. They can't understand why an emergency that dwarfs the one in Darfur is getting absolutely no air time in American and why the U.N. hasn't put more effort into quelling violence there.
Hm. Well.
Gosh, I can't imagine why that is.
Okay, honestly, sane people tend to back away from dangerously insane people, and this is a case of people returning to tribalism, hacking each other to pieces with machetes over tribal differences. This is Stone Age genocide. It's primitive, backwards, and insane. And there's no group big enough for the U.N. to say, okay, we're going to back these guys, and we'll negotiate with the rest. I mean, when you've got a dozen "major" factions and several dozen minor ones all running around shooting each other, blowing each other up, or just hacking at each other, what do you do? The atrocities are mind-blowing, blood spilled by the gallon, no one being spared regardless of gender or age. Who do you shoot first? Where's the safe zone? What side is the peaceful side? You'd pretty much have to capture and incarcerate every human being in the country, and no one has the resources to do that. It's like watching evolution play out. It's madness, pure and simple. When enough people are dead that it takes more effort to find someone to kill than they're willing to expend, that's when it will stop. It's ugly. What do you do?
1/1/2008: Gilda Radner was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California on May 17, 1989 for a CAT scan. Anxious with fear that she would never wake up, she became hysterical and begged not to be sedated prior to the procedure. The nurses, doctors, and her husband, Gene Wilder, convinced her she would only be mildly sedated and that she would be fine. As it turned out, she passed into a coma from which she never regained consciousness and she died three days later with her husband at her side.
Gilda Radner was extremely funny, sweet, intelligent, in short a truly beautiful person. There's a clip on YouTube that aired when Steve Martin got news she had died. You can find tributes to her as well if you do a search.
Wilder and Radner's love was romantic and wonderful to watch. Her death caused him terrible pain. It was heart-wrenching to watch him living his life without her. I understand he eventually remarried. I hope he's doing well.
I bring all this up because it's such a story. I'm a sucker for romance. Untimely death has touched me. And I've watched how morphine can take a sick person out of life, robbing that person of the ability to control what's happening to them.
Personally, I'd rather die in pain than drift off to sleep. I might feel differently when death is twisting the life out of my bones, but having thought about it a bit, when the day comes that hope is gone and the last door is the final one, I'd rather go through it on my own without other hands pushing me there.
To Gilda, a huge thanks and eternal laughs.
1/1/2008: In 2006 I spoke out about the U.S. Attorneys General being fired because they wouldn't abuse their powers to falsely investigate Democratic candidates during the election season. I didn't write, though, about the how the White House barred former Surgeon General Richard Carmona from speaking out about such issues as stem-cell research. Nor did I comment on the fact that the White House pressured high-ranking officials at the Office of National Drug Control Policy to appear on behalf of nearly 20 Republican candidates in the three months leading up to the 2006 election. Why? Because the press didn't give these things air time.
A few days ago, Hillary Clinton bought two minutes of air time on every single station in Iowa just prior to the caususes. This fact made the news, but not the case for allowing all the other candidates equal air time. Money shouldn't control the airwaves when we're trying to decide which candidate is right for our country. And partison control of the airwaves shouldn't decide the ultimate transparency of our government.
The use of all communication media by the news and election campaigns needs to be carefully monitored and controlled such that no one message, or lack thereof, becomes propogandized. Our means of communicating ideas is far too powerful and flows in only one direction. Discussion and debate are absent, and the drumbeat of skewed information becomes the corrupted truth upon which we make our most critical decisions.
My country deserves better than George W. Bush and Rupert Murdoch. My children deserve better. The veterans of Iraq deserve better. The next crop of politicians are already busy pretending that no harm was done by Bush's crimes, but precedents have been set that will shape administrations to come if not offset by penalties that match the crimes. One of those crimes, albeit not one on the books, was the secrecy of the White House and the complicitness of media outlets. We The People must take back our government, we must make it serve us, not use us, and to do that we must have the information necessary to control it.
I'm waiting for a candidate to make restoration of the Constitution and transparency of the government a key part of their campaign. That person will have my vote.
