11/24/2008:   I've just placed my order for "Gardening For Golfers" by Peter Blair. I am not a golfer, nor would anyone that has visited my home ever characterize me as a "gardener", but I just happen to know that Peter Blair is a dedicated golfer, an artistic gardener, and has a wicked sense of humor. I worked with Peter Blair for a number of years, and every now and then I check in on him to see what project he's got going, and as soon as he told me he'd written a book, I knew I had to get my hands on a copy. In the video below, Peter displays his mastery of grip, spine angle, hook, and slow-mo sound effects.

11/21/2008:   Mark Holick, pastor of the "Spirit One Christian Center" in Kansas, keeps telling people that Barack Obama is a Muslim. No matter how he's pressed, he maintains to anyone that will listen that Mr. Obama is a practitioner of Islam.

Mark Holick is a lying bastard. The people that echo him are moronic sheep. Holick is the reason I can't stand religion. I have a healthy belief in a higher being, but religion sucks because it gives safe haven and a public forum to bigots. Religion devoid of desire for self-examination and self-improvement is useless. Religion bereft of critical thinking and a firmly rooted understanding of what constitutes "good" is evil. Holick is an moronic, poisoned, bigoted, and highly contagious embodiment of that evil.

Lord, save us from Mark Holick and his ilk...

11/17/2008:   Today a Republican friend of mine challenged me to name a single Republican woman that was more qualified than Sarah Palin. He seemed a bit peeved at the moment, so I told him I'd get back to him.

And here's what I've found:

In fact, Mrs. Hutchinson is the most senior Republican woman in the Senate and was considered a shoo-in if McCain decided to take on a woman as his V.P. She was widely reported to be insulted and disgusted by McCain's cynical pick of a young and inexperienced woman over her advanced years and rich experience. It has also been rumored that, in response to her poor treatment by McCain, she has decided to step down in 2009.

But the point is, yes, there are women in the GOP that are far more qualified than Sarah Palin. Johnny just decided to go for youth and sex appeal. What a moron. He deserved to lose...

11/17/2008:   Since the Mormon Church has decided to weigh in on matters politic, putting their substantial influence and combined resources into forcing their religious beliefs on others in the form of sexual orientation bigotry. They initiated, funded, advertised, propogandized, and rallied proposition 8 in California to take the right to marry away from homosexual couples.

And for that reason, I believe the Mormon Church should lose its tax-exempt status. If they wish to operate like a political party, then let them. Sure! No problem! But let's treat them like a political party. Money taken in should be taxed, and the contributions should be publicly reported and accessible. We should be able to weigh the validity of their platform positions based on their donor lists, just like any other political party.

11/17/2008:   The traitor to his country, Senator Joe Lieberman, was allowed to keep his seat as Chairman of the Department of Homeland Security. Clearly the Dems think they can keep him under their thumb and in line. They see some value in him around.

Personally, I'd have taken every perk and responsibility away from him, given him the worst office at the lowest level of the basement, and kept him out of every decision, every committee. I'd have isolated him completely and then put as much backing as legally possible into having him recalled. Sometimes you don't turn the other cheek. Sometimes you need to make a clear example.

11/17/2008:   Remarkable. It took another 12 days to sort out, but Ted Stevens' crusty, dirty hands have finally been pried off the reins of power in Alaska. Convicted on felony corruption charges a full month before the election, he still came within 3,724 votes of keeping his Senate seat. Which means that 46.6% of Alaskans are dumber than a sack of hammers.

There was a time when I thought I'd like to live in Alaska. Between Ted Stevens and Sarah Palin, it's obvious that there's something neurologically toxic about the cold, or moose dander, or close proximity to the northern lights, or something. This election has cured me of ever wanting to move there. And I think I'll wait to see if Alaska's new senator, Mark Begich, can improve the intelligence quotient of it's current residents before visiting...

11/14/2008:   This plan reflects the principle of equitable penalties. Equitable in the sense that everyone feels a little pain, but no one loses completely.

Do not bail out the banks. Giving them a bunch of money and hoping they do the right thing is the kind of moronic thinking that gave us trickle down economics and the current financial markets crash.

Define a "poison loan" as one given before 12/31/2008 which carried a balloon payment that exceeds the borrower's ability to pay. This definition can be further refined.

Force banks to immediately refinance all poison loans that have not yet defaulted. Poison loan payments and rates are to be immediately set back to the original levels, and the bank will refinance the house at those terms and 150% of the home's current value. The number of payments owed will depend on the remaining value.

Force banks to extend loans to people who were foreclosed upon due to poison loans using the same terms described above on a home of similar value, to be chosen by the borrower. If the home that was foreclosed is still available and is in the same shape it was when the borrower left it, the borrower must attempt to repurchase that home first. Borrowers that accept this program will not be dinged for past payments -- this is a new loan. Additionally, by accepting this program, their credit history will be expunged for the last two years.

Once banks see cash flow on homes that are sitting idle, and once people are back in their homes, home prices will stop dropping and will experience a bounce, although probably not a 150% bounce. So the banks will be able to extend loans, money hoarding will cease, people will have homes again, banks will make money on the deal, etc. Everyone gets a do-over.

And you'll notice I didn't mention spending a single dime in taxpayer money. Of course there would be some government agency involvement to oversee the banks and make sure they do what they've been ordered to do, but there's no bailout here.

You're welcome.

11/11/2008:   George Bush has let Ignacio "Nacho" Ramos and Jose Compean, the border guards railroaded for shooting a drug dealer in the butt as he tried to escape across the Mexican border, rot in prison in spite of all the public hue and cry. Perhaps he'll pardon them on his way out office, but don't count on it. I think he'll be focused on pardoning everyone in his administration for whatever they *might* be guilty of.

Let's hope that Obama finally frees them.

11/11/2008:   Bloggers, pundits, and journalists are pondering why it is that 59 percent of Americans not only trust the Democratic Party to run things, but they trust them to run the White House and both houses of Congress. It's a mystery to them.

Well, it's not a mystery to me. When a gang robs you and takes your money, your property, and your home; cuts down your trees, pollutes your water and air; lies to your face; kills people in your name based on those lies; sends your children to those same people only to send your child back to you in a box; when you are violated in every way the gang can achieve, are you likely to trust anyone from that gang, even when they swear up and down that they intend to make everything good again?

The Democrats have been treated like the beaten wife for eight years. They also having kept themselves relatively unhypocritical. In pulling their punches, they gave the GOP enough rope to hang itself several times over, and it did so reliably.

And it's disengenuous of the GOP leadership to refer to the GOP "brand" as hurting. It's not the "brand." The people in the GOP suck. They are corrupt. They don't need to remake themselves or learn from their mistakes. They need to be fired, and the America people are doing exactly that. The GOP leadership needs to embrace this simple fact and start beating the bushes for new faces, enacting politically clean policies, and jettisoning the weird tactics that they've used just to get their hands on power that now find them in bed with a motley assortment of weirdos, whackos, fundies, and nut jobs.

11/11/2008:   Conservatives all over the nation refuse to admit that their wholesale abolishment of the rights of racial and religious minorities, mad push to engage in and maintain unwarranted wars, off-shoring of jobs in favor of CEO paychecks over middle class living standards, and destruction of social net programs had *anything* to do with their party of choice losing complete control in the federal government.

Yeah, okay... whatever...

We're Americans. We don't like morons telling us how to live our lives. You step on our rights or step on the little guy, the underdog, and we get riled. We stand up, push you back hard, and give you exactly one warning to back off. That warning came in 2006 when the Democrats took Congress. The fundie whack jobs kept pressing their case against everyone not like them, the GOP kept allowing themselves to be led around by the nose, and in 2008 came the smack down.

But if you're a conservative, don't let me change your game plan. You just keep on digging that hole...

11/11/2008:   The dust has hardly settled and the GOP mungs are dissecting their world-visible whomping. I've only heard one admit that 2008 was simply unwinnable. But most of them seem awed by Obama's use of communication technologies.

Folks, yes, McCain was torn apart by his disconnect with modern society, but to put the entire blame on whether someone has a web page or not is disrespectful to the ideals on which Obama ran. It was the economy, it was the war, but more than anything else it was the greed for power and money and the saddling of the middle class with every financial and security burden possible. McCain lost because the GOP and it's conservative base suck.

Will they make a comeback? Of course they will -- just as soon as they jettison the foaming-at-the-mouth fundie whack jobs and elitists. Sure, you can pander to them a bit, but don't let them steer you.

Wait... what am I doing? Giving the GOP advice? Um... nevermind...

11/10/2008:   Only 16 percent of those questioned in a recent survey released Monday say things are going well in the country today. Eighty-three percent say things are going badly. These are both records.

What I want to know is, who are the 16 percent, and can I make an appointment to kick each and every one of them in the groin?

A little simple math: There are roughly 300 million people in the U.S. today. 16% of 300 million is 48 million.

Okay, so that's a lot of groins to kick. And it's a lot more people than you typically find in any one city in the U.S. So here's what I propose: Since Utah thinks it's better than everyone else and is willing to throw hundreds of millions of dollars at corrupting elections in other states, let's give Utah something constructive to do with its time and money. Let's ship everyone from the other states that thinks this country is "just fine" to Utah. Now, my guess is that a large percentage of those people are filthy stinking rich Republicans who profited hugely from Bush's reign of greed, now live off their investments paying 15% on the portion of their capital gains that they can't hide in off-shore accounts, and they could care less about how the rest of the country is doing. The rest of the 48 million are are simply off their meds. Utah can tax the crap out of the uber-rich, set up housing for the crazies, and spend the rest of eternity converting the entire 48 million to Mormonism, all while "curing" the 4.8 million of them that would statistically be homosexual.

While Utah is busy doing "God's work", we can sequester them from the rest of the states, give Puerta Rico statehood to preserve the number of stars on the flag, and continue on with the business of living in this reality.

You're welcome.

11/10/2008:   I've got a friend on the East Coast that called me up to tell me about what's it like to raise a boy. These discussions usually give me an ironic mix of jealousy and relief. My friend worked for NASA and has some pretty neat junk in his garage. Seems his boy, 10 year old John Titor, nearly burned down the house with some bit of machinery he'd come up with involving caesium clocks, a spinning roll of duct tape in a vacuum bottle, and some rare earth magnets. I love science and I read all the major periodicals to keep pace with developments, but little Johnny had my head spinning with his theory of what would happen to time and space if the aligned x-rays could be wrapped around on themselves, mimicking a standard off-set Tipler sinusoid because the magnets weren't strong enough to create a real one blah, blah, blah... I got my friend back on the phone and said, "What?" He just laughed and told me he gets that a lot after people talk to his son.

Which raises an interesting question. When exposed to all the knowledge of the world in an easily searchable form, the Internet, is there a possibility that we will inadvertently allow the most powerful yet untamed minds in society to become dangerously smart? Is it possible that we will give budding geniuses access to the keys to our destruction? Do we not have the ability, right now, to completely destroy the earth in minutes? And do we not already have problems with people hacking major computer systems? And don't kids absolutely amaze you with their ability to master computers as though they are just another form of walking and chewing gum?

And here we have a brilliant child with full access to our scientific knowledge and a child's innate curiousity. I wonder...

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.

11/7/2008:   So you're a die-hard Republican that bought the tripe sold by Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly, et al; you don't just drink the Koolaid, you bathe in it, you gargle it and put a little behind each ear before you start your day, and you force it down the throats of your family and friends. And you really, really thought there was no way John McCain would lose.

And your whole world is just shattered.

Yeah, savor that feeling. You're going to be living it every single day for the next eight, if not 16, years. I had to put up with having Bush in the White House, knowing full well before election time what a completely dangerous moron he was, and the Republicans around me just smirked and told me to "get over it." Other Democrats around me caution me now to go easy, be nice because I know how it feels. Well screw that. You say you're smarting?

Well kiss my butt.

You're the moron that put the Moron-in-Chief in the White House. You owe me, and you owe my kids, and you owe our soldiers stuck in Iraq, and you owe the families of the soldiers that died in Iraq, and you owe the next dozen generations that will be scraping by to pay for Bush's programs, and you owe this country for the damage done to the constitutional framework upon which it functions. You think I should just "get along" now? You've got to be kidding. I'm going to be figuratively ripping your skin off every single day for the rest of your life. Get used to it.

Try a little self-examination. Think real hard about how the Republican Party as a whole got a royal spanking this election. Reconsider your choice of party. And when you get educated, grow a brain, a spine, and moral compass, you can come on over to the Democratic Party. Jump on in. The water's fine...

11/7/2008:   Limbaugh said, while commenting on the election on his Wednesday show, that contrary to poll results, there wasn't a record turnout, it wasn't a "landslide", that there were more votes in 2004, and he suspects that the election was "stolen."

(Queue sound of crying baby.)

Oh Rush, you poor, deluded, Oxycontin-soaked idiot. Okay, so first off, the raw numbers: In 2000, there were 101,455,899 popular votes cast, with the majority of the popular votes going to Al Gore (48.4% to Gee Dub's 47.9%). In 2004, there were 121,069,054 popular votes (50.7% going to The Liar In Chief, to John Kerry's 48.3%). This year there were 122,225,299 popular votes (Obama's 52.6% to McCain's 46.2%). Them's the facts; look it up. So yes, Rush, this year we had a record turn-out, and, Rush, if Bush's 2.4% margin in 2004 can be termed a "mandate," then Obama's 6.4% spread can be referred to as a "landslide."

And the election was not stolen, certainly not the way the last two were. If Rush can show that it was stolen, he should take that evidence to the attorney general of the state in question and contest the results. Since we all know Rush can't get enough blood to his brain due to Viagra abuse, it's safe to say there's no need to brace for post-election legal maneuvering.

I think what Rush is really afraid of is impotence in all forms, and faced with the failure of his long winded rants to sway voters to the NeoCon cause, he realizes his power base is dwindling along with his credibility.

So he's whining like a little baby. Boo hoo, Rush. Get over it.

Only 74 more days of Bush hell.

11/5/2008:   Faced with proof that they didn't wield enough power to sway the presidential election back to the right in the face of Obama's overwhelmingly popular message, Faux News commentators are trying to downplay his significance, pooh-pooh his promises, and they are continuing to bang the negative sound bite drums.

O'Reilly: Voter's worries over the economy trumped Obama's associations. McCain would have won if he'd simply crusaded against financial corruption. If Obama increases the deficit by funding his entitlement programs, the economy will collapse, but he has to expand entitlements or the far left will feel cheated for supporting him. Bill will ramp up his watchdog role and his oversight will be "intense," although he promises not to "nit-pick" or "demonize" Obama.

What crap.

Bill O, you pompous, Murdoch-attack-dog, idiot. Obama's associations were examined in depth and found to be innocent enough. Calling social net programs "entitlements" is unnecessarily inflammatory. Bush has spent nearly a trillion dollars on and unnecessary war, and you supported that, but when it comes time to spend the money here at home you cry like a little girl. The far left isn't going to freak if Obama doesn't vastly expand spending on social net programs, but I'm sure Americans in general want to see a return to a time when America looked after its weak, its infirm, its elderly, and those who are temporarily down on their luck. And you're not fooling anyone -- you will attack Obama at every opportunity because Murdoch will tell you to. You know what your marching orders are, and so do we.

Hannity: I think there was a certain cult aspect to Obama's win last night. Polls say we're not conservative enough. He's going to redistribute wealth. He's going to surrender in Iraq. He's going to negotiate with terrorists and rank dictators. And his associations scare me.

Oh brother.

Hannity, you tool. The cult was one of intellect. It's so refreshing to have someone at the podium with intelligence and eloquence, with character and reeking of goodness. The GOP is not just conservative; they're foaming-at-the-mouth whack job conservative. He's said he's not going to walk away from Iraq, but his focus will certainly be to extract us from that quagmire, and the American people want that badly. He's willing to speak softly and carry a big stick, something the entire world needs from the U.S. And again with the "associations" Murdoch speaking points. Morons...

Only 76 more days of Bush hell.

11/5/2008:   Arizona, Florida, and California passed propositions banning gay marriage. In Arkansas they banned gay couples from adopting children. Institutionalized discrimination marches on. The California proposition was actually launched and funded by Utah Mormons, but in the end Californians let someone else do the thinking for them and voted it into law.

Hate and fear won again.

11/5/2008:   There are three undecided Senate seats right now (four according to CNN, but Georgia is clearly going to the GOP candidate). The one that cracks me up is the Alaskan Senate seat. Ted Stevens, who will be doing time in a federal prison, has a lead of less than 3000 votes. What amazes me is that statement that makes: Alaskans would rather have a convicted felon whose crime was taking bribes than elect a Democrat. Mark Begich, Stevens' opponent, was born in and resides in Anchorage, Alaska. His parents moved to Alaska back in the fifties. His dad was an educator and a politician. He's owned small businesses. He's a family man. And yet the corrupt Ted Stevens is preferable to Alaskans.

This is a Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot moment if there ever was one.

11/5/2008:  

Raw vote: Obama, 63,243,881. McCain, 55,869,420.
Raw margin: 7%.
Electoral votes: Obama, 349. McCain, 163.
Senate seats: Dems, 56. Reps, 40.
House seats: Dems, 253. Reps, 172.

11/5/2008:   The following is a list of the states that were too afraid of a black man to vote for Obama:

That's 23 states that are loaded with enough racist sentiment that they couldn't bring themselves to vote for a black man for president. Sorry, but I honestly believe that, given what Barack Obama represents, you'd have to be ignorant or racist to not vote for him over John McCain. And since we just suffered through the longest election cycle in history, everyone had more than enuogh time to get informed on what each candidate really stood for. Since ignorance is no excuse, all that's left is a squirmy, embarrassing inability to bring oneself to vote for someone that isn't the typical old white man.

Something needs to be done in these states to raise the level of majority education and lower the level of minority subjugation. People have got to stop weighing the worth of those around them based on their skin color. It's not a valid measure, and it hurts the greater society to single out and oppress minority groups of people based on color, religion, creed, gender, or consenting adult sexuality.

We need a program or series of programs for going into those states and raising the education and ethics levels. I ask that MoveOn.org and similar organizations expand their charter to include race relations in the states that suffer from greater than 49% of racism load. We should be able to put any face at all on a campaign poster and have people vote on the candidate's character, positions, and plans rather than on their appearance. I know that I'm proposing voting against a viceral reaction, but we should be more enlightened than that.

11/5/2008:   The following is a list of the people who can kiss my ass:

I'll add to this from time to time. It basically amounts to a list of the people that expended a tremendous amount of time and energy trying to talk the American people out of voting for Obama using all the Faux News and GOP talking points. They made up lies and they spread lies, egregious, nefarious, and sometimes even laughable lies, in an attempt to keep someone from coming along that could fix the damage Bush caused. They hate America the way it is and they want it torn down, and they'll say and do anything to make that happen. And for that, they can all kiss my ass.

11/4/2008:   It was so wonderful watching Obama give his acceptance speech, so wonderful to hear a literate, eloquent, intelligent man speak to a nation, the whole nation, every man, woman, and child of that nation, to say we are one nation; whole even if hurt, strong even if wounded; and we will never go back, only forward; and that we can be led by a good man with a mind and a moral compass all his own, led by a man who believes and lives by a truly righteous spiritual code, a love for his nation and the world, and a driving desire to uplift the good and protect the weak. He is the embodiment of America, and I believe he will be the good president we need so very badly.

It's a good day.

11/4/2008:   Fox News made fun of us, told us we couldn't. Hannity, Limbaugh, O'Reilly, they told us we wouldn't.

Yes we did.

They will tell us we won't make a difference. They will tell us that we won't heal the world. They will tell us that we can't fix the damage done by Bush and make our country a better place.

Yes we will.

11/4/2008:  

9:00am
My wife and I just got back from a business trip/vacation cruise, so I spent the last week before the most important United States election in recent history wishing the sun would come out in the Caribbean. I didn't go near a computer. I changed the channel whenever politics came on. I flipped the newspaper on the table over so I wouldn't see the headlines. I avoided the election like the plague.

And now, here I am, on election day.

The following is the mess I put on Slashdot:

11:57am
A father's perogative: I'm eating my kids' Halloween candy while they're at school. HAH!

Perhaps you've heard of this idiot, Naked Cowboy. He's neither naked nor a real cowboy, but he stands in the middle of an intersection in New York City wearing nothing but briefs, cowboy boots, and a cowboy hat, playing guitar and singing. People certainly notice him, and he makes a living off street entertainment. I'm going to start with Naked Cowboy in unveiling my theory on people that vote for McCain.

In my personal opinion, knowing nothing more about him than the fact that he's in the news predicting a McCain landslide, I believe that Naked Cowboy is a racist traitor.

It's my honest belief that the only way you can support someone who has a long history as politically corrupt, as a slacker, as a rebellious idiot, as a cynical panderer, as a GOP flavor-of-the-month flip-flopping koolaid drinking Bush-supporting war-mongering robot, is if you're a closet racist and you hate the children of this nation. You cannot look me in the eye and tell me that you think McCain will make a better president, or that the substance of his experience in Congress trumps the substance of Obama's, or that McCain is a better person than Obama, because all of that is demonstrably untrue.

So that leaves me with the only assumption I can make, that there are people out there that are either so greedy that they just want to continue getting the huge Bush tax breaks while ripping the guts out of the United States as a nation, or they're racists and just can't get their tiny little fearful minds around the idea of having a black man as President.

Take Will Bower, for instance: an self-described lifelong Democrat who founded PUMA ("Party Unity My A**"). He reported that he voted for the candidate he "trusts" most, John McCain. He would have voted for Hillary, but with Clinton no longer on the ballot, he turned to McCain with a piss poor excuse that McCain is "bipartisan" and that bipartisanship is what the country needs right now.

I think the ugly truth is that Will Bower just can't bring himself to vote for a black man.

I know for a fact that there are people that I know and love that will vote for McCain, and I know for a fact that those people have a deeply ingrained fear of black people. It's sad, it's repugnant, it's pathetic, and there's not a thing I've been able to do to change it. So what do you do? In my case you continue to love them in spite of their stubborn, shallow, ignorance and keep in mind that, otherwise, they're really not bad people. Not great people, just not bad people. And you try to teach your children to be better than that.

2:43pm
Still no poll numbers. Got a lot of work to do, but I keep finding myself glancing over at the monitor behind me to see if there's a single twitch in the numbers.

Listening to Stephanie Miller while I'm waiting...

10:28pm
My wife and children are in bed, and I'm so tired. I anticipated being up until 2am like I was in 2006, but hours ago John McCain and Barack Obama shared a cordial, gentlemanly telephone call in which McCain conceded the foregone conclusion, that Obama was destined to lead our nation out of the darkness and horror of the Bush era. I stand in a different world, one in which institutionalized and even socially accepted oppression is dead. No longer can men of feeble character place the blame for the meagerness of their lives on another's shoulders. All people in this country, created equal, have the same ability to rise to the highest levels and to the highest office in the land. No money, no power is denied the individual with the strength and fortune to reach for their dreams.

My children and my wife sat and watched Obama accept the honor given to him by the people of this nation. My family stood witness to one of the greatest moments of our time. I am proud of my nation.

There will be other arguments, other fights, other wars, but tonight a great many battles fought over the last hundred and fifty years have seen their ultimate goal brought to fruition. Tomorrow is the first opportunity to broach subjects anew, and Obama reiterated tonight with freshly minted and well deserved authority the founding principle for those discussions: Yes we can.

The following people voted against the Constitution, against the Fourth Amendment, against your rights, freedoms, liberties, and protections. A version of the FISA reform bill that grants retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that broke the law at the president's behest and gives the president the ability to grant immunity without oversight or further authorization, has passed the United States House of Representatives on Friday, June 20th, 2008. These are the people that voted for that measure. Included among them are Democrats that have betrayed their constituencies, including my own Jerry McNerney. Let us not forget these traitors at election time.