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I read this article in TIME magazine online, and I need to speak out against how wrong it is on almost every single count.

This article was written by a Miami-based TIME correspondent, so just keep that in mind as I debate his points.

First and foremost, I am tired of the incredible lack of accountability and the woe-is-me victim stance that has basically become the norm in American discourse these days. The whole point of this article is basically to lay the blame for Florida Democrats’ primary election predicament on the feet of Howard Dean, the Republicans, Barack Obama, or basically, anyone but Florida themselves. This is a complete fabrication. The reason the Florida Democrats were not able to have their primary count, is because they violated established party rules, that were quite clear - along with warnings from the Democratic Party specifically outlining the penalty for violating the rules. They chose to do so anyway. I certainly can’t see how anyone can blame anyone but the idiots running the Florida Democratic Party, but clearly they are trotting out the woe-is-me-we-are-victims rhetoric that has become the standard line when anyone is called into accountability for their actions anymore. Frankly, it sounds quite childish. Now that they have been given the punishment that they knew all along was coming, the Florida Democrats are crying foul. Well, I don’t really feel sorry for you all. You did this to yourselves in a vain attempt at a ridiculous me-first attempt to garner more influence in deciding the Democratic nominee. Boo-hoo. Take your punishment with some dignity and stop the crying. Your silly threat to just take your campaign donations and go home is one I’d gladly accept.

I am also tired of hearing about how the Florida Democrats feel they have been ‘disenfranchised’. As far as I can tell, Floridians are still allowed to vote in the General election this fall - you know, the one where we actually choose the next President of the United States. The Democratic primary is a party-run affair for the Democratic party. This isn’t actually real disenfranchisement. If the citizenry of Florida were prevented from having Electoral votes this fall, that would be a real injustice. The fact is, whether you like it or not, Florida doesn’t get to help choose the Democratic nominee this time. Big deal. Democrats in Florida will still be allowed to vote for a Democrat this fall if they so choose. Stop crying ‘disenfranchisement’.

Also, Floridians should stop asking for a re-vote. This is an incredible sore-loser ploy. The Florida Democratic Party leadership screwed this up for you. You don’t always get a second chance in life. You all sound like a 5 year old who lost a board game. “It’s not fair! We deserve another try!” they cry. No, you don’t. You broke the rules, take your medicine. “But New Hampshire did it too!” the article complains, failing to miss the entire point. The reason for having the relatively small states primary and caucus first is so that they have a fighting chance to be heard at all. If we let Florida (the 4th largest state as the article points out) go first, along with other bigger states, the nomination would be all but decided and the smaller states wouldn’t count at all. All your whining about ‘disenfranchisement’, but you’d gladly prevent so many other states from having a voice at all. Doesn’t jive with me. The ironic thing is that Florida’s crass attempt at exerting far more control over the nomination process backfired on two fronts: firstly they won’t have any delegates, secondly if they had held their primary as originally scheduled, they would have likely been able to tip the nomination one way or another, as the race was still quite competitive at that point.

Serves them right. TIME should know better than to publish this whiny article from Florida. This mess is clearly not Dean’s fault, nor Senator Obama’s. The blame lies with the Florida Democratic Party. It’s time they grew up, accepted their punishment with some grace, and accepted the blame for the position they put themselves in.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Mike Huckabee.

“I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution, but I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that’s what we need to do — to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view.” - Mike Huckabee

Um, we are really screwed. This jackass is widely considered the frontrunner for the Republican Presidential nomination. If he either gets elected or steals the election, I’m taking to the streets with torches and pitchforks. It’s a true tragedy that people take this POS seriously. I am now committed to seeing him defeated.

I just want to say that using Diebold (or anyone’s) electronic voting machines is wrong.

This is a system that is BEGGING to be abused and manipulated. As a professional software engineer, I have to say the chance that these machines are secure enough to use in an election is miniscule to non-existent. They are not secure.
Some folks like to point out that the machines print you a nice little reciept, showing you that your vote was what you cast. Please don’t be fooled. It’s not as if the machine can’t print out whatever someone wants it to, regardless of how it chose to cast your vote beforehand. I do not think it’s unlikely that there is an intentional back-door into these election machines, but at the very least that have been proven repeatedly in lab tests to be easy to break into. Like less than one minute easy to hack. We need reliable paper ballots that can physically be re-counted in a public and transparent way. Diebold likes to say the machines are secure. They have been proven to not be secure. Already there are allegations of misconduct. Apparently, in New Hampshire’s Democratic primary, the paper ballots and the electronic ballots, when counted separately, revealed a far different result. In paper balloting, Barack Obama actually won the primary by a couple of points. In the electronic balloting, Hillary killed him. This is statistically impossible.

So, since we can actually look at and re-count the paper ones, one might reasonably reach the conclusion that the e-vote was either manipulated, or the machines simply can’t count.

In my voting district, you actually have a choice whether to use paper or e-vote. Always insist on a paper ballot.

DON’T E_VOTE!

This bill recently passed in the United States House of Representatives: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=hr110-847

Since many of you are very much like the Representatives in the House, and won’t bother to read the bill, I’ll include some quotes about what one of our Nation’s newest laws is for:

“House Resolution 847: Recognizing the importance of Christmas and the Christian faith.”

” Resolved, That the House of Representatives–

(1) recognizes the Christian faith as one of the great religions of the world;

(2) expresses continued support for Christians in the United States and worldwide;

(3) acknowledges the international religious and historical importance of Christmas and the Christian faith;

(4) acknowledges and supports the role played by Christians and Christianity in the founding of the United States and in the formation of the western civilization;

(5) rejects bigotry and persecution directed against Christians, both in the United States and worldwide; and

(6) expresses its deepest respect to American Christians and Christians throughout the world.”

Sick. Just sick. In a rational world, every one of the SIXTY co-sponsors (58 Rep, 2 Dem) should be relieved of their duties immediately. But, the twisted reality is that this blatant pandering to the Christian weirdos in our Halls of Congress passed by a margin of 372 to 9. Disgusting.

This is what I’m talking about when I say before the century is out, it will be completely illegal to be an atheist in this country. I expect severe persecution at some point. Think WWII-style internment camps, because they’re coming. I love the thought of having some jack-booted thug waterboard me until I swear that Jesus is my savior. Some of you will think that’s sensationalist, but believe me it is not far from where we are today to that point.

These zealots will not rest until they force everyone to bow to their completely fabricated invisible omnipotent being. It’s sickening that almost no one in Congress has the onions to stand up to this bullshit.

Fire them all.

Here are the nine reps who had the good common sense to vote Nay on this:
Ackerman
Clarke
DeGette
Hastings (FL)
Lee
McDermott
Scott (VA)
Stark
Woolsey

To the 9: Thank you for having some conviction and for understanding our Constitution.

I have read all the BS about this “Spygate” nonsense between the Jets and the Patriots. To cut through the crap, let’s take a realistic look at what happened.

In week 1, Jets security staff catch the Patriots taping defensive coaching signals in the Meadowlands. The camera is confiscated and the tape is reviewed by the NFL. The Patriots are guilty of cheating, and are punished for it. It is worth remembering that the league itself had warned teams before the season specifically not to tape opposing coaches.

Somehow, in this country of front-runner worshippers, everyone has decided that it was really Jets coach Eric Mangini who was in the wrong, beacuse a team that’s winning surely can’t be bad (rolls eyes). Let me just state what a fat load of BS that is. Coach Mangini has endured every type of abuse from Bill Belichick since taking the head coaching job with the Jets. Bill Belichick has not missed one single chance to make clear his childish hatred of Eric Mangini. As far as I can tell, the only thing Mangini ever did to Belichick is to contact a Patriots assistant or two about joining him on the Jets’ staff. This has somehow unhinged Belichick to the point where he will do anything within his power to attack Mangini. Somehow, the press has turned this around so that Mangini is the bad guy. Bizzare. Stupid.

So, let me state again that not only do I think Mangini was justified for preventing another team from cheating on us, I think it’s high time he publicly told Bill Belichick to f**K off. The hubris of Bill Belichick is legendary, and not in dispute from anyone. If you’d believe the press coming out of New England this week, Mangini wouldn’t even have been born, much less become a man, if it weren’t for Bill Belichick. Mangini would still be handing out press clippings to the beat writers if it weren’t for Belichick. Mangini would’ve never gotten laid, graduated from college, gotten married, had kids… heck, Magini wouldn’t even _exist_ if it weren’t for Belichick. They say Mangini owes his entire career to Bill Belichick. I don’t really see it that way. If someone does you a favor, then tries to lord it over you forever, then they’re an a**hole, just like Belichick. Even if Belichick was instrumental in getting Mangini started in NFL coaching, that does not mean that Coach Mangini would never have gotten a job. It certainly doesn’t mean that Mangini should look the other way as another NFL team blatantly cheats on us. In fact anyone who thinks that doesn’t have any integrity. If some one was paying _me_ a million dollars a year to win ballgames, I’d turn in folks cheating against us, too. That’s your job. I would never consider looking the other way as a team tried to gain an illegal advantage over us, that’s for sure. I’m glad our coach sees it the same way.

Apparently all of this drama started because Belichick ordered Mangini not to interview for the Jets HC job. Now, that right there is an a**hole move. I have never heard of a head coach doing anything other than helping their assistants get jobs. Now that we know more about Belichick, it isn’t too suprising that he’d pull that shit, he obviously only cares about himself. He obviously thought Mangini owed his career to him and that he should basically live forever in his shadow, gratefully scraping along at the feet of his master. What a load of crap that is. I sincerely hope that Coach Mangini leaves behind the high road that he has taken this entire time and calls out Belichick’s childish behavior some day. Because, really Mangini has taken a whole heap of ugly disrespect from Beilchick, and hasn’t responded negatively even once. So, I think it’s cool that he busted that a-hole for cheating.

It was like Coach Mangini was finally saying, hey Bill, F-you too, you jerk.

I hope he says as much publicly sometime.

I have to admit that while I do most of my gainful work on GNU/Linux machines, when I sit at home and browse the web and play music, I use my iMac and OS X. I also will guiltily admit that I buy almost all of my music with iTunes music store. It’s just too darned easy; I’m a sucker for a click-and-buy song machine. My problem is with the deteriorating quality of the iTunes app itself. Apple has probably had me patch this thing literally 7 or 8 times so far, and each time I do the ‘upgrade’, the application runs worse. Every time. Soon, nothing will work at all. I am running iTunes 7.3.1 on OSX 10.4.10. This is basically the current releases of each at the moment. Right now, in iTunes, the following basic functionality does not work:
- The track clock at top center will not update unless you click on it
- The Visualizer has the same problem and is useless.
- Most importantly, the music store UI is not usable at all. They have killed my ability to buy music through them.
- If you open the artwork window by clicking on the album artwork, you’ll find that you can not close it. Ever. To make this more annoying, every time a new song comes on, the artwork window jumps to the front.

I would like to stress that all of these things used to work a few releases ago. How is it even at all possible that bugs of this magnitude could ship? Do they not test this application at all? I mean, this is their core app. iTunes is what drives people to the mac platform, kind of like how Office works for Microsoft. You would think iTunes would work right on their OS, their hardware, with all their patches. But sadly, no. This app only gets worse over time and I stupidly keep installing the latest release, thinking things will be fixed…

The story

This will be the shining example for all time of how corporate greed will ruin anything. Michael Dell is perfectly happy to torch Linux for Microsoft’s benefit to try to save his sinking ship. Remember, Dell had to come out of retirement recently because his PC business was on the rocks.

It really would be appropriate to send Michael Dell, Steve Ballmer and Ron Hovsepian to jail for this stuff. After 17 years of volunteer work by thousands of volunteers to bring the Linux platform to where it is today, the Hovsepians and Dells are happy to throw it right into the volcano in an attempt to save their flagging companies. It really should be illegal. They really deserve to be punished severely. I’ve bought my last Dell and I won’t let friends buy Dell if I can help it.

You should boycott Dell and Novell entirely. Fuck ‘em.

I guess I should explain a bit more for the non-tech portions of the audience.

Recently, Microsoft struck a deal with Novell, who market a Linux server distribution. The deal basically partnered the two companies in such a way that Microsoft and Novell are building a “interoperability lab” for Windows and Linux. It’s important to remember that Novell didn’t write or create Linux. Volunteers did. The volunteers gave it away and licensed it in a legally binding way so that no one can actually own it in the corporate IP sense. Microsoft basically came out and said that Novell’s Linux users would be protected from lawsuits that Microsoft might consider bringing against Linux users in the future. Microsoft claims to have patents that Linux infringes upon, and likes to imply that if use use Linux, you might get sued eventually. The problem is that it’s BS. Microsoft has about a trillion patents. That doesn’t mean squat in terms of reality. Microsoft claims to have patented such things as a mouse cursor and user permissions, things that demonstrably predate Microsoft itself. They patent everything, literally, everything, whether theirs to patent or not. Everyone knows this. Linux is explicily community property and the courts have consistently upheld it’s Public License. If Microsoft tried to sue Linux users, it would not work. They already had SCO try this. It failed. That does not stop them from continually threatening the Linux community and potential users with this shite. So, now that Dell has joined in, this sends a really bad message to all the folks out there who don’t know any better than to believe them. If Dell is playing along, folks are meant to think, then there must be something to this. It’s all a lie though. The PC market is, as always, being manipulated. Now when folks are scared to get Linux pre-installed on PCs because of this crap, Microsoft will go out and say, see - no one wants Linux.. too risk, etc.. All bullshit. And Dell is the enabler this time. Novell already sold the community down the river. Dell is setting it on fire and pouring kerosene on it.

So, please take this seriously. I write software for a living, so I know that stealing IP is serious. What Dell is implicitly saying is that they _do_ believe that the IP rights for that 17 years of volunteer labor actually might belong to Microsoft. That’s Evil(TM). What the Linux community has accomplished is a GOOD THING. Allowing Microsoft, Novell, and Dell to stomp it out is a BAD THING. It’s a very clear moral choice. If you continue to support these companies, you are doing real harm.

It just seems so arbitrary.

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Suzuki GSX1400FE

Yamaha XJR1300

Yamaha MT-01

Yamaha Bulldog 1100

Honda CB1300F

Iraq used to be nation in the Middle East. Now it’s merely a place full of various people (many of them American soldiers), most of whom are either trying to kill each other or simply trying to stay out of the way and not become casualties.

WTF?

I want someone to explain the reason that the USA is militarily involved in Iraq. The putative reasons were demonstrably false.

1- Saddam Hussein hated the USA, had stockpiled WMDs in order to use them against US or US Allies’ targets.
2- Saddam Hussein was harboring Al-Qaeda and helping train them.

OK, oh-for-two. Neither assertion is or was true. So, why again four years later are we not only still “at war” in Iraq, we are escalating the conflict, pouring more US Soldiers and (billions of) dollars into Iraq?

Can anyone possibly state unequivocally why we are engaged in Iraq? Who is the enemy? What does it mean to “win”? As far as I can tell, we are not at war with “Terror”, we are at war with insurgents in Iraq. Mostly, I would argue that these insurgents are not people who posed a threat to the security of the United States until we illegally invaded their country. The same down home red-staters who think the insurgents are some evil scum are the first ones who would turn out, NRA baseball caps shining, to meet some foreign invasion on our soil. But if Iraqis do the same, they’re “terrorists”.

We are stupid. We are arrogant. There is no denying it. We have a leader that perfectly reflects that. The US foreign policy is based in ignorant aggression, lack of diplomacy, some strange, vague Christian Fundamentalism, brinksmanship, and the false impression that our military might is unlimited in the world. We are the stupid people who elected this administration and have suffered its megalomaniacal “War President”. Well, now that GWB and Barney are they only subscribers to the Iraq war escalation, what are we to do to stop them? Again our Congress fails us, lamely debating and failing to pass even a non-binding rebuke for the Administration. We have seen the age when the US Government has begun to fail. What can be done to restore sanity again to public discourse? What can be done to prevent the President from sacrificing more of best and bravest in this ignorant delusion of “winning in Iraq”?

No one can answer these questions. The real answer seems to be that the war in Iraq is happening because it suits the president and vice-president’s tastes. Really. In my heart I believe that this war was started and carries on simply because the loonies in the White House and Blair House have some agenda that is fulfilled by it. We must face the fact that some of our best and bravest citizens are being killed in Iraq so the President’s ego and the business interests of his friends are served.

This ongoing militarization of US foreign policy is the biggest crisis to face our nation in a very, very long time. George Bush, Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, et. al. Made the biggest, stupidest mistake of our entire generation. They confused having “the strongest military in the world” with having unlimited miltary power. Big difference. Big mistake. Now our military is hopelessly overstretched in the Middle East, our treasury is a smoking ruin, and we have certainly taken our eyes off the prize. Where is Osama Bin Laden? George Bush has said that he doesn’t care where he is. WTF? We need to admit that we were screwed over by the Bush Administration, and that our Congress utterly failed us. I want to hear every Senator explain WTF they were thinking when they voted in support of the war. If you can’t state why you did that and what you’re doing about it now, you don’t deserve to represent us in Congress. You failed us then and you aren’t exactly doing anything about it now.

I don’t know what to do about it. I used to abstain from voting so that I wouldn’t feel responsible for sending these assholes to represent us. Now, I vote, but it has made me even more hopeless about the entire situation. No one who runs is able to do the job anymore. The system is utterly broken.

But I have hope still. My fellow Americans, I have a dream today. Well, it’s more like a fantasy. What I’m hoping for is that the new Congress finds it’s spine somewhere along the lines, begins to behave like a co-equal branch of government, and puts a stop to the most egregiously unconstitutional behavior of the Executive Branch. I hope that Albert Gore waits until much of the early infighting and smoke clears and then runs for the Presidency with Barack H. Obama as the Veep. In my mind its the “dream team”. I want intellectuals in the White House and Blair house. I want peaceful, thoughtful men who aren’t slaves to big business. I want men who understand science and aren’t crassly and ignorantly anti-intellectual. I want men who can be religious without forcing their religion on others as a centerpeice of their policy. I guess I, like many, want the exact opposite of the fools we have endured since 2000. Please run, Al Gore, please. Only you have the foreign policy experience, intelligence and integrity to lead us out of this dark, dark time. Gore/Obama ‘08. Let it come to pass.

It is shameful. I cannot believe this is actually happening in our country.

The Bush Administration has tried to have the National Park Service tell the public that the Grand Canyon was not caused by natural geologic forces, but rather it is a direct product of Noah’s Ark Flood of the bible.

This is reiterated on an NPS publication offered at the park for sale. Shameful. Park rangers aren’t even supposed to be allowed to tell tourists the actual age of the canyon anymore, to avoid ‘offending the Fundamentalists’. It’s too much. Something has to be done. I’m serious. Only an ignorant jackass would believe that the Grand Canyon was caused by Noah’s Flood and that the canyon is less than 6000 years old. Only someone who is actively, purposefully evil would try to convince everyone else that geology isn’t real and Noah’s Ark floated down the Colorado River. Except now our government is trying to do exactly that.

Scientists and normal, rational folks are outraged. Here is a letter of protest signed by the head of various important scientific communities.

“As one park geologist said, this is equivalent of Yellowstone National Park selling a book entitled Geysers of Old Faithful: Nostrils of Satan” - from the article below

W T F ????????? We have got to be the stupidest country on earth.

The article