I've been pretty good about keeping my mouth shut during the Spitzer thing. I thought I could move past it, but all I did was let it fester. So, here it is, and it is on.
The Sheriff of Wall Street earned his name by really cleaning up crime and making New York a safe place to do honest business. He also made a lot of enemies doing it, many of them political. So when the day came when they finally found a way to knock him from grace, he fell and he fell hard.
"The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones."
From the play Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
Why else in this day and age can a guy who has done so much good get lynched for consorting with high dollar whores? He fell because he kept a whole bunch of people from making a whole lot of easy money. He also fell for being an honest man. Honest men are held to higher standards and all the good they do vanishes into little more than smoke and dust when it is found they aren't as honest as it was believed.
You can always trust a dishonest man to be dishonest. What do you do with a former coke head who dodged the draft, and got rich and powerful by making it easier for others to get rich and powerful? You try to make him president of course! If it doesn't work out you can always use rigged voting machines and hanging chads to finish the job. Sure people were upset but whats the big deal. No one was surprised. He didn't pretend to be anything he wasn't.
Now I read that the governor of New York has admitted to having affairs. No not that one. The new one. (Thanks to Fark.com for the headline.) I can only guess that this will blow over because he had no reputation for being an honest man. From what I've heard he is a guy who likes to get along. Criminals and big business people like guys who like to get along. They help grease those squeaky wheels.
There is a triangle, that defines the difference between criminals and big business people. The peak of the triangle is where a small number of big business people are while the flat bottom is where the multitudes of criminals are. The criminal only wants to get money and power and climb to the top of the triangle. Those big business people at the top of the triangle only need to try to stay there. Its an ugly but efficient system. The space between the top and the bottom is filled with politicians.
There was a time I believed that we wanted honest politicians. Now I realize that what we really need are dishonest politicians. With a dishonest politician we know where we stand. In the Lieutenant Governor's race the state employees have been getting almost daily an email from Hampton Dellinger. He has a plan. He is liked by all sorts of fluffy bunnies. He tells us every day in the emails he does. He's getting my vote. Not because of the fluffy bunnies but because he was the one dishonest enough to spam the state employees. No other candidate sends us emails. They are probably too honest to do so, or they are not clever enough to figure out who to pay off to get the email list.
He's my kind of scum, fearless and inventive.
This of course leads you to wonder about my presidential choices. Its a tough one. I was sort of rooting for Bush as dictator for life. All of the candidates seem like good people, so I will probably lean in the direction of the Republicans. As a rule they are always closest to the top of the triangle, and if McCain is as good as a man as he seems, surely someone out there will step up and pull his strings. Perhaps they are thinking he's good enough to get elected but not good enough to abuse power. That means that the Vice president will be truly a scoundrel, and they only need to wait for age to catch up with McCain. Of course, these are republicans so I can only guess they have a plan to help him along if his health suddenly improves and his goodness crimps their style too much.
Honest men have no place in modern politics.
Where I come from, when you invite someone some place, you actually want them there and you treat them with respect. From the articles I have been reading Columbia University President Lee Bollinger, must be from someplace else entirely. Perhaps it is my Southern upbringing, perhaps it is because I never belonged to a fraternity, but if someone invited me someplace as a guest and then ripped me a new one in front of all of their friends, I would have to beat someone's ass.
To this end, I guess that makes me a lesser man than Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Of course, I suppose this thing is still developing. My blood is Irish, we strike quickly when insulted. Who knows about the Iranians, later on Mahmoud just might crash a plane into Bollinger's house or something. Different cultures different styles. Who could blame him?
It would be a hoot if he turned the other cheek though. That would kink the "Iran is Evil" crowd's hose for a bit. Well, I suppose just long enough to call him a coward or something. Some people you just can't reach.
I had hoped that this sort of thing was something we could call a part of our primitive history. It seems however that pockets of primitive thinking linger on. Homo Honkius is alive and well and living in Jena Louisiana. Send in the cryptozoologist.
From Color of Change:
I just learned about a case of segregation-era oppression happening today in Jena, Louisiana. I signed onto ColorOfChange.org's campaign for justice in Jena, and wanted to invite you to do the same.http://www.colorofchange.org/jena/?id=1437-264161
Last fall in Jena, the day after two Black high school students sat beneath the "white tree" on their campus, nooses were hung from the tree. When the superintendent dismissed the nooses as a "prank," more Black students sat under the tree in protest. The District Attorney then came to the school accompanied by the town's police and demanded that the students end their protest, telling them, "I can be your best friend or your worst enemy... I can take away your lives with a stroke of my pen."
A series of white-on-black incidents of violence followed, and the DA did nothing. But when a white student was beaten up in a schoolyard fight, the DA responded by charging six black students with attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder.It's a story that reads like one from the Jim Crow era, when judges, lawyers and all-white juries used the justice system to keep blacks in "their place." But it's happening today. The families of these young men are fighting back, but the story has gotten minimal press. Together, we can make sure their story is told and that the Governor of Louisiana intervenes and provides justice for the Jena 6. It starts now. Please join me:
http://www.colorofchange.org/jena/?id=1437-264161
The noose-hanging incident and the DA's visit to the school set the stage for everything that followed. Racial tension escalated over the next couple of months, and on November 30, the main academic building of Jena High School was burned down in an unsolved fire. Later the same weekend, a black student was beaten up by white students at a party. The next day, black students at a convenience store were threatened by a young white man with a shotgun. They wrestled the gun from him and ran away. While no charges were filed against the white man, the students were later arrested for the theft of the gun.
That Monday at school, a white student, who had been a vocal supporter of the students who hung the nooses, taunted the black student who was beaten up at the off-campus party and allegedly called several black students "nigger." After lunch, he was knocked down, punched and kicked by black students. He was taken to the hospital, but was released and was well enough to go to a social event that evening.
Six Black Jena High students, Robert Bailey (17), Theo Shaw (17), Carwin Jones (18), Bryant Purvis (17), Mychal Bell (16) and an unidentified minor, were expelled from school, arrested and charged with second-degree attempted murder. The first trial ended last month, and Mychal Bell, who has been in prison since December, was convicted of aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery (both felonies) by an all-white jury in a trial where his public defender called no witnesses. During his trial, Mychal's parents were ordered not to speak to the media and the court prohibited protests from taking place near the courtroom or where the judge could see them.
Mychal is scheduled to be sentenced on July 31st, and could go to jail for 22 years. Theo Shaw's trial is next. He will finally make bail this week.
The Jena Six are lucky to have parents and loved ones who are fighting tooth and nail to free them. They have been threatened but they are standing strong. We know that if the families have to go it alone, their sons will be a long time coming home. But if we act now, we can make a difference.
Join me in demanding that Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco get involved to make sure that justice is served for Mychal Bell, and that DA Reed Walters drop the charges against the 5 boys who have not yet gone to trial.
http://www.colorofchange.org/jena/?id=1437-264161
Those wondering about my inflammatory blog title, it has been edited several times. Originally I was going to go in the direction of Outbreak and liken the racism to a deadly virus. Then I said, "Nuke Reed Walters". My thinking was that if you kill the head vampire the others would be freed. But who the heck is this Reed Walter's guy anyway and why should you care from just a blog title. So I went back to nuking the town, but I cracked myself up when I thought of racist as a hopefully extinct scavenger. The problem was the title "Mysterious Cryptid found in Jena Louisiana" would simply attract the wrong crowd. So I went with the hellfire and brimstone Southern Baptist title but kept the mysterious creatures entry. Now you've seen into the mind of the writer.
This has been on the back of my mind for a while. I have slept on it, I have showered on it, I have driven on it, I have walked to my office thinking it over. The reasons I am pondering such an odd subject is the NC prison system requires a doctor on site during executions. The NC medical board says it will take action against any doctor who does so because it violates the Hippocratic Oath. The prison system went to court to try to force the medical board to not take action against the doctors. Their argument? "An execution is not a medical procedure."
I have thought this over and I agree with the prison system. Any fool can kill someone and the prisons are full of fools that do. Therefore they don't need a doctor on site at all. Fill the role the doctor had with the next guy in line for the procedure. Chances are if you are on death row, you've already had some practice killing someone, and you are going to be killed for it anyway in keeping with the bibles "Thou Shalt Not Kill" and "Eye for an eye" clauses. What's one more going to hurt. Plus they will already be familiar with the method of their own demise so they can face it more relaxed when their own time comes.
Of course it is actually more complicated than that. They want someone there to make sure that the guy being killed doesn't actually get hurt in the process, and they believe the doctor has some sort of leg up here. They are worried about the killing of someone being inhumane. I don't see the big issue. The Humane Society has occasion to put wayward pets down. They are very humane, everyone knows it. They even use "humane" in their name. If you kill the person the same way they kill the animals you would be humane about your killing and wouldn't have to worry about it. Again no doctor necessary.
If you are worried about if you actually successfully killed the guy, perhaps you are not ready to be in the killing business yet. Again, utilize your experts already in death row. They could teach you a thing or two about killing and if you still aren't sure, when the ambulance comes the next morning to haul the deceased to the morgue, while they are riding over they can run a few standard "are they still alive" test. Remember, no one survives embalming anyway, so if the guy is mostly dead he will be all the way dead once his blood is replaced with embalming fluid.
If he comes back from that he's a zombie, and we have ways of dealing with zombies.
Bottom line lets keep the doctors as far away from the state mandated killing as possible. It just isn't what they do.
Last night just before my Saber class I was visited by one of Greensboro's finest, and I am not speaking ironically or sarcastically. The police department was aware of my previous entry on the safety of the area surrounding the YWCA, and the excellent comments it attracted. The officer outlined what they were doing to help improve the security of the area. I outlined what we were doing to improve our own safety.
Each of us was satisfied with the action plans the other was taking and I taught my class as the solo coach no longer feeling like I had to keep one eye on the door to the front desk in case I needed to be called to instant action. I liked being able to focus wholly on my students again. I felt they got a better lesson. At the end of class, we left in groups. As the last fencer out (and usually the last patron), I pulled the external doors to, assuring that those YWCA employees left inside were secure. It was a good night.
Many thanks to the Greensboro Police Department for coming by, it was appreciated.
Big Oil, you know the guys who are raking in record profits while you pay over $2.00 per gallon? Besides getting a substantial portion of your pay at the pump, they get a big fat check from the government. This means you pay them TWICE! Isn't THAT cool? Unless you own stock in Exxon, I suspect the answer is an resounding HECK NO!
As you may be aware we have a brand new majority in congress and they are all looking to score some points with us Americans. This being said, we need a good big loud voice to them saying that we are tired of paying twice for the same tank of gas! We are tired of them diging up the world looking for oil. We are tired of the pollution. We know better ways of powering our cars exist, why can't we use them?
A petition has been created to give you this voice. Lets get them to make their first 100 hours memorable and not wasted. Here's How
Unless you have never read anything I have ever written before, or have never spoken to me about politics, you already know that I am unsatisified with the job President Bush is doing. The world holds the United States to a higher standard because we are the most powerful country in the world. Thus, we hold our president to a higher standard. It isn't just me, let us not forget that Clinton was practically burned at the stake for being a man. Bush on the other hand has, to the best of our knowledge kept it in his pants, but he makes up for it by acting like an idiot monkey at every turn. But people change...
Earlier this week I was looking at a picture that the Voyager probe took from its vantage point outside of our solar system looking back at Earth. At that distance the Earth was less than a pixil across, but by some amazing stroke of luck it managed to capture us, "A mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam". I am not quoting Carl Sagan exactly but I mean to. Go here to see the image and the article about it. In case you aren't into clicking links I want to quote a part of Dr. Sagan's speech because it is an amazing revelation.
"We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam."
Maybe it was this. Maybe it was the fact that I watched Dead Man's Chest last night. Maybe it was the box of Bojangles chicken I ate before bed. For whatever reason, last night I dreamed that I was standing in Center City Park listening to people talking about politics and war (these topics are inseparable). Then I flew, I just rose above the park, the city, the county, the state, the country, the continent, the earth. I stood there in space above our little blue world and I realized that America isn't the largest or the most powerful country in the history of man. In the entire history of man the greatest human ever was still just a human. I realized that Bush isn't a really bad president of the greatest country ever, he is an amazing Pirate King, leading a country founded on revolution, built by broken promises, and fueled by priacy. We are not a rogue nation, we are a nation of rogues, and the king of all rogues leads us.
I awoke a changed man. My approval rating of Bush grew seven sizes that day.
First things first, many thanks to Sara for making this connection in the shower this morning. Bathing seems to bring the best out of intellects. I hope no one ever outlaws it!
War is good for the economy! I used to hear that all the time in both history and economics classes. While it is a pretty crass statement, it is also true. Back in the day, wars meant that average people had plenty of good jobs making uniforms, ammunition, equipment, weapons, and more. Nowhere was this more clear than in the first and second world wars. Pretty much an entire middle class made their livings on the war effort.
But times they are a changing. Modern warefare uses fewer troops, thus less equipment. Modern manufacturing technologies means that fewer workers are needed to make the same amount of product. So the middle class sees little econimic gain. The money is still there of course or we wouldn't still find ourselves in these foreign wars. It is just being made by the few elite people who own the companies who make the wartime goods and services.
Its just coincidence that it takes money to run for public office, so only people with money get elected and they make their money on oil, weapons, and services used in the war effort. Right?
It used to be that to steal an election you had to be better than the other candidate. Then you only needed to look better than the other candidate. Then you needed destroy your opponents life. Now you only need to hack the machines. Here's how.
I don't know about you, but I think Yellow Dog has a real shot this year. Thanks to Jeff Williams for the tip.
I miss the old days where you needed to be better than your opponent to win.
Namely explain the entire voting process in a way that everyone could understand and leave them wanting to participate. In case I haven't said it before, this guy really impresses me.
Bloggers all over Greensboro will keep a low profile on Wednesday as the Commander and thief himself is comming for a visit. I guess he's getting tired of that "idiot monkey" joke.
Maybe I'll take a sick day and keep out of the county. The last thing I want to see is a couple of suits coming to take me to one of those spiffy new homeland security resorts. Of course, if they come for me, they'll come for at least half of the Greensboro blogging crowd. I might disappear, but at least I'd be in good company.
I read this article this morning about an Ohio girl who was suspended because she was caught with a comb in school. This tap danced on my "outrage" button and so I am now on a mission. I will find this secret list of banned items and expose the dangers of combs and...stuff. I donno.
The Guilford County Schools Student Handbook a sprawling 94 page tome of enlightenment has this to say:
Rule 22 - Possession of a Dangerous Weaponor Other Instrument
Students shall not possess or conceal or transport any weapon or other instrument
that could cause or that is intended to cause bodily injury or other harm to another
or misuse otherwise acceptable objects in a manner intended to cause harm to
others at any time while a student is at school in any school building and on any
school premises, attending school-sponsored activities, on or about any schoolowned
or operated vehicle, off school property at any school-sponsored or school
approved activity or function or during any period of time when students are subject
to the authority of school personnel, and at any time when the student's behavior
has a direct and immediate effect on maintaining order and discipline and protecting
safety and welfare of students and staff. N.C.G.S. 115C-391(d1) mandates a 365-
day suspension for students in possession of dynamite cartridges, bombs, grenades,
mines, or powerful explosives. Fireworks are excluded from these provisions.
Consequences
• Elementary - Up to 10 days OSS. Confiscate weapon. Law enforcement will be
called. Repeated offenses may result in long-term suspension.
• Middle School - Long-term suspension up to 365 days. Confiscate weapon. Law
enforcement will be called.
• High School - Long-term suspension up to 365 days. Confiscate weapon. Law
enforcement will be called. Principals of high schools on a block schedule must
consult their School Support Officers prior to suspending a student out of school for
more than five (5) days.
Well, that doesn't seem so bad. It implies a comb is only a weapon when used as a weapon. I approve. Wait a minute, 94 pages and I couldn't even find a dress code? Hmmm...
Ok, the dress code for the county was strait forward enough. If you smell, or your cloths are disruptive, you are in trouble. The definition of "Disruptive" is left to the individual school. Aycock doesn't allow anyone to wear red for instance.
Wow, secret societies are banned in guilford county schools. Take that you Masons! And you, vile members of the Reel Big Fish fanclub. Ban the tube top!
Door to door selling is allowed up to twice a year and only by High School students. So you middle schoolers selling wrapping paper and stuff for your school are breaking the law.
You know, its odd. I really expected a list like the TSA post for things not allowed on airplanes.
It looks like in leu of a list, what is being said is "We get to decide on a case by case basis, what your child may or may not have subject to change at any time." So relax parents, your child will be suspended for the oddest things at any time. You can use common sense to help keep it to a minimum but basically if your child looks crosseyed, they will be suspended for having a book, and when they return to school without books, they will be suspended for not having their books.
My advice, save some vacation days and when the man goes all arbitrary on your kids backside, you can smile and enjoy a day at the zoo.
"OMG you got suspended for a ruler? What are you going to do now?"
"Me, I'm going to Disney land."
Meanwhile I will be quietly designing a training program so my children will be able to kill with a book, pencil, crayon, or white long sleeved polo shirt with between 2 and four buttons by the time they leave pre-K. You can never be too careful these days. People are killing Amish kids, no child is safe anymore.
I have been so good. I have kept the politics out of my blog for so long, but I can't ignore this. Bush signed into law a bill that creates some minnimum requirements for FEMA directors. He immediately signed himself another "This law doesn't apply to me" signing statement. Read it here.
I realize that I am putting myself on the short list for a one way trip to Gitmo for saying this, but it had to be said. WTF is that idiot monkey think he's up to anyway?
I was listening last night to the latest offensive and harassing voice mail from Vernon Robinson on the phone. This time to the tune of The Beverly Hillbillies, some idiot is singing to me in true redneck fashion about how their politiical enemy was spending all of my money on illegal immigrants. It occured to me that the phone call was harassing, insulting, and not for a candidate in my district. Perhaps I should return the favor either with some phone calls of my own or maybe a lawyer's note. Then it occured to me that the candidate they were attacking is the one that really should be doing the lawyering. I started thinking back to all of the other heated political campains and how candidates took turns lying about each other. This candidate was AWOL from the national guard, this candidate was hated by everyone under him in the military. Look at this picture we made in photoshop with this candidate and a known traitor. If I had said any of the things above about any of you, I'd have found myself in court answering to either libel or slander charges.
Then it all became clear to me. They have an honor system. Honor among politicians as it were.
Look at it like this with these entirely made up ficticious examples.
"Vermin" of the Bloated Pachyderm Party accuses "Cockroach" of the Stubborn Ass party of being a child molester. The media goes wild with the story and Cockroach falls like a stone in the polls the only way Cockroach can combat it is to take Vermin to court for libel, slander or both.
They get to court and Vermin has to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Cockroach is a child molester. He made it up clearly, so he can't do it even though he has reams of color photos of Coackroach kissing babies at various Wally World grand openings. Instead, he takes the time in court under oath to prove beyone a shadow of a doubt that in 1979 Cockroach got drunk and slept with someone not of his wife at a party out of town. He also proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Cockroach failed to file a tax return during his sophmore year of college. It is quickly forgotten that Vermin lied about the baby raping thing, because everyone's going goo-gah over the 1979 "One Night Stand-Gate" and the tax dodging incident. (Even though one of these may not have actually occured.)
So what have we learned? Politicians can say anything they want to about anyone they want to without any fear of repercussion. (They can also get past the "do not call" list.) So maybe what I really ought to do is run for Trinity or something and accuse Vernon Robinson of being an abuser of small furry woodland creatures. It clearly wouldn't even matter that I wasn't running "against" Vernon for the position or even in the same district. I'd be a politician and would only have to answer to the bloggers.
On the other hand, being a politician is a pretty slimy and disgusting job. I don't think I have the stomach for it. If I want to lie for a living I'll I do it honestly by writing fiction, or being an actor.
Over the years our representitive democratic government has been frought with scandle, politicians bought, votes bought and sold, votes stolen, elections stolen, presidents that dare not to hold to a higher ideal. Thanks to the power of the internet, these events are being uncovered more and more because more people with equal voice (like bloggers) are watching. I have heard folks say that the corruption in our government was some new thing brought on by a lack of "Moral Values". Nobody can agree on what those values are by the way. "Moral Values" seems to be defiinded as "How I want you to behave."
I remember back in High School history class where the winners were always right because they wrote the history. In this class there was never any corruption worth mentioning because the winners always stomped it out. In this class we were taught that in ancient Greece all citizens had one vote and they all participated in government. It worked because the population wasn't all that great, they all lived in a city state, and women, slaves and foreigners were not citizens. (Slaves and foreigners could buy freedom and citizenship however.) This system stopped working when there were too many citizens too far apart geographically to really effectively govern themselves. Throw in a couple of invasions, and the sytem eventually evolved into something like we are using today.
I contend that the very technologies we use to keep a fire lit under those people who claim to represent us could be used to create a system whereby we could bring back the true democracy. There are more than enough smart people in internet land to make that happen. The power of many over the power of few and all.
Off the cuff we would need a system where by each eligable American voter can authenticate into a system and be allowed to cast a vote on issues that concern them. True majority rule. We can even use some of that freedom were giving up anyway to make it where we have to use a fingerprint or retina scan to prove who we were and each of us would have a complete record of ever vote we cast. Why not, we're all spewing our opinions online everyday and more and more people are comming to realize that nothing is truly anonomious.
In the bright side of my little dream, beurocracy would shrink. No more electing a guy to represent you only to have him get bought out by some corporation through a well paid lobbiest firm. Now those corporations have to pay lobbiest to buy YOU out.
True, Exxon would surely monitor the voting practices of its employees and frown upon those who "vote against the best interest of the share holders" but good news folks, there are other corporations who probably like the way you think and you could work for them and safely vote your consious.
Could it be fudged DiBold style? I am sure it could, but with each person getting to see their vote in action and so many of us looking for bugs, it would quickly evolve into a ironclad bug free system.
Would it require each eligable voter to keep abreast of current events. Yes. (That's a good thing.)
Would some people still not vote? Yes. Either they don't know the issue well enough to make a educated vote, or they choose not to participate. How is that different from today? I mean other than the fact that there could be an obstain button for folks to use when they didn't know how to vote.
Is it a perfect plan? No, I only starting writing this entry a half hour ago, but you have to ask yourself, would it be any worse than what we have now? And you lobbiest can just obstain from that question, I wasn't talking to you.
There is a phenomonom called various things like "collective wisdom", "crowd intelligence" and "Wisdom of Crowds". It works like this. Fill a jar with marbles and ask everyone you know to guess how many marbles are in the jar. Write down all their answers. You will find that the answers range widely and infact no one may guess it correctly. Now average all the guesses. Whatever that answer is is proabably frightenly close to the actual answer. This method is so accurate that it is pretty standard practice in Project Management to use it in determinining timelines for work you've never done before. It is powerful, and it could be leveraged in a true democracy.
Think it over. Shoot all the holes in it you want. Holes can be filled.
Last night we had Chinese for dinner. The fortunes are often interesting and insightful, last nights made me understand politics in its entirity.
Now I understand why Americans love spending all their time aghast at the antics of politicians who never should have been elected in the first place. It is as though Hollywood just isn't enough. "Snakes on a Plane", is good entertainment, but a local politician says that homosexuality is "as natural as pedophilia." That's GREAT entertainment. All this time I've been shaking my head wondering how folks who do and say such stupid things are elected over and over again. I've missed the point. The point is, people WANT guys in office to do and say idiotic things, shoot lawyers, and bastardize the American English language. It is entertainment!
Yes, good politicians exist and they work hard to do good works, and we can't name any of them, because they aren't singing and dancing in the lime light. They are in the trenches doing good works day in and day out.
So I suppose, based on this enlightenment, the greatest compliament you can lay on a politician is to say to them, "Who?" when they introduce themselves. If we've never heard of them, they must not suck.
The other night the Vermin Robinson camp struck again with terrorist 1/2 messages on my answering machine. This racest tirade has got to end. (And I KNOW tirades) Now he's going after the Mexicans, how soon before he comes after me. As an person of Irish decent and a Caomhánach to boot I take offense in a big old historical way. If I called your house playing "Mammy", talking up grape soda and fried pork you'd chase me up a tree and set fire to it (and you would be well within your rights to do so).
Will the Vermin Robinson representitive whose autodialer uses the number 336-499-6570 Stop calling me and harassing me or I will take legal action! You have no right to terrorize me in this way! I'm not even in your stupid district. Come to thing of it, YOU aren't in your stupid district! You are as bad as the blog spammer who is leaving the message "You have a great site, but I'm so sorry you have a lot of spam :-(" on my blog. Also a slanderous lie by the way. My blog is spam free thanks to dilagence and hard work.
Of course, on the other hand we haven't heard much out of Ashton Kutcher lately. Perhaps he is shooting the movie Punk'd America, and the joke (Vermin Robinson) is on America. Why else would this cross between Boss Hogg, Hitler, and a professional wrestler be in my voicemail spewing hot molten crazy all over the place.
In one bold sentence I will confuse both the left and the right. I do not think illegal immigrants should have the same rights as US citizens, however HR 4437 is a crock of bull.
Crazy huh? I'll bet some readers expected me to burst into flames just then.
Before I rant on, you might need a quick breakdown of what HR4437 is. Here's the Wikipedia article Here is what it means to immigrants. Here's how Haliburton and their government payouts intend to profit from us. Finally, here's all the other things you can do with detention centers. Most of these things smack of concentration camps.
There are some out there who will undoubtably say this is an either or issue. As always, these people are still wrong. The United States has a system of Immigration. Some would say that this system is broken. I am not so sure. Misapplied, mismanaged, poorly funded, unevenly applied, these are all things that might describe it, but it isn't a failure, it simply hasn't been allowed to work. HR 4437 is an invitation to fascism. I cannot and will not support that, even if this means that in 10 years my blog will be used to put me in Haliburton detention center. When in doubt, always go with the forefathers. I think it is a good rule of thumb.
So what we had May 1st with the Immigration Rally was for the most part an extreme response to HR 4437. Extreme both in its big and peaceful turnout (something they should be extremely proud of), and extreme in their demand of a general amnesty for non-citizens of the United States who reside in the U.S. illegally. You don't get amnesty, you're not a citizen. Go get citizenship. (Yes, easier said than done, but still the correct answer.)
HR4437 should line the cage of a tropical bird. Should the border patrols be steped up? Absolutely. Do we need to build a fence on our northern and southern borders? Extreme, and expensive even if it were effective. I wonder by the way if the northern fence is meant to keep the Canadians out or us in? Should an illegal who gets caught driving drunk be charged with a felony and tossed into Halliburton Land guilty until proven innocent? Nope. Should we break up mixed families and make it so they can never see each other again? No Pat Roberson, no Rush Limbaugh, and no Jim Sensenbrenner, (R) Wisconsin.
Ed Cone is correct, it is a complex issue. I just want to make sure everyone understands it isn't a black and white issue. (Or even brown and white if that is how you view the world.)
I haven't noticed it so much in Guilford county, but in Rockingham and Randolph, and even back home in Carteret County, Folks running for sheriff are running as Demoncrate or Repugnican. I just can't get a handle on this concept. Do repugnicans and the demoncrates fight crime differently or something? It is possible I suppose based on the way they commit crimes. Does a democrat sheriff protect his constituents by focusing on the rich white collar criminals? Does the republican sheriff protect his rich white collar constituents while focusing on the poor criminal? If this is what is happening, I want an independent sheriff. I would feel a whole lot safer knowing that my sheriff treats all criminals the same.
I would in fact rather keep the sheriff candidates as far away as I could from the folks running for public office. I am just not sure that mixing crime fighting and politics is ever a good idea. Look at all the trouble we've had mixing crime and politics. There is so much talk of trying to bring down the criminals running the show that the show really hasn't been running at all. Well, except the crime part.
Illegal imigrants and supporters are taking to the streets in protest in order to demand rights. They say that by not working or buying today they will prove that they can cripple our economy. They demands rights! Apparently a large population hasn't gotten the memo about how rights work in this country. They would have gotten that information had they looked into the process of being legal. Besides human rights that everyone gets including them, citizens of the United States get rights as citizens, which include voting, good roads, free school for the kids, help for the poor, etc. There is even a government office whose sole purpose is to help people become citizens.
But these people are illegal. They didn't go get citizenship. Admitedly some of them might have tried, and they might have gotten turned down for whatever reason. If you aren't a citizen, or you don't have a greencard, or visa, then that would mean that you are breaking the law and thus "illegal".
Did you know that criminals convicted of a felony lose their rights as citizens? No more voting, no more being a gun owner. If you are breaking the law now just by being here, what makes you think you are going to get rights as a citizen? What makes you think you should?
Do you want to be a citizen? Great! There is a process you go through to become a legal US citizen. It might not be easy, but nothing good ever is.
If you are illegal, you need to get legal or go home. Just because someone else breaks the law by exploiting you in the work place doesn't make you any less illegal. You say that you are willing to do work that none of the real Americans are willing to do. You might be right, but the homeless on the streets and the otherwise out of work Americans get first dibs. If we as a country have jobs we can't fill with the already legal Americans, perhaps those jobs will end up oursourced to your own country. If they can't, then your chances of going through the process and being made a legal US citizen are boosted big time.
As it stands, you don't get much sympathy from me. I can understand why you want to come here, but there are better ways of doing it. All I see now is a bunch of illegal people undercutting the compeitition for jobs and using resources meant for US Citizens. (Like public schools.) That isn't very nice.
All you are doing by taking to the street now, is making it easier to get rounded up and shipped to your country of origion, which I suppose come to think of it probably isn't a bad thing.
I love this time of year, as the days get warmer and the sleeves get shorter, some UNCG student's thoughts turn towards campus politics. The goal of student politics of course is not to hold power but to draw attention away from it. It is really a cute way of making students think they have power. They don't of course, but instead they get trained in how politics works in the real world. I suppose it is like in the military training without ammunition.
What makes this time of year so much fun is the campaining, the signs, the fliers, the meetings, the wild promisses for things that they couldn't deliever even if they wanted to. Every year just about every candidate says that they will fight to lower tuition and fees. That's like Bush claiming he can bring world peace to the middle east. That's like me saying I am going to change the shade of the color of Mr. Sun. There are forces in this universe that are outside of your control. Happieness comes from identifying those and accepting the situation for what it is. For me, I like Mr. Sun just the way he is.
I only wish I knew of some student candidate websites I could link here. It is interesting to see what is important to them, and what they think they have control over. Better still would be if I had a digital camera that I could take pictures of the campain posters and fliers. It is really an interesting exercise.
At the advice of Plead The First, I went by Political Compass and took a quiz. The results shocked and surprised me. I wonder what event sent me down this extreme path. I always prided myself on being a centrist, and now I find I am a monster. I am going to need a moment, and a whole chicken, and maybe some steamed vegies...
My political compass
Economic Left/Right: -4.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.05
ABC News has the story, so does Reuters.
The FARK headline read:"Then: "Congress is preparing an investigation, and I will work with members of both parties to make sure this effort is thorough." Now: White House resists Katrina probe"
Will someone tell the idiot monkey in charge that you can't simply opt out. Congressional investigations are funny like that. If congress came to me and asked me about something, I couldn't just say, "I'll tell you a little, but I am not giving certain information to you." They frown on that. Infact, they would without question lock my butt up. Unless of course they subpoena me, and then I plead the fifth, that's legal and good. Yet, the damned dirty ape can sit back and say, "This information is off limits to you." What? Is this part of something larger? Is Katrina the work of the nefarious Osama Bin Ladin? Well in that case, by all means keep that a national secret. NOT. What, do you think we are stupid? If so, please let us know. One would think someone in the white house would be there familiar enough with the rule book to quickly whisper into the appropriate ear, "We can't do that." Did they fire that guy or something?
Separation of powers people, that's all I'm talking about. Don't think I have forgotten the other presidents that have done this, the difference is now I am blogging about it, and the idiot monkey is the biggest offender right now. Again, don't get me wrong, its a great racket. You get made president, you do everything during your administration possible to get as many of your closest and dearest rich beyond their wildest dreams, and you retire after 4 or 8 years to write a book (or in some cases, maybe to learn to read). Meanwhile everyman is getting slowly ground into paste under the boots of "The Man". Maybe he could get someone to write a book for him about that, "How to Succeed in Business Through Politics". I guarantee it would be a best seller.
The way things have been looking lately Chapter One would be titled, "Don't let them fool you, President = King of the world".
If the allegation is true it is not only going to be the subject of a lot more bad outsourcing jokes, but a smoking gun showing the world to what lengths our government will go to to circumvent its own laws.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I am getting tired of constantly being told that we don't know what is good for us. I will be the first to admit that the elected president is some pretty strong evidence that we really don't know what is good for us. Fortunately, (or unfortunately) we have seen so much evidence lately of breaking, rewriting, or circumventing the law, who knows, we might not have voted our estemed leader into office. Could be someone thought they knew better than the rest of us what is good for us and relieved us of the burdon of choosing a president.
If the news is wrong and torture isn't being outsourced, then who is snatching people from the streets of the world and torturing them? Terrorist? Pat Roberson? The Teletubbies? I don't know about you but I wouldn't mind getting the truth once in a while. On the first try. Even if it was a horrible truth, it would be true, and that's about the best starting place I can think of.
All too often we hear on the news about children who perhaps aren't fitting in socially. They get picked on and bullied by the cool kids maybe for years, and one day they just snap. We never hear their story until the six O'clock news on the day they decided they weren't going to take it anymore. France has long been that picked on kid, apparently they have decided they aren't going to take it anymore.
Jacques Chirac has cast asside his silly beret, hitched up his big boy pants, and in his best John Wayne voice announced that they would drop THE bomb on any country that harbors terrorist who attack France.
We probably want to work with our children and picked on countries to develop skills where they can difuse these situations early before they escalate to this level. If my child ends up being the picked on one in school, I will teach them very early to break the nose of the bully, striking so hard and so fast that the bully will never bother them again. My child will get suspended for a little while, but at least they aren't going to go on a shooting rampage years later when they finally decided enough is enough.
I heard this morning that the conservative Republicans had a real problem convincing the rest of the Republican party to push through a funding cut to many of the more popular programs targeted towards the lower class. Through some hard wheeling and dealing and I am sure more than a little hardball they just managed to get enough votes to do the job.
Yes, I have heard the poor excuses, "Stopping a standard increase is not the same thing as cutting funding." Bullpucky. If the money doesn't change and the cost goes up for the same services it does exactly the same thing as a cut. Give up on your semantics game.
Meanwhile there is the push to make the tax cuts for the rich permenant. Please.
Stop pussyfooting around and just do what you want to do you conservative dolts. Clever is not your forte, you need go with your strengths.
You don't want people from Mexico and Central America crossing the border and taking bottom rung jobs. You would rather Americans work for those wages digging ditches. The problem is the Americans who used to be counted on to dig dithces are getting all uppitity, getting financial aid, getting educated, and getting better jobs. The only thing to do to halt the rapidly shrinking naturalized American poor is to shove them back down in the ditches and chicken processing plants. You demand a white pool boy! You demand a return to traditional values!
Quit blowing smoke then. Pass a law that the rich split up the taxes paid by the poor get that lower class back in the field where they belong. Quit lying to us. Lying to us only going to make it worse when we rise up as one and pee in your swimming pools.
I belong to a message board filled with friends both near and far who use it as a way to keep in touch even though the miles separate us. On it people feel fairly free to speak their mind so long as they are prepared to get called out on it once in a while. Occasionally, it can get tense, but like friends do, the written promise of a beer to bury the hatchet is as good as the real thing. Recently on the board I made the casual, and to my way of thinking, obvious statement that I was a centrist. You would have thought I had proclaimed the moon was made of green cheese from the reaction. No one offered an opinion of a more fitting label, but it was painfully clear to me that I am seen as a horn throwing, flaming liberal. I could take offence to that, especially since these days liberal is the new Jew, Black or Homosexual. No offense to any of these groups, and especially to anyone who happens to be all three and a liberal as well, fate has delt you a low blow with society my friend.
I am smart enough to know that if that many people crack on me for something, it must appear that I have stated some sort of mistake, or at least an outright lie. In order to get to the bottom of this, I figured I would throw out a few major political points and take a stand on them. Either my opinion will lay to the left, or it will lay to the right. My place on the political tree will be the average of them. I don't actually know why I am doing this, all of the really cool political test all say that I am a centrist, but because of my trust in and my love for my friends, I will take a new crack at this in my own less than scientific way.
1. Roe VS Wade: I support Roe VS Wade. Liberal Who am I to think I know better how to decide what a stranger should do with their own body.
2. Guns: I support the right to keep and bear arms. Conservative Disarming a population only empowers the criminal element.
3. Illegal Imigrants: I believe that illegal imigrants should be deported. Conservative Legal Imigration is fine and there should be little or no resaon to refuse the right to imigrate to anyone (In or out).
4. Prohibition: I believe that prohibition was a kooky idea. Liberal Besides alcohol is a great luxury item for taxing the bejesus out of.
5. Civil Rights: I believe that all men and women should be treated as equals. Liberal
6. Women's Rights: (See Above) Liberal
7. Gay Rights: (See Above) liberal
8. Gay Marriage: This is a tough one. I think this whole debate is nothing more than a misunderstanding brought on by some sloppy planning early on. Marriage is today really a two headed beast. One head embodies the religious aspect, man, woman, god, snake and some kings who wanted a new wife without having to kill off the old one. The other head is law, this person is legally agreeing to assign rights to property, health insurance benifits, etc to another person. Somewhere along the way, everyone seemed to see it as one creature, and you can't be legal unless god (whatever version they are worshipping today) says so. This whole thing can be solved if everyone decides once and for all, that in order for your marriage to be recognized by the church you have to follow whatever the church is telling you today. If you want to be Legal you have to get a marriage license, this gets you the inheritence rights, insurance benifits etc. If you want both you have to jump through both hoops.
9. Taxes: 10% of your salary should go to the government no matter how many kids you have or how much money you bring home. If you want to pay less, earn less. No deductions, loop holes, or exceptions. Liberal I can't imagine any rich man agreeing to this, and since most rich men seem to be conservative, that must mean I'm not on this issue. (If they did, we would have this system in place already as there are no real poor politicians at that level of Government.)
10. Religion: My first thought is to say Liberal here. I really like this new hippy diety, who has a god for a dad, a human for a mother, and is a relative newcomer on the worship circuit being dead only a couple of thousand years now. I like Jesus and he is the epitome of everything that is Liberal. Peace, love, forgiveness, he was the 1970's without the Viet Nam and the drug abuse. However, some real wack jobs on the extreme conservative side are claiming him and I'm not sure why really. Their rhetoric makes them sound like the very ones who nailed Jesus to the cross to begin with. So if I say I love Jesus I am more or less aligning myself with the ultra conservative nutjobs who are against choice, free will, and equal rights. I get a headache thinking about it. I mean, if they wanted to be conservative you would think they would ignore this Johnny Come Lately New Testament nonsense and go for that "Old Time Religion" talking animals, angry gods, and sacrifices.
Ok, that's ten lets tally up the scores.
Conservative: Guns and Illegal Imigration, that makes two.
Liberal: Roe Vs Wade, Prohibition, civil rights, Women's rights, Gay Rights, and taxes that makes six.
Unlabelable: Gay Marriage and Religion that makes two.
Huh, I guess I am a horn throwing flamming liberal. Why don't I feel like it then? I mean, I haven't stolen anyone's land in the name of Manifest Destany, or even Eminent Domain. I haven't fought long and hard against war unjust or othwise (forgive me Jesus). I haven't tried to tell anyone how to live their lives, or even try to force my personal morals on them. I think the security in London and DC is probably a pretty good idea. (Hold the RFI please, I doubt its kosher anyway.) Oh the confusion! Oh the agony! Rush Limbah, grant me the strength to want to bring Great Democracy to all oil producing countries without being distracted by things like Sudan, Ruwhanda, Somalia, North Korea, the Congo, and so on! Save me from the liberal media bent on confusing my wittle mind! Help me to know that everything we know is wrong and if we just do whatever you say everything will be right again in the world! Give me a freakin break!!!
I was surprised that Congress wanted to take Brown to task, everyone had agreed that Brown was going to be the scapegoat pretty early on and he accepted his role and resigned. It should have been over, but I guess some congressional types needed some sound bites to boost their popluarity numbers. They wanted a scapegoat, Brown is the scapegoat. They wanted a whipping boy, Brown never agreed to that.
And why should he? Is he to blame for most of FEMA's failures during Katrina? Yes. Is there still plenty of blame to go around? Yes again. Should he take all of the blame for everything? Congress seems to think so. Lets be honest, Brown was appointed, everyone else involved was elected. Everyone wants to be reelected. None of them are going to want to shoulder any of their personal blame and are going to take great pains to spin that blame somewhere else. Congress sees no reason why Brown shouldn't be the fall guy here. Good for reelection campains, bad for Americans.
Lets face it, I would vote for the Mayer of New Orleans as president of the united states, but he should've evacuated New Olreans before escape became impossible. There were plenty of school busses and such available to at least make a good college try. Instead the busses were sunk with the rest of the city. The governor of LA could have mentioned something about evacuation before Katrina hit, and asked for help sooner once Katrina did hit. There is/was plenty of blame to go around.
I am not sure what set me off the most last night watching the news reports of Congress trying to make brownies out of Brown, the effeminate U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor (D) Mississippi who tried so hard to get Brown to accept 110% of the blame, or his even more effeminate toady sitting behind him learing like a jackel into the cameras. He had the kind of learing face that needed to be hit with something.
Kudo's to Brown for refusing to take any blame that wasn't his. Jeers to the whiny little politicians who care about nothing but vote getting. Jeers also to members of the media who are reporting that Brown refused to accept any blame at all. Quit lying to us you little attention whores, you're getting as bad as the politicians.
But its fine if Richard P. Titus over in Undergraduate Admissions talks about my work. Once I recovered from the mini-stroke slash hernia, I did some double time backtracking only to figure out that this info is officially sanctioned info for viewing by the big man himself. So its not like he's spilling state secrets. I just thought the data was supposed to be a state secret. I hope that doesn't mean I am going to go back and turn 348 mandates into 348 PDF's and put them on display.
Anyway, I'm still not going to talk about my work, and I'm not in any way bothered that Rick talked about my work, however it does open up some avenues if I ever want to talk about some other department on campus.
Now listen up people, have I got a story to tell about ISOM you won't believe...
Just kidding.
I just read an article from the Associated Press about Bunnatine Greenhouse. (Dated August 7th) This is a woman who stood up to Army Corp of Engineers and blew the whistle, having had enough of the unethical, illegal, and expencive practices of US Government Contract spending, specifically with Halliburton. In checking further than one article I find that ABC News covered the same event(via Associated Press) on October 25th of 2004. She originally drew the line in the sand back in 1993. Halliburton does what it always does, states they have done nothing wrong and then throw up a smokescreen. In the ABC article, they state that this recycled aligation is only comming up again because it is election time. Well, its August 2005 and it isn't election time. I wonder why this is comming up again? Could it be because there is a problem and it won't go away. And which is the problem, Bunnatine Greenhouse or Halliburton?
I guess that depends on who you ask. If you ask me, who as a general rule is suspicious of our government spiraling away from its roots and its growing interest in empire, I say Bunnatine Greenhouse is a hero unmatched since the days of our founding fathers.
I suppose if you were to ask the ruling elite they would tell you that Bunnatine Greenhouse is a busy body who doesn't know what she is talking about, and everything would be fine if we'd just let them get back to the business of trying to rule the world.
I think what I find most offensive about this whole thing is that what Bunnatine Greenhouse was reporting isn't some strange new breaking of protocal, its standard government practice. Its how things get done. Just because that is how it is done doesn't mean it is right. History shows us a whole bunch of standard business practices that just aren't right. Slavery, church marriage being a legal distinction, prohibition, flat earth, earth center of solar system, Pepsi Clear, the list goes on, and I bet everyone reading this can add something to the list. And let us not forget current things we haven't learned are mistakes yet, President Bush, Pimpjuice, Scion, gigayachts, tofu (I'm on the fence on tofu).
Might does not make right. The best it can do is "right now". My point? The government is flushing our tax money into the septic tanks of big business, without restraint, without ethics, and without air freshiner. What are we going to do about it?
Everything I am reading right down to official press releases makes it clear that this whole failure to pass a budget (Due July 1st) isn't about dollars. Based on everything I am watching and reading the two houses are simply having a battle over who has to largest political penis.
Put this pettiness asside and pass a budget already! All of you are equally massive dicks in my eyes. There is no reason take this any further.
Thank you for your time, I know it is valuable.
I heard on the local news last night (best article I could find about the attack) (best article I could find about the murder)...Isn't it strange that there si so little news about this? Anyway, last night I heard that at a rest home in Alamance County someone who was insane, murdered someone who was elderly. A good deal of time was spent on soundbites of how these two ignored groups managed to get lumped in together. Apparently, it is perfectly legal to do this in this day and age.
I can just see someone with two stacks of files on their desk. They are in the office of "Dealing with people the rest of society is trying to ignore department" (A division of the Department of Social Services). They were cursed with all the cases of "What to do with the elderly", and "What to do with the mentally ill." Dazed and over worked a plan was hatched deal with the problem one day when the two piles were knocked over on each other and all the files got mixed up. "Hey," the overworked beurocrat thought, "one pile is surely easier to deal with than two." And so money is regularly mailed out to neighborhood houses that have been converted to small homes for the crazy and old. They have the same needs, entertainment, food, sanitation, and supervised medication. What could go wrong?
Then one day something did go wrong. Someone insane kills someone elerly and the whole world errupts in shock and awe.
"How could this happen in our own back yard?"
"Things were going so well."
"They were so easy to ignore, and now this."
"We have insane and elderly people, when did that happen?"
So I am sure as the drama unfolds, the two political parties will square off like they always do.
The Democrats will say, "We should divert funds to create new segregated care facilities, this will create jobs for caregivers, and we would only need to raise the taxes a little bit. We put the crazies over there, and the elderly people over there, and put a bunch of people to work."
The Republicans will say, "We should close those facilities right away and cut the taxes that paid for them. The elderly and the insane should be at home with their love ones who with the help of the tax break will have plenty of money available to buy medications, adult diapers, Ensure, and live in nurses. If they don't, they don't diserve loved ones to begin with!"
The rest of the political parties will blame one, the other, or both the Democrats and the Republicans. Some will blame the overworked beurocrat, while others will push for recycling of this new untapped natural resource, and offer samples of Soylent Green, at fairs, and other public gatherings. Still others will blame the media for bringing it up in the first place. Others will applaud the media for bring this whole mess to our
