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A taxpayer who votes for Barack Obama is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders.

A citizen who expects a functioning government voting for John McCain is like a passenger on a plane being piloted by Pee Wee Herman.

Or how about this:

A parent who expects their children to grow up in a world in which the United States has good schools, funded social net programs, a functional military capable of defending our country, a thriving economy, clean air, abundant clean power, strong relations with the major powers in the world, an effective plan for reducing terrorism that doesn't involve invading random countries based on lies, that votes for John McCain is an example of an evolutionary dead end.

Whew... that was fun... kind of cleansing, really... but not as much as watching McSame lose in November. Now *that's* going to be delicious!

http://views.tgrigsby.com/

If you can get past your self-assured "hah, MY guy is so much better than YOUR guy" attitude (while it was a reaction to his similar attitude, being an equal and opposite reaction it is no better) and take a hard look at not just the two candidates but the two parties from which they originate, you'll find that neither of them represent the people. This has been the case for quite some time now.

Both were long ago taken over by statists who realize that inch by inch, tiny increase by tiny increase, they can eventually have a "perfect" police/nanny state (there are serveral terms which would apply) where everyone is told what's good for them, how they should live, what they should and should not want out of life, etc. and of course all of this is "for your safety" or "for your own good" or "to protect the children" or "to fight terrorism" or "for the War on (some) Drugs" and probably more emphasis on a "War on Obesity" and similar is around the corner. Just take a good long look at the history of the 20th century. Look at the size of government (in terms of percentage of GDP) in 1901 and compare that to the size of government in 2000. Look at the number of agencies, laws, law enforcement. Look at the tax burden in terms of average percentage of annual income. Take a good long look at how people used to be expected to plan for their own retirement and now they "need" government programs on which they have become dependent. Look at how people used to routinely purchase and negotiate their own individual health insurance and how the wage freeze of World War II caused people to expect this to come from employers, which effectively made it near-impossible to obtain it on your own since you don't have that kind of bargaining power. Now the government wants to get into the health insurance business -- make no mistake, the current media discussion is not a debate, it's there to get us used to the idea. Look at how much direct interaction the average citizen has with the federal government, then look at whether this is what the Founding Fathers had in mind. Look at the income tax, the way that it allows politicians to use carrot-and-stick methods to control behavior, the way a larger and larger class of people is being created who have zero federal tax liability and therefore little incentive to care about the financial impact of excessive government spending, and then ask yourself why the Constitution had to be amended to allow for this (the Founding Fathers were not ignorant of the concept of an income tax -- it is not a new invention).

I want you to seriously consider how much this country has changed in the last century alone. This change is not random in the slightest. Every last piece of it points in the same direction: an increasingly larger and more powerful and more centralized government, in which more and more power is in the hands of fewer and fewer people with less and less oversight. All of which is "for your own good", of course. Ask yourself whether either Barack Obama or John McCain would have a snowbal

Well, several independent recounts show that Bush really won

Except that those recounts are by organizations with questionable ties to the GOP, and other nonpartisan groups show that Gore won by a slim margin. And all that assumes that the voters were allowed to vote -- in several counties in southern Florida, there was blatant voter fraud, with people taken off the rolls and denied the ability to vote because a felon list from TEXAS was used to ban people in highly pro-Gore districts from voting.

http://views.tgrigsby.com/

And, what do you think of Obama? Do you think he is a militant black Islamic fundamentalist, and quite possibly a closeted gay? Is he preparing to wreak terroristic actions on his own country when he takes office?

ROTFLOL!!! Okay, I hadn't heard the "closeted gay" thing yet. Is that what Faux News is spouting now? That's rich...

http://views.tgrigsby.com/

I voted for him and I'm doing better than I was 8 years ago.

Then you, sir, are in the minority. Because the economy is in the toilet, we have lost thousands of jobs that have yet to be recovered, and hundreds of billions of dollars that could go to social services or even -- gasp! -- tax cuts for the poor and middle class, have been sucked out of our coffers and thrown at no-bid contracts given to companies that have ties to Bush and Cheney.

http://views.tgrigsby.com/

A taxpayer who votes for Barack Obama is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders.

A citizen who expects a functioning government voting for John McCain is like a passenger on a plane being piloted by Pee Wee Herman.

Or how about this:

A parent who expects their children to grow up in a world in which the United States has good schools, funded social net programs, a functional military capable of defending our country, a thriving economy, clean air, abundant clean power, strong relations with the major powers in the world, an effective plan for reducing terrorism that doesn't involve invading random countries based on lies, that votes for John McCain is an example of an evolutionary dead end.

Whew... that was fun... kind of cleansing, really... but not as much as watching McSame lose in November. Now *that's* going to be delicious!

http://views.tgrigsby.com/

I'm sorry, perhaps you haven't heard: The Bush family's fortune is in oil. They have oil contacts up the ying yang, and ties to various corporations that have profited enormously through the Iraq occupation. Cheney also has oil and contractor connections. Both parties are on public record as having profited from the rise of those companies they are associated with. Are you so naive as to think that his family hasn't made money off war profiteering?

So ask yourself, are you just making shit up to sooth your guilty conscience over the fact that you voted for this asshole, knowing now the way you would have known in 2004 if you'd only paid attention to the news and had a memory more than 5 minutes long that he was a liar and a murderer by proxy?

http://views.tgrigsby.com/

I'd quite like to see George Bush fight the war on terror personally, on the front line, with no more armor and weapons than any other field soldier. Him and every member of his cabinet past and present. I'd *LOVE* to see Rumsfeld and Cheney on the streets of Ramallah and Baghdad. I'd love to see the look in their eyes as reason and perspective finally take hold. I'd love to see them suddenly realize their lives, and the lives of over 4000 U.S. soldiers and 700,000+ Iraqi civilians would have been better spent fighting against malnutrition, disease, and lack of medical care.

http://views.tgrigsby.com

to you the war was unnecessary. to some it was and is important. question for thought.. what was the last terrorist activity that actually completed in the continental US? keeps the focus over there, as well as numerous other reasons.

You idiot. There were no WMDs. In the 65,000 documents the CIA had on Iraq prior to the invasion and in the 600,000+ documents confiscated from Iraqi government office after the invasion, there was not one single connection between Iraqi and Al Qaeda. We stopped chasing Osama bin Laden and invaded a sovereign nation for no good damned reason, leading to the unjustified deaths of nearly 4000 soldiers and over 650,000 Iraqis. Several terrorist attacks have been stopped worldwide using the police, not armies. Al Qaeda couldn't care less about Iraq except as a staging and training area. They have no borders. If, as it seems, you're implying that using our Army as a decoys, putting our soldiers in harm's way to draw fire, is a valid use of our military forces, then you sir are a jackass.

The war against Iraq was based on lies. Get over it. You voted for Bush and he used you. If you feel bad, take a nap, but don't continue to foist your ignorance on others.

Try a dose of reality: views.tgrigsby.com.

From my views:
# A constitutional amendment to guarantee government transparency. This should include forcing the government to announce suspension of any civil liberties during war time. (more on this below) Violation of this amendment would be a high crime. Acknowledging that some information may be highly classified, a 12 member bipartison committee would be formed by the Congress and given top clearances. This committee would advise Congress on classified matters.
# A constitutional amendment more clearly defining the roles of the members of the executive branch. No more of this crap about the VP claiming to be a member of Congress to avoid executive branch investigations.
# A constitutional amendment requiring that the president provide full access to intelligence and an exit strategy to Congress as part of the request to go to war. This exit strategy can be delayed twice, for 2 weeks each time, but must include plans for control of infrastructure, preservation of services, restoration of order, supplies to population, restoration of government, commencement of diplomatic relations, retraction of military presence, all with milestones and acceptable timeframes. This same amendment should require that Congress draft rules for how to handle the case for war, eg. requiring corroborating evidence from outside intelligence bodies, expedited investigations into budget and preparation concerns, failure of authorization if critical data is found to be fraudulent, etc. Requests for war authorization would cause all other legislation to be put on hold, and Congress would have 30 days to consider the case. This would not prevent the president from
# By constitutional amendment, the president would have to request the authority to suspend the people's civil liberties, even in times of war. The president would have to specifically state how those liberties would be trespassed, and for how long. He could not deviate from that plan. Violation of this amendment would be a high crime.
# The president's power to dissolve Congress shall be moved, by constitutional amendment, to the Supreme Court, and would require a 2/3rds vote of that body, followed by the signature of the president.
# By constitutional amendment, executive orders will require immediate review by the Supreme Court before being put into force. If the EO deals with classified information, the Congressional committee that deals with classified information will review the EO and advise the Supreme Court.
# By constitutional amendment, signing statements may clarify points in the law but may not redefine the law or negate the law or signify a resistance to enforcing the law.
# By constitutional amendment, the Senate shall have the power to subpoena members of the presidential cabinet and advisors, including the president and the vice president. Failure to appear would be a high crime. All appearing persons will be placed under oath. Perjury is already a high crime.
# Terminate the domestic wiretapping program.
# Terminate the "sneak and peek" program.
# Terminate the Iraq war authority.
# By law, limit the number of people reached by the media holdings of any one individual or group.
# By law, keep the Internet free of taxation on communications. The only tax on the Internet should be sales tax, the only limit on bandwidth should be the physical limits of the infrastructure and the contractual agreements with the consumers.

Do you realize that habeas corpus applies to all people, not just citizens? The Constitution of the United States of America makes no distinction between citizen and non-citizen in the Bill of Rights. To argue that non-citizens are lesser people, not worthy of the protections from the power of the government that our founding fathers fought and died to declare and preserve, is to have not just drunk the Koolaid, but gargled with it while the foundation of this country, the very document that guarantees your rights, is eroded right in front of your face.

More opinions...

You can stop at "electable". I actually like and respect McCain, but Guiliani is a liar and a fraud, plain and simple. The more Guiliani claims to be the 9/11 mayor, the more his lies are going to come back and bite him in the ass. McCain would have to have switched parties about 6 months ago to get elected now. Neither are in truly in favor a competitive markets so much as they are in favor of the tired old trickle down economics theory. McCain's strength is his military experience and his moral fiber, things Guiliani lacks. McCain's weakness is his centrist views in a party that has been hijacked by religious fundies and neo-con PNAC fans.

In fact, what I'd like to see is a candidate with the cojones to come right out and declare that the Bush administration has attacked the constitutional limits on the executive branch and violated the Constitution repeatedly. Our Constitution needs to be amended to clearly delineate what the executive branch can and can't do, shore up our Bill of Rights, force the president to more clearly describe how he intends to wage war along with an exit strategy before he's given permission to officially go to war, and while we're at it, define exactly what branch the Vice President is a part of......

More opinions...

I fear that these people are not aware of what we are up against. There are attacks being planned that make Beslan look like a school yard scuffle. I'm willing to give up some rights to prevent it.

Here's your ticket out of the country, your citizen has been duly revoked. Thanks for stopping by. Ta-ta. Have a nice life...

Seriously though, as you said, let's be reasonable. I'm not worried about monitoring foreign calls. I'm worried about my government monitoring my communications without a warrant. I'm worried that an administration that lied to the American people, Congress, and the world in order to wage war against a nation that demonstrably posed absolutely no threat to us is cheerfully saying, "Trust us!" when confronted with violations of the Constitution and FISA. I think it's great that the German terrorists got caught, but I defy anyone to prove the the requirement to obtain a FISA court warrant within 72 hours after the tap was initiated would have prevented the same outcome.

I think my argument is reasonable, and I'm not being kneejerk about giving up my rights. I think the *law* that was in place before 9/11 was sufficient to capture these terrorists, but what Bush is doing isn't good for this country in any way.

As for locks on the doors, there's a fundamental difference between protecting your rights and giving them up.

More opinions...

Chaining everybody up in their homes in straightjackets all day probably helps against terrorist plots too, but that doesn't make it right.

I completely agree with that sentiment, when applied correctly. FISA is not the problem. Bush telling the NSA to ignore FISA and wiretap communications without any judicial review was the problem. FISA simply enacts a special court to review warrants that use sensitive information to justify the search. Bush ordered the NSA to skip the FISA court, and that's when he ran smack into, or rather over, the Constitution.

More opinions...

Granted, Kerry wasn't the best candidate. By far.

And this where you can pretty much sort out the critical thinkers from the rest. The best? Debatable. Better than Bush? Absolutely. And yet the politics of fear and division won the day. The absence of memory of crimes committed, of lies told, of violations of the Constitution already wrought, combined with an absence of a viable public forum for discussion of the issues and dissemination of ideas caused the worst possible outcome -- the reelection of George Bush and the seeming validation of his policies.

But I've written pages and pages about this already.

What gets me is liberal people bash bush when he is more liberal than some democrats.

What gets me is when people lump Democrats in with liberals. It's true that most Democrats tend to be progressive -- which is different from being "liberal" -- but George W. Bush is neither, period, end of story. That kind of generalization would be similar to saying that Republicans shoot each other in the face with shotguns, lie constantly while arranging to have innocents murdered by the thousands, kick the poor in the teeth after stealing the food from their babies mouths, give higher priority to the jobs of foreigners than the jobs of citizens, would sell off all our natural resources just to enrich themselves, would ignore the most wanted terrorist in the world until he hijacked two commercial airliners and used them as missiles to kill as many people as possible, etc. I have friends and family who are Republicans, and I love and them and respect their opinions, even if I don't agree with all of them, and not one of those generalizations fits them. Those generalizations only apply to George Bush and his staff.

And about "Bush Bashing": it's not bashing if it's true. As Harry S. Truman so famously said, "They think I'm giving them hell. I'm not giving them hell, I'm just telling the truth on them and they think it's hell." Well, when you hear someone "bashing" Bush, it's not bashing. You're just hearing an unpleasant truth, and you think it's bashing because you voted for him.

Try this out: http://views.tgrigsby.com.

US defense spending 2006: 470.2 Billion. So your telling me 470.2 billion dollars is spent on 660,000 troops with no fat to cut?

Ignoring for a moment that 9 billion alone was simply "lost" by Halliburton, keep in mind that the army 6 years ago wasn't shooting at anyone. Army hospitals weren't dealing with blown off limbs and IED head injuries. Unarmored vehicles weren't being hastily armored, and armored vehicles didn't need to be replaced as they got blown up. Waging war, even one based on lies, is expensive.

The tarrifs are of a dubious value, and int he long run simply hobble you in the world wide market.

The tariffs are of historically provable value, and used correctly, level the playing field. Personally, I'd LOVE to see tariffs on companies that outsource jobs. I don't give a crap about the world wide market -- I want to see our techological jobs stay here and our technological advantage will disappear if we don't accomplish that simple requirement.

But that's just my opinion.

Ah, so you like to beat _and_ spy on your children. You must be a quite lovely individual.

Actually, I love spying on my children. To be a good parent, you have to be an informed parent. My kids know that I probably will, too.

I also don't have a problem with spanking them, although that's used as a last resort. Here are my full views on spanking.

I sincerely hope you don't breed any more than you already have...

You too.

Take a breath. Then go to eBay and buy yourself a sense of humor...

There have been a number of similar problems with Fords over the years. People shift into drive and the car takes off, or they get up to a given speed and the car continues to accelerate, etc. The problem is not with the operation of the vehicle, but in the car itself.

Check the Anti-Ford Page site for more info:

http://www.tgrigsby.com/views/ford.htm

Oh, and as far as "man hours wasted", that same software also works with MySQL, PostgreSQL, mSQL, Pervasive SQL, and Informix, with very little extra effort.

If you saw thousands of man-hours wasted on database independence, you saw a badly architected system. Try using a class factory and listed templates. If a new database came out with a unique dialect of SQL, I could program in support for it in two to three days, tops. And since there was no SQL hardcoded anywhere in the applications that used the toolkit, all one had to do was recompile.

Bingo. Database independence.

Last but not least, I run the Anti-Ford page, so don't get me started about what Ford's engine designers lay awake at night doing....

To get your free transcript of tonight's program, dial 1-976-MAD-SKLZ. Operators are standing by, have your Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Diner's Club, Chevron, or library card ready....

I want to take this opportunity to thank George Bush for leaning on the DOJ to discard the break up of Microsoft in favor of a slap-on-the-wrist remedy in the anti-trust suit against M$. I know I'm all in favor of having Bill Gates control what software I can run on my PC.

"D00d, you're getting a Microsoft Dell!"

• the multitude of very public security deficiencies that have come to light lately, and
  
• Linux server and desktop

Oh, come on, you can go better. Here, let me help:

http://www.tgrigsby.com/lawyers.htm