I went with Jill Stein this year because I wanted to make my vote speak to the DNC -- that I could be their voter if they didn't act like neocons and I figured Jill Stein would be the clearest representation of that. Many people confuse Republicans and Libertarians so I wanted to avoid confusion with my vote.
Sadly, except for one other green running for a state rep position, I basically had to write in my cat Boris for everything else (if you're in WA, you could also write in "Boris the Cat"). I decided to vote a straight neither GOP nor DNC ticket this year, cause they're both fucking disasters and nobody wearing either label, no matter what their intentions or personal qualities, can resist or overcome the corruption embodied by both parties. I just wish third parties would focus less on president and more on state and local contests. My cat is going to hate being US Senator, US Representative, Governor, Secretary of State, etc. etc. He's way too lazy to do all those jobs.
Great post. I was getting increasingly depressed reading the hate/idiocy filled posts here -- yours stopped that slide into despair. I'm glad there are a few voices of reason in the ever rising swell of bloodlust. Also, I really liked this line:
They don't know or don't care that we have an entirely separate set of values for ourselves at home. In fact, if they did know, they'd probably hate us more for our hypocrisy.
Well, Libre/OpenOffice now also run natively on OSX. Maybe I'll give NeoOffice a try again -- back in the G4/5 days it was nice to have -- but even on intel hardware it was dog slow. Once OpenOffice went native, I was pretty happy.
But then after an update to OpenOffice, things went downhill because they broke the ability to do a dual data-to-fields operation easily (select one table, sort alphabetically on a column, highlight row, press data-to-fields, select second table, select colum -- can't sort it, have to hunt through randomized records).
I was pretty stoked when LibreOffice fixed that issue, but every time I press print, my computer goes into about 20s of color-pinwheel spinning death. Also annoying.
This man is extremely dangerous not only for America, but for the entire world. Obama might not be any good, but Romney will destroy the American dream, and several other countries along with it.
I don't disagree with your assessment of Mitt, but you underestimate the danger Obama poses. Obama has taken radical Bush policies and by virtue of Democratic silence, has made them the new normal. Obama continues due process free detention with nary a peep from his party. He has extended this radical policy to include due process free execution. Libya destroyed the war powers act (the liberal achievement from the Viet Nam debacle which tried to put the power of war with congress where it belongs), thus setting the precedent that a president can start any war, anywhere, anytime, and Congress can go get bent.
These are dangerous and radical policies -- the type of monarchical powers we fought a revolution to escape. One man should not have the power to imprison you with no oversight, kill you with no oversight, or start a war with no oversight. The sad fact is, it took a Democrat to achieve all these things -- even GWB couldn't do the last two.
That is the danger of constant lesser evil voting. It leads inevitably to more evil. I suspect that if Mitt won however, Democrats would go back to pushing back against civil liberties violations and war as a kind of political pressure point. Maybe not, but at least we'd then all be clear that Democrats are the "New GOP".
Sooner or later, "Mountain Biking" (I don't know any regular participant who hasn't broken his/her shoulder in this activity) will be the new "fat". The "skiing" will be the new "Mt. Biking" etc. etc.
Obama defines militant as "a man or boy killed by drone". You can either modify your thinking, or accept the fact that you are an evil fuckwad who supports random murder. Those are your two choices.
Except you don't win anything by murdering a few innocent people here and there. All you do is sully your reputation and make enemies. If you want to win a war, this drone thing is as retarded as it gets, not to mention fucking immoral. It makes the US nothing but a terrorist bully.
Also remember that what the Obama administration means when it says "militant", is a man or a boy killed by a drone. It will revert that to civilian if it is conclusively proven after the fact the person was innocent by some mystical secret standard. In other words, a great many of the "militants" really weren't.
"It bothers me when they say there were seven guys, so they must all be militants," the official said. "They count the corpses and they're not really sure who they are."
Obama Admin spin to protect Hillary. There was no riot at all outside the Libyan embassy. It was a planned attack -- had nothing to do with a stupid youtube video either. It's about getting revenge on people who kill you. You'd do the same thing given half a chance to a Chinese embassy if China treated us like we treat others.
Anyway, the whole lie about the embassy is "anchor and adjust" -- tell a lie to get people anchored to an idea, then when the truth comes out, people will adjust their thinking to maintain belief in the original bullshit, like "a video is all it takes for an attack -- such savages!"
Remember, when the news media quotes Obama's administration as having killed "militants", all it means is a man or boy killed by drone. It doesn't mean the people were militants in the traditional sense.
[blah blah]... Chicken Littles were saying this was going to destroy gulf fishing for decades, kill millions of animals, etc.... [blah blah environazidjits talking points blah]
Last I heard, oxygen is critical to sustain most forms of life. If you had read the article, you would have realized that they method used to arrive at the 40% sum was to look at how much oxygen depletion has taken place.
In all of the rebellions in the Arab Spring, involving actual totalitarian government being overthrown by force, my understanding is that cell phones have proved far more useful to the rebels for coordinating their activities than to the Government for tracking people.
And you don't think the Feds are using this as a learning opportunity? The type where they work toward mitigating the effectiveness of citizen usage and maximize government capability.
And then there is the judicial branch, which rolls over and asks the Feds to scratch its tummy at any mention of the State Secrets Doctrine.
There's a whole sordid history to the State Secrets Doctrine involving the deaths of three geeks in a military plane in the 50s and the Air Force covering up its negligence by claiming it would harm national security if an accident report was released. Decades later that accident report was declassified and showed nothing of any national security import -- just some lousy maintenance on the plane and failure to make manufacturer recommended upgrades. Had the widows been allowed to have it, they would have likely done well at trial. Anyway, keeping it secret enabled the Air Force to short change the widows by settling the case cheap.
Oh yeah, and Obama is the worst offender in applying the state secrets doctrine. Just search for obama state secrets doctrine --- the examples are ridiculously numerous for one who promised openness in government.
Yep, the Democrats want us to go back to the days of racism, no rights for women, husbands beating their wives and getting away with it, no clean running water, healthcare and education for only the rich and whites, hatred towards gays and lesbians, and total deregulation for the banking system.
No -- your options are to opt out of the lesser evil rat race altogether and vote for good. Good may not win, but when evil loses because the people it once counted on as its backbone decide they've had enough of the corruption, perhaps evil will start taking making the trek back over to good.
In order to win long term, you must be prepared to take a loss today. But when the lesser evil would make Satan blush, it isn't really that hard to decide to vote for good.
That's pretty easy when you define "militant" to mean any male of military age irrespective of the beliefs, actions, or record. Essentially, all you have to be to be counted as a terrorist is be a non-infant male, but it sure sounds better in the headlines to say "militant" than "random innocent male kid".
On the downside, he's killed twice as many innocent bystanders.
This is especially easy to do when one employs the classic terrorist tactic of a second bomb going off to get the rescuers or gangland notions that shooting up a funeral is a moral thing to do.
Slashdot Mirror
I went with Jill Stein this year because I wanted to make my vote speak to the DNC -- that I could be their voter if they didn't act like neocons and I figured Jill Stein would be the clearest representation of that. Many people confuse Republicans and Libertarians so I wanted to avoid confusion with my vote.
Sadly, except for one other green running for a state rep position, I basically had to write in my cat Boris for everything else (if you're in WA, you could also write in "Boris the Cat"). I decided to vote a straight neither GOP nor DNC ticket this year, cause they're both fucking disasters and nobody wearing either label, no matter what their intentions or personal qualities, can resist or overcome the corruption embodied by both parties. I just wish third parties would focus less on president and more on state and local contests. My cat is going to hate being US Senator, US Representative, Governor, Secretary of State, etc. etc. He's way too lazy to do all those jobs.
That is so quotable! Love it. I'm using that for sure.
Just replying so I can find your post easily in the future. That's fucking awesome info.
Great post. I was getting increasingly depressed reading the hate/idiocy filled posts here -- yours stopped that slide into despair. I'm glad there are a few voices of reason in the ever rising swell of bloodlust. Also, I really liked this line:
Well, Libre/OpenOffice now also run natively on OSX. Maybe I'll give NeoOffice a try again -- back in the G4/5 days it was nice to have -- but even on intel hardware it was dog slow. Once OpenOffice went native, I was pretty happy.
But then after an update to OpenOffice, things went downhill because they broke the ability to do a dual data-to-fields operation easily (select one table, sort alphabetically on a column, highlight row, press data-to-fields, select second table, select colum -- can't sort it, have to hunt through randomized records).
I was pretty stoked when LibreOffice fixed that issue, but every time I press print, my computer goes into about 20s of color-pinwheel spinning death. Also annoying.
I don't disagree with your assessment of Mitt, but you underestimate the danger Obama poses. Obama has taken radical Bush policies and by virtue of Democratic silence, has made them the new normal. Obama continues due process free detention with nary a peep from his party. He has extended this radical policy to include due process free execution. Libya destroyed the war powers act (the liberal achievement from the Viet Nam debacle which tried to put the power of war with congress where it belongs), thus setting the precedent that a president can start any war, anywhere, anytime, and Congress can go get bent.
These are dangerous and radical policies -- the type of monarchical powers we fought a revolution to escape. One man should not have the power to imprison you with no oversight, kill you with no oversight, or start a war with no oversight. The sad fact is, it took a Democrat to achieve all these things -- even GWB couldn't do the last two.
That is the danger of constant lesser evil voting. It leads inevitably to more evil. I suspect that if Mitt won however, Democrats would go back to pushing back against civil liberties violations and war as a kind of political pressure point. Maybe not, but at least we'd then all be clear that Democrats are the "New GOP".
Well, "fat" is the new smoking.
Sooner or later, "Mountain Biking" (I don't know any regular participant who hasn't broken his/her shoulder in this activity) will be the new "fat". The "skiing" will be the new "Mt. Biking" etc. etc.
Obama Democrats: The NEW GOP, now with MORE evil than ever before!
Obama defines militant as "a man or boy killed by drone". You can either modify your thinking, or accept the fact that you are an evil fuckwad who supports random murder. Those are your two choices.
http://www.salon.com/2012/05/29/militants_media_propaganda/
Except you don't win anything by murdering a few innocent people here and there. All you do is sully your reputation and make enemies. If you want to win a war, this drone thing is as retarded as it gets, not to mention fucking immoral. It makes the US nothing but a terrorist bully.
Ah yes -- the favored tactic of terrorists and gangbangers. What a bastion of light we are.
Also remember that what the Obama administration means when it says "militant", is a man or a boy killed by a drone. It will revert that to civilian if it is conclusively proven after the fact the person was innocent by some mystical secret standard. In other words, a great many of the "militants" really weren't.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html?pagewanted=4&_r=2
from page 4
Obama Admin spin to protect Hillary. There was no riot at all outside the Libyan embassy. It was a planned attack -- had nothing to do with a stupid youtube video either. It's about getting revenge on people who kill you. You'd do the same thing given half a chance to a Chinese embassy if China treated us like we treat others.
Anyway, the whole lie about the embassy is "anchor and adjust" -- tell a lie to get people anchored to an idea, then when the truth comes out, people will adjust their thinking to maintain belief in the original bullshit, like "a video is all it takes for an attack -- such savages!"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/20/obama-officials-spin-benghazi-attack
And this makes indiscriminate murder(*) OK then?
Remember, when the news media quotes Obama's administration as having killed "militants", all it means is a man or boy killed by drone. It doesn't mean the people were militants in the traditional sense.
http://www.salon.com/2012/05/29/militants_media_propaganda/
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale:
This isn't a Bud:
http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/sierra-nevada-pale-ale-bottle-can/365/
And recently, it's being sold in bottles and cans -- I've seen it my local supermarkets:
http://www.craftcans.com/sierra-nevada-pale-alesierra-nevada-brewing-company
Last I heard, oxygen is critical to sustain most forms of life. If you had read the article, you would have realized that they method used to arrive at the 40% sum was to look at how much oxygen depletion has taken place.
This is what happens to the oceans when there isn't enough dissolved O2:
http://serc.carleton.edu/microbelife/topics/deadzone/index.html
And you don't think the Feds are using this as a learning opportunity? The type where they work toward mitigating the effectiveness of citizen usage and maximize government capability.
And then there is the judicial branch, which rolls over and asks the Feds to scratch its tummy at any mention of the State Secrets Doctrine.
There's a whole sordid history to the State Secrets Doctrine involving the deaths of three geeks in a military plane in the 50s and the Air Force covering up its negligence by claiming it would harm national security if an accident report was released. Decades later that accident report was declassified and showed nothing of any national security import -- just some lousy maintenance on the plane and failure to make manufacturer recommended upgrades. Had the widows been allowed to have it, they would have likely done well at trial. Anyway, keeping it secret enabled the Air Force to short change the widows by settling the case cheap.
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/383/origin-story?act=2#play
Oh yeah, and Obama is the worst offender in applying the state secrets doctrine. Just search for obama state secrets doctrine --- the examples are ridiculously numerous for one who promised openness in government.
Darn, to have waited half a second before posting. To make it clear -- half liar. Yes the GOP is evil. The Democrats equally so.
What has Obama done about the racist drug war?
http://www.newjimcrow.com/
Where is the Democratic outcry over Obama's due process free assassination program? Even when it targets Americans?
Where is the Democratic outcry over Obama's signature on the due process free detention law?
What has Obama done about toruturers and murderers?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/31/obama-justice-department-immunity-bush-cia-torturer
And why was it such a personal struggle for Obama to finally come to the Dick Cheney level of morality with respect to gay rights?
http://www.politico.com/politico44/2012/05/gay-gop-group-obama-took-the-cheney-position-122968.html
You claim the GOP is evil and Democrats are not. You are fucking liar.
In fact, Obama's presidency is the most secret ever.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/12/2011-review-year-secrecy-jumped-shark
With the exception that maple syrup is actually worth something.
No -- your options are to opt out of the lesser evil rat race altogether and vote for good. Good may not win, but when evil loses because the people it once counted on as its backbone decide they've had enough of the corruption, perhaps evil will start taking making the trek back over to good.
In order to win long term, you must be prepared to take a loss today. But when the lesser evil would make Satan blush, it isn't really that hard to decide to vote for good.
Bzzzt.
Bush: 52
Obama: 291
That's 5.6x Bush's score in half the time.
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/category/projects/drones/
That's pretty easy when you define "militant" to mean any male of military age irrespective of the beliefs, actions, or record. Essentially, all you have to be to be counted as a terrorist is be a non-infant male, but it sure sounds better in the headlines to say "militant" than "random innocent male kid".
http://www.salon.com/2012/05/29/militants_media_propaganda/
This is especially easy to do when one employs the classic terrorist tactic of a second bomb going off to get the rescuers or gangland notions that shooting up a funeral is a moral thing to do.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/20/us-drones-strikes-target-rescuers-pakistan
But hey -- he passed the Lilly Leadbetter Act! O-ba-ma!
(How's that lesser evil workin' out for ya?)
Show me the free iphone WITHOUT a contract. A contract phone is not free because you end up paying more for service than on a MTM plan.
mtm
$60/mo, "unlimited" talk/text/web (2 gb @ 4G)
http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/monthly-4g-plans
contract
$69.99/mo, "unlimited" talk/text/web (2 gb @ 4G)
http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/plans/individual-plans.aspx
So over two years, the free phone costs 239.76.