Don't be a retard, I specifically said that the figures are lower since getting booted from Iraq, but crediting Obama with a troop reduction he actively tried avoid, is a prime example of partisan idiocy, and doesn't change the fact that Obama is just another neo-con warmonger.
December 2008 Iraq/Afghanistan combined: 208,700 June 2011 Iraq/Afghanistan combine: 203,400
In three years, Obama managed to reduce the number of troops at war near the time Bush left office by 5300.
I'm SO IMPRESSED. Naturally, it's fewer now that we got kicked out of Iraq. And it will be fewer still now that Obama's War, aka Afghanistan, is proving to be pure folly.
I can't believe you're that much a partisan. He tried to keep the troops in Iraq longer without the taint of occupation (if we're there under invitation of the government, that's one thing -- if we just do whatever the hell we want, that's another). Obama failed to convince the Iraqi government to extend its invitation. Yet you give Obama credit for ending a war he tried to extend? What kind of crazy logic is that?
This should be big news. Even while President Obama was saying that he thought a public option was a good idea and encouraging supporters to believe his healthcare plan would include one, he had promised for-profit hospital lobbyists that there would be no public option in the final bill.
As for Gitmo -- he's the commander in chief. That leaves two options: he's too weak to be president, or he lied in his campaign. Neither option is really all that awesome.
Bush went to war against Iraq, Obama got us out. Can you see the wee-bit of difference there? I can and I'm voting for Obama.
This notion you have is so misinformed it's appalling.
Obama did not leave, Obama got booted. Dec. 2011 marked the end of the Status of Forces Agreement negotiated by GWB. SOFA prevented the Iraqi government from local prosecution of US troops for crimes committed in Iraq. Prior to the expiration of SOFA, Obama tried to get it extended so that the troops could stay longer and avoid any risk of prosecution. Obama failed in those negotiations, in large part because the war crimes confirmed in the WikiLeaks cache, made it politically impossible for Iraqi politicians to extend SOFA.
In other words, you are giving Obama credit for ending the war in Iraq when he tried to EXTEND it. To put this in Slashdot car analogy form, that's like giving a drunk driver accolades for not killing anyone while driving home, despite being blitzed and despite intentionally swerving at oncoming traffic. That's not laudable, it's despicable even if the drunk accidentally missed everyone.
Finally, if Bradley Manning was the source behind the wikileaks cache, rather than the torture and persecution he is receiving under Obama, he should get a fucking Nobel because it is HE who got us out of Iraq.
If you're going to vote for Obama, and you really believe he's some sort of peace loving socialist, consider some of the issues here: http://nothingchanged.org/
I think that's the where the idea of using a cheap laptop and free public wifi has its best application -- 7% of income for four months (assuming $200 price) and nothing thereafter.
But you are right -- at some point a person is so poor, even bus fare to the library to use a public terminal would be a burden. But that doesn't change the fact that for the vast majority of people, having net access is not such a financial hit as to be impossible to manage -- for most people who don't have net access, it is an issue of not seeing the internet as valuable to them personally. As a random example, I don't subscribe to Newsweek because it isn't valuable to me. My lack of interest has nothing to do with cost and a lot to do with the fact that the same material is available online in a less stale format. On the other hand, I do subscribe to National Geographic, even though their material is also online, because I like it and it has value to me over and above the digital experience.
Anyway, at this point in time, I suspect that a good portion of the people without network access of some kind, don't have it because they don't value it, not because it is beyond reach financially.
Regarding #1: DSL and cable aren't $100/mo -- I have comcast at home, which is expensive but my only choice, and it's $60/mo. I don't get cable TV or voip, just internet, but it is wrong to say that internet is $100/mo.
#2: Clear used to be a better bargain, but I have a Clear for my boat and it's currently $50/mo, not $100. Netflix streams just fine with the basic account.
#3: I have an unlimited unthrottled data plan with TMobile (which sadly they don't offer anymore), $70/mo and I could add tethering for $15/mo. As soon as I get around to it, I'll ditch Clearwire and do that, but for the most part, cell phone data plans do suck, so I'll give you this one.
#4: Not sure where you live, but in my particular smallish-80k-person-town in the Pacific Northwest, you'd be hard pressed to find anyplace downtown where free wifi was NOT available. Every coffee shop and many restaurants offer so much overlapping coverage, there's never an issue with access. Granted, this may not be true everywhere, but in this region, free wifi is as expected as a free glass of water.
#5: never had any trouble with saturated connections.
#6: while plenty of homeless people do use the library computers, there's usually space available and if you have your own laptop, it doesn't matter due to the free wifi.
You make it sound like getting on the net is hard or expensive -- in many places it isn't if a person can find $200 for a used laptop. Certainly my experiences will not be true for every place in the country, but you should realize that your experiences are also not ubiquitous.
Not to mention that the MEK is a designated terrorist organization, and if you were a nobody, the Feds would rape you if provided any material support. However, our politicians being above the law, can support and be paid by the MEK with impunity.
Why -- just why -- does everything have a blue light anymore? Blue LEDs are everywhere and even on devices meant to be used in darkened rooms (monitors, TVs, DVD players, etc). I had been hoping the blue light fad would die out, but it's been years now. When will it end?
but how about this one, slightly offtopic, but a good summary of how the law works right now, where members of congress can get paid by and lobby for a terrorist group (*), and the rest of America can get bent. It's our tiered justice system at work:
The Rules of American Justice are quite clear:
(1) If you are a high-ranking government official who commits war crimes, you will receive full-scale immunity, both civil and criminal, and will have the American President demand that all citizens Look Forward, Not Backward.
(2) If you are a low-ranking member of the military, you will receive relatively trivial punishments in order to protect higher-ranking officials and cast the appearance of accountability.
(3) If you are a victim of American war crimes, you are a non-person with no legal rights or even any entitlement to see the inside of a courtroom.
(4) If you talk publicly about any of these war crimes, you have committed the Gravest Crime -- you are guilty of espionage -- and will have the full weight of the American criminal justice system come crashing down upon you.
Democrats have dignity over Republicans? For what -- you mean Obama prosecuting people under the espionage act 6 times in 3 years, while that act had been applied only 3 times in history prior?
The Republicans have nothing on George W. Obama when it comes to advancing the concept of an Imperial President -- I mean, when George W. Bush was doing all this radical stuff, Democrats pretended to care and complained. Now that it is GW Obama doing even worse -- silence, nothing but pure silence. Meaning that the abuses of GWB have become the new normal under the neo-con civil-liberties-destroying due-process-free-executioner (i.e., "murderer") that Democrats fawn over, i.e., Obama.
America is not just ready for dictatorship, it wants it.
Speaking of cars, here's an interesting aside regarding a yeast modified to produce isobutanol from plant matter (isobutanol is interesting because it has a higher energy density than ethanol and can also be used to make plastics of various kinds):
This way down at the bottom of the court hierarchy, but still interesting, and depending on the facts, there may be some parallels between GM yeast and GM seed:
SpecialChem - Mar 12, 2012
ENGLEWOOD, Colo. -- Gevo, Inc., an innovative leading renewable chemicals and advanced biofuels company, announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has rejected all patent claims of Butamax(TM) Advanced Biofuels, LLC (Butamax) covering isobutanol-producing yeast in U.S. Patent No. 7,851,188 ('188 patent) which is currently being asserted against Gevo.
In doing so, the USPTO has now rejected all requested claims and correspondingly every critical claim in both patents asserted against Gevo by Butamax. In August, Gevo successfully petitioned the USPTO to reexamine Butamax's claims in U.S. Patent No. 7,993,889 ('889 patent) covering a method of producing isobutanol using a recombinant yeast microorganism.
* * *
"The USPTO actions in the '188 and '889 patents also reinforce our position that the technologies and process steps claimed by Butamax were known in the field, published in numerous scientific journals or invented by others, including Gevo, before Butamax applied for its patents. The USPTO affirms through the rejection of the Butamax patent claims, that it is unacceptable to claim a previously known, naturally occurring pathway as Butamax did in these patents."
My point was that Monsanto did not build the machine at all. It simply doesn't have the technology. So for anyone to suggest that it does sort of misses the point.
To put this in slashdot-bad-car-analogy terms, its like Monsanto went into its garage, found a truck it had parked there but did not invent, build, or create, sprayed it with mud, then drove around town letting the mud splatter on other pre-existing cars it neither built, created, nor owned, and then goes around claiming an ownership right in any vehicle it soiled merely because they had its mud was on them.
Back to the seed thing, my point about raw materials was not related to the fact that seeds need raw materials, it was to point out that Monsanto cannot take raw materials, run them through its lab, and get seeds. What Monsanto does is use the pre-existing machinery it neither built, created, nor owns, to do all of its replication. Yes, it throws in a tweak, but Monsanto cannot make seeds from scratch, so it is completely unlike the person who builds a self-replicating machine in your example. It is like the person who paints the self-replicating machine and then somehow thinks it owns all the machines.
You're suggesting Monsanto built a self-replicating machine, which is totally false. If it was true, Monsanto could take a few train cars of pure carbon, some cylinders of pure hydrogen and oxygen, and a few other trace elements -- and produce seeds. When Monsanto can use air and charcoal to make seeds, maybe then we should talk about patents.
At present however, it is indisputable that Monsanto did NOT build a self-replicating machine. Monsanto took a pre-existing semi-self-replicating machine (semi in the sense that it replicates with the help of other like machines, mixing their designs in the process), a machine that it absolutely can NOT produce from the ground up -- a machine that everyone already had for free or next to free. It made a tweak to that machine, and then released it into the wild with all the others. When the originals and the tweaked version intermingle as would naturally occur, Monsanto claims ownership over the whole shebang.
Which is bullshit. Maybe its fair for Monsanto to have its own patent covered version of the seed (emphasize "maybe" here), but the fact that its modifications find their way into other plants is not a basis for Monsanto gaining ownership of the other plants, its a basis for the people who want the originals to sue for nuisance. But in our bassackwards world, Monsanto's nuisance liability becomes its cash cow.
Ad hominem much? Why can so few people hold Obama responsible for the things he has actually done? And Reagan was called the teflon president -- he's got nothing on Obama. Obama can try to undermine a treaty on cluster bombs we aren't even a signatory to, and people treat him like he deserves his peace prize. Obama can try to convince Iraq to extend SOFA so troops are immune to local prosecution, fail, and then withdraw the troops on GWB's timeline, AND get credit for ending Iraq when the only reason he left was because he failed to get permission to stay longer with immunity. It's baffling. It's baffling that he uses secret legal memos just like Bush did despite the campaign rhetoric. It's mystifying how he can get credit for openness, and yet assert the State Secrets doctrine willy nilly, and even use the Espionage Act for 6 prosecutions in 3 years (previously it was 3 times in our entire fucking history).
Really though, if you would be afraid of Santorum having Obama's usurped powers, what the fuck are you doing supporting Obama? Remember that Santorum has essentially promised to attack Iran, and thanks to Obama's Libya, the War Powers Act is dead. The president can do whatever he wants, to whomever he wants, whenever he wants. That is Obama's legacy.
Obama IS responsible for due process free execution of several American Citizens based on a secret legal memo (repeat of the GWB policies toward due process free detention).
Obama IS responsible for Yemen's continued imprisonment of a news reporter. His sin? Most likely:
As we now know, on December 17, 2009, President Obama ordered an air attack â" using Tomahawk cruise missiles and cluster bombs â" on the village of al Majala in Yemenâ(TM)s southern Abyan province; the strike ended the lives of 14 women and 21 children. At the time, the Yemeni government outright lied about the attack, falsely claiming that it was Yemenâ(TM)s air force which was responsible.
Seriously, you make light of Obama's failings with things that clearly aren't his fault, but that only serves to obfuscate the fact that he's taken everything that GWB did that was considered radical and dangerous, and made it the new normal. In a world of asshole murdering civil liberty destroying shits, Obama is president.
There's a saying along the lines, "ugly facts make bad law" -- this is exactly why. Yes, this guy is an uberjerk, no doubt, and because of that, the courts are likely to look for any possible means to get around privacy issues. Understandable in this case, but then whatever precedent results, get used against a reporter or peace protester or what-not.
Obama tells everybody what he thinks they want to hear. People want transparency in government? Campaign on it! etc.
I'm not going to vote anymore.
That's the wrong response -- acquiescence is acceptance. Be a third party voter and join those willing to tell the government it doesn't represent them AND that you're willing to put your beliefs where your vote is. Cost a lesser-evil-candidate an election or two, and just maybe, we'll start getting some candidates of a greater-good type. Worst case scenario is that it doesn't do any good, but there is no question that choosing to not vote will do no good.
Voting Ron Paul, or any member of any third party you like, IS voting none of the above. It would not take a majority of voters doing such a thing, to get the parties to notice that swath of potential swing voters isn't buying the current political narrative, and then cater to those voters by changing the narrative. But because everyone is so concerned about picking a winner, we ensure that we only get losers in office.
Voting isn't a bet like picking a horse in a race -- unless you're donating millions to candidates you aren't going to get anything from being in a winning politician's camp except for the feeling that your candidate won. But when that candidate turns around and screws you, what is that winning feeling really worth? Nothing, and worse, you gave up your chance to actually vote for change -- the change that comes when politicians realize that people aren't sucking up their BS like they used to and that sticking with the status quo can cost an election. For the average American, this represents a much bigger win than the temporary happiness of being on a winning team, but in order to win the war, you have to be willing to lose some battles along the way to prove the point.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't be a retard, I specifically said that the figures are lower since getting booted from Iraq, but crediting Obama with a troop reduction he actively tried avoid, is a prime example of partisan idiocy, and doesn't change the fact that Obama is just another neo-con warmonger.
December 2008 Iraq/Afghanistan combined: 208,700
June 2011 Iraq/Afghanistan combine: 203,400
In three years, Obama managed to reduce the number of troops at war near the time Bush left office by 5300.
I'm SO IMPRESSED. Naturally, it's fewer now that we got kicked out of Iraq. And it will be fewer still now that Obama's War, aka Afghanistan, is proving to be pure folly.
Data from: http://siadapp.dmdc.osd.mil/personnel/MILITARY/miltop.htm
I can't believe you're that much a partisan. He tried to keep the troops in Iraq longer without the taint of occupation (if we're there under invitation of the government, that's one thing -- if we just do whatever the hell we want, that's another). Obama failed to convince the Iraqi government to extend its invitation. Yet you give Obama credit for ending a war he tried to extend? What kind of crazy logic is that?
That's unmitigated bullshit.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/miles-mogulescu/ny-times-reporter-confirm_b_500999.html
As for Gitmo -- he's the commander in chief. That leaves two options: he's too weak to be president, or he lied in his campaign. Neither option is really all that awesome.
This notion you have is so misinformed it's appalling.
Obama did not leave, Obama got booted. Dec. 2011 marked the end of the Status of Forces Agreement negotiated by GWB. SOFA prevented the Iraqi government from local prosecution of US troops for crimes committed in Iraq. Prior to the expiration of SOFA, Obama tried to get it extended so that the troops could stay longer and avoid any risk of prosecution. Obama failed in those negotiations, in large part because the war crimes confirmed in the WikiLeaks cache, made it politically impossible for Iraqi politicians to extend SOFA.
In other words, you are giving Obama credit for ending the war in Iraq when he tried to EXTEND it. To put this in Slashdot car analogy form, that's like giving a drunk driver accolades for not killing anyone while driving home, despite being blitzed and despite intentionally swerving at oncoming traffic. That's not laudable, it's despicable even if the drunk accidentally missed everyone.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/26/obama-iraq_n_1032507.html
Finally, if Bradley Manning was the source behind the wikileaks cache, rather than the torture and persecution he is receiving under Obama, he should get a fucking Nobel because it is HE who got us out of Iraq.
http://www.salon.com/2011/10/23/wikileaks_cables_and_the_iraq_war/singleton/
If you're going to vote for Obama, and you really believe he's some sort of peace loving socialist, consider some of the issues here: http://nothingchanged.org/
I think that's the where the idea of using a cheap laptop and free public wifi has its best application -- 7% of income for four months (assuming $200 price) and nothing thereafter.
But you are right -- at some point a person is so poor, even bus fare to the library to use a public terminal would be a burden. But that doesn't change the fact that for the vast majority of people, having net access is not such a financial hit as to be impossible to manage -- for most people who don't have net access, it is an issue of not seeing the internet as valuable to them personally. As a random example, I don't subscribe to Newsweek because it isn't valuable to me. My lack of interest has nothing to do with cost and a lot to do with the fact that the same material is available online in a less stale format. On the other hand, I do subscribe to National Geographic, even though their material is also online, because I like it and it has value to me over and above the digital experience.
Anyway, at this point in time, I suspect that a good portion of the people without network access of some kind, don't have it because they don't value it, not because it is beyond reach financially.
Much of your post is just wrong.
Regarding #1: DSL and cable aren't $100/mo -- I have comcast at home, which is expensive but my only choice, and it's $60/mo. I don't get cable TV or voip, just internet, but it is wrong to say that internet is $100/mo.
#2: Clear used to be a better bargain, but I have a Clear for my boat and it's currently $50/mo, not $100. Netflix streams just fine with the basic account.
#3: I have an unlimited unthrottled data plan with TMobile (which sadly they don't offer anymore), $70/mo and I could add tethering for $15/mo. As soon as I get around to it, I'll ditch Clearwire and do that, but for the most part, cell phone data plans do suck, so I'll give you this one.
#4: Not sure where you live, but in my particular smallish-80k-person-town in the Pacific Northwest, you'd be hard pressed to find anyplace downtown where free wifi was NOT available. Every coffee shop and many restaurants offer so much overlapping coverage, there's never an issue with access. Granted, this may not be true everywhere, but in this region, free wifi is as expected as a free glass of water.
#5: never had any trouble with saturated connections.
#6: while plenty of homeless people do use the library computers, there's usually space available and if you have your own laptop, it doesn't matter due to the free wifi.
You make it sound like getting on the net is hard or expensive -- in many places it isn't if a person can find $200 for a used laptop. Certainly my experiences will not be true for every place in the country, but you should realize that your experiences are also not ubiquitous.
Captain Ron
"Sorry Captain Ron, gorillas are native to equatorial Africa. OK? No gorillas. Not here. No way."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyG0G96UB6k
Not to mention that the MEK is a designated terrorist organization, and if you were a nobody, the Feds would rape you if provided any material support. However, our politicians being above the law, can support and be paid by the MEK with impunity.
http://www.salon.com/2012/03/12/washingtons_high_powered_terrorist_supporters/singleton/
The floppies weren't useless.
Why -- just why -- does everything have a blue light anymore? Blue LEDs are everywhere and even on devices meant to be used in darkened rooms (monitors, TVs, DVD players, etc). I had been hoping the blue light fad would die out, but it's been years now. When will it end?
Glenn Greenwald's take is much better thought out, and there are many quotable bits in his article: http://www.salon.com/2012/01/24/rules_of_american_justice_a_tale_of_three_cases/singleton/
but how about this one, slightly offtopic, but a good summary of how the law works right now, where members of congress can get paid by and lobby for a terrorist group (*), and the rest of America can get bent. It's our tiered justice system at work:
(*) http://www.salon.com/2012/03/12/washingtons_high_powered_terrorist_supporters/singleton/
Democrats have dignity over Republicans? For what -- you mean Obama prosecuting people under the espionage act 6 times in 3 years, while that act had been applied only 3 times in history prior?
The Republicans have nothing on George W. Obama when it comes to advancing the concept of an Imperial President -- I mean, when George W. Bush was doing all this radical stuff, Democrats pretended to care and complained. Now that it is GW Obama doing even worse -- silence, nothing but pure silence. Meaning that the abuses of GWB have become the new normal under the neo-con civil-liberties-destroying due-process-free-executioner (i.e., "murderer") that Democrats fawn over, i.e., Obama.
America is not just ready for dictatorship, it wants it.
Speaking of cars, here's an interesting aside regarding a yeast modified to produce isobutanol from plant matter (isobutanol is interesting because it has a higher energy density than ethanol and can also be used to make plastics of various kinds):
http://www.specialchem4coatings.com/news-trends/displaynews.aspx?id=18043
This way down at the bottom of the court hierarchy, but still interesting, and depending on the facts, there may be some parallels between GM yeast and GM seed:
and darn it, I'm too tired to use its and it's correctly in either of my posts, nor completely edit a sentence after changing its structure.
My point was that Monsanto did not build the machine at all. It simply doesn't have the technology. So for anyone to suggest that it does sort of misses the point.
To put this in slashdot-bad-car-analogy terms, its like Monsanto went into its garage, found a truck it had parked there but did not invent, build, or create, sprayed it with mud, then drove around town letting the mud splatter on other pre-existing cars it neither built, created, nor owned, and then goes around claiming an ownership right in any vehicle it soiled merely because they had its mud was on them.
Back to the seed thing, my point about raw materials was not related to the fact that seeds need raw materials, it was to point out that Monsanto cannot take raw materials, run them through its lab, and get seeds. What Monsanto does is use the pre-existing machinery it neither built, created, nor owns, to do all of its replication. Yes, it throws in a tweak, but Monsanto cannot make seeds from scratch, so it is completely unlike the person who builds a self-replicating machine in your example. It is like the person who paints the self-replicating machine and then somehow thinks it owns all the machines.
Ok -- analogy critique
You're suggesting Monsanto built a self-replicating machine, which is totally false. If it was true, Monsanto could take a few train cars of pure carbon, some cylinders of pure hydrogen and oxygen, and a few other trace elements -- and produce seeds. When Monsanto can use air and charcoal to make seeds, maybe then we should talk about patents.
At present however, it is indisputable that Monsanto did NOT build a self-replicating machine. Monsanto took a pre-existing semi-self-replicating machine (semi in the sense that it replicates with the help of other like machines, mixing their designs in the process), a machine that it absolutely can NOT produce from the ground up -- a machine that everyone already had for free or next to free. It made a tweak to that machine, and then released it into the wild with all the others. When the originals and the tweaked version intermingle as would naturally occur, Monsanto claims ownership over the whole shebang.
Which is bullshit. Maybe its fair for Monsanto to have its own patent covered version of the seed (emphasize "maybe" here), but the fact that its modifications find their way into other plants is not a basis for Monsanto gaining ownership of the other plants, its a basis for the people who want the originals to sue for nuisance. But in our bassackwards world, Monsanto's nuisance liability becomes its cash cow.
The website is nothing BUT a list citations.
Ad hominem much? Why can so few people hold Obama responsible for the things he has actually done? And Reagan was called the teflon president -- he's got nothing on Obama. Obama can try to undermine a treaty on cluster bombs we aren't even a signatory to, and people treat him like he deserves his peace prize. Obama can try to convince Iraq to extend SOFA so troops are immune to local prosecution, fail, and then withdraw the troops on GWB's timeline, AND get credit for ending Iraq when the only reason he left was because he failed to get permission to stay longer with immunity. It's baffling. It's baffling that he uses secret legal memos just like Bush did despite the campaign rhetoric. It's mystifying how he can get credit for openness, and yet assert the State Secrets doctrine willy nilly, and even use the Espionage Act for 6 prosecutions in 3 years (previously it was 3 times in our entire fucking history).
Really though, if you would be afraid of Santorum having Obama's usurped powers, what the fuck are you doing supporting Obama? Remember that Santorum has essentially promised to attack Iran, and thanks to Obama's Libya, the War Powers Act is dead. The president can do whatever he wants, to whomever he wants, whenever he wants. That is Obama's legacy.
SAT question:
Citizen firearms is to the US Military as:
a) bows and arrows were to muskets, rifles and cannons.
b) mole hill is to bulldozer.
c) mouse is to cat.
d) drizzle is to monsoon.
Obama IS responsible for due process free execution of several American Citizens based on a secret legal memo (repeat of the GWB policies toward due process free detention).
Obama IS responsible for Yemen's continued imprisonment of a news reporter. His sin? Most likely:
http://www.salon.com/2012/03/14/obamas_personal_role_in_a_journalists_imprisonment/singleton/
Seriously, you make light of Obama's failings with things that clearly aren't his fault, but that only serves to obfuscate the fact that he's taken everything that GWB did that was considered radical and dangerous, and made it the new normal. In a world of asshole murdering civil liberty destroying shits, Obama is president.
Here's a partial list, address some of that before you defend this guy:
http://nothingchanged.org/
True.
It's also worth pointing out that Democrat != liberal.
There's a saying along the lines, "ugly facts make bad law" -- this is exactly why. Yes, this guy is an uberjerk, no doubt, and because of that, the courts are likely to look for any possible means to get around privacy issues. Understandable in this case, but then whatever precedent results, get used against a reporter or peace protester or what-not.
That's the wrong response -- acquiescence is acceptance. Be a third party voter and join those willing to tell the government it doesn't represent them AND that you're willing to put your beliefs where your vote is. Cost a lesser-evil-candidate an election or two, and just maybe, we'll start getting some candidates of a greater-good type. Worst case scenario is that it doesn't do any good, but there is no question that choosing to not vote will do no good.
Voting Ron Paul, or any member of any third party you like, IS voting none of the above. It would not take a majority of voters doing such a thing, to get the parties to notice that swath of potential swing voters isn't buying the current political narrative, and then cater to those voters by changing the narrative. But because everyone is so concerned about picking a winner, we ensure that we only get losers in office.
Voting isn't a bet like picking a horse in a race -- unless you're donating millions to candidates you aren't going to get anything from being in a winning politician's camp except for the feeling that your candidate won. But when that candidate turns around and screws you, what is that winning feeling really worth? Nothing, and worse, you gave up your chance to actually vote for change -- the change that comes when politicians realize that people aren't sucking up their BS like they used to and that sticking with the status quo can cost an election. For the average American, this represents a much bigger win than the temporary happiness of being on a winning team, but in order to win the war, you have to be willing to lose some battles along the way to prove the point.
Here's a list of third parties. Pick one that reflects your values and vote with pride:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_the_United_States