Just a heads up, these figures were all tallied up last week. There may have been more coverage since then. The data comes from this website, all you have to do is search the person's name.
http://www.politifact.com/
I've been keeping an eye on Politifact's rating of President Obama's "truthiness" as Stephen Colbert likes to call it. Last week in one of my semi-regular checkups I decided to rate him against the remaining GOP Presidential candidates, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul. President Obama's rates don't really surprise me, partly because I've been paying attention to it but mostly because the GOP is generally not on good terms with the truth, with an exception of Ron Paul. Without further adieu, here are the various rankings from different points of view:
First, here is the breakdown of statements reviewed:
1) President Obama - 341
2) Mitt Romney - 108
3) Newt Gingrich - 47
4) Ron Paul - 31
5) Dick Santorum - 20
Here is the ratio of True/Half True/False ranked by highest truth percentage:
1) President Obama 46% Truth, 25% Half True, 29% False
2) Ron Paul 45% Truth, 16% Half True, 39% False
3) Mitt Romney 36% Truth, 27% Half True, 37% False
4) Dick Santorum 18% Truth, 36% Half True, 46% False
5)Newt Gingrich 17% Truth, 23% Half True, 60% False
Here it is broken down, giving the benefit of the doubt to half truths:
1) Obama 71% Truth, 29% False
2) Romney 63% Truth, 37% False
3) Paul 61% Truth, 39% False
4) Santorum 54% Truth, 46% False
5) Gingrich 40% Truth, 60% False
The Biggest Liars:
1) Gingrich
2) Santorum
3) Paul
4) Romney
5) Obama
For Pants on Fire (really freaking bad lies)
1) Gingrich 9 out of 47 - 19%
2) Romney 10 out of 108 - 10%
3) Santorum 2 out of 22 - 9%
4) Paul 2 out of 31 - 6%
5) Obama 5 out of 341 - 1%
100% True
1) Obama 81/341 - 24%
2) Paul 7/31 - 23%
3) Romney 21/108 - 19%
4) Santorum 3/22 - 14%
5) Gingrich 4/47 - 9%
President Obama outpaces everyone pretty well when it comes to honestly with Ron Paul close behind. Mitt Romney isn't bad off. Dick Santorum is slightly on the truthy side, but it is a tough call. My favorite part about all of this though is Newt Gingrich's breakdown. You can literally say that every other word out of Newt Gingrich's mouth is a lie, and that is still an understatement.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Boehner Ethics Violation
Speaker of the House, John Boehner, is no stranger to ethics violations. Last summer, in response to the Obama administration's decision to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act, which was discriminatory towards many people, Speaker Boehner hired outside counsel to defend the act. The problem is, while he does technically have the authority to do that, he authorized the payment of $500,000 to the firm he hired to defend 10 cases that were currently before courts. This amount makes up over 35% of the total money appropriated for the Office of General Counsel meaning he has over obligated the office's available funds, encroaching on operating expenses and even salaries. Due to the Antideficiency Act, this is very illegal, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. Fast forward to the past month or so and all the controversy over the Keystone XL pipeline owned by TransCanada. Ignoring the fact that the company is also facing charges for misleading on how many jobs it would create by 10s of thousands, ignoring the potential dangers to the environment and ignoring the the fact that we are ceding United States of America property so that a foreign company can transport it's product to our ports for export to other foreign countries because they can't get approval to transport it across their own land. Ignoring ALL of that and you still have something that reeks of corruption. There are 7 companies here in the good ole USA that stand to benefit from this pipeline going through. That isn't bad, that is actually quite awesome. During all of this commotion congressional Republicans are banging the job creation drum about how good this will be for the economy and that President Obama is Satan if he doesn't approve it. Well President Obama didn't approve it, not on any of the environmental grounds I have mentioned but because in order to pass the extension of the payroll tax cut the republicans slipped in a provision that forced Obama to approve of deny the pipeline in a relatively short period of time. The time stipulated was well before multiple studies, currently still underway, were due to finish so President Obama did what he was forced to do, deny it due to lack of information. The GOP came out en masse, calling President Obama a job killer and some people threatened to bring up charges on him for violating the Constitution and not doing what they saw as in the best interest of the country. Now the stage is set, all parties are in place, it isn't hard to guess who both sides are working for in the issue, the President for environmentalist and the GOP for Big Oil. Now comes the juicy part. Someone went and did some digging and as it has been shown countless times before, when you dig into the guts of congress you come up with a fistful of crap. It turns out that Speaker Boehner has done some investing, which is good, a portion of the U.S. economy relies on it, it is part of what makes the USA great and is a very sensible way of saving for retirement in some cases and making money for doing nothing in other cases (Romney/Gingrich). This is where the real dirty laundry exists. Speaker Boehner owns stock in all seven of the companies set to profit from the creation of this pipeline. Speaker Boehner is one of the most influential people in Washngton D.C. and in turn has great pull in being able to secure the creation of this pipeline. Ethics 101 teaches us that when there is even the perception of a conflict of interest in an issue, you need to recuse yourself from the situation and let others handle it. Well, I'd say owning stock in companies who's profits will skyrocket because of this pipeline's creation is a pretty damn big conflict of interest. I wonder how much he would have made if the pipeline had been approved? Probably more than the salary he makes as Speaker of the House.
Also, throughout this whole post my spellchecker kept demanding I correct "Boehner" to "Boner." I couldn't help but throw that in at the end.
Also, throughout this whole post my spellchecker kept demanding I correct "Boehner" to "Boner." I couldn't help but throw that in at the end.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Newt vs Mitt ROUND N! FIGHT!
I will admit, I missed this Thursday's debate. Part of the reason is it is the 19th debate. The other part of the reason is that the last few days I have been on a coding spree the likes of which I have not seen in a couple years. It is amazing what you can do when you actually care about a project. But, I digress, as this post has nothing to do with my awesome programming abilities, well, it has a bit to do with it. Typically when I am coding I am doing one of two things simultaneously, the first, and most frequent is jamming to my music collection. Most of it is Japanese songs from anime but there are also some non-anime songs in there like High and Mighty Color and Hyde. The other simultaneous activity is how I get a lot of my news, by leaving the TV on MSNBC, CNN or if I'm in the right mood for bullshit, Fox News. I do this with other activities too, typically gaming and sometimes just chatting online. It is a great way to absorb the news without having to listen to every little story. If I hear something that interests me I will pause what I am doing and pay closer attention to the news and that is exactly what was going on Thursday night. On the TV was Lawrence O'Donnell an abashed liberal, which is not a bad thing, but I do find him someone condescending and it is pretty clear he has an agenda. I may agree with that agenda in a lot of places, but I don't really like to see that in my pundits and news anchors. As his show was coming on, the 19th Republican debate was ending on another network and MSNBC was going to pickup right there with their coverage of the debate. Sometimes it is better to see the debate in a few clips like you find on these shows because it takes away all the fluff and repetitive statements you have heard a thousand times and leaves you with the good and bad moments. So I will get right into it, here is the clip that this post centers on:
Here is the timeline of what is going through my brain as I watch this.
0:00 - Halfway paying attention while programming
0:10 - The other half listening to the MSNBC is rolling its eyes as Gingrich plays up the crowd.
0:26 - I swap full attention to MSNBC when Gingrich starts his sob story and moves to attacking Romney on something he clearly had been saving for a juicy moment.
0:36 - I say out loud "Ohhh shit!" It wasn't really loud, I was just caught by surprise, the debate is being held in Florida, the week before Florida votes. Florida has something like 1 out of every 2 homes being worth less than what people owe. It was one of the hardest hit when the housing bubble burst. Republicans, almost uniformly, blame Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for the bubble as opposed to pretty much everyone else who blames the idiots passing the mortgages around like they're playing hot potato. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are like curse words in this auditorium. This was a huge bomb dropped by Gingrich.
0:55 - By this point I've repeated "Ohhh shit!" many times. This type of attack is what Gingrich lives on. He framed it perfectly as a death knell for Romney's campaign in Florida.
1:05 - The moment has kind of passed, Romney is moving into the intellectual debunking that he needs to do to at least save some face. What he says, while mostly true, is entirely intellectual and really does nothing to save him in the eyes of the crowd, even if he is right. Boredom creeps back in.
1:30 - My mind snaps back to full speed, taking in every moment, something serious is coming.
1:35 - "OHHHHHH SHIIITTT! OHHHH SHIIITT!" Romney drops a freaking 100 ton hammer on Gingrich who now looks like a deer caught in the headlights.
1:47 - Still deep in the moment, realizing how huge of a screw up this is for Gingrich, I am drinking in every detail every second. Then I dive even deeper when Romney says HE HAS MORE!
1:58 - By this point there is nothing that could take my attention away from the TV, short of having myself enter a state of spontaneously combustion. Romney, strutting his stuff, turns everything Newt said about him around and slants it towards the audience. He doesn't invest in the government, he LOANS the government money in the form of bonds.
2:10 - As Romney shifts gears AGAIN and brings up more on Gingrich, I am thinking "OHH SHIT MAN THIS JUST WON'T END!"
2:35 - Clip over, I'm just staring at the TV wishing it was on my DVR so I could rewind it, but alas that was on another tv.
As soon as the clip ends I am off and running on a mad search of YouTube for just the right clip of this moment so I can show it to all my political junky friends and for later posting here. It takes me about 10-15 minutes to find it. I must have watched it 20 times between then and now and it never gets old. Later on as I knew what to expect, I was able to watch the reactions of the two candidates and you can tell what is going through their minds at each moment.
Now here is a timeline of what is going through their minds:
0:00 - 0:57 Gingrich is in his typical smug, egotistical mode, thinking it is about time to throw another one of his patented bombs and watch the fallout. You can just picture a tiny version of him inside his head sitting in a high backed chair doing the Mr. Burns "Excellent"
0:17 - 0:27 Romney is calmly taking in what Gingrich is saying, formulating a response
0:32 - 0:47 Romney begins to see where it is going and is setting it up in his head and if you look closely you can see a him form a very faint smile
0:49 - 0:57 It becomes more and more obvious that Romney is having trouble containing his glee and says something I don't think I've ever heard at a debate before, "This is Fun."
1:03 - 1:26 Romney hides his glee with a good calm argument re-characterizing what he has done
1:25 - 1:32 Gingrich, still thinking he's hurt Romney is formulating a response and then WAM he immediately shifts to a "HUH!?" face, clearly being blindsided.
1:32 - 1:39 - Gingrich realizes he screwed up, big time. Romney is thinking, "WHAT NOW!?"
1:39 - 1:47 - Gingrich is frozen unable to respond as the crowd turns against him to the point where he nods his head acknowledging what a blow it was. Gingrich never acknowledges anyone as his better. Romney is clearly reveling in Gingrich's misery, lets the audience pour it on.
1:48 - 1:50 - Romney is thinking "I HAVEN'T BEGUN BITCH!"
1:50 - 2:36 - Romney spends the rest of the time imagining himself standing above Gingrich, with Gingrich's face in the mud, Romney pressing down his foot on Gingrich's head while simultaneously peeing on him.
1:50 - 2:10 - Gingrich is thinking "Oh God, someone save me" you can see him almost crying
2:10 - 2:36 - Gingrich is thinking "Oh great, now he's tied my lobbying into it, at least I can defend that a bit to take some of the heat off"
I hope everyone who sees this clip enjoys it at least half as much as I did.
Here is the timeline of what is going through my brain as I watch this.
0:00 - Halfway paying attention while programming
0:10 - The other half listening to the MSNBC is rolling its eyes as Gingrich plays up the crowd.
0:26 - I swap full attention to MSNBC when Gingrich starts his sob story and moves to attacking Romney on something he clearly had been saving for a juicy moment.
0:36 - I say out loud "Ohhh shit!" It wasn't really loud, I was just caught by surprise, the debate is being held in Florida, the week before Florida votes. Florida has something like 1 out of every 2 homes being worth less than what people owe. It was one of the hardest hit when the housing bubble burst. Republicans, almost uniformly, blame Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for the bubble as opposed to pretty much everyone else who blames the idiots passing the mortgages around like they're playing hot potato. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are like curse words in this auditorium. This was a huge bomb dropped by Gingrich.
0:55 - By this point I've repeated "Ohhh shit!" many times. This type of attack is what Gingrich lives on. He framed it perfectly as a death knell for Romney's campaign in Florida.
1:05 - The moment has kind of passed, Romney is moving into the intellectual debunking that he needs to do to at least save some face. What he says, while mostly true, is entirely intellectual and really does nothing to save him in the eyes of the crowd, even if he is right. Boredom creeps back in.
1:30 - My mind snaps back to full speed, taking in every moment, something serious is coming.
1:35 - "OHHHHHH SHIIITTT! OHHHH SHIIITT!" Romney drops a freaking 100 ton hammer on Gingrich who now looks like a deer caught in the headlights.
1:47 - Still deep in the moment, realizing how huge of a screw up this is for Gingrich, I am drinking in every detail every second. Then I dive even deeper when Romney says HE HAS MORE!
1:58 - By this point there is nothing that could take my attention away from the TV, short of having myself enter a state of spontaneously combustion. Romney, strutting his stuff, turns everything Newt said about him around and slants it towards the audience. He doesn't invest in the government, he LOANS the government money in the form of bonds.
2:10 - As Romney shifts gears AGAIN and brings up more on Gingrich, I am thinking "OHH SHIT MAN THIS JUST WON'T END!"
2:35 - Clip over, I'm just staring at the TV wishing it was on my DVR so I could rewind it, but alas that was on another tv.
As soon as the clip ends I am off and running on a mad search of YouTube for just the right clip of this moment so I can show it to all my political junky friends and for later posting here. It takes me about 10-15 minutes to find it. I must have watched it 20 times between then and now and it never gets old. Later on as I knew what to expect, I was able to watch the reactions of the two candidates and you can tell what is going through their minds at each moment.
Now here is a timeline of what is going through their minds:
0:00 - 0:57 Gingrich is in his typical smug, egotistical mode, thinking it is about time to throw another one of his patented bombs and watch the fallout. You can just picture a tiny version of him inside his head sitting in a high backed chair doing the Mr. Burns "Excellent"
0:17 - 0:27 Romney is calmly taking in what Gingrich is saying, formulating a response
0:32 - 0:47 Romney begins to see where it is going and is setting it up in his head and if you look closely you can see a him form a very faint smile
0:49 - 0:57 It becomes more and more obvious that Romney is having trouble containing his glee and says something I don't think I've ever heard at a debate before, "This is Fun."
1:03 - 1:26 Romney hides his glee with a good calm argument re-characterizing what he has done
1:25 - 1:32 Gingrich, still thinking he's hurt Romney is formulating a response and then WAM he immediately shifts to a "HUH!?" face, clearly being blindsided.
1:32 - 1:39 - Gingrich realizes he screwed up, big time. Romney is thinking, "WHAT NOW!?"
1:39 - 1:47 - Gingrich is frozen unable to respond as the crowd turns against him to the point where he nods his head acknowledging what a blow it was. Gingrich never acknowledges anyone as his better. Romney is clearly reveling in Gingrich's misery, lets the audience pour it on.
1:48 - 1:50 - Romney is thinking "I HAVEN'T BEGUN BITCH!"
1:50 - 2:36 - Romney spends the rest of the time imagining himself standing above Gingrich, with Gingrich's face in the mud, Romney pressing down his foot on Gingrich's head while simultaneously peeing on him.
1:50 - 2:10 - Gingrich is thinking "Oh God, someone save me" you can see him almost crying
2:10 - 2:36 - Gingrich is thinking "Oh great, now he's tied my lobbying into it, at least I can defend that a bit to take some of the heat off"
I hope everyone who sees this clip enjoys it at least half as much as I did.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Spirit in the Sky
Today my cousin, her boyfriend and myself were coming home from running some errands and the classic oldie "Spirit in the Sky" came on and we all started rocking out because the song is awesome. About halfway through my cousin chimed in, "so is this song supporting or mocking Christianity?" I paused to think about it as I have mentioned in my other posts, I do not listen to music for lyrical meaning so I seldom pay attention to them. At the beginning I was unsure but then it got to one specific line that made up my mind. The line was "Never been a sinner, never sinned" which is very contradictory to Christian belief. One of the most quoted lines from the bible is "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of god." The idea that you have never been a sinner is directly contradictory. When I got home I did a little looking around the internet to see if there was any sort of confirmation and there wasn't much. The most I could find that could b e confirmedwas that the writer was Jewish. Based on that, other music at the time and a few other things, my ultimate conclusion was that he was just trying to tap into a popular segment. One side sees it as holy, the other as mocking, everybody is happy. Food for thought.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Politics and Animal Abuse
I had to cool down a bite before writing this post. There is political disagreement and then there is name calling and then there is this. Today the office manager of Ken Aden, a Democrat running for the 3rd congressional district of Arkansas returned home with his family to find a horrific image. Their cat was laying on their porch with it's skull bashed in in a rather gruesome manner, so much that it deformed the cats face pretty heavily. On one side of the cat was scrawled in what appeared to be marker, the world "LIBERAL." I saw a few comments stating that politics for both parties has gotten out of hand and I believe that is very apt, but I can't fathom a democrat ever resorting to anything like killing an innocent animal and defiling its corpse just so they could call someone a name. The southern tradition of trying to scare your opponents into submission is still living strong I see. At the end of this post is the gawker article where I first heard of this. There is a picture of the cat, fortunately it was taken so that the gruesomeness cannot really be seen and it is just the "LIBERAL" part. This is what conservative talk radio and Fox News has given our country.
The Gawker Article
The Candidate's website.
The Gawker Article
The Candidate's website.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
George W. Bush Jr. The most Successful Food Stamp President
Earlier tonight Newt Gingrich swept through South Carolina primary polling places, mopping the floor with all the other candidates with a 12% ahead of Mitt Romney, 23% ahead of Santorum and 27% ahead of Ron Paul. This is particularly amazing considering he was trailing Mitt Romney after New Hampshire by quite a bit. The dramatic change can be attributed heavily to a series of gaffs Romney has made as well as a good debate showing by Gingrich earlier this week. As it is, I am starting to get a little tired of the talking points continually regurgitated by Gingrich in every clip I hear. He is constantly calling the President "the most successful food stamp president in the history of the country." This statement drives me absolutely batty because of the simultaneous bald faced lying as well as the mud wrestling style of oration that is so well known with the disgraced former Speaker of the House so it is time to clear up some facts.
After analyzing the numbers, it is actually former President Bush that should hold such a title. When you take into account the situation each president inherited, the situation is even bleaker for the GOP former vacationer in chief. President Bush inherited a $230 billion surplus and left office with a $5 trillion deficit, two wars an economy hemorrhaging jobs and a record 14.7 million new recipients of food stamps. Conversely, President Obama via his stimulus package and other programs righted the ship and has 21 straight months of job growth, gotten us out of one war, averted another war, Libya, without setting a single soldier on the ground, killed Osama Bin Laden and countless other Al Qaeda leaders, is on track to double American exports in 5 years, a claim he made during one of his State of the Union addresses and most importantly, at least for this posting, has decreased the number of recipients on Food Stamps. While the numbers are relatively close, 14.7 million for Bush and 14.2 million for Obama, when you consider the starting point of each administration and what they inherited, it is pretty clear who the most successful food stamp president is, and it is not our current Commander in Chief.
I really hope Newt Gingrich gets the nomination. While he is thriving in conservative polls right now, if you look at the national polls, the man has huge name recognition compared to all the other candidates and also has the highest disapproval ratings, around 60%. Any incumbent would kill to face numbers like that.
After analyzing the numbers, it is actually former President Bush that should hold such a title. When you take into account the situation each president inherited, the situation is even bleaker for the GOP former vacationer in chief. President Bush inherited a $230 billion surplus and left office with a $5 trillion deficit, two wars an economy hemorrhaging jobs and a record 14.7 million new recipients of food stamps. Conversely, President Obama via his stimulus package and other programs righted the ship and has 21 straight months of job growth, gotten us out of one war, averted another war, Libya, without setting a single soldier on the ground, killed Osama Bin Laden and countless other Al Qaeda leaders, is on track to double American exports in 5 years, a claim he made during one of his State of the Union addresses and most importantly, at least for this posting, has decreased the number of recipients on Food Stamps. While the numbers are relatively close, 14.7 million for Bush and 14.2 million for Obama, when you consider the starting point of each administration and what they inherited, it is pretty clear who the most successful food stamp president is, and it is not our current Commander in Chief.
I really hope Newt Gingrich gets the nomination. While he is thriving in conservative polls right now, if you look at the national polls, the man has huge name recognition compared to all the other candidates and also has the highest disapproval ratings, around 60%. Any incumbent would kill to face numbers like that.
Principles despite Religion
I am an atheist, I am not ashamed to admit that. The only reason I do not go out and do something like get "ATHEIST" on my license plate is because I live in Nebraska and I would rather not get my car keyed. Don't get me wrong, people around here are very friendly and generally great, but there still is a stigma around atheists and many people don't understand what it really means to be an atheist and that atheists have the same potential to be moral upstanding citizens as everybody else and ignorance can lead people to do stupid things. That being said, I have not always been an atheist. My family is by no means religious in the sense of the hate-mongering right wing, but my childhood was filled with worship services, bible studies, youth groups and other community events based around our church. My mom is very religious, my Dad is much more of a passive believer and probably closer to a deist than a Christian, but he truly enjoys the sermons he has attended since meeting my mother over 22 years ago. I don't think this is a one way road either, it is pretty clear my Dad provides my mom with a grounding point for when she starts to get more emotional because his very nature is calm and neutral. My mom found Christianity in the 70s when dealing with some extremely hard life issues. Her faith got her through it and she never forgot that. I have often contemplated what my mother would be like, as a person, today, had she not met my father. It does sometimes scare me to think that she could have fallen in with right wing Christianity but I suspect that might have happened. But that is just speculation, the reality is that she maintains a deep spiritual sense of self, often holding similar values as the Christian Right, but she keeps religion in religion and out of unrelated things like politics. When it comes to politics she falls left of center just like my Dad and myself while her siblings and mother all sort of fall in with the Christian right, but without the vitriol. I describe all this because the point of this post is to illustrate how a persons viewpoints can change in their lifetime and how much they can stay the same.
Today I went back to my parents house with my sister to go through the various tubs containing our childhood memories, toys, pictures, in one case a bowl of 10 year old, still good tootsie rolls, and to throw out the stuff we no longer wanted and keep the stuff we treasured. We didn't finish and indeed I have made another post before about the first time we did this where I found my Sega Genesis, so this experience will gladly continue for awhile. About halfway through our second tub, my sister found a sheet of paper with a letter to the editor that I had written and was published in the town paper. I distinctly remember writing it, turning it in, reading it with great pleasure the following week and then reading the responses, as there were more than one, the following week and being rather disappointed. The letter wasn't terribly long, only one paragraph, very straight and too the point and it was in response to a previous week's letter about the words "under God" in the pledge of allegiance. What amazed me as the memories flooded back to me and I read the letter, was that nearly every single word in it is exactly how I feel now and often defend when debating. There was one major difference though. The very first sentence and it was a stark difference. The first sentence was "Even though I am a devout Christian..." and as I looked at that again and was simply amazed at how much I have changed and how much I have stayed the same. Roughly 10 years have passed since I wrote that letter. I was only 17 or 18 at the time, quite capable of logically thinking and forming rational arguments but at that point the adolescent brain is still undergoing massive changes and is clearly not at the peak it will reach later. Looking back at that time in my life, it is after the first time I had doubts about Christianity, but I was still on my own journey and remained involved with Church functions so the statement that I was a devout Christian was still very much true and very much relevant. My spiritual progression, while overtime it was gradually sloping down towards atheism, still had its ascents. I started in the Methodist Church but my mother never felt very comfortable with the congregation and after a friend of mine from school invited me to a sleepover and to go to his church with him the next day, we did and we ended up changing to the local Baptist Church. None of this was based on the differences between the two ideologically, but rather the congregation of the Baptist Church was much more accepting and had many more kids my age, and my mother thought that would be beneficial. I was good friends with the one who invited me for many years, until early middle school, when kids began to change and go their own way. We never had a falling out but just didn't hang out anymore. I had other friends there though, the pastors son was my age and we became really great friends in Sunday school, he got me into football in middle school and we had been playing soccer on a select team, that is, kids chosen because they were good players and we traveled around Nebraska and Iowa playing other similar teams. There were two teams in our town of 6000 and both were pretty good. Each team had 5 members participate in the national 3v3 tournaments more than once and more than once the other team finished first with ours finishing second. Incidentally, my sister participated in the girl version in high school. Her team did fantastically and got the national championship too. I was so proud...and a bit jealous since I was not part of the players selected for the 3v3 team...but back to the issue at hand. I was friends with him to mid-high school, really good friends. We grew apart as well, but he is a good person, has a family now and I am glad. In my childhood I also participated in a group called "Awana" that met every wednesday for a sort of bible study and youth group activity that mostly consisted of memorizing bible verses and praying. I followed that through high school as well until around the time my health began altering my daily life. I stopped going to church, though my parents and sister still went regularly. This didn't particularly affect religion yet, the absence didn't really have anything to do with faith but everything to do with the rest of my life. It was about this time that this letter was written. In fact, I held many strong Christian views, views that are today considered pretty right wing, until I was at least 20, gradually changing as I experienced life and eventually when I came to realize I can be a good person even if I don't believe. Back then though, as I watched Vermont implement civil unions (2000) and the uproar that resulted, there began a huge conflict of my inherent sense for people to be free and my religious beliefs. Everything religion was telling me that this was an outrage. Everything logical was telling me that there was nothing wrong with two people loving each other. At the same time, the only gay person I knew was my mom's brother and I had maybe spent 10 total hours in my life with him so everything I heard about gay people, I believed. In the end I did what I do best, find a middle ground and settled on "give them a civil union, but stay the heck away from my traditional definition of marriage. You can tell from my other posts that I no longer feel this way. Civil Unions and Marriage is a Separate but Equal implementation and Separate but Equal does not work, ever. That wasn't the only issue either. To this day, despite knowing how a fertilized egg becomes a baby, why it is not killing a living being and every other sensationalized argument by the right, there is still a part of me that is "anti-abortion" so to speak. I don't particularly care what women do with their bodies, that is their business and not mine, but at the same time I know that if I had impregnated a woman and the pregnancy had progressed very far in, I would have an incredibly hard time not pursuing what would eventually be my son or daughter.
Throughout all of those significant theological changes though, one thing remained constant. My belief in the fairness involved in the separation of church and state. I am proud of the me from 10 years ago and I am pretty sure he would be proud of the him from 10 years in the future.
Today I went back to my parents house with my sister to go through the various tubs containing our childhood memories, toys, pictures, in one case a bowl of 10 year old, still good tootsie rolls, and to throw out the stuff we no longer wanted and keep the stuff we treasured. We didn't finish and indeed I have made another post before about the first time we did this where I found my Sega Genesis, so this experience will gladly continue for awhile. About halfway through our second tub, my sister found a sheet of paper with a letter to the editor that I had written and was published in the town paper. I distinctly remember writing it, turning it in, reading it with great pleasure the following week and then reading the responses, as there were more than one, the following week and being rather disappointed. The letter wasn't terribly long, only one paragraph, very straight and too the point and it was in response to a previous week's letter about the words "under God" in the pledge of allegiance. What amazed me as the memories flooded back to me and I read the letter, was that nearly every single word in it is exactly how I feel now and often defend when debating. There was one major difference though. The very first sentence and it was a stark difference. The first sentence was "Even though I am a devout Christian..." and as I looked at that again and was simply amazed at how much I have changed and how much I have stayed the same. Roughly 10 years have passed since I wrote that letter. I was only 17 or 18 at the time, quite capable of logically thinking and forming rational arguments but at that point the adolescent brain is still undergoing massive changes and is clearly not at the peak it will reach later. Looking back at that time in my life, it is after the first time I had doubts about Christianity, but I was still on my own journey and remained involved with Church functions so the statement that I was a devout Christian was still very much true and very much relevant. My spiritual progression, while overtime it was gradually sloping down towards atheism, still had its ascents. I started in the Methodist Church but my mother never felt very comfortable with the congregation and after a friend of mine from school invited me to a sleepover and to go to his church with him the next day, we did and we ended up changing to the local Baptist Church. None of this was based on the differences between the two ideologically, but rather the congregation of the Baptist Church was much more accepting and had many more kids my age, and my mother thought that would be beneficial. I was good friends with the one who invited me for many years, until early middle school, when kids began to change and go their own way. We never had a falling out but just didn't hang out anymore. I had other friends there though, the pastors son was my age and we became really great friends in Sunday school, he got me into football in middle school and we had been playing soccer on a select team, that is, kids chosen because they were good players and we traveled around Nebraska and Iowa playing other similar teams. There were two teams in our town of 6000 and both were pretty good. Each team had 5 members participate in the national 3v3 tournaments more than once and more than once the other team finished first with ours finishing second. Incidentally, my sister participated in the girl version in high school. Her team did fantastically and got the national championship too. I was so proud...and a bit jealous since I was not part of the players selected for the 3v3 team...but back to the issue at hand. I was friends with him to mid-high school, really good friends. We grew apart as well, but he is a good person, has a family now and I am glad. In my childhood I also participated in a group called "Awana" that met every wednesday for a sort of bible study and youth group activity that mostly consisted of memorizing bible verses and praying. I followed that through high school as well until around the time my health began altering my daily life. I stopped going to church, though my parents and sister still went regularly. This didn't particularly affect religion yet, the absence didn't really have anything to do with faith but everything to do with the rest of my life. It was about this time that this letter was written. In fact, I held many strong Christian views, views that are today considered pretty right wing, until I was at least 20, gradually changing as I experienced life and eventually when I came to realize I can be a good person even if I don't believe. Back then though, as I watched Vermont implement civil unions (2000) and the uproar that resulted, there began a huge conflict of my inherent sense for people to be free and my religious beliefs. Everything religion was telling me that this was an outrage. Everything logical was telling me that there was nothing wrong with two people loving each other. At the same time, the only gay person I knew was my mom's brother and I had maybe spent 10 total hours in my life with him so everything I heard about gay people, I believed. In the end I did what I do best, find a middle ground and settled on "give them a civil union, but stay the heck away from my traditional definition of marriage. You can tell from my other posts that I no longer feel this way. Civil Unions and Marriage is a Separate but Equal implementation and Separate but Equal does not work, ever. That wasn't the only issue either. To this day, despite knowing how a fertilized egg becomes a baby, why it is not killing a living being and every other sensationalized argument by the right, there is still a part of me that is "anti-abortion" so to speak. I don't particularly care what women do with their bodies, that is their business and not mine, but at the same time I know that if I had impregnated a woman and the pregnancy had progressed very far in, I would have an incredibly hard time not pursuing what would eventually be my son or daughter.
Throughout all of those significant theological changes though, one thing remained constant. My belief in the fairness involved in the separation of church and state. I am proud of the me from 10 years ago and I am pretty sure he would be proud of the him from 10 years in the future.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Megaupload
Today one of the most visited websites and its related websites (18 domains in all) went dark. Megaupload, a file sharing website, was taken down amid many allegations, most of which focus around copyright infringement and stretch into some potentially bogus money laundering and racketeering charges. I've already written up a post on this on facebook so I am just going to paste it in here to save myself some time from writing a new one. Just a heads up, "wrt" is an abbreviation meaning "with respect to." It is a habit I picked up in some of my more theory based college math courses.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Free market health care
Universal health care is something that strikes very close to home for me and does somewhat conflict with my libertarian side. Specifically, "Obamacare" as it has been labeled and will likely always be known as, unofficially, was one of the greatest political accomplishments of the last 30 years and it was like a beacon of hope for me and many others out there who get tossed around by the nation's healthcare and insurance system. I have been unfortunate enough to have been born with a condition/conditions that I have very little control over and that have a mildly indirect affect on other areas of my health. I was, however, fortunate to have been born to two good caring parents whose insurance covered me long after other policies and companies would have dropped me based on my age. It is most certain that one of the reasons I stayed in school until now, as I am 27, is because I spent more time than I would have liked undecided and another 2 years as a social work major that, in the end, I determined was not what I wanted to do with my life but there are other factors, one of the biggest of which is the fact that as long as I was a student, I could keep my parents insurance and therefore continue to receive medication to treat my lifelong condition. At times, this meant taking out student loans to stay in classes I didn't need because there was no other way to pay for my medications and regular doctor visits. Now that I finally hit the wall with being able to extend said coverage, the reality of how much my medical costs actually are has hit me. Prior to this, it did not take much for me to get by on. My student loans have yet to kick in, I share a house with 2 cousins, one of their boyfriends and another roommate and that essentially keeps my monthly budget between $400 and $500, which is pretty fantastic considering. This does not include the copays and reduced cost of medications my parents were paying for which amounted to about $90 a month at worse, but often closer to $50. After having only tallied up what my medications will cost me and one of the two doctors I visit, each month will cost me closer to $300. Specifically, my medications will cost $178. Now, I realize as far as lifelong conditions go, that this isn't a terribly big amount to be paying, but it is still over half my budget, which is money I cannot pay. The reason I know such specific figures isn't because I suddenly had to start paying them, but because I knew what was coming and responsibly took measures to work my way out of it. There are certain options available via my parents insurance company that would have transferred me to a new insurance policy that my parents could still pay for. This would have cost them more money each month but still less than what it would cost for my medications and appointments. While we were waiting to be approved, we were told to go ahead and just have the doctors bill us and then the company would reimburse my parents for the cost. Then about a week into the new year I received a letter from the company saying I was denied coverage because of a preexisting condition. This was devastating, on top of the likely considerable student loan payments I will have to be paying starting a few months from now, I will have pay out a significantly larger amount for healthcare that I need to simply function in society. This all happened as I was paying very close attention to the republican political climate and the rabid desire to repeal "Obamacare" and in particular the ideology of Ron Paul would would gut the government and lay waste to everything that propelled this country to its current standing in the world. For the first time in my life I went to bed terrified for what the political future might bring. I am facing the very serious decision of having to give up my medication because I simply cannot afford it. This represents a downward spiral that I have seen hit me a few times in the past. To get this medication, I need to work to earn money, but to work and earn money, I need this medication. If one falls through, so does the other and the likelihood of recovering at any reasonable rate is much lower. Without a job, the student loans will come due, I will have to move back to my parents and break my lease with my cousins, who I care about very much, leaving them with higher bills if they can even stay. When I can't pay my loans, which my Dad is a co-signer on, my credit rating, which is actually really really good, will tank and my parents cannot afford to pay the loans on top of their own bills. I can see no positive end to the situation unless I find a job, and any insurance policy I get through a job will likely turn me down as well.
I understand why people don't like the idea of universal healthcare, people don't like being on the hook for others problems, but there is so much more to the issue than that. There are proven facts about universal health care that are subtle but benefit everyone in the long run, making health care cheaper overall allowing more people to thrive. In principle I despise the idea of a mandate, but in the end it works out better for everyone. It has been shown that the more people that are in the health insurance pool, the cheaper the costs are for everyone all around. Additionally, by shifting the focus to preventative health care, costs also go down because it has been shown that treating many more serious, expensive conditions are much more costly in the long run than paying for the preventative care, as is sort of the case with my health problems. Currently there are systems available to people with pre-existing conditions, offered by various states or, when not offered, are offered by the federal government, but these are still rather expensive. As it is, insurance companies are still allowed to turn people down. If you are turned down, you must wait a certain period of time before you can change to the state plans, in my case, 6 months. This will be the case until 2014. I just hope I can survive until then.
The idea of a Ron Paul presidency, and to a lesser extend, putting a Republican into power, never used to bother me on such a personal level. I knew that there were systems in place that prevented a lot of what the candidates talk about doing and that generally, as my generation gets older, opinions of the older generation, which tend to be more rigid, would die off and things would get better. Now I see what the Republicans propose and it terrifies me. It threatens to rip away my future, a future that was already tainted by the fact I have to live with my conditions for the rest of my life and the medications I take will also gradually damage my body as well. I wish more people understood the bleak future myself and many others face.
I understand why people don't like the idea of universal healthcare, people don't like being on the hook for others problems, but there is so much more to the issue than that. There are proven facts about universal health care that are subtle but benefit everyone in the long run, making health care cheaper overall allowing more people to thrive. In principle I despise the idea of a mandate, but in the end it works out better for everyone. It has been shown that the more people that are in the health insurance pool, the cheaper the costs are for everyone all around. Additionally, by shifting the focus to preventative health care, costs also go down because it has been shown that treating many more serious, expensive conditions are much more costly in the long run than paying for the preventative care, as is sort of the case with my health problems. Currently there are systems available to people with pre-existing conditions, offered by various states or, when not offered, are offered by the federal government, but these are still rather expensive. As it is, insurance companies are still allowed to turn people down. If you are turned down, you must wait a certain period of time before you can change to the state plans, in my case, 6 months. This will be the case until 2014. I just hope I can survive until then.
The idea of a Ron Paul presidency, and to a lesser extend, putting a Republican into power, never used to bother me on such a personal level. I knew that there were systems in place that prevented a lot of what the candidates talk about doing and that generally, as my generation gets older, opinions of the older generation, which tend to be more rigid, would die off and things would get better. Now I see what the Republicans propose and it terrifies me. It threatens to rip away my future, a future that was already tainted by the fact I have to live with my conditions for the rest of my life and the medications I take will also gradually damage my body as well. I wish more people understood the bleak future myself and many others face.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Voter ID
Ever since the Tea Party "revolution," which franky, just turned into a rebranding of the republican party, there has been a large influx of voter ID laws in many states, all introduced by Republican legislators. Voter ID laws are a peculiar issue. Republicans, traditionally much more "keep the gubment out of my life" are demanding verification while democrats, traditionally more on the bureaucratic side, see it as a needless burden on certain populations. Personally, I can definitely see a reason for having to show ID when voting but there are certain things about these new laws that make me very wary. In nearly all cases it turns out that the law tends to impact certain populations more than other populations, namely ones that vote Democratic. Many of the laws prohibit using student IDs, one of the big factors in electing Obama, while others require piles of documentation to obtain and ultimately, cost money. I read of one instance where the documentation required consists of 3 different forms of proof of who you are. I don't know about you, but at best I carry with me one form of identification, my driver's license, two if you count my social security card which really isn't much of an ID anyway. The only other third possible one that I even have to my name, since student IDs usually don't count, is my birth certificate which is in my parents' safety deposit box. That, all in all, just seems like a preposterous amount of ID needed. The other issue is that requiring a photo ID to vote essentially equates to a poll tax and not just poll tax in the strictest definition of the term but one that is heavily unfavorable to more urban areas with high minority populations that have lower rates of people who even need ID since they don't drive. Granted this isn't quite the same as the poll taxes of old which were deliberately designed to keep "undesirables" from voting, but it is still essentially someone having to pay to vote, which is wrong.
Last week at the New Hampshire primary, James O'keefe, master of editing his "sting" tapes to make up stories took on the New Hampshire system, showing how easy it was to commit voter fraud. It was a pretty indicting presentation, even when considering who the source is. There wasn't really any way to edit it to distort the truth like in the ACORN and NPR tapes, which were utterly false by the way, but there was a neat little repercussion that O'keefe and his team seemed to overlook. They went into polling places, pretending to be people who had recently died long enough to be issued a ballot without showing ID. Apparently they thought that upon completing their task, they could insist on going back to their car to get the ID and never coming back and that would get them out of actually committing voter fraud. Well it turns out that nearly every single incident, and the evidence is in their own tape, they actually violated both New Hampshire and Federal voter fraud laws themselves. Multiple times they can be seen and heard affirming they are the deceased person in question and accepting the ballot. Frankly, I would love to see them prosecuted and thrown in jail, not so much for violating the laws, but for the insensitivity it took to take someone's identity, who had recently died and pretend to be them. Did they for one second think of what the families and friends of the deceased in question would think of this? If I was a family member I'd be outraged and looking into what legal options I had open to me. This man, who in the past has shown he has no real moral compass, just put the icing on the cake with this and I hope he gets prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law as well as sued by the family members of the deceased whos identities were stolen.
Last week at the New Hampshire primary, James O'keefe, master of editing his "sting" tapes to make up stories took on the New Hampshire system, showing how easy it was to commit voter fraud. It was a pretty indicting presentation, even when considering who the source is. There wasn't really any way to edit it to distort the truth like in the ACORN and NPR tapes, which were utterly false by the way, but there was a neat little repercussion that O'keefe and his team seemed to overlook. They went into polling places, pretending to be people who had recently died long enough to be issued a ballot without showing ID. Apparently they thought that upon completing their task, they could insist on going back to their car to get the ID and never coming back and that would get them out of actually committing voter fraud. Well it turns out that nearly every single incident, and the evidence is in their own tape, they actually violated both New Hampshire and Federal voter fraud laws themselves. Multiple times they can be seen and heard affirming they are the deceased person in question and accepting the ballot. Frankly, I would love to see them prosecuted and thrown in jail, not so much for violating the laws, but for the insensitivity it took to take someone's identity, who had recently died and pretend to be them. Did they for one second think of what the families and friends of the deceased in question would think of this? If I was a family member I'd be outraged and looking into what legal options I had open to me. This man, who in the past has shown he has no real moral compass, just put the icing on the cake with this and I hope he gets prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law as well as sued by the family members of the deceased whos identities were stolen.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Innocence Lost is Knowledge Gained
Time for another post that leans nerdy more than it leans political.
In a previous post (http://nerdsandpoliticsandnerds.blogspot.com/2011/12/j-pop-america-fun-time-now.html) I mentioned my love for Japanese Rock and Pop music. It spawned from simply listening to the opening and ending songs of shows airing on cartoon network and when I sought out full length versions of said songs, it all just kind of snowballed into looking more and more into the bands who gave their music to the anime I watch and enjoy. From this I found my favorite, High and Mighty Color as well as Maximum the Hormone, Hyde, L'Arc en Ciel, Asian Kung Fu Generation, Access, Yui and Tommy Heavenly. As American Rock began to interest me less and I began shifting to Japanese Rock/Pop I did some thinking about why my preferences were shifting, certainly it had a bit to do with my tendency towards following my own path, particularly if it is the path less traveled but there was still something there that spoke to me. In fact, it took me years to quantify what it was about music with lyrics in a language I didn't understand that made me love it so much, certainly I'd had to explain it to others I met and I usually came up with reasons based around the more frequent techno/rock mixes and more prominent use of female vocals in rock music and while all that was true, it wasn't the real reason. The real reason was that for the first time in my life I was truly listening to the voice solely as an instrument. When you're listening to music in a language you understand, yes you can listen to the voice as an instrument, but ultimately the meaning of the words directs your mind away from fully absorbing the effects of the voice. When you remove that aspect of the song, it enhances the voice as an instrument 10fold. I suppose it also helps that the Japanese spoken language is very straightforward and uniform with the sounds involved. English is awful for how many different pronunciations a letter can have and that can be changed by the letters around it or sound exactly the same as other letters. Off the top of my head I can only think of one confusing sound in Japanese, at least for me, and that is "su" and "tsu."
Why do I bring all this up? Well, recently I've been using Pimsleur's method for learning Japanese, the "listen and repeat" stuff. It's used by the pentagon for training and if you have the time to devote to it, can teach a language extremely quickly. The Japanese lessons I have are 3 levels with each level having 30 lessons which are each 30 minutes long. Ideally you listen to one a day and 90 days later, you're pretty well versed in said language. Now, I don't exactly have the time for that every day, plus I go for repeated listenings to make sure I have it down really well, so it is taking me significantly longer. I have actually taken to listening to them in my car while I drive, give each lesson about a weeks worth of driving listening or so and then move on to the next lesson. Obviously this will take me significantly longer, but at the same time it is being done during a time when I would normally be doing nothing but driving. The problem is, I'm starting to pick up sentence structure and I'm starting to be able to figure out other words in sentences while I read the subtitles of whatever anime I am watching. Part of me finds this awesome, that I have been able to alter my way of thinking to process Japanese, but another part of me, the part of me that fell in love with Japanese music is horrified by this. I do not plan to stop learning Japanese. It is something I have really wanted to do for some time now and I will not go back on that, but it is coming at a price. I will never be able to lose myself in the voice as an instrument like I used to be able to do. I suspect Japanese Rock and Pop will still keep my primary interest for taste in music because it really does appeal to me on that level better than other genres have, but in the end I'll slowly be cutting away at the ability to experience a song for a song like I used too.
Innocence lost is knowledge gained.
In a previous post (http://nerdsandpoliticsandnerds.blogspot.com/2011/12/j-pop-america-fun-time-now.html) I mentioned my love for Japanese Rock and Pop music. It spawned from simply listening to the opening and ending songs of shows airing on cartoon network and when I sought out full length versions of said songs, it all just kind of snowballed into looking more and more into the bands who gave their music to the anime I watch and enjoy. From this I found my favorite, High and Mighty Color as well as Maximum the Hormone, Hyde, L'Arc en Ciel, Asian Kung Fu Generation, Access, Yui and Tommy Heavenly. As American Rock began to interest me less and I began shifting to Japanese Rock/Pop I did some thinking about why my preferences were shifting, certainly it had a bit to do with my tendency towards following my own path, particularly if it is the path less traveled but there was still something there that spoke to me. In fact, it took me years to quantify what it was about music with lyrics in a language I didn't understand that made me love it so much, certainly I'd had to explain it to others I met and I usually came up with reasons based around the more frequent techno/rock mixes and more prominent use of female vocals in rock music and while all that was true, it wasn't the real reason. The real reason was that for the first time in my life I was truly listening to the voice solely as an instrument. When you're listening to music in a language you understand, yes you can listen to the voice as an instrument, but ultimately the meaning of the words directs your mind away from fully absorbing the effects of the voice. When you remove that aspect of the song, it enhances the voice as an instrument 10fold. I suppose it also helps that the Japanese spoken language is very straightforward and uniform with the sounds involved. English is awful for how many different pronunciations a letter can have and that can be changed by the letters around it or sound exactly the same as other letters. Off the top of my head I can only think of one confusing sound in Japanese, at least for me, and that is "su" and "tsu."
Why do I bring all this up? Well, recently I've been using Pimsleur's method for learning Japanese, the "listen and repeat" stuff. It's used by the pentagon for training and if you have the time to devote to it, can teach a language extremely quickly. The Japanese lessons I have are 3 levels with each level having 30 lessons which are each 30 minutes long. Ideally you listen to one a day and 90 days later, you're pretty well versed in said language. Now, I don't exactly have the time for that every day, plus I go for repeated listenings to make sure I have it down really well, so it is taking me significantly longer. I have actually taken to listening to them in my car while I drive, give each lesson about a weeks worth of driving listening or so and then move on to the next lesson. Obviously this will take me significantly longer, but at the same time it is being done during a time when I would normally be doing nothing but driving. The problem is, I'm starting to pick up sentence structure and I'm starting to be able to figure out other words in sentences while I read the subtitles of whatever anime I am watching. Part of me finds this awesome, that I have been able to alter my way of thinking to process Japanese, but another part of me, the part of me that fell in love with Japanese music is horrified by this. I do not plan to stop learning Japanese. It is something I have really wanted to do for some time now and I will not go back on that, but it is coming at a price. I will never be able to lose myself in the voice as an instrument like I used to be able to do. I suspect Japanese Rock and Pop will still keep my primary interest for taste in music because it really does appeal to me on that level better than other genres have, but in the end I'll slowly be cutting away at the ability to experience a song for a song like I used too.
Innocence lost is knowledge gained.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Mitt Romney
Out of all the candidates in the republican race, well, minus Huntsman, the only one I don't outright fear being president is Willard "Mitt" Romney. Santorum, Gingrich, Perry, Paul and Bachmann scared the living hell out of me with the prospect of what they would do to the country. Huntsman, well, he was pretty smart and pretty tame, his flat tax is a horrible idea, but that's not likely to be implemented. However, Mitt Romney doesn't really scare me that much. Watching Romney over the last 5 years or so as well as clips of him from when he was the Governor of Massachusetts it is pretty clear that he is not conservative, he is not moderate, he is a reflection of opinion polls. So in the end, he is not going to lay waste to the government, partly because of the separation of powers but mostly because the country is not the 5% of conservatives who shout over the rest of the country. People are a hodgepodge of political stances, some conservative, some liberal. People are the middle. In the end, nothing drastic will ever come out of Mitt Romney's administration. He will have no leadership, he will just be there, watching the polls, trying to stay afloat.
Friday, January 6, 2012
Nerdy Nostalgia Bomb
I went home to visit my parents today as well as do the usual things like fix whatever computer problem they have, move furniture, play with my dog Coda. While there my Dad started talking about going through old bins of all the stuff we had gathered as kids. Most of it was mine and my sisters but a few things belonged to my parents. I suspect everyone goes through something like this every now and then. It is great fun to reminisce about the fun times you had as a kid, but for a nerd like myself, this can be like a treasure trove of nerdgasms. I only had time to go through about 3 or 4 bins of stuff, there was almost an entire roomful. Here is what I brought back with me.
Sega Gensis and assorted cables with 1 controller (haven't tested yet)
Sega games:
X-Men
NHL 95
NBA Live 96
Sonic the Hedgehog 3
Mortal Kombat 2
Clue
NFL Quarterback Club
Nintendo 64 and assorted cables with 1 controller
Guild Wars Factions poster of awesome female assassin and ritualist
Guild Wars Nightfall poster of awesome female Dervish and male Paragon
an old hard drive, still haven't dove into it
about 15 spare power/audio/video cables and converters, one can never have too many
Gameboy color
2 tetris cartridges for game boy
I can't wait to go through the rest. My mom said she saw my old regular Nintendo down there somewhere.
Sega Gensis and assorted cables with 1 controller (haven't tested yet)
Sega games:
X-Men
NHL 95
NBA Live 96
Sonic the Hedgehog 3
Mortal Kombat 2
Clue
NFL Quarterback Club
Nintendo 64 and assorted cables with 1 controller
Guild Wars Factions poster of awesome female assassin and ritualist
Guild Wars Nightfall poster of awesome female Dervish and male Paragon
an old hard drive, still haven't dove into it
about 15 spare power/audio/video cables and converters, one can never have too many
Gameboy color
2 tetris cartridges for game boy
I can't wait to go through the rest. My mom said she saw my old regular Nintendo down there somewhere.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Rick Santorum
I've heard quite a few things about Santorum over the last week or so, as he surged up in the polls. There is all the usual jokes about his name meaning "The frothy mixture of lubricant and fecal matter that is sometimes the product of anal sex," but I began hearing something else, that Rick Santorum is a liberal. Now, I rather despise the liberal word being tarnished the way it has over the last 20 years by people who clearly have no idea what the word actually means and that something like 70% of the country fits the real definition of the word. I've generally taken it in stride, it is mostly propagated by conservative hate spewers who aren't worth the time. However, to imply that Santorum is anything close to being liberal is a bald face slap to liberals everywhere and frankly doing an injustice to many conservatives who support him. The man favors a sort of Judeo/Christian form of the Islamic Sharia law in which the government has the power to control what is going on in your house. Are you gay? Well according to him, it's fine to be gay, but he has a big problem with homosexual acts. The intellectual gymnastics that has to happen to form that thought amazes me and really shows the length some people will go to to justify their bigoted beliefs. He has also said that the second he hits office he would sign an executive order to nullify all gay marriages currently in existence. Last time I checked, the President doesn't have the right to do that.
As of Wednesday morning, the website http://spreadingsantorum.com/ ceased being the first google result when googling "Rick Santorum." This is a shame, if you are reading this, please post "Rick Santorum" and "http://spreadingsantorum.com/" in as many places as you can as that helps boost the results. The more people that realize how horrible of a person he is, the quicker we can get Santorum to pull out the quicker we can clean up and jump back in....to politics....I'm talking about politics, not sex, I swear.
Remember: Rick Santorum http://spreadingsantorum.com/
As of Wednesday morning, the website http://spreadingsantorum.com/ ceased being the first google result when googling "Rick Santorum." This is a shame, if you are reading this, please post "Rick Santorum" and "http://spreadingsantorum.com/" in as many places as you can as that helps boost the results. The more people that realize how horrible of a person he is, the quicker we can get Santorum to pull out the quicker we can clean up and jump back in....to politics....I'm talking about politics, not sex, I swear.
Remember: Rick Santorum http://spreadingsantorum.com/
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Iowa 2012 Caucus Results 2.0
The caucus turned out mostly how I thought it would. Romney beating Santorum by a mere 8 votes out of 120,000 or so cast. Paul was in 3rd, Gingrich managed to eek out 4th, to my surprise, as I thought a combination of Perry's ad blitz and 45% of ads in Iowa being negative attacks on Gingrich would flip that order. Bachmann finally received her official "get out of my house" notice, they were actually counting Huntsman's and Cain actually received a few votes from people who are worse at reading denials of a candidate than Bachmann herself.
Thats:
1.) Romney
2.) Santorum
3.) Paul
4.) Gingrich
5.) Perry
6.) Bachmann
Compared to my prediction
1.) Santorum
2.) Romney
3.) Paul
4.) Perry
5.) Gingrich
6.) Bachmann
I don't think I did too bad, considering how close Romney and Santorum were. There is definitely more going on in this though as it is not votes that count but delegates. If they had been broken up by percentages, it would have been Romney-6, Santorum-6, Paul-5, Gingrich-3, Perry-3, Bachmann-2 but as I understand it the breakup was Romney-7, Santorum-7, Paul-7, Gingrich-2, Perry-2, Bachman-0. Who knows how they broke this up, I haven't been able to find it, but in the end this greatly benefits Ron Paul.
Now for the breakdown on the night, who gained what, who lost what.
Romney
The only way that Romney could have "won" going out of Iowa was if he had some overwhelming percentage, something north of 35% or 40% at the very least. If he had come in second, it would have symbolized a mistrust from the party, if he had come in 3rd or lower it would have been catastrophic. The "first" place finish he had last night, with those whopping 8 votes, that is .00006% of the entire votes cast, does get him the press of a 1st place win, but for anyone looking beyond that headline, he is teetering on the edge.
Santorum
The Dick Santorum fever coming out of tomorrow is fascinatingly interesting to me. Of all of the candidates, he probably comes out looking the best. He has been in the race for a very very long time and never really spent much time out of the single digits. While all the other candidates had their moment in the sun and were then beat down using whatever skeletons they have in their closet, or in the case of Michelle Bachmann, being crazy-stupid, the surging "MUST NOT VOTE MITT" crowd could never settle on one conservative. By conservative, I mean social conservative, like the ones that elected Bush Jr. As of yesterday, that vote was comprised of Santorum himself, Bachmann, Perry and the remainder of Gingrich's support. As of today, Perry hinted at a possible drop out but then decided to head to South Carolina, Bachmann herself dropped out and Gingrich is looking worse and worse for wear. I'm starting to see a quickly forming pattern here and that is a conservative movement that coalesces around Dick Santorum. Bachmann is gone, Perry is on his last legs and not even his money can save him and Gingrich will probably stay in the race longer than he should, but he will continue to drop. All of those votes have to go somewhere and right now there are 4 possible candidates, well, make that 3 since as much as I like Huntsman, the GOP doesn't so no votes will go to him. Hardly any of the votes will go to Ron Paul because the GOP fear his nomination and Romney will get very few as well because he is seen as a RINO (Republican in Name Only). That means, going roughly on national polls, that Santorum would be closing in on 50% of the vote. Essentially, that is how I see this race continuing. There is no one else left for the conservative tick so they will be left with the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the product of anal sex, Dick Santorum, to face down Romney.
Ron Paul
Ron Paul has fantastic organization in Iowa. Organization that he doesn't have anywhere else. Plus he has the benefit of Iowans being able to register day-of the caucus meaning independents can caucus for him. This was evidenced by roughly 45% of the overall Paul vote being independents. That means, if it had only been republicans, he would have had something like Newt Gingrich's turnout.
Ron Paul is going to go on to other states, and probably get in the high teens to low twenties in most places, he doesn't have the organization around the country that others do, nor does every state allow independents in. Finally, and I think this is probably the most damaging part, there are just too many people in the GOP establishment that refuse to accept him as a serious candidate and he therefore has a ceiling he can't break through.
Gingrich
Newt has been categorized as being on his last legs before, frankly its amazing he made it long enough to get the boost he did. His boost came from a combination of rather good debate showings, his strength, and Herman Cain dropping out of the race. He also had the largest flash in the pan boost of any of the other rotating potential nominees. He also has a habit of really pissing people the hell off. I once saw him described, rhetorically speaking, as willing to throw a grenade under the table and hope that it hurts the other person more than it hurts him. After "50" years in politics, as he likes to say, that makes enemies, a lot of enemies. It also makes for a smorgasbord of negative ad material and he saw that hit him, hard. He dropped from mid 30s to a caucus showing of 13%. This is probably the true death knell for his campaign because I see no way for him to recover now that the voting has begun.
Perry
Last night Rick Perry left the stage saying he would return to Texas to reconsider potential paths to the nomination. I can't fathom what helped him make his decision because frankly, the gaffs he has had so far should have wiped him out ages ago, but he just has way too much money behind him. This morning he said he is taking his campaign to South Carolina. I see South Carolina as a showdown between him and Santorum and will be fantastic to watch, though, barring gaffs himself, I think Santorum will probably win and drive Perry home, finally.
Bachmann
Last night Michelle Bachmann finally saw the writing on the wall that the rest of the country has seen for months now. She went into the weekend crazy-eyed confident about how she would come out in first. She came out in an effective last with 5%, if you take into account that Huntsman wasn't even trying in Iowa. Now she can go back to her Minnesota district where she prays away the gay to keep her husband straight and try to win re-election to the congress. That is, re-election to the seat in congress in a district that is heavily favoring republicans already, and have a difficult time of it too I might add.
Final Power Rankings:
1) Santorum
2) Paul
3) Romney
....
....
99998.) Perry
99999.) Gingrich
Thats:
1.) Romney
2.) Santorum
3.) Paul
4.) Gingrich
5.) Perry
6.) Bachmann
Compared to my prediction
1.) Santorum
2.) Romney
3.) Paul
4.) Perry
5.) Gingrich
6.) Bachmann
I don't think I did too bad, considering how close Romney and Santorum were. There is definitely more going on in this though as it is not votes that count but delegates. If they had been broken up by percentages, it would have been Romney-6, Santorum-6, Paul-5, Gingrich-3, Perry-3, Bachmann-2 but as I understand it the breakup was Romney-7, Santorum-7, Paul-7, Gingrich-2, Perry-2, Bachman-0. Who knows how they broke this up, I haven't been able to find it, but in the end this greatly benefits Ron Paul.
Now for the breakdown on the night, who gained what, who lost what.
Romney
The only way that Romney could have "won" going out of Iowa was if he had some overwhelming percentage, something north of 35% or 40% at the very least. If he had come in second, it would have symbolized a mistrust from the party, if he had come in 3rd or lower it would have been catastrophic. The "first" place finish he had last night, with those whopping 8 votes, that is .00006% of the entire votes cast, does get him the press of a 1st place win, but for anyone looking beyond that headline, he is teetering on the edge.
Santorum
The Dick Santorum fever coming out of tomorrow is fascinatingly interesting to me. Of all of the candidates, he probably comes out looking the best. He has been in the race for a very very long time and never really spent much time out of the single digits. While all the other candidates had their moment in the sun and were then beat down using whatever skeletons they have in their closet, or in the case of Michelle Bachmann, being crazy-stupid, the surging "MUST NOT VOTE MITT" crowd could never settle on one conservative. By conservative, I mean social conservative, like the ones that elected Bush Jr. As of yesterday, that vote was comprised of Santorum himself, Bachmann, Perry and the remainder of Gingrich's support. As of today, Perry hinted at a possible drop out but then decided to head to South Carolina, Bachmann herself dropped out and Gingrich is looking worse and worse for wear. I'm starting to see a quickly forming pattern here and that is a conservative movement that coalesces around Dick Santorum. Bachmann is gone, Perry is on his last legs and not even his money can save him and Gingrich will probably stay in the race longer than he should, but he will continue to drop. All of those votes have to go somewhere and right now there are 4 possible candidates, well, make that 3 since as much as I like Huntsman, the GOP doesn't so no votes will go to him. Hardly any of the votes will go to Ron Paul because the GOP fear his nomination and Romney will get very few as well because he is seen as a RINO (Republican in Name Only). That means, going roughly on national polls, that Santorum would be closing in on 50% of the vote. Essentially, that is how I see this race continuing. There is no one else left for the conservative tick so they will be left with the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the product of anal sex, Dick Santorum, to face down Romney.
Ron Paul
Ron Paul has fantastic organization in Iowa. Organization that he doesn't have anywhere else. Plus he has the benefit of Iowans being able to register day-of the caucus meaning independents can caucus for him. This was evidenced by roughly 45% of the overall Paul vote being independents. That means, if it had only been republicans, he would have had something like Newt Gingrich's turnout.
Ron Paul is going to go on to other states, and probably get in the high teens to low twenties in most places, he doesn't have the organization around the country that others do, nor does every state allow independents in. Finally, and I think this is probably the most damaging part, there are just too many people in the GOP establishment that refuse to accept him as a serious candidate and he therefore has a ceiling he can't break through.
Gingrich
Newt has been categorized as being on his last legs before, frankly its amazing he made it long enough to get the boost he did. His boost came from a combination of rather good debate showings, his strength, and Herman Cain dropping out of the race. He also had the largest flash in the pan boost of any of the other rotating potential nominees. He also has a habit of really pissing people the hell off. I once saw him described, rhetorically speaking, as willing to throw a grenade under the table and hope that it hurts the other person more than it hurts him. After "50" years in politics, as he likes to say, that makes enemies, a lot of enemies. It also makes for a smorgasbord of negative ad material and he saw that hit him, hard. He dropped from mid 30s to a caucus showing of 13%. This is probably the true death knell for his campaign because I see no way for him to recover now that the voting has begun.
Perry
Last night Rick Perry left the stage saying he would return to Texas to reconsider potential paths to the nomination. I can't fathom what helped him make his decision because frankly, the gaffs he has had so far should have wiped him out ages ago, but he just has way too much money behind him. This morning he said he is taking his campaign to South Carolina. I see South Carolina as a showdown between him and Santorum and will be fantastic to watch, though, barring gaffs himself, I think Santorum will probably win and drive Perry home, finally.
Bachmann
Last night Michelle Bachmann finally saw the writing on the wall that the rest of the country has seen for months now. She went into the weekend crazy-eyed confident about how she would come out in first. She came out in an effective last with 5%, if you take into account that Huntsman wasn't even trying in Iowa. Now she can go back to her Minnesota district where she prays away the gay to keep her husband straight and try to win re-election to the congress. That is, re-election to the seat in congress in a district that is heavily favoring republicans already, and have a difficult time of it too I might add.
Final Power Rankings:
1) Santorum
2) Paul
3) Romney
....
....
99998.) Perry
99999.) Gingrich
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Iowa 2012 Caucus Results
Well it's finally here, Iowa's republican Caucus. Months ago I foresaw the top 3, Ron Paul, Romney and Santorum. I wasn't quite sure how it would work out in those three, but I knew they would be the front runners. This last weekend the Des Moines Register released it's historically most accurate poll when determining who would make out with top billing at the caucuses. The poll took place over four days and the end result was Romney in first at 24%, Paul with 22% and Santorum with 15%. These numbers are important, obviously, but not as important as the inner mechanics going on within the guts of the poll. A closer look at the day to day trends reveals some surprising changes, even for myself. The poll has Romney roughly staying the same, Santorum jumping up into the low 20s, which is probably the part that surprises other people, but the part that surprises me, a lot, is that Paul's support has fallen so steeply. In order to average out to that 22%, with the last two days coming in at 16%, that means Ron Paul was at roughly 28% those first two days. That is a 12 point drop over a 4 day period which I see as a combination of factors. The more minor parts are probably the foreign policy theory he has taken and a maybe a bit of the insidiously named "Family Research Council" endorsement of Santorum. Incidentally, that with the fact all other candidates have surged and shamed already, is the reason for Santorum's own surge. Anyway, the biggest factor in the Ron Paul plummet is probably the rather racist past that has come to light. Most people looking to Paul for hope saw his policies, for the most part, as "justice" and "fair" overall, and seeing such things come to light has rocked their view of the candidate.
There is another important statistic as well, when asked how likely people were to go caucus for their candidate, Santorum supporters rang out at something in the high 70s, while Romney and Paul were in the mid-high 50s. This also surprised me about Ron Paul, as his supporters are rabidly vocal and I can only guess also has something to do with the recent newsletter scandal.
Tonight, I'm going to go out on a limb and say the lineup will be:
1.) Dick Santorum (see google definition of Santorum)
2.) Willard Romney
3.) Ron Paul
4.) Rick Perry
5.) Newt Gingrich
6.) Michelle Bachmann
I'm still not 100% confident in that, maybe about 75%, but if I had to bet on it, that's my bet, based on a lifetime growing up in rural western Iowa in the midst of the conservative of conservative Republicans.
There is another important statistic as well, when asked how likely people were to go caucus for their candidate, Santorum supporters rang out at something in the high 70s, while Romney and Paul were in the mid-high 50s. This also surprised me about Ron Paul, as his supporters are rabidly vocal and I can only guess also has something to do with the recent newsletter scandal.
Tonight, I'm going to go out on a limb and say the lineup will be:
1.) Dick Santorum (see google definition of Santorum)
2.) Willard Romney
3.) Ron Paul
4.) Rick Perry
5.) Newt Gingrich
6.) Michelle Bachmann
I'm still not 100% confident in that, maybe about 75%, but if I had to bet on it, that's my bet, based on a lifetime growing up in rural western Iowa in the midst of the conservative of conservative Republicans.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
National Defense Authorization Act
There has been a lot of hubbub raised recently over the National Defense Authorization Act, and rightly so, it carried with it a potentially scary loophole that would allow the government to declare people terrorists and hold them indefinitely, even if they are U.S. citizens. The dastardly part of it is that this amendment that allowed this loophole was part of an overall bill that needs to be passed to fund the military. This Act passed with hugely non-partisan majorities, something like 91 senators. This left Obama in a really difficult position, he could veto the act and torpedo his chance of re-election because he opens the door for openly hating the troops since they would be the ones most hurt by lack of funds, or he could sign it with a signing statement, like he did, that declares it inapplicable to U.S. citizens and address the specific point later.
Frankly, I think Obama made the best decision given to him. I only hope it is addressed in the future.
Frankly, I think Obama made the best decision given to him. I only hope it is addressed in the future.
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