"Back in my day..."

This evening, I let my emotions get the best of me when listening to the president's remarks regarding the coverage of illegal immigrants in the health care bill. While I disagree with the president's statement, my comments were inappropriate and regrettable. I extend sincere apologies to the president for this lack of civility.

-From South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson's apology for yelling "You lie!" during the President's speech to Congress

Have we gotten to the point where one of the two major parties seems to campaign and run using falsehoods? I would say that it started with the Swift Boat campaign against John Kerry, but I realize that one could look at the justification for the invasion of Iraq as maybe the first salvo. Either way, we are now faced with people at these town hall meetings yelling complete falsehoods. Where, for example, did this idea of Death Panels come from? More importantly, though, how are members Congress bringing up the idea of Death Panels as if there is any basis in fact for them?

What bothers me so much about the above quote from Rep. Wilson is this one line. I want to repeat it and give it emphasis again:

I disagree with the president's statement

So Rep. Wilson is still calling the President a liar? I can really not get any other meaning out of this quote from his statement. Is there any other possible meaning?

A few interesting stories:

• This American Life had a recent article entitled "The Audacity of Government", which looks at the Bush administration's ongoing quest to further empower the Executive branch of the U.S. government.
  
• Virtually without being noticed, the Cost Nearly Doubles For Marine One Fleet. 26 helicopters, originally slated for $6.1 billion, have seen their budget inflate to $11.2 billion, with production currently halted while the government figures out what is going on.
  
• The Pentagon Releases Memo on Harsh Tactics, where "hard tactics" were, for intents and purposes, torture. The memo notes "that customary international law is not federal law and that the president is free to override it at his discretion."
  
• Rules to Be Waived for Border Fence. The Federal Government is ignoring EPA laws while building its anti-immigration fence along the Mexican border.
  
• Former US secretaries of state recommend closing Guantanamo Bay prison.

The US government is doing all of this on behalf of you, gentle reader. While you might think "the Republicans are doing this", remember that the outside world makes no such distinction. The outside world sees a budding dictator grabbing power, while pushing other countries around. The US is not beyond holding "prisoners" from other countries indefinitely, without trial, and while torturing them.

You, fair reader, are a US citizen. These things are being done on your behalf, in your name.

And $11.2 billion for some helicopters? That is simply insane.

This entry is mainly for the readers who do not follow politics as much as they might like.

I would like you introduce you to U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio).

Why am I introducing you to him? Because you have never heard of him.

More specifically, though, because his ideology might just be a lot closer to your own than any of the Democrat frontrunners.

His views on major issues. Take a look at that list.

I do not agree with all of his platform, but I know it is probably closer to what the majority of my readership would want than any other candidate.

I will leave as an exercise for the readers what this says about the Democratic Party, the media, and for the primary system we currently have in place.

Check him out.

Vice-President Cheney, talking about how Democrats should not exert their Constitutional powers:

“The terrorists don’t expect to beat us in a stand-up fight. They never have. They’re not likely to try. The only way they can win is if we lose our nerve and abandon our mission.” New York Times article, (registration required).

So, should I ask how we can win? Because I am not really seeing a way. I am not even sure what "winning" in Iraq would look like.

Also in the article:

And when those lawmakers seek to impose time limits on the American presence in Iraq, Mr. Cheney added, “they’re telling the enemy simply to watch the clock and wait us out.”

That is what "the enemy" is doing now! That is all they have to do!

Really, I kept meaning to write up an end-of-2006 wrap-up, and I just never got around to it.

So much changed during this past December-January, and so much of it stayed the same.

I am still alive and well in the Virgin Islands. I still work the same job I had in November.

A few things to remind people what I am normally like in this journal:

* First, and most importantly, Barack Obama. I say "most importantly" in regards to this person in a very dissimilar way to most people who are throwing his name around. I have major issues with Sen. Obama. The word "issues" is probably the most important word in that last sentence. For the life of me, I cannot find out where the Senator stands on almost any issue! Alright, so I know he is against the war in Iraq, and that is all nice and good. And he has always been opposed to the war in Iraq. That is very commendable of him. Where is he on almost any other issue?

Check out The Democratic Party's webpage, for example. There is a nice "Agenda" link with major issues, and their stances on them. Now go to Sen. Clinton's Senate webpage. Again, an "On the Issues" link that takes you to a page listing the Senator's views on a wide variety of issues.

Try the same on Sen. Obama's Presidential Exploratory Committee webpage. Or on his Senate webpage.

I find it extremely scary that this many people are willing to get behind a politician who seems to be going out of his way to hide his stance on a great number of topics. Suppose you learned that he voted against increasing funding for Amtrak, despite talking about how we need to reduce our reliance on foreign oil. Or that he voted in favor of continuing the USA PATRIOT Act? I mean, you all are the same people that were up in arms after watching "Fahrenheit 9/11", correct?

I am fine with people voting their beliefs, I just want people to do some research and make sure that Sen. Obama's stances, whatever they might be, match those of the people in his grassroots campaign.

* Next, we come to my future. I had set a "end of January" deadline for figuring out what I was going to be doing post-VI. Due to some things that were in the process of changing at the end of January, I was unable to meet that deadline, and therefore gave myself a two week extension to figure it all out. I am very close to a final decision, and I will let everyone know what it is when everything gets finalized. To give you a sneak-peek, it looks like I will be returning stateside, probably on 1 May 2007.

On a related note, my roommate might be staying on island after I leave. If you are interested in spending a few months in an apartment on St. Thomas, definitely get in touch with me.

* It looks at least probable that I will return to working at a Fruit Stand sometime this year. Location is definitely not set (see above), but we will see.

* Other things are going on in my life, and I might write a more private entry on those events. Things have been a bit rocky recently, but they seem to be working out well for now.

* I was pleased to see that Adium v1.0 was released yesterday. I installed it a few minutes ago, and while some of the new user interface is taking some getting used to, I am pleased with some of the advances. Being able to sort chat logs based on aliases is worth the upgrade alone. Yet another example of an outstanding GPL program.

* In other tech news, my eyeTV 200 recently blew itself up. I am in the process of mailing it off to el gato, and it looks like I will be getting an eyeTV 250 in exchange. I am really looking forward to getting a working one, since I recently found some software to help with the eyeTV software that looks really exciting. I anticipate playing around and hacking with that software. The software looks a little old, but I am really hoping I can get it working with the newer versions of eyeTV.

* It looks like I will be in the Atlanta area for my spring break (the first week of March) and would like to see people. Details forthcoming (as in "after I buy the plane ticket").

Hopefully I will get a couple more updates posted in the next couple of days, but I did want to get everyone caught up with what is going on.

I have taken issue with people's (misguided, in my opinion) that the Democrats are the saviors of an acceptable way of life in the U.S. I have even started to wander if further Republican control might be a better thing, if for no other reason that the fact that this might cause the Democrats to actually grow a backbone (and an actual platform) to take advantage of the backlash. But I know a lot of my readers believe otherwise. Because of this I know that a lot of you are possibly freaking out about the news surrounding Sen. Johnson (D-SD), who recently had surgery for a stroke-like condition.

An interesting read, showing that most news reports are, in fact, completely incorrect in regards to both the U.S. Constitution and the Constitution of South Dakota.

Want some more proof? From a Congressional Research Service documentdescribing how congressional vacancies are filled:

Vacancies in Congress occur due to the death, resignation, or declination (refusal
to serve) of a Senator or Representative, or as the result of expulsion or exclusion by
either house.

And the 17th. Amendment to the U.S. Constitution:

When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.

Compare against the 25th. Amendment, which talks about what happens when the President is "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office".

Bush, complaining that Democrats are saying that a recently released intelligence document says the war in Iraq has made us less secure by encouraging terrorism:

"This argument buys into the enemy's propaganda that the terrorists attack us because we are provoking them."

I am not even sure what that could possibly mean.

I opened up this window to write a long rant about how four years ago people like myself were talking about the likely results of an invasion of Iraq, and how all of these are coming to happen now (possible civil war in Iraq, Iran now going forward with a nuclear weapons program...).

Sort of "I told you so" rant.

Forget it. I give up.

So I woke up this morning to NPR and listened to President Bush's press conference in anticipation of the Iraqi elections coming up at the end of this week.

I will not go into the entire conference, but a few points bothered me enough to keep me from drifting back to sleep as the snow fell outside my window.

1) Apparently only a few people are seeing the hypocrisy of our foreign policy under Bush. We will spread freedom and democracy around the world, and will fight for people's ability to speak out against what they see as wrong. Of course we will go to war against those people who's do not believe in our views on freedom and democracy. I do not understand this at all. We can force other countries to do what we want, and become what we think is best for them, and they have little say in this? How democratic is that?

2) Bush said that the liberation of Iraq made the world a better place for the next generations. Of course he glances over the cost of his little liberation and his other poor economic choices. When he hands over the country to the future generations they will be free from attacks from Saddam Hussein, but they will be saddled with outrageous debt. How is this better for them?

3) Bush at one point made some mention of personal accounts (in reference to "saving" Social Security). He said something about the fact that people should be able to set these up "because it is their money." Wait, I thought this was the start of the "Ownership Society"? I am fully convinced that Social Security will not be able to provide for me when I retire, assuming I ever even retire. I have set up a retirement account. I have set up a 401(k). Even now, when I am strapped for cash, I am putting money away each paycheck for my retirement. Now good old George Bush is going to take more money from my paycheck under the excuse "it is your money" and tell me what to do with it? How does that make any sense at all?

So the recent political uproar is whether Ralph Nader should run for President again. The only people who see this as a decision to be made are Democrats. Hopefully everyone reading this can see the reason Democrats would not want Nader to run again - they say he steals votes away from whichever Democrat is running.

Makes sense. Nader tends to appeal to a left-wing audience more than a right-wing one. As a result, people who vote for him would probably be more likely to vote for a Democrat than a Republican (provided Nader was not running and they still bothered to vote).

Nader says that "Gore beat Gore", which also makes sense. Gore lost his home state of Tennessee, and even with all of Nader's votes in that state, I still think he would have lost. Blaming Nader alone for Gore's loss is very short-sighted.

As a registered third-party voter, I bring up another theory that does not get much discussion. I vote third-party in the Presidential elections. A lot of times I get blamed for "throwing away my vote". Perhaps I have different logic than other people, but I think my vote says more than someone voting Republican or Democrat.

Maybe if Gore did not want to allow Nader to steal votes from him, he should have gone out and tried to win over the Nader supporters. Gore should have looked at some of Nader's platform and adopted some of it for himself.

The difference between Gore and Bush in Florida was also smaller than the number of people that voted Libertarian in that state. Had Gore tried to court some more of those voters, maybe he could have won that state and, therefore, the election as a whole.

Democrats talk about how Nader "stole votes" from Gore. I look at it the other way - Gore did nothing to keep those votes. Gore "gave them away", or at least stood by while Nader took them. In that situation, Gore (and Democrats) really have no ability to complain after the fact.

Gore tried running his campaign right down the middle of American. As a result, he strayed too far for some of the more extreme liberals, and they looked for an alternative. Bush also ran down the middle, and obviously did a better job of it, and continued to take the more conservative Republicans along with him. As a result, he won.

No, Gore has no one to blame for his loss but himself and his campaign advisors.

As for this November, I think Nader should run again, to keep whichever Democrat ends up running honest to his liberal stronghold.