Defiantone.com

Part of the elections process is pandering to the extreme ends of your particular political party while trying to gain as many votes from the undecided or the other parties. Part of the process is giving your party a platform that will excite the faithful. They’ll bring out their new platform in a series of speeches at their respective convention. These speeches should highlight the new platform and not the old…. or do they?

Palin for VP as a white woman. Obama for President as a black man. One of these two will find themselves in one of the highest (or highest) positions in the planet. I’m proud to see that my country has finally found a little diversity in our politics because we’ve had it in our country for quite some time. Some of this, particularly the pick of a woman as a VP candidate, could be construed as an entirely political choice in order to pick up the remaining Clinton vote. The talking heads are going to have fun with this one - this race got incredibly interesting. Time to do some Googling and find more about the Governor from Alaska.

Its eight o’clock and I want to watch TV. The Olympics, along with some obscure and nearly unwatchable sports, are gone and back is the regular television schedule. Unfortunately, on the second night on Olympics free television I’ve found that everything that I want to watch has been preempted by the Democratic National Convention. Hillary is jabbering at the moment about blue collared Americans - she hasn’t really mentioned wall street employees and members of the financial sector - how odd for a Democrat to make such a major gaffe. Uh oh… here comes the let’s think about the children line. What a trite and tired line - I love politics but come on. This is why I love the internet. I can get a full transcript of this speech in a couple of hours when I’ll have the time to properly dissect it. Most of us are only watching this because there is nothing else on at the moment - we really don’t care. In fact, the overwhelming majority of us are already decided and only a minority can be considered swing voters. As a swing voter I think they’re making a mistake. They really don’t want to piss off a potential voter by preempting my regular television schedule. It’s time to pack it up DNC - go to bed - I’ve got some TV to watch.

Ok, I haven’t had any great links to share until today and I found a few that somebody might enjoy

Glen Beck doesn’t believe that Florida and Michigan should get a do-over primary because they broke the rules. Instead of giving reasons why the primaries should be held they are only providing excuses - and he believes that the democratic parties in those states are taking that example from the government.

These stories prove how personal responsibility has all but vanished in America, and our government is leading the way.

A 100 year old man celebrates his birthday at a local Hooters. This man knows how to party

The Typo Eradication Advancement League (TEAL) is tired of seeing typos. To combat the problem they are venturing across the country in a bid to eradicate them. Check out NPR’s story and the website itself. I’m guilty - thank god for spell check.

A British Chap fended off an attack by over 150 Taliban fighters and was later awarded for his gallantry. During the battle he was hit - all he had to say was

It was just a flesh wound really

Do you think that he watches Monty Python? Read the rest at the TimesOnline

National Geographic has some amazing pictures - this gallery has island aerials. I REALLY want to go to Bora Bora - looks amazing.

This building will create an energy surplus when created AND… its not a power plant.

First off, I am an undecided voter who is unsure as to what party or candidate that he will be voting for in the general election in November. I am worried about our country as a whole and I am particularly worried about our the education of Americans and our job market. I’ve been reading economic books as a hobby for a while - I am no expert by any means but I’ve got a firm grasp of the principles. Barrack Obama gave a speech today at a General Motors factory and talked about jobs and education. Needless to say, I was intrigued by what he said because I consider him a front runner. So, I checked out his website and found the following excerpts.

Trade that Works for Workers – Obama will end tax breaks for companies who ship jobs overseas and give breaks to companies who create good jobs with decent wages here in America.

Millions of New Green Jobs — Obama’s energy plan will invest $150 billion over ten years to establish a green energy sector that will create millions of new jobs over the next two decades – jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced. He will also provide funding to help manufacturers convert to green technology and help workers learn the skills they need for these jobs.

Ok, Mr. Obama is planning on stopping tax breaks to companies that outsource employees from other nations. In the classical view of economics if you are unable to compete in a market and another company or location can do it better you should let them. Prime examples of countries that do much of the work we used to do in house are China and India. We have moved a large number of technical and non-technical jobs to these companies because they can often do our work for pennies on the dollar. When a company moves jobs out of the country we need to react accordingly to create new jobs left in the vacuum. Occasionally, we must move vertically instead of horizontally in our job choice. Instead of moving to the same job we had before we might need to increase our skill set or education level. Obama plans to help people move vertically with training required to create and obtain “green” jobs. What I don’t understand is why he is planning on penalizing companies that outsource jobs - other markets that can do the job better should do the job. It is in the best interest of the consumer if a product is produced by the cheapest and most efficient manufacturer at all levels. Yes, the unskilled labor will face a crunch at the on set of such a change but if he moves vertically he will be able to get a product at a cheaper price than when he was making it.

Below is an excerpt from a speech he gave today -

I believe that we can create millions of those jobs around a clean, renewable energy future. A few hours northeast of here is the city of Manitowoc [MAN-a-ta-WOC]. For over a century, it was the home of Mirro manufacturing – a company that provided thousands of jobs and plenty of business. In 2003, Mirro closed its doors for good after losing thousands of jobs to Mexico.

But in the last few years, something extraordinary has happened. Thanks to the leadership of Governor Doyle and Mayor Kevin Crawford, Manitowoc has re-trained its workers and attracted new businesses and new jobs. Orion Energy Systems works with companies to reduce their electricity use and carbon emissions. And Tower Tech is now making wind turbines that are being sold all over the world. Hundreds of people have found new work, and unemployment has been cut in half.

Here he is talking about people that moved vertically - this is exactly what we should do in every situation. We should stop trying to prevent outsourcing - even though there is some short term pain it is in the best interest of all to do so. From what I’ve read on his website it almost seems like he is contradicting himself. I’m not quite sure if two separate people are writing his speeches and press releases but it doesn’t make much sense to me at the moment.

I want to get McCain’s take on the whole thing - but, his website is down at the moment - well, I can’t get to it on a govt. computer at the moment - so his website could be working without a hitch.

As I’m sure you’re aware both houses of congress have passed a bill on a narrow margin that provides funding for the ongoing war, provides funding for some pork barrel projects, and sets a timeline for the US withdrawl of troops if certain conditions are not being met. I saw some clips the other day of Bush giving a timeline for Saddam and his sons to leave Iraq or the US would invade. He believed that certain conditions should be met at a certain time before we should invade. They obviouly didn’t heed his warnings and here we sit four years later.

The democratic party is doing two things with this legislation

1. They are playing politics - they want to send a message to the American people that they think the situation is unsatisfactory and that they want a change

2. They are setting conditions for withdrawl provided the Iraqi govt doesn’t meet certain conditions - they are trying to make us reach certain goals (I’ve been trying to find the bill text but have been unable so far)

The President has a choice

1. He can veto the bill and send it back for changes

2. Accept the bill “as is”

We’re all aware that the president is going to veto this bill and that he will quickly tell us how this funding is urgently needed to continue operations in the mid-east. We all should know that we have money until at least June or July so we do have some time left before the allocated budget is gone.

Ok, either way this situation plays out its one side is going to be wrong (obviously). I wonder what would happen if congress would filibuster the defense spending bill. I know that everyone on the ground would suffer as we depend on supplies to keep us going. Congress would want us to move out and would try to cut of funding to force us to do so. Unfortunately, I think those on the ground would be forced to tough it out.

The President wants us to try the surge method under yet another general in charge of combat operations.

Congress wants us to continue fighting if measurable benchmarks are met.

We all seem to want the same thing but we are fighting about the details.

The one thing that annoys me the most about the situation is that while many people are suffering on both sides of the war some people are making money off the war. People are growing rich while pawns in the middle are dying.

Its a raw shitty deal and I wish we could just all hug and be done with it. Its a shame our intolerance for eachother has driven us to this point.

Iowa Democrat jumps in presidential race - washingtonpost.com

Oh boy, this could be much worse than anything else if it were to happen

Tom Vilsack, a man I call nutsack, has decided that he is going to make the preliminary moves to start his bid for the president of the United States. Even though I’ve been leaning much further to the left I don’t believe in voting along party lines. In fact, I don’t think I would consider myself a member of any party. Why in the world would I try to separate myself from a single party? Each has proven that they support individuals who I wouldn’t let serve food at McDonalds.

It also doesn’t help that this guy is a giant douche. He is a giant flaming bag of animal feces. He is a flaky simpleton. He should be beaten about the head and shoulders until some sense is finally beaten into him. I cannot say enough of how big of a fool he is. In the coming months many people will discover how much of an ignoramus this guy is… its going to be amusing… I just hope he doesn’t last too long.

From the NY Times I found something that made me smile… you guessed it, I’m hanging out in left field. Lets see if they can make good on their goals

In the Capitol, Ms. Pelosi vowed to use the first 100 hours of the new Congress to push through what Democrats dubbed their “Six for ’06” agenda.

That program includes calls to raise the minimum wage, repeal subsidies for oil companies and incentives for companies to send jobs overseas, cut interest rates on student loans, give the government the authority to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies for lower prescription drug prices, and expand opportunities for embryonic stem cell research. On one of those issues, the minimum wage, Mr. Bush signaled there was room for a deal, as he also did on immigration.”

Rumsfeld is on his way out and I don’t think I could be any happier. The elections are over and it appears that with the speculated result of the Virginia election that the democrats will have full control of the legislative branch of the government. I can only hope that partisan politics will not be an issue and that they won’t use this win to stall all progress that is made within the house and the senate. They have an opportunity to do great things for our nation and make it better for all of us.

To do the same thing repeatedly and expect a different result is insane. Lets hope they make some different choices along the way

Free thought and liberty

All Americans are afforded the same protections under the constitution and the bill of rights regardless of what background they might come from. Our nation is great because we are a melting pot of people from many different nations with different backgrounds, opinions, and religions. Many Americans believe that no matter what, we should all be treated the same. Some people think that if I converted to Islam that I should have my security clearance revoked and that I should be put under a terror watch list. Americans are watching other Americans solely based upon the color of their skin and their religion.

In the mid-1800’s the United States was a divided nation as we fought in a brutal struggle for the rights of everyone despite their background or skin color. Hundreds of thousands died in this struggle in an effort to treat everyone equally. Despite the great loss of life America still did not treat everyone equally. America went through a large civil rights struggle for the equality of African Americans during the early to mid 20th century in an effort to even everything out. They wanted the right to be treated as an equal irregardless of how they might look. Today I think that we are still fighting the same battle but the participants are different. In the past month the president signed a law that allowed him and the secretary of defense to indefinitely hold anyone if they are suspected of terrorism. In a nutshell, they suspended the right of habeas corpus. The American civil liberties union immediately began to fight this new legislation as it was in violation of the rights spelled out in one of our nations greatest documents, the bill of rights.

Today I received an email from… someone that advocated the idea of spamming the ACLU with mail to adversely affect their mission: to protect the freedom of all Americans. First off, this is an illegal act. Second, this is one of the most foolish ideas I have heard of in a long time. Why in the world would we want to fight an organization that is fighting for all of our rights. Sure, the status quo in America is that we don’t care who we jail or whose rights we violate to stop terrorism but I know that I wouldn’t want to be one of those individuals who was illegally detained.

I mentioned this to someone yesterday and they mentioned that the ACLU is notorious for fighting only certain things and not all rights violations. In particular, they often fight not for the right to have religion but to remove it from a particular venue. In some cases, I can agree with this rational because we need to separate church from state. Why? Islam is nearly inseparable from most of the nations where the majority of people are of the Islamic faith. When this happens, only the faith of the majority is promoted and the others.. well, a Christian in Indonesia could get murdered and nobody would care. If the shoe was on the other foot and it was an individual of the Islamic faith the matter would be rigorously investigated.

Now that I’ve beat this to death… lets move on to the next topic today

Voting along party lines is foolish

Most politicians in America campaign on the party policy alone rather than their individual beliefs and ideas. We, as Americans, who live in greatest nation on earth, should elect people who think for themselves. When was the last time we voted on abortion in America? Do you think that the legislative body would subject themselves to a vote that would splinter the voting population in half. Lets face it, if there was a political climate change, as there is now, these people wouldn’t be elected the next time around. To make a campaign on polarizing material would be dangerous… the republican party joined together and supported GW’s decision to send Americans into Iraq. It will take years to figure out if the loss of life was worth setting them free. The crazy part is that they don’t care about what we’ve done over there… they just want us dead and gone.

Ok… whats the deal with this? well, I got an email yesterday telling people to vote on party lines citing the following reasons… time to tear them all apart

1. The economy. More than 6.6 million jobs have been created since 8/03. 4.1 annual growth is superior to all major industrialized nations. Dow hits new records. Productivity is up. Real after tax income has grown by 15% since 2001. Like VP Chaney would say…”What more do you want?” The tax cuts proposed by Bush and the R-Congress can take a bow.

More than anything else, the federal interest rates affect how our economy grows or shrinks. One man, who was put into that office by GW (and reagan before that), is responsible for that. Were you aware that 720,000 of the jobs created were government jobs? Creating a bigger government is not an effective way to reduce taxes and lower costs. Smaller governments are more efficient and cost less money.

Oh yeah, my data from Sept 06 says only 3 million jobs were created…. hmmm… fudging numbers somewhere?

Clinton took the jobless rate from 7.5% to 4% during his two terms in office. The GW took the jobless rate from 4% to 6.6% to 4.4%…. we’re almost back to where we started. He didn’t do anything legendary… he just got us back to where we started out in the first place.

You’ve also got to take into account that our nation now has over 300 million people… more people means more jobs.

want to know more check it out at senate.gov

2. The Patriot act. The much discussed civil liberty abuses have just not materialized. It has permitted the CIA and FBI to cooperate.

There has been no mention of civil rights abuses because all of the cases are handled in a seperate court that is out of the publics view. I am not aware of any… nor could I find any but the potential is just too great. Rewrite the legislation and give us something better. There IS a way to do it without infringing on citizens rights. The CIA and FBI have continually proven that although they can communicate they often do not communicate.

3. The ABM Treaty has been cancelled permitting us to work on missile defense. Is anyone but Nancy Pelosi sorry?

The fear mongers want us to spend billions on a missile defense system that does not work. They’ve already spent billions on the system and it doesn’t work… hey, I’ve got an idea. Give me your money and I’ll flush it down the toilet for you.

4. Immigration. The Republican Congress has gotten the first serious immigration restriction law passed in years.

If I was to look at the voting record I found that democrats and republicans worked on the reform together… you can’t take the credit for everything. Whats next? taking the credit for the sun rising every morning?

5. There has not been another terrorist attack on US soil since 9/11. Who would have predicted that on 9/12?

You got me here… there also haven’t been any more flying spaghetti monsters attacking our cities…. this is the most asinine statement out of all of them… yes, voting republican stopped the terrorists… oh wait 2819 americans died on 9/11 and 2828 american soldiers have died so far in Iraq… yep, we really showed them (I just want out troops back… soon)

6. Libya has surrendered its nuclear program.

Hmm… years of economic pressure or they saw republicans and gave up…. duh!

7. A. Q. Khan’s nuclear smuggling network has been rolled up.

Can you really attribute this to one party alone? No

8. John Roberts and Sam Alito sit on the Supreme Court.

I’ll give you this one…

9. The Demos that do not want to close Gitmo altogether want to give all its inmates the full panoply of rights Americans enjoy in criminal procedures.

Thats right, we don’t want to lock people up and throw away the key without trial because other nations watch what we do. If we abuse human rights why shouldn’t everyone else do it. We should at least give these guys and chance and if they are innocent… let em go, they didn’t do anything. It also doesn’t help that negativity is associated with the prison in the international community. One of the only reasons we have it is because its not located in America and we can pretty much do whatever we want to the prisoners.

10. Demos believe in immediate withdrawal from Iraq. If this happens the US will face a stinging defeat on the war against terror. According to Osama bin Laden, and those who share his views, we are militarily strong but psychologically and spiritually weak. Like it or not - and no one likes it - we cannot leave Iraq now without utterly and decisively validating this analysis.

Or maybe he says things like this to keep is embroiled in a war that we might not be able to win. He’s taunting us, this is what he does. I don’t want to loose either but if they outlook predicts no chance of winning… why stay? Lets get some guys together and find out what we need to win it… and win it. If we don’t change anything we don’t have a chance.

11. Demos would like to eliminate the terrorist surveillance program.

I can’t verify this one

12. If Demos achieve the majority in the House, Barney Frank will chair the Financial Services Committee, Henry Waxman the Government Reform Committee and Alcee Hastings the Intelligence Committee.

The three individuals are tools… but, we should get rid of them instead of voting for a republican… there have quite a few people in the past year that are involved in scandals, this time around most of them are republican…. lets keep the good people and get rid of the bad ones regardless of political party affiliation…

13. Demos believe the proper response to Kim Jong Il’s nuclear test isface-to-face talks. That’s what the Clinton Administration did for years.

For six years the bush administration has done no better… neither made any progress

What I’m trying to say is this, give me a list of facts and I can counter almost all of them as I’ve done here. Vote for the right person, don’t vote for someone based on party affiliation alone… its a bad idea.

Comments? please let me know your opinion