The sticky notes at the front of the page
for my 3 MPs (no, not my MP3s...)
Blogroll has moved to a
new page. It was just too huge (close to 1000 blogs in Bloglines) and helps the page load time tremendously. Blogrolling.com just sucks, and Bloglines has too much. Oh, and I have updated Blogrolling.
Have a nice day!
Saturday, October 30
Mobloggin!
Actually, these where taken with my ancient Kodak DC3200. The one with the broken battery door. The one that sucks batteries like… You get the idea.
First shot, a helicopter. Damned if I can find the name of it now. :(
This one is an F14
An acrobatic exhibition
A B29
A military 737
The sign for the 737
More acrobatics
Yet even more acrobatics
Blue Angels leaving for takeoff
Another Blue Angel
Blue Angels in flight.
These pictures were taken Friday October 29th, 2004 at Jacksonville Naval Air Station in Jacksonville, Florida.
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 10/30/2004 10:01:00 PM 
0 comments
One Nation Under Bush - At a campaign rally, Republicans recite the "Bush Pledge."
From
One Nation Under Bush - At a campaign rally, Republicans recite the "Bush Pledge." By Chris SuellentropOne Nation Under Bush
At a campaign rally, Republicans recite the "Bush Pledge."
By Chris Suellentrop
Updated Thursday, Oct. 28, 2004, at 10:44 PM PT
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla.—"I want you to stand, raise your right hands," and recite "the Bush Pledge," said Florida state Sen. Ken Pruitt. The assembled mass of about 2,000 in this Treasure Coast town about an hour north of West Palm Beach dutifully rose, arms aloft, and repeated after Pruitt: "I care about freedom and liberty. I care about my family. I care about my country. Because I care, I promise to work hard to re-elect, re-elect George W. Bush as president of the United States."
I know the Bush-Cheney campaign occasionally requires the people who attend its events to sign loyalty oaths, but this was the first time I have ever seen an audience actually stand and utter one. Maybe they've replaced the written oath with a verbal one.
This may be the first and only time the "Bush Pledge" has been taken at an event I've attended (or any event for that matter), but I'm not the best witness. One of the unfortunate drawbacks of traveling with a presidential candidate is that you arrive at a political rally when he does, which means you arrive right before he speaks. Neither President Bush nor John Kerry spends a lot of time waiting backstage while the warm-up acts address the crowd. Those speakers are timed to end when the candidate arrives (although, given that Kerry is habitually late, I wonder if they tell the introductory speakers to go long), so the traveling press typically misses their remarks.
Because I've been traveling "outside the bubble" of the campaign planes for the past week, I arrived at a Thursday rally for Laura Bush before it began, and I sat with the local press. For only the second time, I witnessed a Bush campaign event in full. It wasn't a particularly notable experience, except for the fact that it opened with that weird pledge of fealty, reminiscent of the cultlike cheer that Wal-Mart forces its employees to perform. There were a few good lines, such as this one from Florida state Sen. Mike Haridopolos: "Our president likes to sign the front of your check. His opponent likes to sign the back of your check." But the second-most memorable event was a remarkably mendacious speech given by U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, a Republican from Florida's 16th District.
Foley had the gall to condemn Kerry for his "reckless disregard for the facts" in a speech in which the least of his errors came when he sloppily claimed that John Edwards has served in the U.S. Senate for four years, rather than six. The main target of Foley's attack was Kerry's criticism of the president for allowing the al-Qaqaa weapons dump to be looted, presumably by terrorists, during a war that was designed precisely to prevent such an event from occurring. "The senator from Massachusetts immediately grabbed onto that without doing any checking, any fact-checking. He didn't even call Dan Rather," Foley said. But "NBC News followed up saying, oh-ho, not so fast. We don't have all the facts yet. Yet he went on national TV and announced, with reckless disregard for the facts, that somehow during George Bush's administration, these weapons were stolen." Foley's right in one sense, that we still don't have all the facts. But here's a fact that emerged after Foley's speech: Former weapons inspector David Kay said on CNN after viewing the footage of the site filmed by ABC News, "There was HMX, RDX in there. The seal was broken. And quite frankly, to me the most frightening thing is not only was the seal broken, lock broken, but the soldiers left after opening it up. I mean, to rephrase the so-called Pottery Barn rule. If you open an arms bunker, you own it. You have to provide security."
Foley continued, "Well, folks, one thing it does prove: There were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before we went there." Well, um, there were weapons. The explosives weren't biological, chemical, or nuclear. And they were locked up by the international weapons inspectors derided by the administration, and they were "liberated" by the president's war. But instead of concluding that the war was a mistake, or at least that it should have been conducted differently, Foley declared, "The other thing it proves is that Saddam Hussein was the most important weapon of mass destruction to remove, and this president took him down." If we invaded North Korea and that country's nuclear weapons ended up in the hands of al-Qaida, would that prove that the invasion was a success?
But if you don't believe the Iraq invasion was justified, you can still vote for President Bush because he hugs little girls and, most important of all, he threw a baseball. After telling the audience of his personal experience of Sept. 11, Foley revisited the story of Bush throwing out the first pitch of the World Series in 2001, which received a hilariously somber treatment in a video narrated by Fred Thompson at the Republican convention. Like any tall tale, the story has become more and more embroidered with time. In Foley's version, the president boldly strode to the mound "without a bulletproof vest." But the entire point of the convention video was that throwing the ball from the mound was so difficult because Bush's arms were restricted by a bulletproof vest.
I'm not sure which is crazier, thinking that al-Qaqaa proves that the Iraq war was justified, or that President Bush stood on the mound at Yankee Stadium less than two months after 9/11 without wearing a flak jacket. Based on his speech, Mark Foley is either delusional or he has a serious problem telling the truth. But you can't blame him. He's probably angling for a job in a second Bush administration.
I find this to be
extremely disturbing.
Relevant Link
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 10/30/2004 11:41:00 AM
0 comments
Thursday, October 28
Bytehead's choice
The reason against voting for President Bush.
Taken from the
Columbus Dispatch's own
endorsement of President Bush.
- The President's fiscal policies, the tax cut that didn't do for Bush 43 that it did for Reagan 40, and the record deficits that are sure to follow
- The totally misguided invasion and continuing war in Iraq. The plan was great up to the point of kicking Saddam's ass out of power, although actually worrying about saving some of the poor American soldiers lives didn't seem to be too important. But now the nation building begins, and there's not a real plan in progress. The war has not been won, the resources to actually do any kind of job of actually rebuilding Iraq aren't there, the cost of which are totally unknown because nobody really knows what it's going to take, or they just aren't talking about it.
- President Bush and his entire administration are unable to admit that mistakes have been made, which is very misfortunate. Admitting that mistakes have been made is the first step in correcting those mistakes. Instead, we have a President that will continue to plod along and only by great forces will his line of thinking and acting change.
- President Bush started the Iraq War based on a lie. When this administration is over with, and the people that actually know what the hell was going on retire from government work, the memoirs written to illuminate this Presidency will make it a wonder that this election was ever this close.
- President Bush proclaims to be a Conservative, but pushing through the Medicare drug program, a huge increase in entitlement spending, and passing the No Child Left Behind Act which gave the federal government a very large nose into the business of education proves that he is not.
- President Bush has promised to cut the deficit in half. The tax cuts have not had their intended effect, so taxes will increase for somebody and I have a feeling that disproportionate share of that is going to come from the middle class, and not from the rich that he gave most of the tax breaks to start with. He promised 4 years ago to be a uniter and not a divider. That's a good one, considering how divided the electorate is now.
Let's go on with a few more.
- The blatant powergrabs that have been done against our liberties, most notably the PATRIOT Act which was passed, and the PATRIOT 2 Act, which hasn't.
- The push to stop open government, hiding data that used to be freely available, secret laws that are passed that we have no idea are what about.
- The damage that has been done to this nation's alliances that will take decades to rebuild.
- There is also the likely outcome where both houses of Congress will remain Republican. I'd really prefer to see Congress one party, the President another. Things that get passed as law then might make sense.
The list could go on and on I suppose.
The reasons
for voting for Bush?
- He has to clean up the mess that he would have left behind.
- The people that voted for him and supported him from 2000 and in 2004 are going to get things thrown back in their face when the true reality, not the made up reality of the administration, hits the fan.
- With Bush still in power, the divide that is already evident deepens further, throwing the country closer to its next civil war
- If you believe that making America an Empire is a good thing.™
I don't think the above is that strong. Bush has shown his cards, and they are ugly.
I like Kerry. He has shown that he can work across political lines and get good things accomplished, such as getting Senator McCain with him to start trade relations with Vietnam. Kerry will truly try to be a uniter.
Who really gives a shit about the Swift Boat Vets against Kerry? Slick packaging, but who in the hell can really tell what the truth is,
35 years later? Medals, medals, who gives a
shit about medals. They were passing out medals left and right like candy. Hell, if they were offered to me, and I really didn't think I deserved them, I'd probably take them myself.
Somebody gave them to Kerry, and it
wasn't Kerry!
I've heard that people don't want to vote for Kerry, because they dislike what Clinton, a Democrat, did in his 8 years. I would think it would be about the personal indiscretions, which seem to be silly. No, they're pissed because he dared to cut millitary spending. They seem to be blind to the fact that he couldn't have done it by himself, it also took the
Republican Congress to cut that spending. Besides which, what the hell do we need to be spending that much for? Nevermind, that's another blog entry sometime.
Of course, I'm ready to write off the Repubs with the tactics that they are daring to do this election. Cest la vie!
I see Kerry as the best chance that we have for turning this country around, both domestically and internationally.
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 10/28/2004 06:19:00 PM
0 comments
Wednesday, October 27
Weird phone calls for today.
I get a cell phone call this morning. I have an Indian who's barely able to speak English trying to tell me about a job in Delaware. Having worked closely with three Indians for damn near 12 years, I can tell you that it is
not the accent that throws me off. I wasn't interested in moving.
Then, somebody from Independance Living wanted to make sure that I could make it to the polls on Tuesday. I have a feeling somebody gave them our number because of our Aunt Allie, who know longer lives with us. She always maintained her Ohio ID card.
Bizarre.
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 10/27/2004 07:19:00 PM
0 comments
And we have this for a President?
Via
Daily Kos, we have a picture.
Yeah, it's from when he was Governor of Texas. This still shows the standard.
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 10/27/2004 06:36:00 PM
0 comments
GOP challenges blowing up in the GOP's face
I read the news today, oh boy…
From
The Columbus Dispatch:
New voters in Licking County ruled eligible
GOP resident had challenged 52 whose paperwork was returned
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
Seth Seymour
NEWARK, Ohio — A frustrated Licking County Board of Elections last night dropped charges against 52 voters who had been accused of illegally registering to vote.
"I’m not striking anybody off these rolls," said board Chairman Mike King after receiving proof from at least 46 of the newly registered voters that they live in the precincts in which they are registered.
That was enough for the four-member board to also dismiss charges against the remaining six voters in question.
With no problems found, board member Steve Harrington lashed out at the Granville resident who filed the charges last week.
"You said you did not want to burden our office, but you did," Harrington told James B. Barton.
Barton had said the 52 voters, including some military personnel, were illegally registered according to data from the Board of Elections that identified specific voters whose registration confirmations were returned to the board as undeliverable.
Ironically, the contested voters did receive notification in the mail this week — required by Ohio law — about their registrations being challenged.
No one could explain the mishap.
"I thought they would have a difficult time trying to reach them, considering the possibility of false addresses," said Barton’s attorney, Wes Untied. "I’m delighted most of the voters provided proof."
On Monday, the Ohio Republican Party announced it is threatening to sue county elections boards that reject GOP voter challenges because they were not properly filed, even as Democrats are saying all the challenges should be dismissed.
The GOP suspects fraud; the Democrats accuse Republicans of trying to suppress votes.
Republicans filed 35,427 challenges in 65 counties last week, though all of the 4,219 challenges filed in Hamilton County have been withdrawn because of mistakes made on those forms.
Barton, a registered Republican, apologized for the inconvenience in Licking County, but said he only wanted "to protect the integrity of the voting system."
The Republican Party, he added, did not ask him to file the charges. [Editor's note: Bullshit!]
Though only two contested voters attended the special hearing last night, others contacted the elections board earlier this week. They proved their addresses with documentation such as drivers licenses or utility bills showing the addresses.
Sherry Perfect was shocked to receive the letter yesterday.
"At first, it didn’t make sense," the Kirkersville resident said at the hearing. "Then I thought it was someone who was trying to stop me from voting."
King, also the head of the Licking County Democratic Party, said the challenge was a distraction from preparations for next week.
"We could have been getting better prepared for the election."
Empahsis (and editorial note) mine.
This is from the county that I grew up in, just east of Columbus. A rural county, with farming making up most of the industry there.
These tactics that the Republicans are trying to assert in this election are going to cost them plenty. Considerably more than they are truly wanting to give up.
Relevant Link
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 10/27/2004 09:56:00 AM
0 comments
A nightmare closer to happening that it should
Just to read
The Election Fiasco: The Republican Outline for Election Day.
Things could get this severe. And I should know, having lived in Ohio and now living in Florida.
Jeb may well deliver his brother, but I have a feeling that Kerry is going to pull Florida out of the hat.
Ohio is another thing altogether. It's going to be razor thin, and with what is already going on…
More thoughts later.
Relevant Link
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 10/27/2004 12:06:00 AM
0 comments
Tuesday, October 26
BBC NEWS — New Florida vote scandal feared
As somebody from the area talked about, I am appalled. Via
Daily KOS from
BBC NEWS | Programmes | Newsnight | New Florida vote scandal feared:
By Greg Palast
Reporting for BBC's Newsnight
A secret document obtained from inside Bush campaign headquarters in Florida suggests a plan - possibly in violation of US law - to disrupt voting in the state's African-American voting districts, a BBC Newsnight investigation reveals.
Two e-mails, prepared for the executive director of the Bush campaign in Florida and the campaign's national research director in Washington DC, contain a 15-page so-called "caging list".
It lists 1,886 names and addresses of voters in predominantly black and traditionally Democrat areas of Jacksonville, Florida.
An elections supervisor in Tallahassee, when shown the list, told Newsnight: "The only possible reason why they would keep such a thing is to challenge voters on election day."
Ion Sancho, a Democrat, noted that Florida law allows political party operatives inside polling stations to stop voters from obtaining a ballot.
Mass challenges
They may then only vote "provisionally" after signing an affidavit attesting to their legal voting status.
Mass challenges have never occurred in Florida. Indeed, says Mr Sancho, not one challenge has been made to a voter "in the 16 years I've been supervisor of elections."
"Quite frankly, this process can be used to slow down the voting process and cause chaos on election day; and discourage voters from voting."
Sancho calls it "intimidation." And it may be illegal.
Mindy Tucker Fletcher, a Republican spokeswoman did not deny that voters would be challenged at polling stations.
In Washington, well-known civil rights attorney, Ralph Neas, noted that US federal law prohibits targeting challenges to voters, even if there is a basis for the challenge, if race is a factor in targeting the voters.
The list of Jacksonville voters covers an area with a majority of black residents.
When asked by Newsnight for an explanation of the list, Republican spokespersons claim the list merely records returned mail from either fundraising solicitations or returned letters sent to newly registered voters to verify their addresses for purposes of mailing campaign literature.
Republican state campaign spokeswoman Mindy Tucker Fletcher stated the list was not put together "in order to create" a challenge list, but refused to say it would not be used in that manner.
Rather, she did acknowledge that the party's poll workers will be instructed to challenge voters, "Where it's stated in the law."
There was no explanation as to why such clerical matters would be sent to top officials of the Bush campaign in Florida and Washington.
Private detective
In Jacksonville, to determine if Republicans were using the lists or other means of intimidating voters, we filmed a private detective filming every "early voter" - the majority of whom are black - from behind a vehicle with blacked-out windows.
The private detective claimed not to know who was paying for his all-day services.
On the scene, Democratic Congresswoman Corinne Brown said the surveillance operation was part of a campaign of intimidation tactics used by the Republican Party to intimate and scare off African American voters, almost all of whom are registered Democrats."
I live here, and I have to find this shit out from another country? Across the pond, from cheery old United Kingdom? Good God!. The
Jacksonville Times-Union, the only daily paper in Jacksonville, doesn't have this on their web site yet!
It's also interesting in that the incompetence of the Bush staff that has let this particular cat out of the bag. Their domain is
georgewbush.com instead of
georgewbush.org which is an anti-Bush site. And they've been publishing their dead letters
here. There is a difference. A
huge difference people.
This seems to be the same thing they are trying to pull in Ohio. At least I ran into that via the
NY Times, and it was reported the same day the
Dispatch.
At this point, I'm about ready to say to hell with me voting for any Republican this election—and most likely for life if this shit keeps up.
Oh, I've heard about the Democrats dirty dealing too, which while registering, doesn't register as badly on my moral scale. Not yet. But if the Democrats get this bad, then I won't be voting for either party. Period.
Relevant Link
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 10/26/2004 05:44:00 PM
0 comments
Interesting (non)search results.
I just put in a link to
WhoLinksToMe, and Google only shows 7 links for my site, all
in my site evidently, but that should increase even in my own site by the time Google finally finds all my archives that I've had pointed wrong for who knows how long.
MSN Search does me the best, finding me 74 times. Interesting. I haven't looked at the site logs to see who's been hitting me the hardest. IBM had a search engine hitting me
very hard. The trouble is, the Apache set up here doesn't give the correct date/time of modification (the static pages, let alone the PHP pages), so it's constantly thinking that I've updated, when I haven't. :(
But the search here is very wrong. If you look for www.bytehead.org in Blogroll, you get zero hits. Looking for www.bytehead.org/blog/ got you one hit. My own Blogroll was setup with www.bytehead.org/blog/index.php, so I got rid of the index.php, and now I get two hits on www.bytehead.blog/blog/, but that still doesn't get me a hit with www.bytehead.org. Either blogroll needs to change, or wholinkstome needs to change.
Bloglines doesn't find me, even if I just put in bytehead. Sigh.
Oh well!
Most of the 74 hits from MSN Search are from comments that I've left on other blogs, most notable TechDirt.
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 10/26/2004 01:25:00 AM
0 comments
Monday, October 25
Letter as sent to letters@dispatch.com
I have read the Dispatch's endorsement of President George W. Bush. I have to say that your arguments underwhelm me, and in fact, in reading this endorsement, I wonder why you even bothered.
You have criticized the President for his fiscal policies, the invasion of Iraq, the fact that he cannot admit errors, that he started the War in Iraq on slim pretexts at best, that President Bush talks like a conservative, but still manages to act and spend like one. You bring up the Medicare drug benefit and the No Child Left Behind Act. One greatly expanding entitlement spending, and the other sticking a very large federal nose into an area that it had not been in before. There is the looming deficit that this county faces now that is something that you'd rather not have. The Dispatch also wishes that Bush will make good on his pledges to reduce the deficit by half and to be a uniter not a divider. And you bring up, but do not critique about what damage President Bush has done to this nation's alliances. And let us not forget the court battles the Dispatch has had with the state on open records and open government. President Bush has certainly done his part to stop open federal government.
You have listed at least ten, possibly eleven issues that you have with the current President in this endorsement, with out giving any reason at all as to why the current President would change behavior on those issues. You may wish for them, but nothing in the past suggests that any of them will change. Including your most fervent wish that he become the uniter that he is supposed to be.
The past behavior of the last four years is a very good indication of what President Bush will be doing the next four years.
And the Dispatch has already stated in its endorsement that these are behaviors that you do not want!
Four years ago, President Bush decided to make his very slight victory margin as a sign for a mandate, versus trying to be conciliatory with the Democrats. As tightly contested as this election is going to be, I cannot see the President changing his mind on this, and keeping the same plans and processes already in place.
I've heard of damning with faint praise, but this is more endorsement with rather strong disparagement.
Your complaints about Senator Kerry seem to be well misplaced. Ask former Senator Bob Dole about long careers in the Senate. He might have a word or two about shifting positions. While the Dispatch thinks that Kerry is too flexible, the Dispatch also points out how inflexible the current President is.
The Dispatch makes its choice, but does not even come close to adequately answering the question of Why?
Endorsements should be about choosing the best candidate that bests represents the voter. Yet your endorsed candidate already fails this criterion in your editorial.
The Dispatch has erred in this endorsement. The Dispatch has not put forth any worthwhile reasons for reelecting President Bush. The reasons against Senator Kerry seem to be just because he is a new comer and therefore an unknown.
If the Dispatch did not feel comfortable endorsing Senator Kerry, which is its right, the Dispatch should have not endorsed any presidential candidate.
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 10/25/2004 03:44:00 PM
0 comments
Differences marked-up
As if anybody cares, here is the differences. Next post is the full corrected letter
I have read the Dispatch's endorsement of President George W. Bush. I have to say that your arguments underwhelm me, and in fact, in reading this endorsement, I have to wonder if the person who wrote this endorsement actually does endorse President Bushwhy you even bothered.
You take issue that you have repeatedly criticized the President for his fiscal policies, and that the Dispatch strongly opposed the invasion of Iraq. You also take issue with President Bush that he cannot admit errors and that he started the War in Iraq on slim pretexts at best. You also take issue that while President Bush talks like a conservative, he still manages to act and spend like one. You bring up the Medicare drug benefit and the No Child Left Behind Act. One greatly expanding entitlement spending, and the other sticking a very large federal nose into an area that it had not been in before. And while if I recall correctly, the Dispatch was for the tax cuts at the time, the looming deficit that this county faces now is something that you'd rather not have. The Dispatch also wishes that Bush will make good on his pledges to reduce the deficit by half and to be a uniter not a divider. And you bring up, but do not critique about what damage President Bush has done to this nation's alliances.
You have criticized the President for his fiscal policies, the invasion of Iraq, the fact that he cannot admit errors, that he started the War in Iraq on slim pretexts at best, that President Bush talks like a conservative, but still manages to act and spend like one. You bring up the Medicare drug benefit and the No Child Left Behind Act. One greatly expanding entitlement spending, and the other sticking a very large federal nose into an area that it had not been in before. There is the looming deficit that this county faces now that is something that you'd rather not have. The Dispatch also wishes that Bush will make good on his pledges to reduce the deficit by half and to be a uniter not a divider. And you bring up, but do not critique about what damage President Bush has done to this nation's alliances. And let us not forget the court battles the Dispatch has had with the state on open records and open government. President Bush has certainly done his part to stop open federal government.
You have listed at least ten, possibly eleven issues that you have with the current President in this endorsement, with out giving any reason at all as to why the current President would change behavior on those issues. You may wish for them, but nothing in the past suggests that any of them will change. Including your most fervent wish that he become the uniter that he is supposed to be.
The past behavior of the last four years is a very good indication of what President Bush will be doing the next four years.
And the Dispatch has already stated in its endorsement that these are behaviors that you do not want!
Four years ago, President Bush decided to make his very slight victory margin as a sign for a mandate, versus trying to be conciliatory with the Democrats. As tightly contested as this election is going to be, I cannot see the President changing his mind on this, and keeping the same plans and processes already in place.
I've heard of damning with faint praise, but this is more endorsement with rather strong disparagement.
Your complaints about Senator Kerry seem to be well misplaced. Ask former Senator Bob Dole about long careers in the Senate. He might have a word or two about shifting positions. While the Dispatch thinks that Kerry is too flexible, the Dispatch also points out how inflexible the current President is.
The Dispatch makes its choice, but does not even come close to adequately answering the question of Why?
I find it interesting that the Dispatch worries about how the rest of the world will view the outcome. While the UK Guardian is asking Clarke county voters to go out and vote, and preferably vote for Senator Kerry, Russian President Putin endorses President Bush. One story gets a hailstorm of hate letters, while the other is treated as if nothing is out of the ordinary, when both stories are about convincing people to vote for a particular candidate.
I've heard of damning with faint praise, but this is more endorsement with rather strong disparagement.
Endorsements should be about choosing the best candidate that bests represents the voter. Yet your endorsed candidate already fails this criterion in your editorial. You have listed at least ten, possibly eleven issues that you have with the current President, with out giving any reason at all as to why the current President would change behavior on those issues. You may wish for them, but nothing in the past suggests that any of them will change. Including your most fervent wish that he become the uniter that he is supposed to be.
The Dispatch has erred in this endorsement. The Dispatch has not put forth any worthwhile reasons for reelecting President Bush.
The reasons against Senator Kerry seem to be just because he is a new comer and therefore an unknown.
If the Dispatch did not feel comfortable endorsing Senator Kerry, which is its right, the Dispatch should have not endorsed any presidential candidate.
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 10/25/2004 03:37:00 PM
0 comments
Sunday, October 24
For President: None of the Above - 10/24/04
From the Detroit News:
For President: None of the Above - 10/24/04:
For President: None of the Above
The Detroit News
J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press
Agonizing choice comes down to this: Neither Bush nor Kerry meets our endorsement test.
As Election Day approaches, we find ourselves, like many Americans, agonizing over the presidential election.
Four years ago, the choice was clear. We endorsed George W. Bush based on his promises of fiscal conservatism, limited government and prudence in foreign affairs.
Today, we sadly acknowledge that the president has failed to deliver on those promises.
This is what the Dispatch
should have done as far as I'm concerned, if they were not going to endorse Kerry.
Relevant Link
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 10/24/2004 11:27:00 PM
0 comments
My possible letter to the Dispatch about their endorsement
If the Dispatch could have come up with real reaons for reelecting President Bush, I would just say, that's how the cookie crumbles. But to literally take Bush to the wood shed, give him a shellacing, and then still proclaim him to be their standard bearer, that's just insane. If and when I have a final letter that I send which will be by Monday evening, I'll put the updated letter in a new posting. Hopefully with differences listed. Here is what I'm currently rumminating.
I have read the Dispatch's endorsement of President George W. Bush. I have to say that your arguments underwhelm me, and in fact, in reading this endorsement, I have to wonder if the person who wrote this endorsement actually does endorse President Bush.
You take issue that you have repeatedly criticized the President for his fiscal policies, and that the Dispatch strongly opposed the invasion of Iraq. You also take issue with President Bush that he cannot admit errors and that he started the War in Iraq on slim pretexts at best. You also take issue that while President Bush talks like a conservative, he still manages to act and spend like one. You bring up the Medicare drug benefit and the No Child Left Behind Act. One greatly expanding entitlement spending, and the other sticking a very large federal nose into an area that it had not been in before. And while if I recall correctly, the Dispatch was for the tax cuts at the time, the looming deficit that this county faces now is something that you'd rather not have. The Dispatch also wishes that Bush will make good on his pledges to reduce the deficit by half and to be a uniter not a divider. And you bring up, but do not critique about what damage President Bush has done to this nation's alliances.
The past behavior of the last four years is a very good indication of what President Bush will be doing the next four years.
And the Dispatch has already stated in its endorsement that these are behaviors that you do not want!
Four years ago, President Bush decided to make his very slight victory margin as a sign for a mandate, versus trying to be conciliatory with the Democrats. As tightly contested as this election is going to be, I cannot see the President changing his mind on this, and keeping the same plans and processes in place.
Your complaints about Senator Kerry seem to be well misplaced. Ask former Senator Bob Dole about long careers in the Senate. He might have a word or two about shifting positions. While the Dispatch thinks that Kerry is too flexible, the Dispatch also points out how inflexible the current President is.
The Dispatch makes its choice, but does not even come close to adequately answering the question of Why?
I find it interesting that the Dispatch worries about how the rest of the world will view the outcome. While the UK Guardian is asking Clarke county voters to go out and vote, and preferably vote for Senator Kerry, Russian President Putin endorses President Bush. One story gets a hailstorm of hate letters, while the other is treated as if nothing is out of the ordinary, when both stories are about convincing people to vote for a particular candidate.
I've heard of damning with faint praise, but this is more endorsement with rather strong disparagement.
Endorsements should be about choosing the best candidate that bests represents the voter. Yet your endorsed candidate already fails this criterion in your editorial. You have listed at least ten, possibly eleven issues that you have with the current President, with out giving any reason at all as to why the current President would change behavior on those issues. You may wish for them, but nothing in the past suggests that any of them will change. Including your most fervent wish that he become the uniter that he is supposed to be.
The Dispatch has erred in this endorsement. The Dispatch has not put forth any worthwhile reasons for reelecting President Bush.
If the Dispatch did not feel comfortable endorsing Senator Kerry, which is its right, the Dispatch should have not endorsed any presidential candidate.
Signed…
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 10/24/2004 11:08:00 PM
0 comments
Administrivia
I've found that in one of my muckings with the settings that I managed to hose the description of my archives from .org/blog/ to .org/bog/, which of course doesn't exist. But the FTP path was still valid, so they got stored properly. I found this out tonight because I noticed an error in a BlogThis! posting, and couldn't get to it to edit it. I wonder how long that's been bad? Poor Google hasn't been able to go through my archives. That's either a good or a bad thing! :/
I also updated my template. Got rid of some debugging PHP code (it ain't working like I wanted it to anyway), and I also decided to show that my code and my css are now valid, (Yeah!) from hopelessly being invalid.
My Atom feed also validates via feedvalidator.org, but I haven't set up a button for that yet (if ever at this point), and I haven't tried to validate my other two feeds. Which should, since they are based on my Atom feed, but who knows. I'm too tired tonight to be digging into that crap about it. I am
not that anal!
I still have to get my comment code to send me an email when somebody comments, so I can at least see what the heck is going on in fairly reasonable time. Versus me just going in as admin and see what the latest comments are. I mean, I've got less than 30 comments right now. This place is not hopping with comments. If it ever does, I'm going to have to see what I can do about that. Go with haloscan I guess. I have no access to mysql on my website. I guess I could run mysql from my machine, bytehead.homeip.net. Maybe when I've got the new hard drive and I can start running virtual machines.
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 10/24/2004 09:27:00 PM
0 comments
Is the election yet?
OK, this one is pretty sad.
Memo Lets CIA Take Detainees Out of IraqAt the request of the CIA, the Justice Department drafted a confidential memo that authorizes the agency to transfer detainees out of Iraq for interrogation -- a practice that international legal specialists say contravenes the Geneva Conventions.
…
Am I surprised? Why should I be? This administration has decided to thumb it's nose at the Geneva Conventions before, why should it bother now? This is only one example out of many that shows just how desperate this administration is to try to gather human intelligence. This isn't the only way to gather intelligence, but the administration is demonstrating that they find it the most expedient way.
On the other funny hand, we have this.
Bush says bin Laden likely dead; A stunned John Kerry replies: "Oh, fuck. Really?"Citing newly declassified intelligence documents, President Bush told reporters today that al-Qaeda leader Usama bin Laden is "very likely dead," and that Senator John Kerry "needs to stop his yammering about our so-called failure in Tora Bora, because such talk demoralizes the troops and, quite frankly, makes the Senator look like he's got that big head of his stuffed squarely up his pooper."
I have to note, this is
not the Washington Times that the page proclaims it is. It isn't, it's just a weblog that copied the source from a page, and plugged in their own story. It's still funny.
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 10/24/2004 09:13:00 PM
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MSNBC - Bush or Kerry? Some analysts see no difference
From
MSNBC - Bush or Kerry? Some analysts see no difference:
Despite the stark differences in economic plans from President Bush and John Kerry, growth and job creation should turn out pretty much the same no matter who takes the White House.
Private economists also say the federal budget deficit, mentioned infrequently during the campaign, will bedevil the winner of the Nov. 2 election.
Experts who have analyzed the spending and tax proposals of both candidates say the plans, if enacted by Congress, would have a similar effect on growth, but the gains would come in different ways.
This is true. Regardless of who is voted in.
Relevant Link
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 10/24/2004 07:02:00 PM
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Is the Dispatch even thinking?
This is my response to The Dispatch's
endorsement of Bush. I consider Columbus to my home town (close enough anyway), and I find this endorsement rather frightening, but not unexpected either. I have seen it suggested that the editorial board was overruled by the Wolfe family (who owns the Dispatch, as well as
WBNS-TV and WBNS Radio).
For president
Despite missteps, Bush is better able to steer nation through difficulties ahead
Sunday, October 24, 2004
Like millions of American voters, The Dispatch is less than enthused about the choices in next week’s presidential election. Neither President Bush nor Sen. John Kerry has built a record that leads to a clear-cut decision.
With the current situation of compaigning, if a newspaper is less than enthused, then what that does that mean for the electorate?
Since President Bush took office, this newspaper repeatedly has criticized his administration’s borrow-and-spend fiscal policies, which have resulted in massive deficits that weaken America.
And what has the Dispatch criticized about John Kerry in the past months? Years? Did you even criticize him when he became a war protester 30 odd years ago? Do you blame the whole malaise of the 70's and 80's on him and his ilk, as a friend of mine seems to relate?
The Dispatch also strongly opposed the invasion of Iraq, contending the case had not been made that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction or posed an imminent threat to this nation.
Indeed, the case now seems to be pretty much a fabrication of what the current administration wanted us to believe. So, you are endorsing the liar?
On the other hand, neither Kerry’s 20-year Senate record nor his shifting positions during the presidential campaign inspire confidence that he would provide the strong, resolute leadership America desperately needs.
Flip flops indeed! 20 years you say? How many times has the Dispatch flip-flopped on certain issues in that same time period? President Bush has his own flip-flops, that the Dispatch has covered. Are those shifting positions that much different from President Bush, despite being elected as a "uniter" has time and time again shown to be a divider to suit his own needs?
Confronted with these disappointments and this choice, The Dispatch believes a second-term George W. Bush would stand a better chance of leading the nation up the difficult road that lies ahead.
You offer nothing above to indicate who would be the better choice.
The most crucial challenge facing the next president is winning the peace in Iraq. Although the rationale for the Iraq war has been proved wrong, no one should underestimate the stakes now. The United States must see the job through to the end.
Winning the war, not neccessarily the peace in Iraq will be a challenge. Unfortunately, Bush refuses to acknowledge any kind of mistakes and continues on a path that is not going particularly well. Winning a war that should not have been started, let alone without the tools neccessary to protect our troops and straining our troops and resources and still not getting things in Iraq under control enough to put a mark under the Win column.
For far too long, dictators and terrorists have believed that Americans lack staying power. Friends and enemies of the United States are watching closely to see if the casualties and expense of the war will sap the nation’s will to plant democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan. For America, there is no other choice but to succeed. Failure will sow more terrorism and tyranny.
The first sentence, I have trouble believing. The rest is certainly true. But again, there is nothing about President Bush that indicates he will guarantee that there will be victory over his opponent.
Like it or not, America must stand firm.
Must stand firm for what?
Although the president, unfortunately, seems incapable of admitting obvious error, Kerry has not provided a vision of what he would do differently in Iraq. He agrees the United States must be successful in pacifying Iraq. He claims he could be more successful in getting other nations to help shoulder the burden, but that is not realistic.
So you still are endorsing the liar? Kerry has a chance to get multilateralism going. It may not be much, but it's better than the zero chance that President Bush has.
During the presidential campaign, Kerry has revised his stance on Iraq almost as frequently as there have been shifts in opinion polls. He appears to lack solid convictions on how to proceed.
But you also claim that Kerry has not provided a vision. I find this confusing. He has none, or is he shifting? Or has everything he has been able to say about this just drowned out in the rhetoric of the opposing party?
His vow to repair the damage done by Bush to the nation’s alliances sounds good, but his longstanding ambivalence about deploying American power raises questions about his willingness to defy world opinion if and when that might become necessary in pursuit of U.S. national security. If Bush has been too willing to deploy that power on slim pretexts, Kerry may be too hesitant to unleash it even when justified.
Basing Kerry's behavior on Bush's is pretty ridiculous at this point. There should always be questioning of deploying American power, I don't care what the circumstances. And slim pretexts? Again, you still want to endorse the liar?
How the rest of the world will view the outcome of the election also plays into the Dispatch’s decision. A victory for Bush will signal to the world and terrorists that the United States is committed to victory in Iraq and Afghanistan. A Kerry victory will send an ambiguous signal that may raise doubts about American staying power.
This election should not be about how the rest of the world views the outcome of the election. The rest of the world does not vote in our elections. It is about choosing the best candidate that bests represents for the voter! Yet your endorsed candidate already fails this criterion in your editorial.
On domestic issues, voters are confronted with an avowed conservative who spends like a liberal, and a confirmed liberal who promises the fiscal constraint of a conservative.
We already have one liar. We might find out that the opponent is actually not a liar. It would be nice for once. But you continue to endorse the liar.
Bush has vastly expanded the reach of the federal government with the Medicare drug benefit and the No Child Left Behind Act. The first will add more than $500 billion to the nation’s debt over the next decade. The NCLB, despite its worthy goals, is a vast federal encroachment into education, traditionally a preserve of state and local government. This act unnecessarily pre-empted state initiatives to bring more accountability to elementary and secondary education.
And you continue to endorse this candidate? This candidate best represents your views?
At the same time he has increased the government’s obligations, Bush has slashed taxes, resulting in the highest budget deficits in U.S. history.
And these are values that the editorial staff of the Dispatch support?
This is not a conservative record.
Agreed.
Kerry, whose voting record marks him as one of the most liberal senators in the nation, is painting himself as a fiscal conservative. He promises to cut the deficit in half and to find a way to pay for any new spending that he proposes.
Most liberal? Is the Dispatch swallowing whole the entire Bush rhetoric without a grain of salt?
But once in office, with all the expectations of his party and with liberal special interests to appease and reward, would Kerry stick to those promises? This seems unlikely. As Bush and other presidents have demonstrated, excuses for expanding government on credit always are at hand.
I do not see either of the houses of Congress switching parties, which means that whatever Senator Kerry would want if he were elected, he would be going through two hostile paths to get anything done. Versus the what has been going on with the Republicans controlling both Congress and the Presidency. Besides, wasn't it Democratic President Clinton that lead us to budget surpluses?
Without a track record as a disciplined fiscal steward or as a believer in limited government, Kerry’s promises are suspect.
Bush's track record is known. Kerry's may be suspect, but at worst they are the same.
The next president will appoint many federal judges, and perhaps three or four U.S. Supreme Court justices. The impact on the judiciary will be lasting. The Dispatch believes Bush’s appointments would more likely respect the principles of judicial restraint and separation of powers.
It's obvious that President Bush will be out to reverse Roe V. Wade, and that will become the only testing point for appointments. Everything else will be out the window. I don't believe Bush's choices will be any better than Kerry's.
One other factor gives Bush an edge. In a second term, relieved of concern about re-election, presidents look to their legacy. This is when they feel free to take chances and expend political capital. There is no bigger problem facing the nation long term than senior entitlements. Without significant reform, Social Security and Medicare are headed for fiscal collapse under the press of millions of retiring baby boomers.
We only have to look at what happened with Clinton's legacy. Social Security will not be a problem for half a century by the latest forecasts. Is this such an institution that needs to be "saved"? Unintended consequences (and maybe intended consequences) need to be weighed. Social Security will not be crashing around us in 4 years, maybe 40. Let's make sure we are actually helping something, and not damaging it, or creating incredible mistakes in the years ahead. And if the new Medicare drug bill is any indication, it won't be made for better either.
Kerry, who knows touching these programs is political suicide, has ruled out any change in how they currently operate. But with trillions of dollars in unfunded liabilities, they are unsustainable as they currently operate. Electing Kerry would simply delay action for four more years.
What is the damn rush on Social Security?
Bush has every reason to take on precisely this sort of challenge, especially if he hopes to ensure that history remembers him for something other than the Iraq mess.
And if he does, it hopefully comes out better than the Iraq mess. You call this a good track record?
If Bush wins and Republicans retain control of Congress, the stars finally may be aligned in a way that allows the nation to confront the entitlement goliath.
You may think that is a good wish on your part. It may also burn the Republicans, the conservatists, and the neoconservatists to ash.
If he is elected, Bush should make good on his pledge to reduce the deficit by half. Better yet, he should eliminate it. The president refuses to acknowledge mistakes, and that is unlikely to change in a second term. But he still should correct them.
The first thing that has to happen for change to happen is to recognize that change has to happen. This president refuses to, so how can anybody expect this to happen?
He should put enough troops and resources into Iraq and Afghanistan to get the job done. He should ask the American people to make the sacrifices necessary to achieve that, even if that means paying more taxes.
Just throwing money at Iraq and Afghanistan is not going to help. The resources needed are more than just money, such as able trained bodies with the right equipment to do the work that is needed to be done. Is this a tacit endorsement of a draft on the Dispatch's part?
Since Sept. 11, Americans have been ready and willing to sacrifice to avenge the attacks and prevent future ones. Bush shouldn’t hesitate any longer: Enlist them in the fight. That might be one way to heal the deep division that now afflicts the country.
American's have already been sacrificing liberties since Sept. 11. The war in Iraq being about terrorism is a lie. Why would Americans then be ready and willing to sacrifice for this war?
After all, four years ago, Bush promised to be a uniter, not a divider. Perhaps more than any other, he should make good on that promise.
Why does the Dispatch believe that he will make good on that promise? Nothing points to that in the past 4 years. This is just wishful thinking.
Relevant Link
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 10/24/2004 02:52:00 PM
0 comments
Politics — and sick of it.
Looking back, this blog seems to be turning more political than I care. I really wanted to start this to talk about technical stuff, but…
And now, I guess it's the season, I still discuss politics.
At any rate, as I'm reading my
Bloglines feeds, I'm running into some good stuff, stuff that needs more than a line of comments, so they are going here, and not into my poor neglected link blog. Attributed as I found them.
Via
Scripting News, from
The DesMoines Register - John Kerry, The Real Thing, critical remarks about President Bush—
It's sad that an incumbent president chose to employ so much of his vast campaign resources to tear down his challenger, and not to cite his own accomplishments or to move the nation ahead. But perhaps that's precisely the difficulty the president faces.
His presidency has been one of bold leadership undermined by a failure to achieve meaningful results. The resolute leader Americans rallied behind after Sept. 11, 2001, sidetracked the country into a mess in Iraq. The fiscally responsible, compassionate conservative Americans thought they elected, the man we hoped would improve schools, lower the cost of health care and find more jobs, has failed to do so and instead run up an unprecedented national debt.
and the positive about Senator Kerry—
Most interesting - and relevant to Nov. 2 - Kerry has a reputation for being able to work across party lines. He worked well with Republican Gov. William Weld for the common good of Massachusetts. He worked with Republican Senators John McCain and Bob Smith on POW/MIA issues.
That's a key quality, especially in an angrily polarized America. Of President Bush's shortcomings, the most disappointing is the betrayal of his promise to be a uniter. America should be united at times like these - and was for a shining moment after 9/11. But the president let that slip away, deepening divisions by adopting a my-way-or-the-highway cocksureness on both domestic and foreign affairs.
The whole article is good. Read it.
Via
Fables of the reconstruction, coming from the
American Conservative - Kerry's the One we get this fine little nugget.
By Scott McConnell
There is little in John Kerry's persona or platform that appeals to conservatives. The flip-flopper charge—the centerpiece of the Republican campaign against Kerry seems overdone, as Kerry's contrasting votes are the sort of baggage any senator of long service is likely to pick up. (Bob Dole could tell you all about it.) But Kerry is plainly a conventional liberal and no candidate for a future edition of Profiles in Courage. In my view, he will always deserve censure for his vote in favor of the Iraq War in 2002.
But this election is not about John Kerry. If he were to win, his dearth of charisma would likely ensure him a single term. He would face challenges from within his own party and a thwarting of his most expensive initiatives by a Republican Congress. Much of his presidency would be absorbed by trying to clean up the mess left to him in Iraq. He would be constrained by the swollen deficits and a ripe target for the next Republican nominee.
It is, instead, an election about the presidency of George W. Bush. To the surprise of virtually everyone, Bush has turned into an important president, and in many ways the most radical America has had since the 19th century. Because he is the leader of America's conservative party, he has become the Left's perfect foil—its dream candidate. The libertarian writer Lew Rockwell has mischievously noted parallels between Bush and Russia's last tsar, Nicholas II: both gained office as a result of family connections, both initiated an unnecessary war that shattered their countries' budgets. Lenin needed the calamitous reign of Nicholas II to create an opening for the Bolsheviks.
Bush has behaved like a caricature of what a right-wing president is supposed to be, and his continuation in office will discredit any sort of conservatism for generations. The launching of an invasion against a country that posed no threat to the U.S., the doling out of war profits and concessions to politically favored corporations, the financing of the war by ballooning the deficit to be passed on to the nation's children, the ceaseless drive to cut taxes for those outside the middle class and working poor: it is as if Bush sought to resurrect every false 1960s-era left-wing cliché about predatory imperialism and turn it into administration policy. Add to this his nation-breaking immigration proposal—Bush has laid out a mad scheme to import immigrants to fill any job where the wage is so low that an American can't be found to do it—and you have a presidency that combines imperialist Right and open-borders Left in a uniquely noxious cocktail.
Gee, a conservative publication endorsing the "liberal" candidate, not because of what they espouse, but just because the "conservative" candidate isn't living up to his expectations that he was originally elected on. Of course this—
If Kerry wins, this magazine will be in opposition from Inauguration Day forward. But the most important battles will take place within the Republican Party and the conservative movement. A Bush defeat will ignite a huge soul-searching within the rank-and-file of Republicandom: a quest to find out how and where the Bush presidency went wrong. And it is then that more traditional conservatives will have an audience to argue for a conservatism informed by the lessons of history, based in prudence and a sense of continuity with the American past—and to make that case without a powerful White House pulling in the opposite direction.
is actually the defining part of the editorial. (Re)elect Bush, and conservatism could be banished to the middle ages.
Via
Shot by both sides, we get
100 Facts and 1 Opinion, there is just too much to think about quoting here. Read the whole thing, and pick your own favorite. The facts are backed by attribution.
From
The Blogging of the President: 2004 - Letting Go and Following Through we get an extremely well thought out essay on what is wrong with America. We are Imperial because we need to make sure that the oil must flow. (A thought idea here, rewriting Dune as a contemporary novel with oil instead of spice as the issue…) That's why we have a much larger army than we need, spending more money on defense than all the others combined, with more resources than all the others combined. The problem is, it's still not big enough to bend other countries to our will. Energy is liable to be America's downfall. :(
Via
The Daily Kos we get the
Washing Post endorsing Kerry. They have issues with Kerry, but they have more issues with Bush.
Interesting, a piece on the Guardian (UK) no longer appears. It was a Bush bash, stating that since he shouldn't win, Bush will will. And at the end it called for Bush to be assasinated. Brave words. And now they are gone. Weird.
On another note, the
Dispatch decides to endorse Bush. That editorial may become my first
fisking I've ever done. But I've written enough here.
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 10/24/2004 01:25:00 PM
0 comments
Wednesday, October 20
Politics
This is a long entry. You have been warned.
The most bizarre news of the day? The
Columbus Dispatch has been named by
Time Magazine as the
most coveted newspaper endorsement in the US. That's my home town for you. Never thought it would be raised to this point however.
I was chatting with a friend that's mentoring me in starting my own consulting business. We got onto politics, and I was up to 1:30AM. He was doing his damnedest to kill my enthusiasm for Kerry, talking all about the issues with Kerry's war record and if he truly was a War Hero. He really didn't understand that I did not give a fuck. That was 35 years ago. Kerry's been a politician for 20 years now, and it's
only now that he's running for president that this has become this great big issue? Meanwhile, we've got Georgie pooh arguing with one of his own people that it's
Sweden that's neutral, not Switzerland. My friend still didn't get my point. I was talking about intellectual dishonesty. Was Bush dishonest? Obviously he truly thought that Sweden was neutral. But the people he surrounds himself with decided it was best to leave him in this confused state than to actually try to correct the president. To compare that with "On Christmas in 1968 I was listening to Nixon in the Mekong delta" that my friend stated has been repeated 9 times or more, is silly. Especially when it has been reported factually that it's only been repeated 3 times by Kerry. I wish I still had that link, but that's been over a month ago, and I'm not digging. The fact of the matter is, was he in the Mekong delta (or whereever the hell he was said he was), and did he hear Nixon on the radio? Probably yes. The fact that it couldn't have happened on Christmas 1968 is a very small detail. Maybe it was LBJ he heard instead, but got confused. This is an error of detail, it doesn't make what he said a total lie, and doesn't make what he's said since all lies. So Kerry decided to go to Vietnam, get some medals and come home and be a politician. Sounds much better than the sub C average that Bush managed to carry at Yale.
I also do not understand my friend's contention that the 70's and 80's were so bad because we lost the will to fight the Vietnam war. I'll agree, that people at home were tired with the war, and wanted their sons back home. That is why Nixon got elected, not Humphrey. Of course, my contention that we lost the war because we had a president that micromanaged the war at the worst possible time, that we were fighting a guerilla war with conventional means, something I fear that we are still doing with Iraq. We did both agree that the US has to win the Iraqi war. I have serious doubts that it will actually happen. Especially when
we are eating our seed corn. I forsee a draft, regardless of who gets elected into office.
George Bush is obviously
not the conservative that most people believe that he is. A record deficit for 2004. Unilaterally invading a country that has turned up zero evidence for the reasons that were stated for going to war. Bush has shown himself as a person that cannot own up to
any mistake that he has made, and he has made plenty. This administration has shown a total lack of respect for rights and liberty in pushing it's agenda of security at all costs for the War Against Terror. And the War Against Terror will probably enjoy just as much success as the War Against (some) Drugs.
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 10/20/2004 09:53:00 AM
0 comments
Tuesday, October 19
tonypierce.com busblog (or Instapundit should be running more disclaimers…)
tonypierce.com busblog:
A few more disclaimers that I would have liked to have seen in Glenn's disclaimer9. I am happy with this war, this president, the debates, the lack of weapons of mass destruction in iraq, the lack of troops in afghanistan, the US economy over the last four years, and the gas prices here in the states.
Tony has issues with Instapundit. I have issues with Instapundit. I find it interesting that we agree on those issues.
I find Instapundit to be full of gas, relating only the information that feeds his smear campaign against John Kerry, in the meantime making
King George look like the angel that he obviously is not!
Relevant Link
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 10/19/2004 07:13:00 PM
0 comments
Something I agree totally with.
From
Scripting News: 10/14/2004The obvious reason Lynne Cheney is upset that Kerry talked about their gay daughter in last night's debate is that their love for their daughter contradicts the Republican policy of limiting the rights of gay people. They'e willing to sacrifice their integrity for the votes of some bad people (following Ms Cheney's judgement re Kerry). The problem is with the Cheney philosophy, not Kerry. They have a gay daughter. That's a known fact. They also contribute to the oppression of gay people. That's the problem.
Now, would Kerry be better? I'd say yes, but I'm just unsure it's by a significant amount. :/
Relevant Link
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 10/15/2004 09:44:00 AM
0 comments
Thursday, October 14
I have a new site.
I'm hitting consulting full time now. I even have a web site for it. Hopefully it will be finally up today.
Bytehead Consulting is now available for business. Haven't settled on pricing yet, but I hope to list what I can offer soon.
I need to go over the web page. I doubt I'll have lots of pages, the main index, a printable rate card, my resume, who knows what else. What I have is extremely basic. I need to put a lot more detail in.
I may also create a blog on it, just detailing my consulting stuff.
I did get some business cards printed up. I probably should get a graphic of that set as well.
OK, off to do some stuff.
Relevant Link
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 10/14/2004 01:41:00 PM
0 comments
Stability! But at a price! :(
My computer seems to be a lot more stable. I'm going to run it through this weekend before I pronounce everything working like it should.
If it is, BFG get's a headache from me, as it's going, the video card has obviously been causing me my problems, such as lockups, spontaneous reboots, and just horrific video slowdowns. How do I know this?
I installed my old Matrox Millenium PCI card. I thought it had 8 or 16 megs, and it seems to only have about 4 megs of memory (BIOS doesn't report it. Sigh.), so kiss 1600x1200 unless I want it in 256 colors. Yuch! I'm running 16 bit color in 1025x768 right now. I'm spoiled I guess. It's obviously not as fast as AGP either, as I can see it switching color palletes on me. I probably wouldn't see that on an AGP card, nor on a card with more memory. :/
Well, I'll report back what BFG has to say about my video card next Monday.
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 10/14/2004 01:24:00 PM
0 comments
Tuesday, October 5
I'm back...
I have a new computer. A new moother board with a 2.8GHZ P4 and 512MB RAM.
The video card is an issue, and I haven't contacted their tech support about it. They might be pissed if it has to be returned, as I'll have to ship it to them. Oh well!
I have some catching up to do, which I hope to have done by this weekend, on various things, such as the X prise, politics, home life and such.
Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 10/05/2004 11:48:00 AM
0 comments
I'm now down to fifth place when I used to be #1.
Blogger's about me: Your usual fat computer geek. Currently looking for work in the Jacksonville area and in Columbus. Network Administrator for hire!
♥ Sparx
♥ wookiemp164 aka Garfield116(x)
