Candidates Flunk National Political Courage Test

Project Vote Smart asks candidate of various campaigns to submit to a questionnaire asking them for their views. They are asked how they would like to see our national budget. Would they put more into health care and less into the military, would they want to see more emphasis placed on education than on immigration issues? All of it is voluntary of course, and as shown in this article a lot of requests for taking this survey is denied.
The posted responses are my favorites. The rest of the responses were the smarter, we-were-told-not-to-respond. Also, dig the DNC answer, “It is not our job to educate. It is our job to win!”.



* “Our campaign only filled out issue questionnaires if they came with a campaign contribution” - North Carolina Democrat

* “Americans aren’t asking for more information from candidates, they’re asking for less. They don’t want to be troubled.” - WA Republican Chairman

* “The people won’t use issue information unless it comes with a free Ginzu knife.” - Presidential Campaign


Yes boys and girls it doesn’t matter who wins, we get the candidate we deserve. Whether we’re watching a 30 second spot, or an hour debate it is all a commercial. You get just enough information to wet your whistle but not enough to make you an actual free thinker. But why would anyone want to be a free thinker
Free thinking is hard. It takes a lot of work to sift through the mounds of B.S. and drivel in today’s media to find that diamond of truth. It is easier to just let the Daily Show tell us what they think is important. Now don’t get me wrong on my outlook of the dailey show. I think John Stewart is extremely funny, and he’s an equal opportunity wise ass. But the show is a comedy, which means the issues and tid-bits they pursue are tid-bits that can be made into a punch line.
Free thinking is dangerous. A free thinker begins to avoid charismatic people, or at least subjects them to greater scrutiny. Charismatic speaking through history has given us some of our most memorable dictators. If you can’t beat it with a club, wow them with B.S. Free Thinkers begin to actually listen to responses of the back and forths between candidates. Does the candidate deny, confirm, or use some slight of hand to divert the conversation.
From the article it becomes clearer to me, the candidates of today think of the voter as stupid and simple. We don’t want information. We don’t have the time to make important decisions on our own, at least if it doesn’t pertain to money we’re directly involved with. Nope we’re more interested in making that cash and hitting the beach.
As for me I am neither pro-Dem, or pro-GOP, both of these parties have given us crap. I’m neither Pro-McCain, or pro-Obama. I am pro-thinking. we’re not voting for sports teams, or for best picture. We’re voting for the face we want to put forward for the next 4 years. The world cares as much about the decision making process in this country as we do about theirs. Nobody here cares that Amadinejab has less power in policy making than our President, but this president will remembered. Long after this congress has passed into history, Bushes face and name will be up there with LBJ. People died on his watch and that is what we will remember.
Nobody, other than poli-sci students, will care that neither houses did any research before they loosed the dogs of war.

Went to the VA today for my hearing aid evaluation. At first they didn't think it would help, but I explained the reason I have difficulty hearing was because the ringing, I call it white noise, distracts my brain. If I talk to someone with an MP3 player playing in the bad ear it is a lot easier to concentrate on the conversation. Otherwise all I hear is static. So one of the evaluators decided to try doing the test by pump words into both ears. The bad ear would have the volume elevated, the good ear's volume would remain normal. Wouldn't you know it, I got a better score, they also tried adjusting background noise to see if that affected the outcome, there was no change. So after a consult with the Eyes, Ears, and Throat doctor, I'll be fitted with a hearing aid.

The plan was to workout and drop off my Job application with military Morale Welfare and Recreation, but after my workout I ate a couple PB&Js and fell asleep. Didn't wake up until 1630. Well to rephrase, my lazy ass didn't get up out of the chair until 1630. After that woke up, then went back to sleep several times. It was until 1630 that I actually put any gumption into rolling out. So now I'll have to take some time to drop off an application tomorrow. There were no Coffee jobs on craigslist this week so I have to apply somewhere if I want to get paid by the state of California.

I tell people when I'm asked what is my job, that my job is looking for a job. The state of CA pays me to find a job, I never thought it would be so hard to find coffee shop job in my life. When I'm not looking for a job I excersize, study my bible, pray, and read. For the longest time I let my brain go to mush just sitting around watching the tube, playing video games, and just existing.

Pope Baptizes Prominent Italian Muslim
It is my hope that Magdi Allam was not baptized into Catholicism but into Christ. The Roman Catholic church will fall away, just as any other man made gathering. But Christ’s Church will live on.

A Tribute to those in harms way

I received this slide show from a freind of mine. It's an awesome tribute to those who go into harms way so that we don't have to. I just wish there were some way to download this song and slideshow into my MP3 player so I could listen to over and over until I sick of it. Its been a long time I've ever wanted to do that.
There is another slide show circulating that I like that uses The Who's Behind Blue Eyes, its a little rougher but I still think it's worthy of a look. In the second one it shows protestors to be exact the peudo Christian group that thanks God for IED. Their picture is subtitled that the men and women giving their life do so that hateful ungodly perpetrator can voice their bile. I have nothing qualms with ungodliness, I just think if one is given over to such activity one should be truthful and quit hiding behind Jesus.

Dupre’s Pimp

I’m not really interested with the Spitzer story, nor did I care to know anything about Ashley Dupre. Now that the Gov. resigned The story has lost any significance, he’s just a man who made mistakes in judgment that placed his battle in jeopardy.
The reason I was drawn to this video was an interest in seeing what a pimp, known to be cheats and liars, had to say about his prize possession.
It is always hard to sort through the lies to glean the truth, and I will never claim to be an expert. But what I’ve seen without confirmation from the second party all that can be known is Ashley met him as a cocktail waitress working at a posh hotel, and that pimp had a woody for the Gov. who was known by the industry as a hypocrite.
What is not known is if the Gov. was bringing heat to this industry why did they not stop supplying him with whores. If Ashley did approach him for work, how long was she in this industry? When did this supposed struggling musician decide to give up the tail to make ends meet? Why was Larry asking for price, was he looking for a date?

Minco Gold Corporation Retains Rubenstein Investor RelationsWednesday February 6, 2:30 pm ET

I thought this was great. This corp. retains a spin doctor to advertise all the great things they got going on in China. Notice nothing is said about any new deals which would bring in badly needed revenue, or maybe a repurchasing of stock to drive share prices up from a mere $.90.
A smart investor will look past all the hype, d-d-d-don’t believe the hype, and look at the financials. It doesn’t take a genius to see all the negative number and conclude this company is a bad investment.
On the oft chance that someone new to the game should stumble across my meager collection of thoughts and read this missive I will say one more time, d-d-d-don’t believe the hype. Don’t buy into this sinking stone until they start to do something about their numbers. Don’t let them talk about “modern technology”, or how they’re exploiting the richness of China’s newly opening markets.
The only thing they should be telling us is what steps they’re taking to fix this failing house, and not with flashy pictures, and flashy words, but with a new release here about a 1.5mil deal with this or that company or group. Maybe they can tell us how they plan on saving the cash that is left in the till.
At the moment their EV is good its just 81% of its Market cap, so thus far their cash out strips their debt. Unfortunately that won’t be the case is they can’t get some income.
Don’t fool us with pretty words Minco, investors only want one thing, money. If you think all you need is better publicity, then may be what you really need is better management. Maybe you could call up my 17 year old niece.

Riverside voters backing Measure A to limit roosters
09:01 AM PST on Wednesday, February 6, 2008
By DOUG HABERMANThe Press-Enterprise

This article is a study of transition. From reading the article I can see a Riverside of another era, probably one that looked much like the Ramona I knew in my childhood, mostly filled with farm and a sparse amount of housing for people who wanted to get away from the city.
As the years went by more and more people moved to Riverside to escape the city, but eventually the county reached a certain size and started to attract another sort of people. These people weren’t so much looking for a place to retreat but a place to where housing was cheap. Maybe these people were hoping that the growth in the area would continue so they could sell for a profit and move on to another growing area. Maybe they just wanted a place that was inexpensive, but not ghetto with its dirty streets, crime, and other signs of humanity.
It would seem a bit ludicrous for one to move into an area with farms and have a problem with roosters, but if I look at it in this light it makes a little more sense. Some of these residents with problems with country life, with their speculative buys, will eventually move on when riverside reaches its next growth phase. Maybe there will be some farms left but most farms would have been replaced with condos or apartment buildings as it becomes more and more difficult to run an Ag business whilst the area becomes more urbanized.
Maybe the area will become more like Escondido, with it’s farms in the hills where it is too costly to build residences in the because of all the rocks. Maybe Riverside will become like Cerritos, Farms are replaced by communities that resemble walled city on the hill tops, and for all the houses one is hard pressed to find a gas station save his/her life. Whichever form the cities of Riverside County take the one undeniable fact remains, the farm life is dead in Riverside.
Yes, some farm may be isolated enough to be spared the quiet death. For the most part anyone of meager means, read without enough money to own horses, will have to find another place to escape the city noise while man does what he does best. He expands to fill any given space, much like a gas but sprouting buildings, fast food joints, and shopping malls, much like spores from a fungus colony. With roads acting as arteries bringing nutrients to this newly established colony.

ABC’s Politically Incorrect Tackles Comedian’s ‘Chink’ Joke
Silverman and media watchdog Aoki face off
By Sam Chu Lin

I think what is so ludicrous about the article is the person set in Mr. Aoki’s cross hairs. Sarah Silverman makes her living by being offensive. To openly criticize her is about as useful as the FCC coming against Howard Stern through out the ‘90’s. I’m telling you it’s craziness to believe her fans are going to stops watching her because I, Aoki, or anyone else points out the offensiveness of her shtick, on the contrary it will only drive these people to watch her, just like any other shock jock.

What its MLK day? I didn’t really know until I tried to get ahold of DFAS and kept getting a message that all offices were closed for the holiday. Actually what the message said was their hours were from 0730 to 1800est M-F, with the exception of Federal holidays. I looked at my watch and it was 1130, on a Mon. . I actually started writing flame mail, but before sending it I decided to Google a calendar to see if today were a federal holiday. That is how I discovered it was MLK day.
Yup, I’m lucky to remember my b-day. I often joked that if it wasn’t for the Navy to remind me I would never know when the holidays were.

I spent the day on the web. I discovered a new web game called Adventure Quest. Well I can’t really say I discovered it, its more like I rediscovered it. A more than a couple years ago I played it briefly, what the hell its free. After a while I lost track of the game, hell I though it had disappeared with a host of other free game on the web. Until I was making my rounds on the net; while looking at How Stuff Work.com looking at the possibility that the Salem witch trials all started as a case of Ergot poisoning when on the side of the article was an ad for AQ. Well after checking out I set up a character and spent rest of the day playing AQ.

After 6hrs of AQ I take some time to practice the Guitar. I’ve played since ’97 but despite knowing more than a handful of chords I wouldn’t say I actually play guitar. I don’t have more than a vague understand why Dmaj is Dmaj, or why other chords are Daug, or Ddim. So I picked up a hand book on music theory. At the moments I’m teaching myself the different major scales. I’ve actually have been practicing these scales since Christmas vacation. In order to keep things lively I started to play Doe, Rei, Me,(Doe a deer…) in the three scales I know so far Cmaj, Dmaj, and Gmaj. This mixes up the scales and makes me have remember what notes I’m playing and whether the note I’m playing is a 3rd, 4th, 5th or so forth.

When my fingers got tired, or my brain, I spent some time scoping my stocks and doing some research. I looked at Select Comfort, and Alcoa. Both stock are dropping like stones in a pond, and I wanted to know if I should hang out or buy in. Selling is out of the question because I’m in the red on both.
My main focus of course was Alcoa. Toward the last of ’07 Alcoa was on top, like a horse on fire the stock price rose above the $30.00. But of late the price has slid to where it has been before then, so I wanted to know, to understand, a little about the body of this company.
Price is nice but it is only a short term indicator. Knowing which way the momentum is going, buy in or sell off, tells me whether there is a possibility buy at a bargain or to sell off stock while they are still in the green. What I don’t learn by watching stock prices is why these migrations are taking place. It could be herd mentality, or there could be a good reason to run away.
So I started by looking at the statistics for Alcoa. As always their EV was too high, over 20% higher than the market cap which normally tells me there is too much debt and not enough cash. Since Alcoa is an old man of industry, I could let this little indiscretion slide if other indicators were favorable. I looked at the PEG rating, Yahoo had it around .96 which is excellent. It told me the Price/Earning ratio when compared to the company’s growth was undervalued, and a P/E of 9.x wasn’t too bad either.
All these are well and good, but, its just ratio and statistics, and statistic only show where the wind is blowing but not why it’s blowing in that direction. Maybe the news entertainment industry may be happy to accept these indicators as reality but I don’t have the luxury of non accountability when it comes to my money. So I had to dig deeper, and look at some important item of the balance sheet.
When comparing 2006/2007 incomes I discovered Revenue is up 13%, margin is up 42%, I don’t really know how that happened. Usually earning is the same or a little less than revenue I’ll have look into this a bit further, and inventory is up 10%, which matches the pace of revenue. I remember listening to 4th qtr talks last week, the CEO and managers are building plants in china to take advantage of projected increases in consumption of aluminum in there. Also Alcoa has made some stride in generating the massive electricity required to produce aluminum in ways that is less dependent of fossil fuels, which are expected to continue to rise in ’08. All in all I like what I saw.
The only hesitation I have is Alcoa is the wisdom of bringing aboard Sam O’Neil newly resigned from Merrill Lynch. I see Sam O’Neill as a risk taker, something that is required if one is looking to make money, but too much risk is what hurt Merrill Lynch. Merrill Lynch lost 1.8bil USD in their 4th qtr 9.8bil in all because of sub prime debacle. Many a player was involved in this ah shit spree of course. Greenspan kept messin’ with the interest rate meaning silly people were fooled into believing there was never going to be a downturn, the banks kept pumping out loans to people who would never have been trusted to borrow the amount of money that they did in a wiser time; Pumping good money after bad since the late 90’s. All this was on Sam’s watch, he was CEO so there couldn’t have been any lack of understanding on his part. Now that he’s been run out on a rail Alcoa recruits him for their board of directors. I have to ask, what exactly do the other board members see in the way Sam runs his shift. Just what skills do they expect him to bring to this party.

After spending all of the day in doors I was getting a little stir crazy, so I had to get out. Go to Barnes & Noble, grab a coffee, scan some books, read Darkness at Sethanon, whatever I just had to get out and be surrounded by people, surrounded by something other than these four walls.
My first mistake of course is the place I chose to surround myself with. I have great difficulty going into a book store and coming away without a purchase. And this was not of those days. I bought two books, Every Thing You Know is Wrong, and Who Knew. Both are bargain bins, which is good especially with the first book.
Usually when people inform me all that I think I know is wrong, it usually turns that they’re wrong. Either because the author took for granted that maybe I don’t put too much faith into the New Entertainment Industry, or because their cockamamie idea are absent of research. Just like my cockamamie ideas but I don’t charge for my two cents.
I almost bought The Onions: Our Dumb World. As I scanned through I couldn’t help but laugh. The format was an almanac of all the countries of the world but in the tongue in cheek attitude that the Onion often uses in their faux newspaper. For the UAE the book showed a picture of the palm tree reef they’ve erected and described under the picture that it was a man made reef the supports a delicate ecosystem of room service. For Saudi Arabia there was a picture of G.W. Bush on his knees before the Saudi king with his lips puckered as if he was getting ready to go down on the king. Under the picture was a caption that said bush and the Saudi king were in the middle of a high level diplomatic meeting. If it wasn’t for being broke and having more books than places to put them I would have bought the book out right. As it was I had to put the book back and be happy with what I got from the bin.
I saw another book in the philosophy section. It was philosophy through Family Guy. Now I’ve seen this type before I have a book that is Philosophy through The Simpsons. In it Homer and Lisa are compared to character traits from Plato’s Ethos, and Bart to Nietzsche. It was fascinating stuff, but what I’ve seen from this book it compares the Family Guy to Post-Modern Philosophy. The author wasn’t to happy about the post-modern doctrine either. He saw it as a disregard of any structure. Do what you feel is right because there is no truth. I agreed in that instance, I could see how person not stable in his beliefs could fall into this way of thinking.
What I didn’t understand is how the philosophy demonstrated in family guy had any similarity to a conservative point of view as the author pointed out. As I understood it, conservative people were those who clung to the way things were. Unwilling to give up the old to try something new, so there whole view point is structured. That is why when most people think of conservatives they think of Christians. Of course there are also groups that hold onto what they see as mos maiorum, The way things been, the unwritten law. Unlike most christians these rules that this group fights for have never been formalized by words, and though from the outside their point of view is similar to Christians their point of view is warped and twisted.

I have the crud. It was worst last night, had to take Nyquil to get some sleep. Tell you what it sure was an experiance. Yup, I couldn't go to bed right away because my head was so stuffed up I had a hard time breathing, a condition lessened by remaining in an upright position. So I stayed up surfing the web until the medicine kicked. I could feel the affects of the medicine by being disoriented. My spatial memory was starting to get screwy, not as bad the time I had an ear infection mind you, but I had to keep reminding myself the door to the patio was not in the kitchen. It was about that time I decided the medicine taken affect nicely and it was time for bed.

Today my sinuses weren't as bad but I decided to take it easy. I kept myself SIQ most of the day leaving to check the mail and when I finally just had to get out, I may be a hermit but being locked away all day without T.V. is too much.

The Television is off because it stops production. Whenever that bastard is on I end up flat on my ass watching the damn thing instead getting stuff done. I have to will myself to get stuff done.

I noticed lately that my clock is set wierd. Lately I am more awake and able to get working late at night. During the day I may be awake but I would but lethargic. I can start jobs but have to sit down, or leave it undone. Some would attribute this to being lazy or disorganize and I would discredit this outright, but I would have to point out that lazy and disorganized are character flaws that know no time slot. But for me these two chracter flaws are more prominent during the day light hours. When I was still attached to NSWC I was always prone to night ops than morning. At first my excuse was night ops required me to come in later which meant I didn't have to deal with the khaki. Later I just got honest and said I just prefered going home late that coming in early. Around the World, 3rd phase FTX, I'm your man. Special Op requiring 5 dys of being underway at night(SDV, Grp Combat Swimmer Course) that's for me.

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Any person who has been high in the mountains or underway on a ship, for from the blind lights of metropolis has seen this gash across the sky. The dust of this vision twinkle at you as giant group of stars running across you view.
I always thought this was a view of the outer edge of our galaxy, but to learn this view I have seen every time I put to sea is in fact the center of the Milky Way is astounding. Imagine how bright such an object must be to be seen from through all the dust and star between us on the outer region and the center.

Denmer and Chona left for Denver with their freinds. Mom and Dad went to see them off, but I stayed home. By the time I rolled off the couch they were ready to leave, and I knew I was in need of a shower.

So after mom and dad were out the door I started the tube, and for the most part that is all I did today. I also read, played Chili con Carnage on my PSP, and surfed the web. I even practiced some yoga poses from Tara Stiles.

Most of today most of todays television watching was western marathon. The Good the Bad and the Ugly, Quigley Down Under, and The Maganificent seven. I listened to Quigley more than watched it. The Hallmark channel did a good job at gutting the show. Some of the best lines were left out. When Quigley and the Crazy Cora were lost in the wastes of Australia. Cora kept asking Quigley he knew where they were:
"Crazy Cora: You know, if we're lost, you can tell me.
Matthew Quigley: We're lost.
Crazy Cora: I can take bad news. Just tell me straight.
Matthew Quigley: I don't know where the hell we are.
Crazy Cora: No sense takin' time to make it sound better than it is.
Matthew Quigley: I reckon we're goin' in circles.
Crazy Cora: Wire things up and I'll see right through. So, just tell me honestly. Are we lost? Matthew Quigley: Nope. I know exactly where we are.
Crazy Cora: That's good, 'cause, frankly, I was gettin' a little worried.
Matthew Quigley: I don't know where we're goin', but there's no sense bein' late.

Another part that was gutted from the movie was the gun fight at Marston Mtation

Magnificent Seven- I can see from whince the movie had come. I think it handeled the Seven Samurai prettty well.

After all this T.V., video games and such my brain was going numb so that is when I needed to practice some of those yoga stances. One thing I am reminded through the use of Yoga is not only do I need to stretch more but I'm a fat ass. When I was a recruiter in my younger days I often told applicants that were in danger of failing the height weight screening was to do more aerobic excersizes than anaerobic. By running and swimming more large muscles group of there is less swelling of muscle mass, which tends of push out on the fat making the applicant 'seem' fatter. Also there is the little thing of muscle being denser than fat, so more muscle mass means the applicant will just increase his/her already substantial poundage. Now I find it hard to live by those words. and I is starting to show.

I read a little of Silverthorn today, but since I'm trying to rotate through books I picked up Under The Loving Care Of The Fatherly Leader. Bradley Martin tries to explain how such a society reminescent of the Eloi in just a few decades. At the moment the author(Bradley Martin) is trying to piece together Kim Il Sung's biography by using the only source available to us, his sanction biography. Bradley is editing out those parts which seem to come directly from the FX dept of some movie company,and for the parts of his narative which might be true but lack confiming evidence says so.

Silverthorn is a book I read along time ago while I was making my attempt at college the first time. I think of all the characters in the book I liked Jimmy the Hand the best, at 16yr of age he was already an old man in the trade.