But what if the "fat lady" refuses to sing?

Dear Senator Clinton,

Seriously, Hillary, it's over

Not that I'm calling you fat, Hillary, but simply making reference to the old saying. You ran a competitive campaign, and obviously there are plenty of voters who like you as a candidate. But you are in no way entitled to being the nominee because you were the First Lady for 8 years or 7 years as a senator.

You've been arguing that basically, because you say so, the Democratic Party should simply throw out it's nominating rules, go against 'the people' and make you the winner. What about all the Obama supporters out there? Wouldn't they be pretty angry about you usurping their candidate's more legitimate 'win'? Might they decide to vote independent or *gasp* Republican instead of by default voting for you?

What about voters, Democratic, Republican or Independent who don't like the idea of two families owning the presidency for what, upwards of 24-28 years? (Bush I 4yrs + W.J Clinton 8yrs + Bush II 8yrs + H.R. Clinton 4-8yrs). Regardless of any of my other political views, that last prospect scares me the most. I mean, we're a democracy (fine, fine, Constitution-based federal republic) right? With term limits for (some) elected officials? I don't care how amazing a president someone is (or might be), there is a system that exists for a reason. Washington refused to serve more than two terms for precisely this kind of reason and that precedent was adhered to until FDR was elected for his 3rd term. Even though FDR is generally accepted to have been a 'good' president, a formal term limit of 2 (technically 2.5 to account for a VP serving out a presidential term) was imposed via the 22nd Amendment in 1951 precisely because of FDR being elected more than 2 times. Similarly, the DNC's presidential nomination process, while not perfect, exists and should not be changed due to the whining of a single candidate with an over-fed sense of entitlement. You serving another 4-8 years, spiritually continuing your husband's terms, is not the 'Change' that voters want, ma'am, please stop claiming it is.

And no, Michigan and Florida should not count in the slightest. They chose to break the rules and should not be 'un-punished' just because you say so now. You can bet your bacon that you, Senator Clinton, would not be arguing for their inclusion if the results were close or clearly in Obama's favor.

Respectfully,
Potentially disenchanted 'young' voter.

PS: Am I the only one confused about non-voting US territories having presidential primaries? It seems a little goofy to me, but I guess the DNC can do what it wants to pick its candidate. The fact that a candidate won in Puerto Rico, American Samoa etc should not be used as an argument for whether or not they can win in November (or are even a better candidate than their same-party candidates)

Why the 'Chief Executive Threshold' is utter BS...

Years in office prior to assuming the US Presidency has no real bearing on presidential performance and historical rankings:

These seven presidents are consistently ranked in the 'better' half of all US Presidents. They have as little as 2 years of political office and as many as 14. Washington's 8 years as Commander-in-Chief debatably does not apply since it was not an elected, political office. This is also why Wilson's service as president of Princeton University only questionably applies. US Senators elected before 1913 were elected by the state's legislature, rather than via some form of popular vote.

Abraham Lincoln:
2 Yrs - US HoR
Total: 2 Yrs

George Washington:
(8 Yrs - CiC Continental Army)
Total: 8 Yrs, debatably applicable

Franklin D. Roosevelt:
4 Yrs - NY Gov
Total: 4 Yrs

Teddy Roosevelt:
2 Yrs - NY Gov
1 Yr - VP US
Total: 3 Yrs

Woodrow Wilson:
2 Yrs - NJ Gov
(8 Yrs - Pres, Princeton Univ)
Total: 2 (10) Yrs

Harry S. Truman:
10 Yrs - US Senate
<1 Yr - VP US
Total: 11 Yrs

John F. Kennedy:
6 Yrs - US HoR
8 Yrs - US Senate
Total: 14 Yrs

These seven presidents consistently rank at or near the bottom of rankings of US Presidents. They have service ranging from the (questionably applicable) 4 years of military service by US Grant as General of the Army to Nixon's 17 years of political service on the national scale.

Calvin Coolidge:
3 Yrs - MA Lt Gov
2 Yrs - MA Gov
2 Yrs - VP US
Total: 7 Yrs

Franklin Pierce:
5 Yrs - US Senate
Total: 5 Yrs

Andrew Johnson:
4 Yrs - TN Gov
4 Yrs - US Senate
<1 Yr - VP US
Total: 9 Yrs

James Buchanan:
10 Yrs - US Senate
4 yrs - US Sec of State
Total: 14 Yrs

Nixon:
6 Yrs - US HoR
3 yrs - US Senate
8 yrs - US VP
Total: 17 Yrs

Ulysses S. Grant:
4 Yrs - General of the Army
Total: 4 Yrs, debatably applicable

Warren G. Harding:
2 Yrs - NY Lt Gov
5 Yrs - US Senate
Total: 7 Yrs

Just for comparison:

George W. Bush:
5 Yrs - TX Gov
Total: 5 Yrs

John McCain:
4 Yrs - US HoR
11 Yrs - US Senate
Total: 15 Yrs

Hillary Clinton:
7 Yrs - US Senate
Total: 7 Yrs

Barack Obama:
3 Yrs - US Senate
Total: 3 Yrs

If Hillary's 'Threshold' is achieved somewhere between3 and 7 years of service, then does she argue that Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt and FDR should not have been elected? Were Nixon, Buchanon and Andrew Johnson inherently more qualified just because they sat in office longer?

Additionally ludicrous is her argument that while, Senator Obama is not now above the undefined threshold, he might somehow magically pass it between now and the DNC, qualifying him to be a vice president. But that would mean that he would be qualified to be President as well. You can't have it both ways, Senator Clinton.

Seriously, people, priorities?

Surely, effective scanning of commercial cargo entering the US has a direct impact on national security, right? And not some war with some country that was not involved with attacks on the US and has ended up tripling or so oil prices?

What's ~$2bn for securing our ports against a possible nuclear/dirty bomb attack when we've already spent upwards of $500bn on Iraq/Afghanistan?

Baseball > Civil Liberties?

Senate caves, votes to give telecoms retroactive immunity

So...Congress decides to basically rubber-stamp legislation the president asks for...but holds congressional hearings about whether certain baseball players used performance enhancing drugs? I've been looking, but I can't quite seem to find where it says regulating professional sports is their responsibility...

The Roommates and I have been talking...

...and we've come to a conclusion: Bush is a terrible Republican. $3,000,000,000,000 budgets? Who's the party of 'small government' again?

I can understand the general concept of fighting to preserve America for "the children," but, I hate to break it to you, but "the kids" aren't going to appreciate a towering, festering pile of debt, either, especially if all their civil liberties are gone too.

This has been your 3rd-quarter political update. Now back to the game.

EDIT: If it makes you feel any better, I've just run the numbers and $190bn/yr for Iraq/Afghanistan works out to about $6k/second. According to Wikipedia, 30 seconds of advertisement at Superbowl XLII cost $2.7m, which works out to $90k/second, 15 times the per-second cost of the Iraq/Afghanistan theatre of the "War on Terror"

Alright, here's my prediction:

Post Super-Tuesday (and certainly by the time the Democrats and Republicans have selected their nominees), we'll see a race between Barack Obama and Jogn McCain.

Jon Stewart called such a race as a real "tonic for America" and I'd have to agree. Such a race might actually be more about issues than ideology (gasp!).

Seriously, watch both of them speak at Google, very interesting (you know you have two hours to spare, anyway)

Just FYI....continued

click here to learn more


Previously discussed here

As additional points of comparison: The Big Dig, arguably one of the biggest public-works boondoggles ever cost ~$14.6bn as of 2006, and that was over a 24 year period (in 2006 dollars, starting in 1982). The cost of a manned mission to Mars is in the $150-400bn range. Keep in mind that 40 years ago we got a dozen men onto the Moon for "only" $135bn.

A snippet of wisdom, as relevant as ever, on a Sunday morning...

"The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men."

Samuel Adams

Wait, what?

Slashdot | How To Beat Congress's Ban Of Humans On Mars

So...does congress want to crush the hopes and dreams of aspiring American scientists and engineers? Aren't we like, supposedly falling behind, with regards to technological development, compared to the rest of the world? Shouldn't Congress be concerned about that?

The 1950s-1970's space race did amazing things both directly in terms of developing science and technology and indirectly by inspiring many to enter science and engineering professions. The problem is most of these people are retiring now, and American industry will be having serious issues replacing them and their decades of experience. It scares me that this seems to be a problem largely unconsidered outside of the engineering world.

And if it's an issue of NASA funding...FY'08 for Iraq/Afghanistan is well more than the cost of the Apollo Program (in 2006 dollars, of course)

OK, I know who I'm not voting for...

...whoever authorized this god-aweful idea of changing daylight savings! Seriously, am I going to have to fight with my PDA twice every year? Why not just get a new PDA, you might ask? Well, first off there do not seem to be any on the market that I like. Additionally, my current one still (::knock on wood::) works fine, so why should I have to replace it? This whole SNAFU is supposed to be some kind of perverted money/energy saving plan.

IT IS NOT!

I propose that all the extra coffee that had to be made to write software patches to correct this problem counteracts any and all possible present and future energy savings of this policy. This does not include any waste due to missed meetings caused by an electronic scheduling device being off by an hour.

Politicians, in all your stupidity and ignorance, you have at best not inconvenienced any given individual, and greatly inconvenienced a whole hemisphere of them.

Fucking brilliant, guys. (Pardon my language)

Export Eligibility Requirements

Please confirm: "I am not listed on the United States Department of Treasury list of Specially Designated Nationals, Specially Designated Terrorists, and Specially Designated Narcotics Traffickers, nor am I listed on the United States Department of Commerce Table of Denial Orders."

Would I know if I were on any of these lists? Is there a letter they send you?

Time for a little Find and Replace...

"In any country, if you don’t have countervailing institutions, the power of any one president is problematic for democratic development"

So when our President circumvents the judicial system and gets all pissy when Congress does not comply with his every whim he is 'defending democracy' but when Putin consolidates power by weakening their legislature and judiciary, he's being 'undemocratic'??

Again, I have to reiterate: We have three (mostly) equal branches of government, as laid out in the Constitution. Not one that gets to bully the other two around.

Just FYI.

Iraq/Afghanistan FY '08: $190,000,000,000 ($190bn)
Apollo Progam (1961-1975): $135bn (2006 Dollars)
Manhattan Project (1941-1946): $23bn (2007 Dollars)
World War II (1941-1945,American Expenditure): $3,300bn (2006 Dollars)
So, to summarize, one year in Iraq/Afghanistan is equivalent to the sum of the entirety of both the Apollo project (14 years) and the Manhattan Project (5 years), or one quarter of the average per-year expenditure of the USA during World War II. Which was an actual war, mind you. Like, with a declaration and stuff.

Methinks There Be Some Commendation Inflation at the Army...

Decorations & Awards, Two Generals, Two Eras

Paper Trails Don't Ensure Accurate E-Voting Totals?

Slashdot | Paper Trails Don't Ensure Accurate E-Voting Totals

Now, voter-verifiable paper trails aside...what's with all the hullabaloo about e-voting? Paper isn't good enough? The FL/Chad issue is not present with all paper ballots. My town's ballots are pieces of yellow cardstock with partial arrows: >- -> pointing at candidates and Yes/No options. One takes a sharpie (or other black marker) and fills in an arrow. The ballots are then fed through a high-speed reader (basically a barcode reader writ-large) and votes are tallied. The ballots are durable and easily hand-recounted, which happens often, anyway.

Seriously, what's so wrong with that? People can screw up the ballots? Yes, but that's on the voter, not on some random company writing code that they don't let anyone look at (and it's isn't easily verified if it's even the code running on the machines) that likely has vested political interests, anyway ::choughDieboldcough::

Just because a bunch of idiots designed some terrible paper ballots doesn't mean all paper ballots are the devil. Most people think computers are magic and either trust or distrust them implicitly. Paper ballots are easily understood by anyone and do not qualify as 'magic' by any means.


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Now playing: Battlestar Galactica - Colonial Anthem
via FoxyTunes

Washington's Farewell Address

It's a really good read. I recommend it to everyone. It's basically Washington's 'Fatherly Advice' to the young country. It's basically all still relevant today (perhaps even more so than when he wrote it at the end of his second term.)
FAREWELL ADDRESS (1796)

An Intriguing Use of Powerpoint.

Why Powerpoint is a double-edged sword

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Now playing: The Who - In The Ether
via FoxyTunes

Why I Feel Like A Second-Class Citizen...

Over the past several weeks, I have been met at every turn by companies who have refused to take my money for their goods or services:

"You want a credit card? You're a student and never had one before? OK, just sit here and have an incompetant teller fill out a web-form for you and wait a week or ten days." "Oh, too bad. You're not in the system and we clearly can't issue you the only card we offer"

"Get into an accident? Sure, we'll fix your car. But those guys over there won't let you rent a car. You can enlist or get drafted and go out there and defend my whiny ass but you're not renting one of our cars. Oh no, you have to be 21 to do that, mister. And we'll still ream you, hard, till you're 25."

Conveniently I turned 21 about two weeks after the accident, but I would've been SOL if this had happened last summer or the summer before. Apparently all work done by under-21 year olds is optional and they can just skip it for a week or two.

"Oh, great! You're 21 now! You can rent a car! But not without a major credit card!"

You can have plenty of money in your account and be fully insured, regularly pay your taxes in full, but you can't rent a car without a major credit card, though they likely don't care if you're eyeballs deep in debt.

"That broken car? Yea, you need to pay us for the repairs. Check? No problem....oh, wait. There is. You haven't written enough checks so clearly we can't trust this one. Try again in six days."

That's the one that really pissed me off. I mean, they basically could deny me for any reason and refused to tell me why. At least the MA Dept of Revenue eventually told me why they didn't want to give me my money back.

If Only....

Some Wikipedia concepts should be applied to real life.

Finally...

Discovered today in my online bank statement:

07/02/2007 Direct Deposit COMM. OF MASS. $172.31

Sent immediately following discovery:

Senator Joyce,

I am writing to thank you and your office for the effort put forth on my behalf in dealing with an obstinate Department of Revenue (as detailed in my previous e-mail of June 21). Having just arrived at work today I checked my online bank statement and, to my delight, found a direct deposit from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for $172.31.
After receiving a call the next day, after my e-mail, from your office, I did not hear from the D.o.R. until the 26th when a Mr. McDermott, a Taxpayer Advocate at the D.o.R., contacted me and claimed that my return should be filed "tomorrow" and letting me know that the reason for the audit was due to a mismatch in social-security numbers between paperwork I had submitted and paperwork from my employer. This consisted of a single incorrect digit, purely a clerical error, that apparently was allowed to pass through the system the previous year.

Again, I would like to thank you and any members of your office involved in providing me with such prompt and effective help.