Rumors

Just too funny to not pass along…

News and Politics

It is so fun to watch how far blogging has come. Here is a blog that is focused on Indianapolis and Indiana politics.

Jennifer Wagner runs this very insightful view inside politics locally here in Indiana. Kudos to you Jennifer, keep up the good work!
Visit taking down words

Technorati Tags: indianapolis, politics

Indianapolis, News and Politics

One of the funniest observations regarding the State of the Union speech last night.

Watching the SOTU Speech on ABC - BC Beat - Blog on Broadcasting & Cable - 1380000138 :

What was worth commenting on, however, was the contrast in blinks per minute between Pelosi and Cheney. While Pelosi clocked a good 25-30 blinks per minute, Cheney barely mustered 3 or 4. If energy conservation is a personal virtue—as he once said so dismissively—Cheney is a saint. The man functions admirably on standby power.

Technorati Tags: politics

News and Politics

Americans for Fair Taxation

I would love to hear some of your opinions regarding this.  On it's surface, it seems to make alot of sense..but I'm just leary for some reason…

News and Politics

While their leader takes another break from his so-called reality, the
Roveites all revel in their attempts to back up their leader with lies
and misdirection.? One of Karl Rove’s most voracious mantra’s is
to turn one’s energy against them.? Throw so much shit at the
wall, that some is bound to stick.? This is a man who is being
investigated for giving state secrets out to the press, and an
administration that refuses to take any of the blame for the Middle
Eastern pickle that we find ourselves in these days.? How dare
Karl Rove, and his GOP minion’s, attempt to sling mud at Ms.
Sheehan.? I believe she has sacrificed enough for her country to
have earned the right to stand up and say what she wants.? Agree
or disagree with her, she has the right to say it…and people have a
right to listen.

The day of reckoning is coming for the GOP, and Nov 2006 will be the
first wake-up call.? You have swung too far right, you have misled
this country and now you are dragging a lady who lost a son in your
immoral war through the mud.? You are the immoral ones.? You
are the hypocrites, who on one hand claim to hold the moral high
ground, yet in the other support those who obviously do not.

Our country was designed to withstand the fickleness of public
opinion, and to allow government the time and space to govern.? No
doubt that in today’s attention deficient news cycle, the fickleness
has reach a fever furor.? However, the country has given the GOP
plenty of rope, and the rope is beginning to tighten…and their
feet aren’t even close to touching the ground.]]>

News and Politics

Iraqi Chemical Stash Uncovered

This site was a suspected site before the invasion, and was throughly
checked out after the U.S. arrived.? Nothing was found, until now..

This begs the question…why weren’t we watching this site more
carefully?? And, a bigger question of without our invasion, would
this site still be inactive?? Or, did our invasion actually
trigger the production of WMD’s that did not exist before?

Despite the numerous claims by the right wingnuts, there has been NO WMD’s discovered in Iraq….until now…
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News and Politics

Remember before the invasion, how we were told by President Bush, VP
Cheney and others, that the Iraqi oil revenue would help finance this
war.? That with foreign investment and profits from free-flowing oil, this war
would end up not costing the United States.

Over $400 BILLION dollars later, this rather rosy picture of the situation is the farthest thing from everyone’s mind.

Now, the Bush administration no longer expects
a model democracy, generous oil revenues, or economic and social
freedoms to blossom.? Remind me again why we are there??

Weapons of Mass Destruction?? Nope…
Going after the terrorist that attacked us on 9/11/2001??? No, not really…
Capture Osama Bin Laden?? Nope, not even close really…
Make Western Civilization safer?? Ask London.? No, this doesn’t seem to be working out either.
Bringing a model democracy to the middle east?? No, not so much.

So, please remind me again… Why are we there?

Finally, about those oil revenues.? If they aren’t directly going
to the Iraqi people or infrastructure, exactly WHERE are all of those
$66+ a barrel oil profits going?

Yet, with all of this going wrong.? What does our President have time to focus on?? Well, undoing science and teaching religion in our public schools, of course.? Not to mention, repeatedly getting it wrong regarding the environment.

Let’s not forget that one of President Bush’s top aides, Karl Rove, is being investigated for leaking CIA informant information.?
With all the news lately, this story has slowly been dropped from Page
1, to Page 46… However, the fact remains that their are some
very dishonest and evil people working inside the current
administration.

With everything that has been going on in the past 5 years, I believe
this will be written about in history books as one of the darkest periods
in American history.? Blatant racism against others and a rampant
rise in ignorance seems to only be getting worse and more prevalent.

However, truely my biggest fear is that some people will never see it that way.?
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News and Politics

First, with millions of security camera’s installed around the world, London has the most camera’s installed all over the city
in the world.? The United States is following Britain’s lead by
installing thousands and thousands of camera’s here.? The
government tells us it is for our “security”, yet with all of those
camera’s installed all over London.? It did not one bit of good.

The camera’s may facilitate the identification of who did this horrible deed.? But they did nothing to PREVENT the act from happening.

Second, the Homeland Security Advisory System that has been used
since 9/11 is worse than worthless.? Two days before the attack in
London, the security level was lowered.? Could a sleeper cell here
in the United States be waiting for us to lower ours, as a signal to
carry out their attack?? This is not a good thing.? The worse
than worthless Security Alert/Color Coded system should be done away
with, and we should be treated like adult citizens.? Just tell us
what is going on and we will deal with it.??

Why does it seem
we knew more about the Soviet Union during the Cold War than we know
about our current threat?
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News and Politics

A Premature Attack - FactCheck.org

News and Politics

Open Letter]]>

News and Politics

Federal government and all committees and sub-committees released their recordings via Podcast to the general public. Perhaps we could extend this idea a bit
further, and require all state, county and city governments do the same. Most American’s, including myself, don’t pay enough attention to local happenings.

Of course, they would probably screw it up and no one would listen anyway.. But, I’m just being cynical.. right?

Technorati Tags: podcast, politics

News and Politics, Technology

What an excellent race! Congrats Dan Wheldon! Also, Congrats to who
I am sure will sweep the 2005 Rookie of the Year honors, Danica Patrick!
Now, the quickies

1. Stuck with a Windows PC? Wanna try PodCasting? Check out Doppler Radio. From About Doppler:
   

   Doppler is a podcast aggregator. It?s a tool to subscribe to RSS feeds which supply downloadable files. Doppler will go out and fetch the files enclosed in the RSS feed and will automatically add them to your preferred media player. And it does this in a very smooth unattended
   manner. It?s simple! Really.

2. Another good site with a list of popular PodCasts is PodFeeder. Some of the Podcasts on the list are not kept very current, but you can usually tell by looking at their website.
3. ITEC Conference and Exposition is on June 8 - 9, 2005 at the Indianapolis Convention Center and RCA Dome. This is about the best technical/IT show that comes through Indianapolis, so it’s worth a few hours to go.
4. This is for all of those annoying Mac evangelistical types.. They are SO annoying! (duck)
5. Reason #1, 468 to NEVER have nude pictures of yourselve taken.
   There should be an IQ requirement before you can file suit… This women was the dumbass for allowing the picures to be taken in the first
   place! Duh!
6. What’s next for BitTorrent? Wired has the scoop… Of course, I predict it won’t take long before this is sued into oblivion.
7. Scott Berkun has an excellent piece regarding How to give and receive criticism. Interesting read, and I certainly catch myself doing some of the bad habits listed here..

As many of you may have noticed, the blog took a bit of a
political turn last week. This will occur from time to time as the
need arises. However, it seems our right-wing friends can’t handle a
bit of what they dish out, so they have decided to not contribute any
longer to the blog.

This is a real bummer, because I think there is less and less dialog
between people with different opinions. Perhaps someday, all of us
will learn how to deal and coexist with different ideals, concepts and
people. However, that day is certainly not today.
Hate, intolerance and ignorance have no place in the future of any
civilized society, yet all 3 of these seem to be making a comeback in
our society.

Perhaps we need to look at our leaders to understand why this is.

Technorati Tags: bittorrent, mac, podcast, sports

News and Politics, Technology

First…the dark side..

While I don’t quite remember the Duck and Cover films from the height of the Cold War, I do remember having the bejesus scared out of me by the thought of thousands of nuclear warheads reigning down upon our heads. My parents discussed survival with me and I read about Nuclear Winter. Now it seems that all of that never actually went away and is more dangerous now than ever. Thanks a lot for nothing, President Bush.

Now, for some lighter stuff. “I, Cringely” writes about a new company called DayJet. Seems the founder of Citrix is applying the BitTorrent ideal to the airways. Interesting concept. At $1-$3 per mile, that makes a one-way trip to Seattle cost somewhere between $3,000-$9,000. Note to self: Win Lottery, pay $4,500 for flight to Phoenix for dinner. One-way.

Finally, I have said it before and I will say it again. Microsoft is beginning to show some strain from all of the competitive assaults and I hope they are truly scared of Google. Frankly, it is about damn time. After some of Gates & Co.’s past exploits, it was only a matter of time before the karma police came in to knock his door down. As a strong Open Source advocate who has seen the havoc wrecked upon the computer world by the past anti-trust behaviors of Microsoft, this merely seems overdue. After Attorney General “Ass” Ashcroft took the federal government’s foot off of Microsoft’s throat, most geeks were probably like me and thought Microsoft’s market share was secure. Certainly, at least for the near-term. That future does not seem so certain today with Apple, Google, Time Warner, Sony and many others encroaching on Microsoft’s traditional turf, that of the “Desktop Dictator”.

If more companies would simply behave by Google’s mantra of “Do No Evil”, perhaps we wouldn’t have the amount of ethical scandals and blowups we see today. That damn eternal optimist in me never shuts up.

Technorati Tags: politics, pop culture, google

News and Politics, Technology

Directly from our republican leadership. You know, the ones that lead us into
the WAR we are supposedly fighting. How quickly they forget their priorities.

Basically, Rick “The Tool” Santorum has proposed legislation that would make
it “illegal” for NOAA to release their weather forecast data freely over the
internet. NOAA is fully funded by the U.S. Government and basically we have
all paid for the gathering of this data, but the lobbyists that represent
the weather forecast industry have convinced the tool to give only them the
ability to dissemble this information.

Seriously, we the people already pay for the collection of this data. Yet,
a republican senator allows basically ONE company to convince him that this
is good legislation… Um.. During a time of war..

First, the whole premise behind this legislation is ludicrous. Second, to
even raise this subject at a time this country is in such chaos.. Is about
as distasteful as filibustering judges.

If this doesn’t prove that Senator Tool is truly a general tool, I don’t
know what does. Of course, unless you own Accuweather stock.. If fellow
republicans jump on board behind this and the bill even gets CLOSE to passing,
then they are all tools by default. If they try to say that we “…need to
protect this data to fight terrorism…”, then they are double tools.

Goes to prove my point, both sides are full of village idiots… Senator
Santorum is the “Grand Poobah Idiot” of them all.

Technorati Tags: politics, weather

News and Politics

This was sent to me from Jenna who works with Vote Smart.

– cut here –

Project Vote Smart, a citizen’s organization, has developed a Voter’s Self-Defense System to provide you with the necessary tools to self-govern effectively: abundant, accurate, unbiased and relevant information. Here at Project Vote Smart, Americans young and old volunteer their time, take no money from special interest groups, and have committed themselves to an extraordinary effort. Thousands of citizens - conservatives and liberals alike- are working together, spending thousands of hours researching the backgrounds and records of thousands of candidates and incumbents for public office.

Project Vote Smart covers candidates and elected officials in five basic categories:
· Background and contact information
· Issue positions, provided by candidates through our National Political Awareness Test (NPAT)
· Voting record
· Campaign finances
· Interest group ratings from over 100 groups across the ideological spectrum

All of this information, along with public statements made by President, U.S. Senators, U.S. Representatives and Governors, voter registration forms for each state, contact information for state and local election offices, and much more is available through the Voter’s Research Hotline 888-VOTE-SMART and our Vote Smart Web site, www.vote-smart.org

If you are interested in how your representative has voted on a bill, where their campaign contributions have come from, or what they have said in regard to a particular issue, we invite you to contact our research hotline, 1-888-VOTE SMART or visit us on the web at www.vote-smart.org.

To ensure balance and strict impartiality, the following three policies are important to the success of Project Vote Smart:
1. All Project Vote Smart Board members must join with a political opposite
2. We will not accept financial contributions from any organization or special interest that lobbies, supports or opposes any candidate or issue
3. We operate like the Peace Corp

If you would like more information on Project Vote Smart, please don’t hesitate to contact me at membership@vote-smart.org.
I look forward to hearing from you!

Technorati Tags: politics

News and Politics