Science

The Naked Scientists – This has nothing to do with nudity.  It’s a British thing, like The Naked Chef.  This great British radio show covers science topics equivalent to what you’d read in Discover Magazine in the USA.  It’s informative while being entertaining, and I learn a lot every week.  (Approx 1 hour long)

Video Games

Giant Bombcast - This is a HILARIOUS podcast that is mostly about video games.  I say it’s mostly about video games because these guys often will go off on random tangents about what energy drinks they have, what they ate, what they did between video gaming, and other topics.  However, they always get back to video games and provide a really fun podcast.  Segments include What You’ve Been Playing, News of the World, New Releases and EMAILS!  My favorite parts are “What You’ve Been Playing” and “New Releases” where they often slag off the crap that ends up in Wiiware and DSiware.  It can be a bit geeky in the same way that some of the tech podcasts I listen to are geeky, (Approx 2.5 hours long)

NPR

American Public Media:  Marketplace – This is a really good economics show.  They talk about news that happened that day as well as stories that have been pre-prepared.  This podcast has really helped me to understand the recession and why it happened as well as whether it is getting any better.  (Approx 30 min long)

Talk of the Nation – Talk of the Nation is a call-in show that discusses news and politics Mon-Thurs and science on Friday.  It also has a special focus on Politics on Wed, although politics can be discussed on Mon, Tues, and Thursday as well.  The show usually has one guest on each side of an issue or one guest if they’re talking about a book or movie.  The hosts are very civil and keep opposing guests from the stupid fighting often seen on cable news networks.  They will also apologize for rude callers.  So I love this show to get a general view of the news without the BS of cable news.  I really like this show a lot.  The science section is of the same quality of The Naked Scientists, but they usually cover a bunch of stories and have a lot more call in with less time so they can’t be as thorough.  (Approx 30 min long)

Fresh Air – Fresh Air is one of NPR’s most famous shows.  It is similar in topic scope as Talk of the Nation, but without any listener call-in.  Also, it tends to have a heavier focus on cultural topics (books, movies, etc).  Terry Gross has been hosting Fresh Air for decades and is a master at interviewing her guests.  Every once in a while there is a guest host or the interview is conducted by a specialist in that industry.  (Approx 1 hour)

Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me – This is a hilarious news quiz show that features guest panelists that rotate from a roster of regulars.  Former NPR news super-star Carl Kassel is the judge of the show.  It alternates between quizzing the guest panelists and call-in guests.  It’s been on for a little over 10 years and in the last few years has been taped in front of an audience (most of the time in Chicago).  My favorite part is when they ask their questions in the form of a limerick.  The only bad part is when they go on the road for their shows, sometimes the audio isn’t as good.  (Approx 30 min long)

On The Media – Although not always perfect and although it leans a little more left than moderate, On the Media is a good podcast about media issues.  Examples include: truth in advertising, misleading news stories on the cable networks, debunking PR-speak from the White House, and other media literacy items.  I tend to enjoy it nearly all the time and it’s a good balance to news on both sides of the spectrum, calling out CNN as often as Fox News. (Approx 1 hour long)

Media Matters – This podcast is nearly as far to the left as Fox News is to the right.  I listen to it because, other than Keith Olberman on MSNBC, there aren’t really that many places that look at the far left of issues.  I find myself often disagreeing with the people interviewed, but I find it interesting to see their point of view.  On the plus side, they tend not to trade in fear mongering like those on the right often do (I’m looking at you Glen Beck).  (Approx 1 hour long)

This American Life – This is an AWESOME podcast and is often my favorite one to listen to each week.  Ira Glass introduces a series of stories that all revolve around a particular theme.  The production rocks and the stories are nearly always very interesting.  It’s hard to properly describe it – you just need to listen to a few episodes and you’ll probably be hooked.  (Approx 1 hour long)

Computers and Technology

The Commandline Podcast – This is a pretty technical podcast.  If you aren’t a computer geek, you probably won’t enjoy it.  But if you ARE a computer geek, this show, by Thomas “Cmdline” Gideon, is a really well produced show.  Cmdline goes back and forth between a news-related podcast and a meditative-based podcast.  The meditative ones contain wisdom from Cmdline’s many years in the tech world. (Approx 30 min long)

FLOSS Weekly – This is a weekly podcast (duh!) about free, libre, and open source software.  It’s another geeky podcast and if you aren’t into the open source movement, you’ll probably find it boring.  If you DO like open source news, they tend to get interviews with really neat project maintainers and the hosts are all Titans in the open source world:  Jono Bacon, Randal Schwartz, and Leo Laporte. (Approx 60 min long) edit:  corrected to 60 min from 30 min

Linux Outlaws – A pretty good Linux podcast.  Dan (British) and Fab (German) talk about the latest news and releases in the Linux world.  As with most of the other podcasts in this category, I don’t recommend it if you’re not really into Linux.  They are approachable, but if you don’t like Linux, there isn’t much here.  They tend to run really long and it can be annoying sometimes.  Unlike Giant Bombcast, they only have two hosts so tangents don’t lead to as many funny moments.  (Approx 2.5 hours)

Shot of Jaq – Shot of Jaq is a podcast by LugRadio veterans Stuart “Aq” Langridge and Jono Bacon.  Whereas LugRadio was often 2 hours long and focused on Linux, Shot of Jaq is 10 minutes long and focused on technology in general with a slant towards FLOSS.  It’s the shortest podcast I listen to and they usually talk about interesting topics.  It takes the form of a conversation between the hosts almost as a classical Lincoln-Douglas debate as they are often on opposite sides of an issue.  (Approx 10 minutes long)

Spectrum Podcasts – This is the official podcast of IEEE Spectrum.  It’s OK.  But it’s not too long and they have decent interviews.  (Approx 15 minutes long)

This Week in Photography – A Photography podcast featuring a revolving cast of four professional photographers.  It seems to follow the same format of Giant Bombcast, except about Photography.  It starts out with general conversation followed by news.  Then there’s an interview with an industry giant, followed by picks of the week where they talk about hardware and software people should try out.  Then they read emails and end the show.  It’s pretty good if you’re into photography. (Approx 45 min long)

Tux Radar – Yet another Linux podcast.  It’s the official podcast of Linux Format Magazine.  They talk about Linux and joke around.  It’s pretty good; I’d probably give it a 7.5/10. (Approx 45 min long)

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It's either warmer or not. Read the thermometer.

Because of the upcoming talks at Copenhagen, everyone’s been talking about global warming recently.  The news even featured  a member of a Commonwealth government claiming that global warming is not true.  In my own country, Republicans like to say that global warming isn’t true.  The opposition parties in both countries disagree.  Look, this debate is over the wrong question.  There can be no debate about whether global warming is happening.  It either is or it isn’t.  That’s not up for debate.  Are average temperatures higher year over year compared to the past?  Then we have global warming.  The globe is getting warmer.  End of debate.  If not, then we don’t have global warming.  What we really need is debate over whether it’s human caused, human exacerbated, or neither.  After all, the planet has been warmer and cooler than its current temperature.  So we need to figure out if what we’re doing is enough to make a difference.  If it is, we should probably knock it off so we don’t make things worse.  If it is solely our responsibilty, then we need to stop right away.  But if it’s going to get warmer no matter what and our activities only matter in the thousandths of a degree, then there’s no point in doing anything.  So this is where we need to be and this is what we need to figure out.  Stop arguing over whether the planet is getting warmer or not.  It’s like arguing if the sun came up today.

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There were two things that really worried me about the direction the Republicans are taking and what it says about the consequences of them reaching office.  First of all, the contingent that believes the Constitution was both perfect and divinely inspired.  Of course we have to ignore the irony that it was OK for The Bush administration to wipe its butt with the constitution.  Of course, when those ay-rabs are involved, it’s OK to violate the constitution.  But forget about that.  The first chink in their argument is the fact that the framers of the Constitution saw fit to allow for amendments.  This simple fact shows their wisdom in knowing that situations change and the constitution should be malleable.  If the Constitution were perfect or divinely inspired it wouldn’t need amendments.  God, being omnipotent, would have included all that needed to be included.  But that’s not the only reason it’s worrying that the Right seems to think the Constitution is perfect.

Let’s see what the original constitution said.  Oh, right – that African-Americans were 3/5 of a person.  Yeah… way to be perfect and awesome there, Framers of the Constitution.  Sorry, but I don’t think God views any people as less than anyone else, so it’s not divinely inspired.  Unless you’re admitting that either God made a mistake or humans corrupted it.  But if God made a mistake there, then you could say he made a mistake anywhere.  And if humans could corrupt that part, could they not corrupt any part of the document?  But that’s not all.  The original constitution did not allow for women to vote.  African-American’s couldn’t vote.  Is this what you really believe in?  Do you really want to represent racist and misogynist people?  Basically, I don’t put up with the BS that they do on the news where they usually don’t call out their guests when they don’t make sense.  If the Constitution is perfect and divinely inspired, then that means you believe in racism and restricting the rights of women.  And if you don’t believe that, then it cannot be divinely inspired and perfect.  Find a new argument to make.

But what really scared me about listening to this people was a speech made by Sen. Tom Coburn’s chief of staff Michael Schwartz at the 2009 Values Voters Summit.  In this speech, he said that an ex-gay friend of his told him that “All pornography is homosexual pornography because all pornography turns your sexual drive inwards.“  WTF?!?  This is the dumbest thing I have ever heard.  How does this even make sense?  Like you’re sitting (lying?) there, messing with your junk and think, “Shoot.  This is so awesome.  How much more awesome would it be if I was doing another dude?”  This is so ridiculous I’m surprised they didn’t laugh him right off the stage.  Not to mention that if you’re looking at heterosexual porn, you’re looking at a person of the opposite sex, so how in the world could that make you gay?  Does that mean that every guy who lusts over Megan Fox is turning a little gay?  If he would have said, “We should work to stop pornography because it leads to people having an incorrect image of what sex is.” or “We should stop pornography because it leads to (rape/infidelity/etc)” then I would have totally respected his speech.  I don’t know if any of those things happen to be true, but they are reasonable.  I happen to know people of both sexes who thoroughly enjoy pornography (I, myself am not a fan) and they are not in the least bit gay.  They enjoy heterosexual sex like crazy.

If these are the people that the Republicans are listening to, they’re really risking turning into a party of loonies.  What people really need is to come back to sanity.  How about Christian movements such as caring for the poor.  In fact, what doesn’t make sense to me is Christian disapproval of universal healthcare.  Hello!  Jesus said to care for the weak and poor!  Caring for them doesn’t involve denying them healthcare because they can’t afford it.  That sounds pretty amoral to me.  What about the Christian movement caring for the environment?  Lots of people point to the Eden story derisively because people use Man’s dominion over animals as an excuse to do with animals as they wish.  What they forget is that God basically has Adam tend to the plants and become the world’s first gardener.  If you really believe that God gave us this planet, then should we not be taking care of it?  When someone gives me a gift, I don’t just throw it away.  This is why I don’t understand why a) religious people ally with the Republicans to the detriment of all that Christ asked us to do and b) they ally with these fanatics that are as bad as Al Qaeda.  Any real Christian should look at the real issues instead of the bogeymen of abortion and gay rights.  Work with women to help them decide to keep their babies.  And stop worrying about gays.  Worry about poor and hungry people.  Worry about the environment.  Worry about countries that don’t allow their citizens to join churches.  Come back to sanity.

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Recently this photo was published by the Associated Press and has been getting a lot of attention on the interwebs.  It shows Lance Cpl. Joshua Bernard, an American solder in Afghanistan, after being hit by a mortar attack and only hours before death.  A lot of the debate participants seem to feel one way or another depending on how they feel about our war.  But I think the debate deserves to be much more complicated and nuanced because there are actually a lot of issues at play here.

The photo was taken by Julie Jacobson, an Associated Press photographer embedded with the US military in Afghanistan.  The military embed program was created by the US government as a way to help get good press about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  I don’t mean this in a cynical way.  I’m not suggesting they expected to only get good information out of the troops.  But by embedding reporters, the government felt the reporters would see how well we were doing and understand the war from the point of view of an insider.  After all, media coverage of Vietnam was completely out of the government’s control and was yet another input (among many) that caused people to be opposed to the war. And, of course, in exchange for protection of the embedded reporters, the government does have some rules.  For example, reporters may not report on the deaths of soldiers before the family is notified.  Photographers may not publish photos of soldiers dying that are close and clearly show a soldier’s face.  And, in this case, the photographer did not break any of the military’s rules in publishing the photo.

Some people have accused the AP of having a political agenda in publishing the photo.  I don’t know for sure, no one can except for those who made the decision.  They certainly claim they didn’t.  I’m inclined to believe them because most people consider Afghanistan to be the justified war.  Whereas we went to war against Iraq simple because Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld felt like it, Afghanistan explicitly supported Al Qaeda, who had attacked us.  Now, personally, I’m not a huge fan of wars, but between the two, it actually made sense and could be morally justified.  From what I’ve seen on TV polls (along with gain of salt) most people believe this way.  So what agenda would the AP have to prove?

One of the biggest reasons for publishing the photo, according to the AP, was to make Americans aware of the cost of war.  Most days, as the media won’t shut up about Jackson, Jon and Kate Plus 8, or some other banality, I forget that we’re even at war.  It was already happening at the end of the Bush presidency, but I think once Obama was elected and the financial world melted all around us, everyone forgot about Afghanistan and Iraq.  There are still people who are losing brothers, father, daughters, sisters, mothers, husbands, and wives to these 8 year old wars.  We forget this.  Heck, we weren’t even allowed to see photos of coffins of dead soldiers until recently.  So, on the one hand, I think perhaps the AP had a good point here.  Perhaps it’s good to show photos of people dying because that’s what war is.  People die.  And, it’s easier to dismiss words (someone’s name) than a photo of another human being blown to bits.  Perhaps, some people think, if everyone had to see the price of war we’d have less wars.   Perhaps….

Of course, a lot of people complained that to show this photo of the Marine dishonored him.  I don’t understand how that works, so I’m not going to take sides.  But where were these people to look out for the honor of the hundreds of photos I’ve seen of dead Iraqis and Afghans?  In fact, lots of people in the comments of this photo (in the NYT photoblog Lens) said they could have showed the price of war by showing dead Iraqis or Afghans.  The reality is that’s “THEM”, but when it’s “US” that’s a different story.  I think it should be all or nothing.

Some people objected because they said it was a gruesome photo that had no business messing with their sensibilities.  But this photo is nothing compared to what I’ve seen in movie or video games.  I, and most people 30 years old and younger, have see much worse in video games.  And anyone that’s seen a horror movie has seen much worse.  I think the gruesome aspect is just a wallpaper over their real objections – whatever those may be.

In my eyes, the reason it was wrong of the Associated Press to publish this photo is because they went to the soldier’s family and told them they were going to be publishing this photo and the family told them ‘no’.  The way I read it (and heard it on NPR), they went looking for the family’s blessing and were denied.  And, to me, if you’re going to go ask permission, you should respect the result.  If they just ran it and then the family complained that would be different.  But to go and hope for that soundbite saying they thought it was cool to show and then getting denied by showing it anyway was wrong.

So why did I publish it?  Quite simply because you can’t make a judgment one way or another without seeing what’s in the photo.  Your mind would probably picture something more gruesome or even less gruesome than it really was.  Then your outrage or lack of outrage wouldn’t be correct.  Another reason, when listening to NPR coverage of the photo scandal, a marine called in.  He said that when he first heard about the photo he was pissed.  But when he actually saw the photo, he saw it as a moment showing his comrades rushing to help him.  It wasn’t disrespectful at all.  And he said he wouldn’t mind a photo like that being published with him as the subject.  So, I think it’s very important to form an informed opinion and for that you need to see the photo.  Otherwise we just end up polarized arguing this way or that way just based on the political party we support.

Now, finally for my opinion of the photo itself. (as you read two paragraphs up, I don’t think it should have originally been published)  To me this is merely a photojournalism photo.  The photographer is capturing what happened in front of her lens.  The photo stands as a an example of the realities of life.  Someone is dying as many people do daily.  This man died in action, not laying in a bed or drunk at the wheel of a car.  If he were my brother, I would cherish this photo.  I would not have to imagine how he died, I would see here his last moments.  After all, don’t we all want to be there in our loved ones’ last moments?  I have always been a fan of photographers who document the last moments of those in their family.  It is a way of dealing with the fragility of life.  Sure, you don’t want to remember your family members that way.  I certainly don’t want to remember my grandmother’s last day on Earth.  But at the same time, something about capturing that last second or hour just need to be done.  Perhaps so you can say, she was like this at the end, but like this (an earlier photo) when she was strong.

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I've got some beef with the White House's Policy

The Whitehouse has been posting the official photographer’s photos on flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse .  They each have the following written in the description:

This official White House photograph is being made available for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way or used in materials, advertisements, products, or promotions that in any way suggest approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House.

I know there may be some exceptions based on the Copyright page the photos link to, but I thought everything (not falling under an exception) published by the US Government was released into the public domain.  I first looked on Wikipedia to get background info.  I started with the Public Domain page.  Then I moved on to the Works of the US Government Page.  So far, my suspicions seemed to be correct.  This Cornell page backed the information up.

Obama and Hillary discussing how this photo is in the public domain and therefore I can do whatever I want with it, including make up captions that have nothing to do with the photo. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

So if works created by the US government are in the public domain (in the US), then there are no copyright protections.  And if there are no copyright protections, no one owns the rights to the work.  Therefore, how can it be that the photos may not be manipulated in any way?  Any work that’s in the public domain is free to remixed in any way possible.  In fact, it can be combined with anything for any reason, including advertisement.  So is this just a matter of the government trying to exert control based on the assumption that most people will be too lazy to look up that government works are in the public domain?  Or am I missing something here?

"Why Yes, Eric, you can use this wonderful photo of me taken by Official White House Photo Pete Souza to demonstrate that you can do as you wish with a public domain work"

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The Seat of Power

The last time I really blogged about politics was back around the 2008 election.  Looking over my archives, I found that, by contrast, I blogged about politics quite a bit from 2007 and prior.  My heaviest political post density (for It’s A Binary World 2.0) seems to be 2005-2006.  Why so much back then?  I think because I was already posting pretty regularly about politics and I was extremely frustrated over the second Bush term win.  I think this post best sums up the despair I was feeling at the time.  It was very interesting to read this post with 4 years of hindsight.  First of all, this sentence:  “There haven’t been any abuses of power (that we know of) … “.  Little did I know we’d find out that December about the NSA’s Warrentless Wiretapping which, I believe, would have heavily swung the elections in 2004.  (THANKS New York Times!)  Second, this fraction of a paragraph:

You have to really have been living as a luddite to go without hearing about the recent Guantanamo Bay detainee scandal. It has been released that we are chaining detainees to the floor in extreme temperatures. They are leaving then without food for extended periods of time and even, in one of the strangest things I’ve heard, subjecting them to 24 hour periods of music by Christina Aguilera.

Oh, how quaint that all sounds now that we know of water boarding.  I’m sure any detainee would rather have heard “Genie In A Bottle” a thousand times a day rather than feel as though he were drowning.  The troop morale arguement I mentioned also continued through the end of Bush’s term.  Third is the following:

I have heard numerous accounts on NPR this week of different government officials saying things like, “We don’t have to be nice to them, they’re terrorists!” What if some people have been caught by mistake? They were at the wrong place at the wrong time or bought the wrong book or something and they are being detained? “No, no. I’m sure that almost everyone there is a terrorist.”

Yet we know this is untrue.  For example, the Uyghur who are now in the Bahamas not terrorizing anyone.  And there was the Canadian citizen who was wrongfully captured by the US and tortured in Syria.  Of course, I’m sure there have been some people released either from Guantanamo or other prisons that have joined or rejoined terrorist movements.  Torturing someone is not likely to reform them.  But the fact that some of them might once again become terrorists is not a reason to hold people indefinitely if there is no proof.  And there’s still no reason why anyone should be tortured.  How does it make us look when we criticize other countries?  After all, I’m sure they consider their prisoners to be terrorists too.  We aren’t the only ones who get to decide who is and isn’t a terrorist.

Finally, the most naive paragraph in the post:

Let us, like Alice, awake from this Nightmare of Wonderland. Let’s get back to the way we were before the Terror Wars. They will never be over and we need to get back to protecting our rights and the rights of others. Do we have to treat the detainees as citizens? No, because they aren’t. But we do have to treat them like human beings. My only hope is that we can get a breath of fresh air in 2008 when a new president is elected (Republican or Democratic).

The Senate, no longer in the Hands of Republicans

Here we are in 2009 – four years and thirteen months after I wrote that blog post.  Guantanamo is still open (although Obama “wants to close it”).  We STILL have troops in Iraq – although you almost never hear about them in the news anymore.  Afghanistan is in worse of a mess than at any point since we came in.  I’m still hopeful, but my hope decreases every day.  My dad told me, near election day, that “…elections don’t really matter.  Whoever wins – democrat or republican – they’re going to continue the same stuff.  Minor things here and there may change, but Obama isn’t going to suddenly end any wars or stop with the secrecy.”  And he’s turned out to be pretty much right.  It’s no wonder that so many people get disillusioned by the election process and decide not to participate.

But I actually started on this quest as a bit of self-examination.  I know my blog used to be a lot heavier into politics and recently has only focused on Linux and photography.  Linux and photography were always (or nearly always) in the background when I first started blogging.  After all, people tend to blog about their passions/hobbies.  So why have I been so silent with respect to politics?  Well, one major factor is that in late 2007 I built my MythTV box.  Before doing so, we would usually watch MSNBC or CNN every night while eating dinner.  There usually wasn’t anything we wanted to watch at that time.  And during the time when I eat dinner, those channels focus on political news.  Once we had the MythTV we could record programs we liked to watch which aired earlier or later in the day and watch them during dinner.  So the news fell by the wayside.  I still used to watch CNN in the morning while having breakfast.  But then we got rid of cable TV.  Now I only get my news from NPR and that’s usually in the car or in the gym when I don’t have time to write about whatever I hear on the news and blog about it.  And then by the time I get home, I’ve forgotten about it.

There’s also the fact that after the whole financial crisis started last Fall, there hasn’t really been as much genuine political news to discuss.  More or less everyone is focused on the US and WOrld economies and there aren’t reports on other topics.  If Colbert didn’t go visit the troops in Iraq I would have forgotten they were still there.

On top of this, Obama is just less frustrating to be on the opposite end of the spectrum from.  There was a perception of enmity from the Bush administration – a real Us vs Them mentality.  And I think that tends to become a self-reinforcing attitude.  As they felt that CNN and MSNBC didn’t treat them well, they started to antagonize them, which (I’m sure) led to CNN and MSNBC consciously or unconsciously no longer holding back.  And when Bush spoke, he always seemed pissed off at any one asking probing questions.  The Obama administration seems to have better skills at arguing back without feeling personally insulted.

I’ve also been watching The Daily Show and The Colbert Report every night.  So I’ve already got someone highlighting all of the hypocrisy and nonsense in the political world.  Although this is only a small effect, it does, somewhat serve the cathartic purpose that blogging does.  Somehow putting my frustrations on “paper” helps me to better deal with all the BS.  But if I’ve already laughed it off on The Daily Show or Colbert, I’m usually not as angry or annoyed and can blow off writing the article.

Barack and Michelle Obama - a breath of fresh air or more of the same? (Photo by Pete Souza)

And, finally, I just have had a huge lack of time to sit down and write a well-considered political blog post.  And politics is all about timeliness.  If, for example, I had wanted to write a post about how things were going to radically change with the Obama administration and didn’t get around to writing it until now – it would have been rendered invalid.

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Well, I know that eventually Hulu will pull this clip.  But until they do, enjoy the extremely creative editing of the The Colbert Report’s team in this rap battle between Colbert and Republican Chairman Michael Steele.

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Exactly how I feel, Randall – over at xkcd.

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Now, normally I’m against most of what this administration has done.  They’ve been unnecessarily sneaky with a lot of things that have caused an erosion of the trust of our citizens in the Government.  For example, they’ve been sliding the reason for attacking Iraq around until they find one that’s palatable and sticks.  If they just would have been honest from the beginning – that they just wanted Saddam out of the way – perhaps they could have just drummed up enough support for that.  And, if they couldn’t, well we’re a democracy (or like to pretend we are) so they shouldn’t be able to do it.

However, I think the telcos need immunity and here’s why.  Let’s say I’m the CEO of a telecommunications company that rhymes with Horizon and some guys from the US Justice Department show up in my office.  They say, “We need you to wiretap phone calls in the USA to stop terrorists.  We could have stopped 11 Sept if we only had been able to do this.”

I say, “One Moment Please.”  And I check with my lawyers.  Then I respond with, “They say you need a FISA warrant and for us to cooperate with you would be illegal.”

Then the Justice Department guys say, “Look, this is legal.  We have this letter here that says it’s legal.  Anyway, we’re the government and we promise not to arrest you over this.  If something happens, we’ve got your back.  After all, it’s legal – see”

Now what can I say?  If the US Government itself has told me that this program is legal, who am I to argue?  After all, who is in charge of police and arresting people?  The US Government.  So they tell me this is legal, then it’s legal.  So it’s unfair if I cooperate with them, thinking they’ve cleared it with whomever (like Congress), for my company to get sued.  How was I to know they didn’t do things correctly?  It was underground spy stuff, I can’t exactly call around and check to make sure that it really is illegal.

So I think the telcos are just victims in the Government’s deception.  They shouldn’t be punished for that.  Otherwise, what’s going to happen the next time those Justice Department guys show up asking for [legitimate] favors?  I’ll just want to CMA and I’ll say, “No thanks.  Why don’t you go ask that telephone company with the Death Star Logo.”

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This year has been an incredibly racist year from people being afraid to vote for Barack Obama because they believe he’s a secret Muslim (so? Any American-born person should be allowed to run for president) to people who say he’s too black or not black enough. Now this old guy claims that Obama’s an Oreo and it’s unfair for him to reap the rewards of the Civil Rights battles of the previous generations.

I think this is outrageous. It’s bad enough that children in lower income areas accuse their classmates who are doing well of “acting white”, but now to hear this guy saying the same thing is just beyond words. We need to be proud of the fact that Obama might be the first mulatto president and not criticize him for acting white. After all, would anyone vote for a ghetto president? I think not….

Related posts:

1. Would you elect a black man or white woman?
2. The Myth of Race
3. Racial Political Faux Pas

Obama will not be the first African-American President of the United States. Barack Obama will be the first mulatto President of the United States of America. This is the myth of race in the USA. Apparently because Barack is half-black, he’s the first African-American President. But if he’s half-black then he’s also half-white. So why isn’t he just the 40-somethingith white President of the US? I don’t understand, if one half is valid, why isn’t the other?

In a way, however, I think the fact that Obama will be the first mulatto President of the USA is a more significant event. There was actually a time in the USA when people of two races could not legally marry. Even after that legal restriction was lifted, many people faced hurdles in life for being biracial. However, with more and more people mixing it up, as it were, I think Obama’s candidate signals a turning point in our country’s history. It’s not historic for him being a black President (because he isn’t) it’s historic because he symbolizes the true and logical conclusion of a melting pot society.

Up until now, the US has been more like a salad bowl than a melting pot. People came from all over the world to the US and then settled in racial enclaves – Chinatown, Little Havana, Little Italy, etc So they were Americans, but had separate experiences from other Americans. But now more and more people are choosing partners based on all of their qualities other than race. And we find ourselves in a true melting pot where children will learn about one set of grandparents from an ancient empire and another set of parents from the newer nations of Europe or South America.

So I view Obama’s (probable) election as marking the point where race ceased to be relevant. When we’re all every race, then there isn’t race anymore. Sure, all the old people who run the news networks can’t see it yet. They’re seeing everything through their generation’s eyes. Obama’s got some black blood in him, so he must be a black candidate. But historians will look back and say, this is the point where America truly became a melting pot and truly began to be wholly different from all the other homogeneous nations in the old world.

This makes me happy because racism is really the only type of -cism that can be enacted on just by looking at someone. Classism is hard in the US because our clothes aren’t so different between the classes as they were in the Victorian Age. When I see a female in jeans, I have no idea if they are designer jeans or $20 Walmart jeans. Additionally, some people with money choose to purposely dress innocuously to avoid attention from criminals. Agism, to whatever extent it exists, can be cheated by plastic surgery. Sexism is hard to do on a large scale (at least given where we are now as a society) because we’re roughly 50/50 so I think men (or women) will have a hard time convincing women (or men) to go back to 2nd class status. But with racism, it’s the worst right now. Look at the World War Two time period. It was easy to round up the Asians and send them to internment camps because you just had to look for “asian eyes” and other such features. But when everyone is mixed together you won’t be able to say, “watch out, there goes a black guy” or see an Asian and make fun of their language.

And that’s why I’m excited about Obama’s potential win.

Related posts:

1. Would you elect a black man or white woman?
2. Racial Political Faux Pas
3. Obama is an Oreo?

Yes, the race for the White House has hit new lows, even for this race.  It appears that we haven’t learned from the past two races and it’s starting to scare me.  Both in 2000 and 2004 one of the biggest reasons stated for George W Bush winning was that both Al Gore and John Kerry seemed too “elite” and “aloof”.  George Bush seemed a little more down to earth, someone you could invite to a BBQ.  Well look where that got us!!

The whole idea of a presidential candidate being too elite is the most ridiculous thing I have EVER heard.  It defies logic.  We Americans like to think of our country as the best country in the whole world.  So shouldn’t we have the best, smartest man (or woman) in the job?  I don’t want just anyone to be president!  It’s a special and unique post.  We need the best and the brightest guiding our foreign policy, setting the agenda for the country, and controlling the executive functions.

This is not a wholly new complaint of mine, but what set me off was this article.  In this article Clinton says:

Clinton … while dismissing economists who have said her plan to suspend gas taxes over the summer would do little good.

“I’m not going to put my lot in with economists,” Clinton said when asked to name an economist who backed her proposal.

“We’ve got to get out of this mind-set where somehow elite opinion is always on the side of doing things that really disadvantage the vast majority of Americans,” said Clinton, a former first lady who would be the first woman president.

So she’s saying that she, who has no training in economics is a better person to decide what’s best for the country than someone who’s studied economics.  She doesn’t want to listen to their opinion because it’s too elite.  What kind of absurdity is that?  Look, econ is hard and I’ll be the first to admit that it’s SO HARD that even the economists barely know what they’re doing.  But I’d still trust them over someone with no training any day.

Let’s wrap this up with a great mind exercise.  When you are sick are you going to not go to a doctor because that’s too elitist?  Surely you should just ask a random coworker what you should do.  And why hire construction workers to build new buildings, that sounds pretty elitist to me!  Are you saying that he’s better qualified to determine how to build a building than the average joe?  And when my car breaks down, why take it to a mechanic when I could just pick some random person off the street and have them replace the engine block.  Do you now see how silly all this elitist talk is?

I just hope that this doesn’t become a huge trend because I see America going down the toilet if we keep this up.  It may just be the case that my children will have to be immigrants in some other country – one that hasn’t elected some yokel to office just because he looks like someone you can have a beer with.

Related posts:

1. Would you elect a black man or white woman?
2. Politics: A Review
3. The Constitution!

Ever since the story broke that the USG wanted us to spend our money on material goods, there have been many people appearing on the news saying that their real problem was that they had too much debt and they were going to use their rebate check to pay down their debt.  Unfortunately, if everyone did that responsible thing, it would make the rebate checks pointless as a way to help the economy.  Therefore Uncle Sam decided to help you out.

Our wonderful government has put people’s social security numbers into a computer program to figure out who is most likely to use this money to pay down debt.  Do you owe a lot on your house or credit cards?  Are you a student?  If so, you may be a bit surprised when you file your taxes this year.  According to a story that aired on National Public Radio (NPR), via American Public Media’s Marketplace, if you’re likely to use your money to pay down debt, the government will buy something for you and send it to you.  To a family in Arizona they sent an air conditioner.  Never mind that they may already have one or may not want to use one.  That’s what the good ole government has determined you should get.  People in the north may find themselves getting snow blowers.

I find the whole thing disgusting.  What do they know about what I want or need?  If they truly want to make sure that we can’t use the money to pay down debts, they could just send us Visa Gift cards.  That way we’d have to use it to buy things, but we’d be able to buy whatever we pleased.  If I wanted to buy computer parts or a DVD, I’d be able to do so, rather than be stuck with what some computer in DC says I need.

Sometimes this administration just pisses me off.

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