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Total class, yessir. Obama’s grandmother Madelyn Dunham, that raised him, died last night. I’m actually reading Dreams From My Father, his book, right now. The book talks about her, in great detail, and often. They were incredibly close, and she was a second mother to him. Reading about this (final?) Republican attack during the campaign made me angry. I mean, really? Honestly?
Leaving no potential avenue of attack unexplored, the Republican National Committee has decided to bash Barack Obama over his October visit to see his ailing grandmother in Hawaii.
Of course the visit itself is not being criticized, but rather the way the campaign paid for the nominee’s unscheduled detour. On Monday afternoon, the RNC blasted out a complaint from the California Republican Party charging that “Obama for America violated federal law by converting its campaign funds to Senator Obama’s personal use” for the trip. That proposed issue for the FEC to investigate is one of five violations alleged by California Republicans in their complaint (which you can read in its entirety here).
McCain should tell the RNC to shut the fuck up. If they had an ounce of class or dignity they would simply have said, oh, I don’t know–”Would you mind just repaying the campaign the expenses?”–if they wanted to try to honestly make an issue of this. What next–if a close family member of his dies if he wins the election will they complain if he flies home on Air Force One? Where were the complaints when the Secret Service had to pay to protect and supervise the wedding of George W. Bush’s daughter in Texas? Hypocrites.
Well, the law of intended consequences from stupid people has escalated things here way, way beyond what is required. Like I only just mentioned yesterday, The Stranger, a local newspaper in Seattle, published some photos of houses with excessive Republican political advertising on them, and put up the addresses so that you could go look at them as well. Matt Drudge got wind of it, and pretty soon half the conservative blogtrollosphere went nuts, to the point where they were publishing the home street addresses of all of The Stranger’s business staff, and the employees began receiving death threats:
After the piece came out on Wednesday morning, there was no violence, no vandalism. There was some debate on The Stranger’s website on Thursday and Friday about the piece’s inclusion of addresses—about the homeowners’ and The Stranger’s right to free speech, and about yards signs as public discourse—and some readers posted addresses of Stranger staffers in comments, because turnabout is fair play. We did not remove those comments and left our own addresses up on our website.
On Saturday morning the piece exploded on right-wing blogs, and death threats were made on our staff.
Since that final post, The Stranger staff hasn’t updated their blog–which is very, very unusual for them as they put out a frighteningly frequent stream of content there. The entire situation sucks, due to the fact that some people (the people that made the calls) have now indeed won in at least a short term via political intimidation to shut down one of the most vocal left-of-center news sources in the United States.
I’m not really that cynical–I’m more sarcastic than anything–but part of me honestly keeps wondering if this is the tip of the iceberg of what could happen in the next four to eight years, if things line up a certain way. What happens if we get Obama in the White House, control of the House and Senate, and try to push through something like the Fairness Doctrine again to balance out the hatemongering out there? Will we see more things like this happening to people that try to stand up to big business and it’s supporters, and the religious right?
Want to see the depths Republicans are stooping to, in order to defeat Democrats this year and hold on to their failing and dwindling power? Read this. Republican operatives in Minnesota have sent a short comic book to children, all but accusing Al Franken of endorsing the rape of women.
Absolutely disgusting, vile, and reprehensible. This is why these people political creatures need to be driven out and kept out. They’re a danger to our children for sending out inappropriate mailings like this and unfit for any kind of office, let alone national ones. A bit more here.
If you aren’t annoyed by this story and it’s implications for the freedoms of your fellow American citizens, your patriotism, loyalty to America, and your understanding of why hundreds of thousands of Americans have died defending our constitution is sorely lacking. Read how much trouble we’re in here, thanks to the machinations of the Republican elite that seek to dominate America.
read more | digg story
Sorry I haven’t posted about the elections at all (or a whole lot of anything). I’ve been trying to avoid going on in public too much about the elections, since I’ve harbored a secret mancrush on McCain for some time–he’s one of the few Republicans that doesn’t make me throw up in my mouth a little bit when I think of him.
But this, right here, is freaking rich. All that McCain chatter about Obama selling out to Iran by sitting down for talks without pre-conditions? McCain hasn’t just crashed the Straight Talk Express, he’s driven it off a cliff into a fireball followed up by a Benny Hill Yakety Sax chase scene with Karl Rove in a thong, at this point. I mean, seriously, McCain, what happened to you? Are you THAT desperate to get the crown now that you’ll sell out who you’ve been your entire career?
Via Huffington Post: In 1987, John McCain cast several votes in an attempt to force the Reagan administration to meet with RENAMO1, a guerrilla organization in Mozambique that State Department officials at the time described as a “terrorist group,” 2 without requiring that the group meet any preconditions.
read more | digg story
Russert was one of the good ones, and one of the very, very, very, very few political correspondents I actually paid attention to.
Apologies for ranting.
Ayn Rand was a social troll of the highest magnitude and order, and did more harm on the side of American sociology than anyone else has in quite a very long time. The idea that selfishness is the most important human trait to nurture is preposterous. The fact that a lot “Christians” endorse that ideal makes me nauseous and ashamed of other Christians. Yes, I’m very Christian, and very Catholic. What was it that Jesus said about heads of needles, and giving unto others, and all that…? Oh yeah. Let’s try it this way. WWJD? Not say, “The Fountainhead is A++++”, of course. He’d say, “The Fountainhead?! WTF!”
Christians that support, endorse, or dig objectivism and other Rand nonsense and brainwashing are flat out fake Christians.
Socialized medicine won’t fly in the United States simply because of the fact that American corporate interests would find it to be a loss, and barring Hillary Clinton trying again if she gets elected in 2008, no other Democratic candidate would be willing to press for it. The devastation to campaign financing for anyone working to enable this would be crippling; you would lose a substantial amount of money, and your opponents would gain tremendously.
Of course, it is of no concern that millions in our country without ample financial means (i.e., poor people and nearly everyone that works retail for a living) are without even the barest of medical coverage, unless they get critically wounded or ill and go to the emergency room: in which case, you’ll be alive, but in debt for a significant length of time. Given that those same people are the ones who due to circumstances have to live paycheck to paycheck, they’re the ones least likely to be able to escape debt. Vicious cycle, eh?
Basic human fucking decency says everyone should get equal health care.
From Digg. Why are we in Iraq, again? Oh, that’s right: Because Saddam wanted to take a potshot at Georgie’s dad when H.W. was President. Let’s get ‘im, he tried to whack my pappy. Meanwhile… we’re in the wrong country ‘fighting back’: “Thousands of protesters are dead and the bodies of hundreds of executed monks have been dumped in the jungle, a former intelligence officer for Burma’s ruling junta has revealed. The most senior official to defect so far, Hla Win, said: “Many more people have been killed in recent days than you’ve heard about.”
read more | digg story
If anyone got spammed allegedly with invitations from me to Spock.com, it wasn’t me. Apparently Spock blew it’s gasket and mailed everyone that was even vaguely connected to any associated profile. Stupid, moronic design. Sorry, if anyone got tagged.
Tonight, our friend Jakob flies into town, and tomorrow, Rebo does, for the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle. That means in two days I’ll be making two trips down I-5 to SeaTac airport and then two more as they fly out on Sunday and Monday. People from work have been staying home and and working remotely because of the massive I-5 construction. This’ll be my first foray into it. Wish me luck…
Two of the coolest guys in the world, Sir Richard Branson and Stephen Colbert, apparently poured water on each other’s heads in an unfriendly manner during a television segment taping that will likely never air.
read more | digg story
End User License Agreements — that boilerplate text you have to click through every time you turn around on computer and website systems — have a justified reputation for being abusive and one-sided. This EULA is just a little more to the point than most, saying in two words what many EULAs take several screens to say.
read more | digg story
Shit fuck fuck shit.
I have the urge to troll.
I HATE PEOPLE RUNNING STUPID UNPATCHED OR STUPID HOMEMADE POS PHP SCRIPTS ON SERVERS. WTF IS WRONG WITH EVERYONE. YOU MIGHT AS WELL BE RUNNING AROUND HAVING UNPROTECTED SEX WITH RANDOM PEOPLE IN 3RD WORLD COUNTRIES, GOING “TRA LA LA LA NOTHING BAD WILL COME OF THIS”
I just found out Beth Orton played Seattle at the Showbox, FIVE days ago. #%$$#RE!!
Was listening to Best Bit and I was like, “Oh, wonder if she’s touring…”
Subject: [BAD SIGNAL](no subject)
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 19:30:06 EST
From: WarrenE
To: badsignal
Drama over with. Fucking artists.
Subject: [BAD SIGNAL]Whoops!
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 19:34:37 EST
From: WarrenE
To: badsignal
Whoops! That went to the wrong email address. And now
you know exactly how foul-tempered I am most of the time.
And how much I need more coffee.
Read:
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/03/20/update_on_subgenius_.html
http://subgenius.com/updates/maghelp.ht
How’s this for insane? We had decided that my 512 RAM chip (same models, everything across the board as Andi’s box, which always had worked, responded, even sounded flawless) should go to her to give her a full gig of RAM. The machine boots, but with no video, at all. Odd. Try swapping back the old 256 chip instead (the old PCs have only two slots on the board). Video, but… Windows failed to load because it can’t find:
c:\windows\system32\config\system
Huh? WTF? We have no Windows media (or much anything right now) due to being technically in-move so after getting blank CDs at Target, we get a Recovery Disk burned from an .iso found at some site. Sure enough, I can get in. But… her user is gone. The computer name is gone. Profiles, gone, and the entire system appears defaulted back to the OEM Windows installation. The main logon is passwordless and named “Owner” now, rather than Andi. The PC name is reset. All network settings, and all her personal data all still there in the folders for the user profile, however.
Gets better: the machine is “wobbly” now, in the words of our Microsoft engineer friend Rob Beddard, who was utterly dumbfounded by what happened as I talked to him about it and worked on the system. Two vaguely plausible long shots: power surge as I powered down or up to install the new RAM, or “shite bad luck”. He’s very British. Any and all response to… anything on the system is very clippy and choppy now, regardless of what RAM is installed. Andi is in the process of backing up all her data to CD right now (1/2 way done so far).
Sunday I’m reinstalling Windows clean on her machine. So much for my day off… stupid freaking disastrous PC luck this week. Assuming there isn’t some larger hardware issue (like the board, or who knows what), that should fix it. Rob suggested that something in the registry getting hosed could account for the twitchy current behavior. If not… Hell, more debt. Sigh.
What an utterly aggravating day. I feel like I got nothing done, in spite of working nearly non-stop.
My main computer, which I use for work, home, and leisure, has up and died. Like a parrot. This morning about an hour into my day–busy, busy day–my hard drive locks up, and nothing moves on screen. The drive goes sccccreeeeEEEECH and then makes a small popping sound, followed by an immediate power cycle. I can’t get into it via any of the safe modes, can’t get to BIOS, nada, zilch, zip. Every now and then, very rarely, the drive would make a vague sound like that. Andi’s PC really doesn’t (they’re identical Emachines t2865’s). Decent, fast, and solid.
Because mine did that now and then I have always religiously backed up things, just in case. Except my music (way, way too many CDs converted to mp3), and except recently, due to the insanity of our move. All my personal junk is stored on my poor old server, locked in storage across town, in some box somewhere buried amidst everything else. All my work stuff thankfully is backed up in a nice encrypted online place, so no worries. But… shit. Two and a half years of stuff and saved stuff… poof.
I think I’ll need to go down to Best Buy in Tukwila tomorrow to get a new one. Or maybe something from Dell.com. Sigh.
To top it all off, my Linksys wireless router for some reason 40 minutes later up and lost *all* it’s settings. Why? Who knows. I farted about with it trying to get it to synch on the cable modem, with no luck. Need to try again tonight. Right now, just one PC right into the modem…
I was looking out the window JUST now, and I saw a brown van–a big one–slow down very suddenly in front of the house. Then a big honking blue van comes out of nowhere from behind, and slams into it from behind. I don’t mean a love tap. I mean he fucking plowed into him as if he didn’t even touch the brakes. Then, they both just SAT there. No one got out. I was thinking I should go down, and was in that few moments where your body can’t really catch up to the rest of the activity your mind is taking in through your eyes.
Then Blue Van began spinning it’s tires. Very, very hard, to where they were smoking. That’s when I thought that maybe I shouldn’t move away from what’s happening. Next, Brown Van rolled forward. Slowly, very slowly, at about five miles per hour, towards the curb about forty to fifty feet away. Still, no one got out of the vans. Then Blue Van began to spin it’s tires again, even more aggressively. Finally, Blue Van accelerating like mad from a dead stop–it had to be a neutral drop, or close to one. He was an inch away from slamming into Brown Van again, when he suddenly swerved alongside of him, to the point at which there couldn’t have been anymore than a foot of clearance between their side windows.
Then the yelling:
BLUE VAN: You fucker!
BROWN VAN: (can’t be understood)
BLUE: Don’t you God damn worry! Fuck you!
BROWN: (can’t be understood)
BLUE: Fuck you! I’ll see you tonight!
Then Blue Van accelarated like mad again, and tore off down the one-way street parallel to mine, but he went the wrong way down it! Next, there was a huge squeal of brakes from that street, which is out of my view, and I thought he was about to hit someone head-on. But no–a moment later I saw the man finally, wearing a gray tank top and khaki shorts. He came sprinting down the side of the town’s small library (which is in between my house and the one-way street), pointing his finger and screaming.
All the while, Brown Van is still in the exact same spot.
BLUE MAN: Fuck you, you fucking faggot! Fuck you! I’ll kill you!
BROWN: (can’t be understood, but much louder)
BLUE MAN (alternately shaking his fist and pointing): Oh yeah? Yeah? Yeah? I’m coming! I’m coming to kick your ass you fuck! Have a nice holiday!
Then the Blue Man ran back to the Blue Van, laid another strip while yelling some more, and continued on down the wrong way on the one way street. The man finally got out of the Brown Van, and he’s wearing a red t-shirt, making him the Red Man. Red Man is walking in the street now, talking on his cell phone and to some lady who was walking her kids during this whole show out front.
I’m going to miss this town.
