Archive for October, 2004

Reason online has a good, albeit biased, discussion of the two federalism cases I discussed below. Here is the link

Ok, the media is ablaze with the report that Bush might have been wired during the debate.

I say, If he was wired, the person on the transmitting end was an idiot.

Talk amongst yourselves… ;-)

Ok, with all the low fruit from the debates, I think I’m beginning to sound like a Republican. So I guess it’s time for a tirade against the Bush administration.

I’m getting sick of the current administration’s, greatly magnified, adoption of the Microsoft tactic FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt). We as Americans are giving up rights and privileges in exchange for only the appearance of security. Why is it that my fellow Americans seem oblivious to the erosion of their freedom? I cannot figure it out, maybe we have become so “Fat, Dumb, and Happy” that we no longer see why the founding fathers thought liberty was important.

I guess it was only a matter of time. The news media has sensationalized and over-covered violence and crime to the point that everyone feels they are unsafe. Many children are no longer able to play at the empty lot at the end of the street, or even walk themselves home from school alone, because we as a country have become so paranoid, and afraid that we keep children penned up out of fear that the boogie man will get them. No wonder we are raising a whole generation of kids that cannot seem to get jobs and move out of the house when they are done with school. Ever more they are moving back to the security of the environment they have known all their lives instead of getting out of the nest and becoming contributing members of society (but that’s another rant).

Then came 9-11, the day that changed the US forever, but only because we decided to make it change us forever, and certain political leaders have found that spreading fear makes for a more passive populace. Ok, 9-11 was a horrible thing, and many lives were wasted, but NO government on the face of this earth has been able to prevent terrorism, why do we think that this country or this president can? Not arguing that Kerry will do better, I’ve sent emails on his record of anti-privacy voting practice already.

Also there is the case of the complete lack of perspective we have put on 9-11. I blame this mostly on sensationalism from the media. There were less than 3,000 deaths on 9-11. Here are some statistics for the US on the average year:
1. The flu kills 36,000 people a year and hospitalizes 114,000.
2. 7,000 people die from medication errors while in the Hospital.
3. 12,000 people die from unnecessary surgery.
4. 80,000 people die every year as a result of infections they picked up while in the hospital.
5. Alcohol abuse is blamed for 75,000 deaths.
6. Gluttony gets 300,000 people per year
7. Illegal drug use kills 20,000 per year
8. 42,000 die every year in motor vehicle accidents.

Remember this is how many die every single year. Since September 11th, 2004 the flu has killed 108,000, roughly 36 times the number of people who died from terrorism on US soil. Where is the knee-jerk call for a “Department of Viral Security”? Where are the billions of dollars in funding for anti-flu measures? We just lost half of this year’s flu vaccine supply. I don’t see anyone in Washington screaming and ramming through legislation to make us feel better about it.

Gluttony has killed nearly 1 million people since 9-11. I don’t see a government sponsored monitoring, and crackdown on the evil and ever-present “All You Can Eat Buffet”. The CIA should be profiling every Shoney’s, Golden Corral, and Indian restaurant in the country. People are dying out there!!! Albeit only 300 times as many people as 9-11 (over the last 3 years), so I can see why it’s not a huge priority. Why doesn’t the government remove our right to eat as much as we want? Man I sure would feel safer…

Here is an interesting bit about HR 10 which is currently working it’s way into law as we speak. Welcome to the world of the national ID card, with biometric identification (which is already proven to not work). Regarding the findings of the precious 9-11 commission. Does anyone realize how scary creating a cabinet level position for an Intelligence Czar? Now whatever administration is in power will have complete control over spy satellites, and compilation all intelligence information. I can’t believe people fear 9-11 so much that they will ignore the dismantling of safeguards that protect us from an Orwellian future. If you think I’m a sounding a little too black-helecopterish, lets just work with two fameous figures from the last 50 years. Picture in your minds eye J. Edgar Hoover with massively improved ability to collect, identify, and retrieve data. Think about how much safer we would be if Senator Eugene Joseph McCarthy had had unlimited access to intelligence info, which included all your purchasing habits, medical records, email conversations, etc…

“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety”. – Benjamin Franklin

I watched the movie “Super Size Me” last night. This movies director reminds me quite a bit of Michael Moore (I’m not talking about the obvious reference). In many ways I have found Michael’s movies to be less misleading and more objective. ;-)

The movie is about a man who saw the lawsuit brought upon McDonalds on behalf of two girls because they were fat, and they eat at McDonalds. Thus McDonalds is responsible for their excess girth. He decided to test the theory by eating at McDonalds exclusively for 30 days. I’m not going to completely spoil the movie, but needless to say he is very much trying to convince the audience that McDonalds is indeed contributory to their size, and that they do so intentionally.

What he does.
1. He continues to intentionally consume double the necessary calories required per day. Trust me if you eat 5500 calories of Subway sandwiches a day you will gain just as much weight.
2. Through the diet the physicians told him that gaining weight at the rate he is, by overeating, is dangerous. He continued anyway and seemed suprised by the physical effects.
3. He ceased getting any exercise at all. As a matter of fact he intentionally made himself quit walking from place to place.
4. He started having health issues, many of which could be blamed on the now copious quantities of caffeine that he had started to consume.
5. Another interesting thing you don’t see in the movie, but I heard him say during an interview about the movie; He was not just eating one meal at a time. For instance, for breakfast He would eat pancakes and sausage, and an egg McMuffin, which to most people would be two breakfasts.

The movie is VERY heavy handed, constantly insinuating that McDonalds is evil, and that McDonalds food is the reason his health is declining. While he stuffs himself with quantities of food that are completely unreasonable. Add to this the dramatic increade in caffeine consumption, and exercise deprivation. Not that I like McDonald’s food (matter of fact it gives me indigestion, and I don’t care for the taste either), but to purport that this movie could be used as evidence to support the claim that McDonalds food is unhealthy is just wrong. All this movie proves is that you really can get fat if you eat way too much of the wrong kinds of food, and deprive your body of as much movement as possible. I think most of us knew that already.

The reason McDonalds sold “Super Size” meals is that PEOPLE BUY THEM. There is no evil malicious conspiracy to make Americans fat on McDonald’s behalf. McDonalds food is no more evil than many things you can (and many do) make for themselves at home. McDonalds sells a product that people want to buy. They have no obligation to act as health consultant/food nanny for the country. Get over it…

One item of support, I do think that way too many kids are overweight. However, most kids will be overweight if they overeat and don’t get any exercise. This is not however, McDonalds fault, it’s not the fault of the schools (the movie goes after them too), it’s the responsibility of parents/guardians to ensure that their kids eat healthy, reasonably, and get exercise.

On my 1 to 10 rating scale:
1. See at Theater
2. Buy pay per view
3. Buy on DVD
4. Wait for HBO
5. Wait for broadcast TV
6. Ignore
7. Write a nasty review about the movie
8. Call the distribution company and complain
9. Convince the Christian Coalition that the movie is the work of the devil.
10. Feed the director’s dog Ex-Lax and poke the producer’s eyes out with a pencil.

I definitely rate this one a 5, as it is mildly entertaining, and does have a few interesting points. However since the point of view is so incredibly slanted and the data is almost wholly unsubstantiated, you really cannot believe most of the points made in the movie.

Ok, I’m also getting tired of the Cheney never met Edwards bit. As far as I know the basis of statement stands. Cheney’s point was that he was in congress every week and had not met Edwards on the job, to highlight his point that Edwards was reputed to not be on the job very often.

So far from what I can tell the only times the Edwards camp has confirmed that they met was at a prayer breakfast two years ago. Then again at a swearing in ceremony.

In neither of these instances was Edwards on the job, in congress.

I wanted to post this yesterday but did not get a chance. Poland is not too happy with Kerry’s comments that our allies are a “coalition of the bribed, the coerced, the bought, and the extorted.”
Polish President Kwasniewski stated that “It’s sad that a Senator with twenty years of experience does not appreciate Polish sacrifice… I don’t think it’s a question of ignorance… It’s immoral not to see this involvement we undertook, because we believe that we have to fight terrorism together, that we need to show international solidarity, that Saddam Hussein is a danger to the world.”
Why does the Polish president believe Sen. Kerry ignores the sacrifices of coalition allies in Iraq? “He thinks more of a coalition that would put the United States together with France and Germany.”

For the record, 17 Polish soldiers have been killed in Iraq.

Here is a link containing the details of our allies. I find Tonga to be the most interesting as they are a country of approx. 100k.

Why is the Oil for Food scandal getting so little media attention? Also does this not counter the ultra-lefty conspiracy theory that the war on Iraq is about oil? Seems to me that the countries not joining us and opposing the invasion were the ones concerned about oil and as Kerry puts it the bribed and coerced.
Thanks to Instapundit for the update:

SADDAM HUSSEIN believed he could avoid the Iraq war with a bribery strategy targeting Jacques Chirac, the President of France, according to devastating documents released last night.

“He [Saddam] targeted friendly companies and foreign political parties that possessed either extensive business ties to Iraq, or held pro-Iraq policies,” said the report.

I was much more impressed with this debate, there were actually numbers and issues discussed. A few of the standouts I have are listed below.

1. Funny item – Did anyone notice that Kerry insinuated that Bush didn’t know who the enemy was because he kept mixing up the names of countries and people? I couldn’t even keep count of how many times Edwards mixed up Iran and Iraq, and Saddam and Osama. Just too funny.
2. Same old flip flop song and dance, this time on both sides. Stop already!
3. No Plan for the Peace. I still don’t know what this means. The plan Edwards outlined for the peace was essentially what is currently happening, he just changed a couple of methods (might or might not work better) which have the same net effect (in a goal sense). There was nothing that outlined anything more than train the people in Iraq to defend themselves, Hold elections, and Rebuild Iraq. Isn’t that what is going on now?
4. Getting tired of the not giving weapons inspectors time. Maybe there are some voting age high school kids out there in the swing vote crowd that Kerry/Edwards are aiming to sway. Kids who do not remember the on again off again UN inspections debacle in Iraq. Here is an interesting link full of reports with a 4 year span.
5. I really liked the tort reform discussion. Edwards had an interesting idea for tort reform, by making the attorneys pay for frivolous lawsuits, and the three strikes policy was very interesting. I’ve heard very similar measures dismissed on the grounds that it would make it too difficult for the poor to file a lawsuit, but we will see. On the surface I like the Cheney limits punitive damages and % cut to attorney’s view, but the punitive damages are sometimes the only way to touch a large corporation enough to effect change. Especially considering the weak powers given to our Consumer Product Safety Commission. But I really like that fact that the parties are talking about it.
6. I really want some tax reform discussion, Bush mentioned it not too long back, but seems to have been silent on the subject since. I’m disappointed.
7. Message to both parties, why is it that nobody seems concerned about redistribution of wealth (via taxes) from single people to families? I’m still waiting to hear a reason why I as a single person should pay higher tax percentage as compared to someone with a family. I am using less government resource, yet paying more than my share for the government resource that is used by the children of the person with the family. Do not give me the argument that we need more kids as future source of tax flow, so we need to convince people to have them, because we seem to have plenty enough to let a bunch of them die from malnutrition and lack of good health care every year.
8. Cheney made a very good point about S-Corporation people being considered wealthy in the Edward’s plan.
9. I’m really waiting details on how Edwards plans to fund universal coverage with the congressional health care plan, that was promised.
10. Edwards proudly displayed his “It’s the average American Joe vs. big evil corporate business (I believe he mentioned his old nemeses: insurance companies, drug companies, etc…)” colors in the debate. I’m guessing this was pandering to the middle class, because you cannot foster a pro business environment with this kind of an attitude toward business.
11. Since Edwards was off in a tear on the administration not forcing pricing down on prescription drugs why didn’t he mention the details of why. Including the reasoning that the drug companies would end up raising rates on everyone else who had private coverage if they had to give up money for welfare drugs.
12. Why would you legalize import of Canadian drugs? The gray market works fine, and I believe you also largely give up your right to sue the company if you buy the goods on the gray market (Brent can you help on this assumption?), which keeps the cost of drugs down.

BTW in the case of winners, I think it was close to a tie. I have far more respect for Cheney than I do for Edwards, turned in an overall better performance on the ever critical facial expression category. I really feel that Cheney is a business person who understands economics and political issues. I might not agree with him on many things, but I do at least think he understands the complexity of what he is discussing. Everything said and done, I feel I might could be excited about the election if these were the two Presidential candidates. Unfortunately they have had their 88.5 minutes in the sun. Hopefully the next two debates (two right?) will be better than the first Bush/Kerry.

If you were watching CNN after the debate. They cut to Mary Beth Cahill (sp?) and asked her to name a meaningful piece of legislation that Edwards had written, or participated in, she danced in a circle and never even came close to discussing Edwards, or his time in office. Then the announcer (Wolf I believe) said the same question again (noting that she hadn’t answered yet) and she said exactly the same thing… Just too funny… If you don’t know his record, just say so… It really looks bad when you avoid the question twice in a row. I bet she is better prepared next time.

Ok, I’m sure I’ve got more but I’m too worn out, and need to get back to work (lunch is over)…

I think these fact checkers are not completely objective (you will note some differences between the facts they decide to look up and the support they use, but they mostly agree). Here are CNN and the elusive FactCheck.org.

Ok, my thoughts, better than the first Presidential debtate. What I wonder about though is why certain points are never made that seem like such an easy response such as:
1. As to Halliburton: Why does Cheney not point out that only two compaines were able to perform the duties of the no-bid contract at issue, Halliburton and some French based company, given the lack of French support for going into Iraq, why do they get the job? Second, the Clinton admin had awarded several no-bid contracts to Halliburton as well, I never heard Kerry or Edwards complain about that.
2. As to Afganistan. Kerry/Edwards are trying to make it seem that we had Osama cornered in some little area and let him go. This is just wrong. The area they are talking about is very rough and steep mountains. Some up to 9,000 feet. Further it is my understanding that they cannot fly helicopters in many parts of it because of the mountains. It is a huge area that the afgan “warlords” knew better than anyone and thats why they were given the task of searching.

Those are two big points. I also wanted to mention that I think at times the canidates were talking over the heads of the general population. I am curious whether the general population understands what Cheney is talking about when he mentions that many individuals making over 200k gross are “s”corps. I see similar things every day. Another good example of people looking rich on paper is owner-operator truckers. These guys have regular gross income of at least 100k/yr of course they only pocket maybe 20% of that because of expenses.

Call me protectionist, but there are still some things I think big government should control, and should not rely on global sourcing to meet minimum need, it might be handled at a state level, but there will be quite a bit of duplicate effort in the quality arena. Either way around it will cost money to stabilize the supply. The vaccine companies have a little to say on the subject.

The first day of the new term for the Supreme Court starts today. This should be a fairly interesting term. While the majority of the media is focusing on sentencing guidelines; because of my con law background and interests, I am much more interested in the two cases dealing with Federalism and the one case dealing with emminet domain. Here is a synopsis of the three:

The justices’ continuing re-examination of the boundaries between national and state authority can sometimes appear rather abstract and academic, but not this year. The court’s two federalism cases are both likely to generate interest and attention. In one, the Bush administration is defending federal narcotics enforcement authority over the medical use of marijuana in states that have authorized use of the drug for that purpose.

In a case from New London, Conn., the court will examine the power of eminent domain and decide whether the government can take private property and turn it over to a private developer for a project intended to increase the local tax base. The question in Kelo v. City of New London, No. 04-108, is whether this is the kind of “public use” for which the Constitution authorizes eminent domain.

For more info nad a complete summary check out Preview Page registration maybe required.

Ok just a few notes I made from the Bush vs. Kerry presidential debate. Anyone with feedback/answers please let me know…

1. Why does the Bush camp think that the American public is so stupid that repeating the same line over and over will win them the election?
2. Why does Kerry think he can make change in the mideast? We could go over a list of nations who have tried in the past (I think we are on that list more than once).
3.When Kerry says we should have waited for the UN, did he mean more than 10 years? Does he have a limit in mind, and when he reaches his own limit, would he criticize himself for being premature?
4. Why didn’t Bush tackle Kerry over funding for all the “Pie in the sky”, “I’m just going to make everything better” rhetoric? Kerry’s statements show either that he has no grasp of limited resources, or he believes his audience has no grasp of the concept.
5. Why does the Bush camp think that the American public is so stupid that repeating the same line over and over will win them the election?
6. It also appears that Kerry is unable to see that when you build coalitions you have to give and take. You cannot say on one hand that you are offended that US forces are doing most of the fighting, then complain on the other that you are not using US forces for every effort you deem important.
-Extra bonus question 1: What was the last war or police action the US participated in, where we didn’t spend the most money and supply the most troops?
-Extra bonus question 2: (two parts): Most times Iraq comes up for debate in my office, there is always mention of “If the US just wants peace why are we not in Africa”. Can anyone name the country that was embroiled in civil war, where we sent US troops to in Africa (under UN sanctioned effort)? What president pulled our remaining troops out, and publicly blamed the UN for their deaths (which has helped the tribal warlords to keep the country without a central government to this day)?
7. Did anyone notice Kerry trying to suck up swing votes by referring to poor, dead, Ronnie as an ideological peer?
8. Kerry said that 35 countries had better ability to make WMD than Iraq. My question is how many had used them recently (Saddam had)?
9. Kerry talked a lot about fuel rods and seems to point the finger at Bush however this article seems to put their nuclear material stockpile a bit earlier.
10. Why does the Bush camp think that the American public is so stupid that repeating the same line over and over will win them the election?

Overall appraisal:

Bush: Seemed thick and slow at times, beating his “Flip Flopper” refrain into the audience’s heads over and over. Even when he forgot the question or became confused, he still managed to work his way back to “Flip Flopping” before the red light lit. Bush has aligned himself personally with the success of the homeland security department, which may well be his downfall. If there is a successful terror attack on US soil before the election he will loose quite a bit of ground. I would have had much more respect for him if he stated the truth as it is: We cannot completely protect this country from terrorists any more than we can keep hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants out of our country, any more than we can keep thousands of tons of illegal drugs from entering this country, any more than we can keep child pornography off the internet. We can only try to do the best we can with a reasonable amount of money (the amount for homeland security is way too high when you consider the risk) to try and close the biggest holes. If a terrorist group really wants to blow something up inside the US, and are willing to give their lives to do it, they will eventually succeed.

Kerry: Apparently plans to win just by gainsaying everything Bush says, does, or has done. Even down to making sure he disagreed on how to raise children (hopefully I wasn’t the only person who noticed that one). He seems to be saying that the government isn’t doing enough because it isn’t doing everything (back to finite resources). I’m 100% sure that Kerry understands that you cannot search every single cargo container entering the US. He states that only 5% are inspected, what percentage does he deem appropriate? How does he plan to decide on an adequate level, fund, man, and manage the change? I’m sure Kerry is an intelligent man, but how can he in good concise view the increases in spending required to implement the additional processes (that he implies Bush is negligent for not having in place now) different than the tax cut that he rails against (which by the way I was and am against the Bush tax cut, but we can cover that in a tax reform post)?

All that being said I really think both parties have once again produced candidates and campaigns that are not fit for my vote. Please note that Kerry got most of the items above, but it was mostly because Bush didn’t say anything.

Now what do I do? ;-)

Done… ;-)

> From: Patrick
> To: David
>
> Could you also shamelessly plug the Frontline report to air on October 13?
>
> http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/choice2004/
>
> “The Choice 2000” was one of the best pieces of journalism I’ve ever seen.
> “The Choice 2004” will likely be good as well.

Ok, so I’ve had satellite service for about 9 years on an off. In between satellite (moving from town to town etc) I’ve used cable more than once, and have never been satisfied with the quality of service. I just tried again. I had cable connected the first week of September, and I’m already so fed up with it that I’m pretty sure I’m going back to satellite this week.

Reasons I decided to try cable again:
1. The $25 per month (16 months $400 total) “Ditch the Dish” program.
2. Comcast has no contract, so I could try it, and dump it when I want.
3. Cannot get HDTV satellite service. I bought a High Definition TV and I cannot get a clear view of the sky in the right direction to use the HDTV satellite.
4. My satellite Tivo receiver is having a problem with the modem (I bought a network card that works pretty well) so I thought that with my Tivo headed south it would be a good deal to get the cable DVR for $5 per month.
5. Comcast has taken over here in the East Point, GA area (used to be AT&T and they were horrible), and I thought I’d give them a try.
6. I missed having the local East Point government channel.
7. The video on demand feature Comcast has locally is very promising.

What I got:
1. I picked up the Motorola HD DVR receiver that Comcast is using.
2. Within the last few years they replaced every bit of cable in the area, and replaced all the equipment in their system for digital cable.
3. Brand new wiring all the way from the pole to my set-top box.

Why I’m going back:
1. Receiver will not let me watch a program while I record another one. With the DirecTV I could record two different shows at the same time, and could even watch another pre-recorded show while recording the other two.
2. The Cable DVR is essentially a VCR, I have to tell it every single program to record. Tivo service is FAR SUPERIOR when it comes to selecting shows (season pass, wishlist, etc).
3. The cable DVR doesn’t have the ease of use of the Tivo. The Tivo has excellent look and feel, along with convenient features (the only thing the cable box had that I’d like on the Tivo is a % full counter for the hard drive).
4. Tivo/DirecTV menus are far superior. DirecTV lets you see more of the program guide, instead of taking up 40% of your guide screen with advertising as Comcast does.
5. The channel changing on the Cable DVR is horribly slow.
6. DVR digitizes everything it as you are watching it. Since all the low channels are analog (noisy) the DVR makes the picture quality on them visibly worse. Even without the DVR the picture on the low channels is not nearly as clear as on the satellite.
7. The quality on the analog channels (about 70 of the channels) is poor (the DVR makes them even worse).

Notes:
1. I’ve never had to repoint my dish. I’ve had 3 different dishes at three different houses, and have never had to repoint a dish. I just thought I would mention it since the commercial I saw today claimed there were people who had to constantly repoint their dishes.
2. When satellite goes out in a storm it is usually only for a minute or two, so it’s not nearly the problem the cable company plays it up to be. Cable on the other hand has been terrible. The HDTV that I’m paying extra for goes out regularly. Even when the HDTV is working breakups in audio and video are very common. I would venture to say that I am yet to see a complete hour go by without the video or audio skipping or hanging on HDTV. I’ve had the cable less than a month, and I have already lost all the digital channels twice for more than 45 minutes (per the pre-recorded message these were wide area outages so it wasn’t just my neighborhood). With Tivo on the satellite I have over a hundred hours of captured video (I’ve greatly expanded storage on the drive) and only a couple of shows show lost satellite signal with the longest gap being about 5 minutes.
3. Cost… The cable is more expensive. Even with the $25 a month off the regular price (ditch the dish special) the cable is more expensive (however I am paying $5 a month extra for HDTV on cable, but it is still more expensive).
4. In the Atlanta area DirecTV has all the local channels the cable company has, and the quality of the local channels is better on the satellite dish. I will however miss the local Government channel (they don’t carry it on the dish).
5. When it is working the HDTV is beautiful, at least on Discovery and the INHD channel. The networks HD quality is not nearly as good.
6. In the last two weeks I’ve seen 4 football games where one or more of the the HD cameras is on the fritz, causing jittering intermittent signal whenever that specific camera angle is selected (but they still use it all game, makes me nuts, I guess they don’t see it at the switcher, or maybe the switcher is bad and they keep moving it from game to game… dunno).
7. Video quality on the satellite is not as good as it was 8 years ago, but it is still much better than the quality I received from Comcast cable (including the digital channels). Only Comcast’s HDTV channels looked better.
8. Video on demand works very well. I love the feature. Every show I saw was commercial free (except a small Chevy commercial at the beginning of the show). There aren’t very many shows to choose from, but I expect this will improve.

Ok, just a quick bit of information on Windows license details (I would prefer everyone buy Linux, but sometimes you have to feed the beast). These are as I understand them, and your mileage may vary….

If you purchase the retail version of Windows the software is yours and you can move it from machine to machine as you upgrade etc. You cannot have it on two machines at one time, but you can take it with you.

If you purchase the OEM version at your local computer store (why not it’s cheaper eh?) that software is only licensed for the first motherboard you install it on. If you replace your motherboard to get the next latest and greatest features, or maybe your motherboard just died and you had to replace it with another one, you no longer own a license for Windows. I don’t know of Microsoft enforcing this, but since Windows XP has the capability, so I wouldn’t think it’s too far down the road. This is also what happens with many of the retail computer systems. When you buy the system it has a OS disk with the system, but it will not install on that system if you replace the motherboard with another one. It will also not install on another computer if the original one dies. I’m not sure about academic licenses, but if I find any information on them I will post it here.

Here is one of my favorite online comics. I’m posting it more as a reminder to me, so I will remember to check it more often.

The language is a bit over the edge for sensitive folks.

I believe the chronology is bottom to top, right to left.

Enjoy…

Ok, this email is currently spreading like wildfire. Naturally I have a few items to point out. ;-)

1. If you watch the news, understand human nature, and have ever been in the “Third World” much less to the mid-east, the letter does seem completely plausible (I have been in countries that had much less terrorist activity where I would not be allowed to leave the hotel without armed security escort). However, if you meet all the above criteria, you had probably already assessed that the environment described in the letter would not be out of line as being called “The current state of affairs” before the letter was made public.
2. I haven’t been able to find the Wall Street Journal’s confirmation of authenticity anywhere except this site, can anyone else find it?
3. Regardless, of all other factors, this is a personal letter. Even though the letter may be true, and may be the current state of affairs in Iraq, it must still be treated as subjective opinion. Remember, an email leaked email from a Wall Street Journal reporter is measured to the same standard for accuracy, objectivity, and lack of conjecture any personal email you send to your friends. Which is none. Even fair and balanced reporters have opinion, and can have political affiliation, which is appropriate. This is very well suited in private letters, however, none of this could be associated with the reputation and creditability of the Wall Street Journal, since they would not print the information as news (maybe as editorial, or opinion). I’m only commenting on this item because, from the emails I’m receiving, many people seem to be making the mistake of accepting the opinion in the letter as truth if the factual items in the letter are truth.
4. Due to the convenient timing and mix of opinion and conjecture that almost perfectly match those at the center of the Democratic Parties campaign, this letter also sets off my political ploy alarm.
5. Links and some other reports/sources can be found here.

Presidency Outsourced

Washington DC – Congress today announced that the Office of President of the United States will be outsourced as of Sept.30th, the end of this fiscal year. The move will save $400K a year in salary, a record $521 billion in deficit expenditures and related overhead. “The cost savings will be quite significant” said Rep. Adam Smith (D – Wash) who, with the aid of the General Accounting Office has studied outsourcing of American jobs.

“We simply can no longer afford this level of outlay and remain
competitive in the world stage,” Smith said.

Mr. Bush was informed this morning that his office will be terminated. He will receive health coverage, expenses and salary until his final day of employment. After a two week waiting period, he will be eligible for $240 dollars a week unemployment insurance for 13 weeks.

Sanji Gurvinder Singh of Indus Teleservices, Mumbai, India will be assuming the Office of President of the United States as of Oct. 1.

Mr. Singh was born in the United States while his parents were here on student visas, thus making him eligible for the position. He will receive a salary of $320 a month but with no health coverage or other benefits. Due to the time difference between the US and India, Mr. Singh will be working primarily at night, when offices of the US Government will be open.

A congressional spokesperson noted that Mr. Singh has been given a ZZZscript tree to follow which will allow him to respond to most topics of concern.

“Additional savings will be realized as these scripting tools have been successfully used now and in the past and will enable Mr. Singh to provide an answer without having to fully understand the issue itself”, the spokesman said.

Since David and his friends don’t really know if he is a facist, a commie pinko, or just somewhere in the middle, I recomend one of my favorite little tests — The World’s Smallest Political Quiz

OK, so I have quite a bit of information that I’m always thinking “Man that might be useful to someone else one day, but I lack the dedication to sit down and edit my web page (or my old original web page)to archive the information for posterity. ;-)

Oh yea, I’ve been known to get on the soapbox from time to time. My liberal friends consider me a fascist. My conservative friends consider me a communist. I guess that makes me a Moderate (or since you have to affiliate yourself with a party to avoid confusing everyone) maybe a Libertarian.

I seem to have more than my share of nasty things to say about both of the major parties and their candidates, so there will probably be quite a bit of uninformed, irrational ranting on my part until the presidential election is over.

Enjoy…