Now on with the usual rigamaroll:

Good candidates on both sides
I’ve been known to lean left in some elections, and lean right in others.. it all depends on the candidate. I can tell you now that this election is going to be a tough one for me to decide, because there are 2 candidates on each side that I’m really pulling for. For the Democrats we have Barack Obama (my hopeful front runner) and Denis Kucinich (my maybe possibly no-shot-in-hell left candidate), and for the Republicans John McCain (the republican who I’ve always admired the most), and Ron Paul (finally a traditional conservative who isn’t hell bent on destroying our liberties at every turn). I’ve been watching each primary / caucus religiously, with the live statistics and punditry comment.. what political geek wouldn’t be in heaven? The thing that makes me laugh the most is watching the media collectively scramble to predict winners (days/weeks ahead of time) then get it all wrong and quickly find who to point the finger at, as if it wasn’t their own self-indulgent curiosity that sparked the insanity to begin with. To be fair, not just the media’s pollsters have been dead wrong, but pollsters working for the candidates themselves seem to be in the wrong at the same time. In general, I think this is just a great thing for this election.. unusable poll results will mean we probably have the best chance of an un-influenced, high-participation vote this time around. I’m looking forward to an insanely active campaigning year. Let’s let the candidates and the issues speak for themselves for once..

A new found respect for General Motors
As it’s my geeky habit to do, I’m starting to feel the car upgrade itch (had my current car just a notch over 4 years). Since Paige and I are building a new house w/ more space that’s close to a lake, and we’ll be having munchkins running around eventually.. I’ve set my sights on a mode of transportation that is more flexible. Originally I thought I might go with the new 4-door Jeep Wrangler (and I still think that thing is damn sexy). After some battle with my conscious, I’ve decided I won’t be able to buy ANY larger vehicle (Truck, SUV, CUV, whatevs) that doesn’t have at least some alternative energy source attached to it. So naturally, being the geek that I am, I started searching the landscape to see what the current offerings are, where the automakers are going, and where the promising technology lies. My basic conclusion is that E85 fuels (up to 85% ethanol, 15% gas) seem to be the most promising in the near-to-mid term. FFV (flexible fuel vehicles: cars that can take any combination of Gas and Ethanol) allow us to start using renewable energy that is lower on carbon foot print, more effecient in energy spent vs energy gained, and is beneficial to our domestic economy, all while reusing current infrastructure. And that’s all just based on the current batch of “ineffecient” corn-based ethanol. There are already companies like Coskata who are revolutionizing biofuel with forms of cellulosic ethanol that are 6-7 times as effecient as corn-based ethanol, and all we need to do to make current FFVs support this is change the mixture! So I’ve set my eyes on the current supporters of E85 (GM, Ford, Nissan) as the bearer of our energy independent future, as they are taking on not only alternative fuel sources, but they are also embracing hybrid and battery technologies that further supplement and decentralize our energy concerns. That Chevy Tahoe Hybrid with E85 engine never sounded so sexy.

before i get much further into politics surround this issue, i’d like to mention that hurricane katrina, as has been said by countless others, was a complete and total tragedy, and my thoughts and prayers are on the recovery effort at all times. i’ve donated some to the american cross, and i’d like to try and find some time to help out at reunion arena (where’s there’s a few thousand NO refugees..), i just haven’t had the time yet. i hope the stories that stick with us are the ones of friendship and kindness, and the way that the general populace has lent out a helping hand to our south-coast neighbors in their time of need. with that being said, hopefully my political ranting doesn’t sound too petty .

if you’ve been following the news on the aftermath of katrina to any kind of frequency, you’d probably know by now that there is a huge public, media, and government outcry to figure out “what went wrong” with respect to the slow response and overly-beuracratic process of relief efforts in new orleans. if you lean to the left even a little, or are a conservative with good radar, you’ve probably also picked up a growing political attack on the bush administration as a whole for this mismanagement.
now, i’m not here to put mr. bush in any kind of positive light, if you know me at all you probably know i’m not a huge fan of our current president, but what i would like to clear up is one issue that has gotten alot of press and seems to be a good “lead-in” issue for liberals looking to score some political points at the expense of the bush administration.

apparently, before michael brown was actually appointed to the head of fema, he worked for international arabian horse association, and was actually let go! this fact has been drawing alot of attention by criticizers (mostly to the left, but some to the right too) for good reason, but most people are placing all the blame on bush for hiring this obviously under qualified leader. the one thing that i hadn’t heard mentioned until today was the fact that joe lieberman and 3 other democratic senators actually approved his assignment to fema in 42 minutes. you can’t even get a pizza in 42 minutes! when brown was recommended a 2nd time, this time for promotion to head of fema, they approved him without a hearing. yes, maybe bush was slightly negligent in appointing brown for the post, but it is the senates job to be analytical and thorough with candidates before they are appointed. you can bet your house that from now on fema candidates will take at least as long to interview as supreme court nominees now that we’ve actually had a grandiose scale disaster to suddenly make it important. you really have to love political opportunism.

the patriot act
everybody’s favorite bit of legislation that supposedly “sharpens our teeth” against the terrorists. i mean, if it’s called the “patriot” act, it can’t possibly be bad can it? i’ll argue that there are a lot of provisions allowed by the act that do help, but there are also a frighteningly large number of civil liberties that are stamped all over in this act. here’s a link for more info.

u.s. dept. of homeland security
a new branch of the government. i don’t know what normal people call that, but i’d say it’s increasing the size of the government. i actually agree with the spirit of the department, and don’t necessarily have any reservations against the department itself. but how can bush claim the conservative minimalist government ideal, with this staring in his face?

unprecented spending on the military
we’ve already spent over 120 billion on iraq. not that the situation doesn’t deserve it, i fully support our troops over seas, and think they deserve every accomodation afforded to them. correct me if i’m wrong though, isn’t the military a branch of the government? oh, ya. that’s right.

it’s increasingly clear that the bush campaign has been based on childish labels the past months. do people really positively respond to this? i can’t help but think he is limiting himself to his current constituency. the political waters are so freaking divided right now, you’d think he’d want to win a few over from the “liberal” side. oh well, it’s your grave george.

never fret though, george bush will guide us safely through the night and make sure that liberals like john kerry never give the “evil ones” the keys to our homes. fear, consume.

let’s rewind back to wednesday. rob and I were pretty excited at the mere possibility of riots, civil disobedience, or something of that nature. we had spent so much time hyping up the event that we forgot to check the nights forecast. now, if you don’t live in texas, lets just call texas weather “unpredictable”. so, we had robert check the forecast, and surely enough there’s a 70% chance of rain, and an expected 1 inch of downfall. this did not bode well for our 15 minutes-to-be. naturally, as we were leaving..the rain started pouring in dallas. instead of leaving straight for crawford, we stopped by my apartment and called the crawford peace house. a nice lady answered and explained to me that the rain was supposed to hit north of crawford, and it was sunny as any normal texas day could be. so without further ado, rob and I headed towards crawford.

i’ve always liked driving rather long distances. there’s something totally liberating about the open road and the wind in your face. the drive lasted two hours plus change, but it hardly seemed it. we enjoyed comedy and old school impossibles on the ride down. once we arrived, we found a place where a few cars had parked, and there was a crawford police man ready and willing to talk to us about the event, and share a few laughs. we parked the car on the side of a small barely paved road, and proceeded to walk across a narrow bridge over a serene creek. not 5 paces after the bridge, we see a conservative protest sign that would at least make you stop and chuckle. apparently the crawford police were enforcing the fact that no one could have a protest sign up unless they had a permit. conveniently enough (for the liberals), the only people with permits were on street corner a half mile up the road.

once we passed the now defused conservative protest sign, we walked into the grounds apparently on the wrong side. a few nice ladies stopped us and redirected us towards the donation table (aka entrance) that was giving away buttons for the “suggested” 8 dollar donation. we actually ended up donating $20 because the old man handing out buttons didn’t count out change, but i figured it was $2 extra for a good cause, and at the very least couldn’t hurt my karma. we entered a semi-large crowd of liberals sitting on lawn chairs and singing along to a few kumbaya style songs with live acoustic performers. throughout that entire first hour before the movie started i had a nagging cartman voice in my head .. “Damn.. Hippies..”. rob ran off for a while with the camera to get some extra pictures, but they all turned out like crap. this boy has apparently never touched a camera as i had to show him a few hundred times how to use it, but we still love him . while we were sitting around listening to hippy music, some girl approached rob and they started talking for a little bit. apparently rob left with her email address, and tried emailing her later.. only to have it bounce. he must’ve given her a great impression .

before the movie started they had to inform us that michael moore actually wasn’t going to be there. most people didn’t really care, but i thought it spoke volumes about moore’s character. a man who will openly ridicule the president in a letter inviting him to see a movie that totally defames him in his own back yard. this same man, doesn’t even show up to the showing of his own movie. way to go idiot.

now it was time to sing the national anthem. i sang proud and true, as i rarely ever do now days. it was kind of perplexing though, as there was no flag to speak of.. it made holding your hand over your heart and honoring the spilled blood for freedom a tad bit harder. alas, they did find a flag, and waved it.. as soon as the anthem ended. as soon as the anthem was finished, it was cue time for the movie. rob and i had already seen the movie together and were already getting somewhat ansy when we started hearing “No more Moore!” over and over from the conservative protestors about a block away. this is when the night started getting fun.

i was the first to leave my seat. i wanted to put a face on these conservative protestors and see what they had to say. for about 10 or 15 minutes i walked around the group of protestors.. observing their mannerisms, taking a few pictures, asking them about their opinions, and watching reporters interview them. one of the loudest protestors kept repeating things like.. “Moore is a terrorist”, “Anti-Bush means Anti-America”. being kind of stupid, i tried challenging him to a test of wits. well, after about a sentence of me asking questions he started yelling.. “You can’t argue with a liberal!!” over and over. i had my taste of blood and i liked it. i regrouped a bit after rob came, and this is when the real debating started.

rob started first with a true blue christian extremist. i jumped in on the debate after a while, but this guy makes a southern baptist preacher look timid by comparison. he definately wasn’t the debate for me. as soon as the focus on the debate had gone back to rob, the nice older ladies started drilling me about the things i was saying. it was then i got my moment to shine. the 3 ladies and I debated everything from john kerry to gay marriage and back again. it took a while for the defenses to drop, but once they realized that liberals are people too, i started getting through a bit. one by one the crowd around me started to fade, and i too started feeling sleepy. once my debating was over, i found rob again, still debating with a group of college conservative kids. they were all pretty cool guys. rob was declared the “smartest liberal there” by a few guys, go rob!

at the end of the night i walked away satisfied that i had opened up some minds a bit to alternative view points, and had gotten my fair share of political debate. definately a night worth remembering, even if there was no riots ;).

a free speech .. cage?

now, apparently this idea isn’t new, but i found it appalling. nevermind the fact that this is getting 0 big media attention, i want to focus on the game that these politicians are playing. basically, the idea is you put the protestors in a single place where they can all organize and don’t disrupt the business of the day. while well intentioned, the effects of this policy are horrific. just take a look at these pictures and tell me they don’t instill a fear of big brother in you. not only are we setting an area aside for protestors, we’re caging them into a doubly linked chain fence (topped off with razor wire) , surrounding them with a few military snipers, and putting the “freedom cage” (i really like that term) far enough away from the actual event that it doesn’t even do the protestors any good. oh, and just for the record… this is all happening as we speak at the Democratic National Convention.

michael moore comes to crawford texas.. be there or be square

now, i’m not the biggest michael moore (Bowling for Columbine, Farenheight 9/11) fan out there, but I’ll give him credit where credit’s due. his films are very controversial, and from what I can tell, they’re 100% factually correct. (it’s the conjectured thoughts _after_ the fact, that get so highly scrutinized..). F9/11 is important I think, not only because it helps get an alternative view about the bush administration out there, but also because it keeps everybody on their toes. Moore is, to the Democrats.. what Bush is to the Republicans. A heroic and just fighter of their respective causes who succeeds in dividing the populous down the center in their alliances. but enough about all that, the big news here is that moore is bringing F9/11 to crawford texas tonight (Wed 7/28/04). for those of you who don’t know, crawford texas is the location of george w. bush’s ranch. michael moore has actully written bush an open letter trying to get him to come. well, it’s more like an attempt to get his fans to laugh at bush and hate him even more, but.. it’s still funny none the less. rob and I are going to crawford tomorrow night to see what can only end up being a total mess of conservative protestors vs. moore enthusiasts. hilarity will ensue, i assure you.. and I’ll have the pictures to back it up .

ted turner hits the nail on the head

ted turner (also known as: creator of CNN) wrote a lovely article about media consolidation, and it’s affects on the free market. i don’t have anything new to say except that i’m 100% in agreement with this article, so you should definately read it.

well, that’s about all i can muster up tonight.. i wake up in 6 hours to work out with honain.. (and we all know putting up with a paki can be challenging =P). sleep.