Too. Much. News.

What is a person to do when there is just too darned much information out there to process and talk about? Hit the high points and hold on for the coaster ride to come? Seems a not unreasonable course to follow.

Out of the great American Northwest we have notice that there's a ballot initiative in the works that would require married couples to reproduce or have their marriages declared invalid.

Under I-957, marriage would be limited to men and women who are able to have children. Couples would be required to prove they can have children to get a marriage license, and if they did not have children within three years, their marriages would be subject to annulment.

All other marriages would be defined as "unrecognized" and people in them would be ineligible to receive any marriage benefits.

One might think that the initiative was the brainchild of the lunatic religious right, but this time it's coming from the proponents of same sex marriage! Sweet! At least they have maintained a sense of humour in the face of adversity. Seems that the Washington Nazguls Supreme Court rendered a judgment against same sex marriage and "justified" their decisions based upon the necessity that

"limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples furthers the state's interests in procreation and encouraging families with a mother and father and children biologically related to both."

Now what would the overriding interest in procreation be for the government? The obvious answer is future slaves tax payers and subjects. That's a truly frightening thought that those judges came up with. Shades of the Handmaid's Tale! Wonder what will happen if this manages to pass?

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Hillary Clinton wants to, (among other things) confiscate the oil companies stock profits and use them to finance government attempts to find "alternative energy sources".

"The same -- the same is true with energy independence. The Democrats know what needs to be done. Again, we're working to try to push this agenda forward. The other day the oil companies reported the highest profits in the history of the world. (Laughter.) I want to take those profits and I want to put them into a strategic energy fund that will begin to find alternative smart energy, alternatives and technologies that will begin to actually move us toward the direction of independence!" (Cheers, applause.)

In other news, she also wants to confiscate YOUR profits and use them to line the coffers of the government to finance universal health care. Looks like socialism is going to be the spreading disease in the Western Hemisphere in the 21st Century. At least President Clinton will have friends in the neighbourhood. We are so farked when this woman becomes President.

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The Chinese have successfully tested their anti-satellite technology and now our military people are wondering what our good friends in the PLA are up to by having mystery satellites close to some of our "key satellites".

As worldwide attention focuses on China’s first successful anti-satellite missile test, U.S. officials are questioning why some Chinese spacecraft are in orbits that bring them close to key U.S. satellites, according to military sources.

The big question is the scale and progress of the Chinese anti-satellite program, including whether the Chinese spacecraft are benign or time bombs that can someday be used to threaten the space assets on which the U.S. military and economy depend for everything from reconnaissance and dropping bombs to logistics, communications and navigation.

Just stopping in for a cup of tea? Sure, that's likely. The Chinese have no interest in knocking us into the dirt and taking their place as the pre-eminent global power of the 21st Century. It's not like their communists or something, right? Oh....wait....nevermind.

I just hope they aren't near any of the satellites that beam to DishTV, I'd hate to miss something on TV, just because someone decided that now was a good time to start World War 3.

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From the "We're not going to war with Iran" files. A top Iranian diplomat has gone MIA in Baghdad. Apparently a victim of...well, someone who may or may not be the Iraqis or us.

Gunmen wearing Iraqi army uniforms seized an Iranian diplomat as he drove through central Baghdad, officials said Tuesday. Iran said it held the United States responsible for the diplomat's "safety and life."

One Iraqi government official said the Iranian diplomat was detained Sunday by an Iraqi army unit that reports directly to the U.S. military. A military spokesman denied any U.S. troops or Iraqis that report to them were involved.

"We've checked with our units and it was not an MNF-I (Multi-National Forces - Iraq) unit that participated in that event," said Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a U.S. military spokesman.

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step".

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And don't even get me started on global warming. The river down the road from me is freezing over, it's 11 degrees and I have about 3 inches or more of snow in my driveway, (with up to 6" expected tonight).

Technorati Tags:
News, Hillary Clinton, Same Sex Marriage, China, Global Warming

Difference? What Difference?

Libertarians are fond of pointing out that there is no discernible difference between the "two" parties in the American political picture. Well, here's further proof that not only is there no difference between the parties there is also no difference between the major players in those parties.

"U.S. policy must be clear and unequivocal: We cannot, we should not, we must not permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons...
....In dealing with this threat ... no option can be taken off the table.
We need to use every tool at our disposal, including diplomatic and economic in addition to the threat and use of military force..."

Who said this? Take a minute and think hard about it. Got an idea? Sounds a lot like the current President, huh? Is that your guess? It would have been mine, if I didn't know better. Nope, it's not George Bush. It's Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party front runner for their Presidential nomination. We're not likely to hear this on the domestic Evening News, are we?

How are these people any different than the ones currently in power? They're not. It's that simple. Anyone casting a vote for this woman, thinking that she would somehow be different than George Bush is delusional. She voted for the war. She continues to vote for the war. The same goes for all of the others running, too. Same overseers, same whips, same play book.

Technorati Tags:
Libertarian, Hillary Clinton, Election 2008, Democrat, Republican

Switching Back

Well, the day has finally come, (as was inevitable), when I switched back from the evils of the low quality Windows world to the higher quality, more satisfying world of the Mac. Windows is definitely feeling no love this year, as so many people seem to be making the switch from Windows to Macs or Linux. Can't say as I blame them after last week.

We'd been planning on a return to the Mac platform a little later this year and apparently the Windows machine overheard us and decided to commit sepuku last Thursday, rather than be replaced down the road. That was pretty much the last straw for us. It was an inconvenience to have to move our plans up by a couple of months but, it was a necessity. Windows has few options for fixing problems and most seem to involve erasing ones hard drive and starting afresh. Seeing as there was data I needed on said hard drive I was reticent to do that.

Fortunately, I already had one older Mac Powerbook and a Firewire case so I hooked up the tanked Windows hard drive and 'lo and behold the data was there at my fingertips. Windows couldn't find anything, but my 6 year old Mac Powerbook (running OS X with 1 GB of RAM) immediately saw everything. Unfortunately, it did not have the drive capacity to recover and store the data. The new 20" iMac I was sent out to acquire does have that capacity.

So, now I've been spending the last week reacquiring programs, retrieving data, relearning keyboard shortcuts and reacquainting myself with the vagaries of a full sized Mac and a newer version of the Mac OS X. So far I am very satisfied with the experience. NeoOffice looks to be as good a program suite as M$ Office and the price is right. I love the Macs Dashboard function and Widgets, having the weather radar at the touch of a button is just cool. Firefox, Thunderbird and my wifes copy of Beer Alchemy are all working well. Add in the fact that it's just a darned pretty machine with a huge cool factor and I feel pretty good about things now.

All in all, it's nice to be back into a more user friendly computing environment and, other than the availability of games it's hard to see why we ever migrated away from what is clearly a better and more friendly platform. Shoot, this new system is even going to let me experiment with Unix via its BSD core and the terminal and I could, (if I were masochistic enough) even run Windows again. There's a new external drive mounted for backups (I had wisely purchased an extended warranty on the drive when we had the Windows machine assembled), my trackball is hooked up and all my data is now retrieved and safe in a new home. Life is better.

Technorati Tags:
iMac, Switching, Apple, Windows

Rangel's Latest Draft

Charley Rangel, the draft loving über Democrat has once again introduced a bill that would institute a draft, the Universal National Service Act of 2007. This time, tho it's not just any old draft that this lunatic politician wants to impose on people. It's much worse than the old military draft. Rangel's latest version would enslave all people from the ages of 18-42 not just for military service, but also for an inadequately defined federal service with a minimum of 2 years required of the enslaved inductees.

To require all persons in the United States between the ages of 18 and 42 to perform national service, either as a member of the uniformed services or in civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, to authorize the induction of persons in the uniformed services during wartime to meet end-strength requirements of the uniformed services, to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to make permanent the favorable treatment afforded combat pay under the earned income tax credit, and for other purposes.

Regardless of who you were you'd be snapped up and forced to do the bidding of the federal taskmasters at whatever job they decided to place you in, if you fall within their age ranges. And, lest you think the bill is unfair it does go to some length to see to it that women are now included in the draft, (fair's fair, I guess) and the exemptions are so few that even homosexuals and the Amish would likely be forced into service eligible for induction . So, no longer will they only be after our sons as their servants, now they'll be after our daughters, too.

Fortunately, this bill is in committee, has no current co-sponsors and will likely (hopefully) die a well deserved bureaucratic death. But....given the sheer numbers of hard left socialists in control up there, this Euro inspired "service" bill could conceivably find its way to the floor and be placed up for a vote. All too often we have heard people on the Right and the Left blather on about the need for national service. This type of bill will have supporters, both vocal and silent on both sides of the aisle. I have no faith that it won't sit around until the situation is optimal for it to be re-introduced under a Democratic President where it could gain serious traction. This is certainly something that all people, (especially if you are between the ages of 18 and 42 or a parent) should be keeping a close watch on.

via Cryptogon.


Technorati Tags:
Libertarian, Draft, Politics