president 2008

Every Day is a Gift (Even for Republicans)

RobotPirateNinja 3_RobotPirateNinja, advice, Doh, Examples of Work, government, history, Int Poly, money, Poli-Fi, President 08, stupid, us Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

I put together this little video the other day to try and make a point.   During the video I hold up a particular book that talks about, generally, some of the stuff I am gettting at in the video.  Here’s the vid…

After I had created the video (which I recorded on Valentine’s Day) I was reading a bit about someone who is hated because of her name.  She, too, mentioned the book I held up during the video, which leads to the second half of this post.

The full interview with “The Daugher of the Anti-Christ [sic]” is available here. It is the sad fact that many Republicans actually call someone by that name which illustrates what a sad fact it is.

Alexandra P followed around the McCain/Palin campaign during the election after it became clear that they were going to lose, badly.  I wrote a bit about why that was a while back.

Here’s what AP observed…(the person, not the media organization). Let’s start with the connection to my video (and the random book I spied while making it).  From the narrator…

When Alexandra Pelosi made the Emmy-winning documentary “Journeys With George” in 2000, about her 18 months on the campaign trail with soon-to-be-President George W. Bush, her mother, Nancy, was not yet speaker of the House, and the name “Pelosi” was not yet an epithet on the lips of Republicans.

Eight years later, Pelosi went back out on the GOP campaign trail and into the lion’s den, in the waning days of John McCain’s failed bid for the White House. In her latest film, “Right America: Feeling Wronged,” which debuts on HBO Monday night, Pelosi attends McCain and Sarah Palin rallies in 28 states and puts her microphone in the faces of some very passionate conservatives. As defeat looms, she watches the Republican base go through a very public grieving process, with most of the stages that psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross described — denial, depression and a whole lot of anger — but not very much acceptance. Salon spoke to Pelosi by phone.

And then we get on to the question and answer portion of the article….

Continue reading →

John McCain’s Funny Joke

RobotPirateNinja Doh, government, oil, Poli-Fi, President 08, us Tags: , , , , 2 Comments

“Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?

Because her father is Janet Reno.”

Salon Newsreal | A joke too bad to print?.

—

-Sen. John McCain, back in 1998.

I’m still looking to see what other kinds of idiotic jokes he may have told.

The one about his VP pick was hilarious.

[video from here]

As I watch that video, I can see only one thing…this woman has a future in politics and will one day lead our great nation to victory over the forces of evil.

Gramm Responds to RPN Criticism by Resigning

RobotPirateNinja bullshit, media, ninja, Poli-Fi, President 08, us Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Former Republican Sen. Phil Gramm said Friday that he is stepping down as co-chairman of Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign amid criticism for saying last week that “we have sort of become a nation of whiners.”

Phil Gramm, left, said his comments have become a “distraction” for Sen. John McCain’s campaign.

Gramm on Friday said he would “join the growing number of rank-and-file McCain supporters.”

Democrats blasted Gramm for the comments, made in a Washington Times interview published July 10, and McCain forcefully repudiated the remarks.

In a written statement released Friday, Gramm said his comments had become a distraction for McCain.

“It is clear to me that Democrats want to attack me rather than debate Senator McCain on important economic issues facing the country,” Gramm said.

Phil Gramm steps down after ‘whiners’ comment – CNN.com.

This seems to be in response to my post the other day slamming Mr. Gramm and by proxy Mr. McCain, for the uninhibited and enthusiastic support for the rich and Mr. Gramm’s flippant disregard for the people who stlll have to work for a living.

I hate to see a fellow Texan go down, but that’s probably the way it had to be.  His comments were so far in line with the typical Bush line that he could no longer be a public presence on the campaign.

I’m glad to see this.  But it doesn’t really address the larger issue, which is McCain.

McCain Response RE:Iraq War Policy Paper, Which the NYT “rejects”

RobotPirateNinja iraq, media, middle east, ninja, President 08, us, war Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

(CNN) — The New York Times has rejected an essay that Sen. John McCain wrote defending his Iraq war policy.

Sen. John McCain wrote an op-ed for The New York Times, but the paper said it could not publish it as written.

The piece was in response to an op-ed from Sen. Barack Obama that was published in the paper last week.

In an e-mail to the McCain campaign, Opinion Page Editor David Shipley said he could not accept the piece as written, but would be “pleased, though, to look at another draft.”

“Let me suggest an approach,” he wrote Friday. “The Obama piece worked for me because it offered new information (it appeared before his speech); while Senator Obama discussed Senator McCain, he also went into detail about his own plans. It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama’s piece.” Read McCain’s rejected piece

New York Times rejects McCain essay – CNN.com.

As mentioned, you can read the essay at the link above. I can understand the NYTimes position, as I read and commented on Obama’s position in a post here. At the time it was published, it was new news.

So the NYTimes asks for another version, but the thing is still on the Net as is, and will get passed plenty.

And that’s that.

And this here, below, is some of McCain’s op-ed and reactions from yours truly. Also known as “Reason the Next I can’t Vote for McCain” (reason the previous here).

Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Senator Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent. “I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there,” he said on January 10, 2007. “In fact, I think it will do the reverse.”

Now Senator Obama has been forced to acknowledge that “our troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence.” But he still denies that any political progress has resulted.

I don’t think, if cornered on it, Obama would say that no political progress has resulted. What we are hoping for is accelerating political progress. This is to be done through more political pressure. Having the U.S. in Iraq puts pressure on the U.S. political process and removes it from Iraqi politicians. The less of us there are there, the more the Iraqis have to take over.

This is called political pressure and it’s meant to accelerate progress.

After the previous “surge” barb, McCain’s argument starts to lose coherency.

Perhaps he is unaware that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has recently certified that, as one news article put it, “Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress.” Even more heartening has been progress that’s not measured by the benchmarks. More than 90,000 Iraqis, many of them Sunnis who once fought against the government, have signed up as Sons of Iraq to fight against the terrorists. Nor do they measure Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s new-found willingness to crack down on Shiite extremists in Basra and Sadr City?actions that have done much to dispel suspicions of sectarianism.

The success of the surge has not changed Senator Obama’s determination to pull out all of our combat troops. All that has changed is his rationale.

Umm. Wait a second. First off, why does it matter that there is ANOTHER reason to end the war? Given all the recent successes, and general feeling of progress, why isn’t NOW a good time to really put the pressure on the Iraqi government? After all, and this is very important, they want us to leave. (see previous obama analysis for quotes, or read this story.)

Going back to McCain, we see him directly contradicting reality.

McCain: To make this point, he (Obama) mangles the evidence. He makes it sound as if Prime Minister Maliki has endorsed the Obama timetable, when all he has said is that he would like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops at some unspecified point in the future.

And the reality.

‘Maliki: As soon as possible, as far as we’re concerned. U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes.

SPIEGEL: Is this an endorsement for the US presidential election in November? Does Obama, who has no military background, ultimately have a better understanding of Iraq than war hero John McCain?

Maliki: Those who operate on the premise of short time periods in Iraq today are being more realistic. Artificially prolonging the tenure of US troops in Iraq would cause problems. Of course, this is by no means an election endorsement. Who they choose as their president is the Americans’ business. But it’s the business of Iraqis to say what they want. ‘

Now, McCain finishes his bashing Obama’s timetable, which the Iraqis endorse, by giving his own arbitrary egotistical date, which would artificially prolonge the tenure of US troops.

As we draw down in Iraq, we can beef up our presence on other battlefields, such as Afghanistan, without fear of leaving a failed state behind. I have said that I expect to welcome home most of our troops from Iraq by the end of my first term in office, in 2013.

But I have also said that any draw-downs must be based on a realistic assessment of conditions on the ground, not on an artificial timetable crafted for domestic political reasons. This is the crux of my disagreement with Senator Obama.

So the place where we are at now, IMHO, is a place where staying can destroy much of the progress we have made. If we give a window of hope and a goal, NOW, we might be able to pull this thing off before it gets totally catastrophic.

And by totally catastrophic I mean a number of things, including retardedly huge explosions here in the U.S. both real and economic. It’s time to end this war. Or at least set an end date.

Which bring us to my final complaint about McCain’s rejected Op-Ed and why he’s probably better off if it is less read…

But if we don’t win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president. Instead I will continue implementing a proven counterinsurgency strategy not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan with the goal of creating stable, secure, self-sustaining democratic allies.

…his concept of “winning” is crazy. We went in to get the WMDs and remove an evil man. The WMDs were long gone (thanks Bill!) and the evil man was a shell, a spider living in a hole. The country he had hollowed out was on the verge of collapse and we finished it off.

The goal, now, is to make Iraq stable, secure, self-sustaining and quasi-democratic.

We’ve given them their country back.  Slightly blown to shit and with a million or so less citizens (because they are dead).  Now it’s time to take the guns out and slowly back away.  This is as close as it gets to “winning” when you President and his advisors MAKE UP A BUNCH OF SHIT AND LIE TO YOU TO GET YOU TO SUPPORT AN IDIOTIC WAR.

Staying in Iraq, waiting for a full-western democracy that is a close ally to sprout from the desert is fanciful at best and insane at most likely.  Hoping to make Iraq an ally in the war on Iran (or Saudi) is retarded. When our first closest ally in the Middle East in Israel, it’s a hard question to ask Iraq to be #2. At least if it’s up to them.

We are not losing when we are returning something that belongs to another.  It’s the right thing to do and now is the right time to do it.

—-

Update: There was another Iraq / McCain article I wanted to mention here.

A simple edit makes McCain look a bit off…

On Afghanistan, McCain said, “I’ve always said it’s long and tough and hard.”

As to Iraq, “We’ve succeeded. We’re not succeeding, we’ve succeeded,” McCain said later at a fundraiser.

—

“When you win wars, troops come home,” McCain said. “He’s been completely wrong on the issue. … I have been steadfast in my position.”

All I did was move the first sentence to last. If we’ve won and succeeded…isn’t it time to come home?

How They Justify Spying on American Citizens and Baracks Betrayal

RobotPirateNinja bullshit, business, media, Poli-Fi, President 08, us Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

Understanding Recent Changes to FISA — A Visual Guide (Flowchart) | Ketchup and Caviar

“Ketchup and Caviar” (which is a euphemism for “West and East”, one would guess) has put together this wonderful guide for how the government decided we were scared enough as a people to accept them monitoring everything we say.  But hey, they only keep the parts where people say (or it sounds like they say) something about the terrorism and/or terror-related stuff (said stuff to be slowly expanded to drugs, crimes, and then finally pr0n).

Go and look at the charts.  Pay special attention to the loopholes.  The guys who worked on this stuff were pretty smart and know how to build in loopholes (like the ones they built at Guantanamo to allow for torture).

Here’s the gist of it…

What New FISA does is create a special case involving our bold red line in the first chart. It provides a way for the executive branch to engage in warrantless (but “certified”) wiretapping of wire and cable (including email and phone) of any Foreign-to-U.S. communications collected inside the U.S. You’ll see the new set of criteria for certification in this special case. It does add new protections for U.S. Persons (citizens or greencard holders) by requiring the typical FISA warrant in all cases in which they are targeted.

On the face of it, this new loophole might not seem to be such a big problem, barring the facts of a) retroactive telecom immunity and b) the implication that Bush will never be held accountable for numerous felonies. Unfortunately, it also really is, as far as I can tell, a back door to greatly expanded wiretapping powers. Beyond the obvious fact that it requires only certification and loose judicial review rather than a warrant, it does so in the following way:

  1. It Eliminates the requirement that there be probable cause that a foreign target is a suspect of any kind — terrorist, criminal, ore “foreign agent.” They merely need be your French grandmother, as long as they are outside the United States and not a U.S. person, and if the government says wiretapping them is for the purpose of collecting “foreign intelligence information” (e.g., her Pommes Frites recipe)
  2. It requires the cooperation of telecoms in these efforts
  3. It eliminates of the need to specify a particular email address or phone number to be wiretapped
  4. 1-3 together imply that certifications of wiretapping on individuals is not the issue. The point is to use telecom cooperation to target large collections of data on communications between U.S. Persons and foreigners. This implies data mining — where, for instance, because a foreign target has communications passing through a given domestic switch, any communications (domestic or international) passing through that switch are subject to collection, analysis, and storage.  There are “minimization requirements” meant to ameliorate this, but it is unclear if they really help.
  5. The compromise of domestic communications in (4) is exacerbated by the fact that targets need only be “reasonably believed” to be outside the U.S.
  6. It includes only minimal court oversight — who it is that is subject to warrantless wiretapping will not be know to the FISA court; the government can wiretap before it court order is sought and continue to do so even if it is denied — during a lengthy appeal process.

I have to say I’m really unhappy about this one.

There’s been some other good news recently and hopefully I can get to post some of that today, but this one sucks.  And I’m very unhappy with Obama for supporting it….especially because he said this…

The FISA court works. The separation of power works. We can trace, track down and take out terrorists while ensuring that our actions are subject to vigorous oversight, and do not undermine the very laws and freedom that we are fighting to defend.

No one should get a free pass to violate the basic civil liberties of the American people – not the President of the United States, and not the telecommunications companies that fell in line with his warrantless surveillance program. We have to make clear the lines that cannot be crossed.

…back on January 28, 2008.

And then did this last month.

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) today announced his support for a sweeping intelligence surveillance law that has been heavily denounced by the liberal activists who have fueled the financial engines of his presidential campaign.

In his most substantive break with the Democratic Party’s base since becoming the presumptive nominee, Obama declared he will support the bill when it comes to a Senate vote, likely next week, despite misgivings about legal provisions for telecommunications corporations that cooperated with the Bush administration’s warrantless surveillance program of suspected terrorists.

In so doing, Obama sought to walk the fine political line between GOP accusations that he is weak on foreign policy — Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) called passing the legislation a “vital national security matter” — and alienating his base.

“Given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as president, I will carefully monitor the program,” Obama said in a statement hours after the House approved the legislation 293-129.

[full post]

And so the virgin-fan portion of my Obama love passes into the past.  I ahte to see him reverse so plainly on this topic, yet I can understand why he felt the need to.  I hope he got bad advice on giving in to this and didn’t make the decision himself.  This was exactly the kind of change we needed, Mr. Obama.

The national security thing is bullshit.  People are not that scared.  it’s not the trump card it was in 2004.  Be honest, dammit.

Some Random Black Dude Talks about Iraq

RobotPirateNinja advice, iraq, middle east, Poli-Fi, President 08, us, war Tags: , , , , , 1 Comment

Ran across this one yesterday.  It’s always nice to see the positions coming directly from the candidates.  As I tend to lean a bit towards this Obama fella, I figured a closer look at his Op-Ed would be worthwhile.

On we go.

Op-Ed Contributor – My Plan for Iraq – Op-Ed – Barack Obama – NYTimes.com

CHICAGO — The call by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki for a timetable for the removal of American troops from Iraq presents an enormous opportunity. We should seize this moment to begin the phased redeployment of combat troops that I have long advocated, and that is needed for long-term success in Iraq and the security interests of the United States.

Good start.  This is exactly the same thing I pointed out last week when al-Maliki made his statement.

Next up is a bit of history surrounding the engagement.  Nothing much here but the bottom line.

The differences on Iraq in this campaign are deep. Unlike Senator John McCain, I opposed the war in Iraq before it began, and would end it as president. I believed it was a grave mistake to allow ourselves to be distracted from the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban by invading a country that posed no imminent threat and had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. Since then, more than 4,000 Americans have died and we have spent nearly $1 trillion. Our military is overstretched. Nearly every threat we face — from Afghanistan to Al Qaeda to Iran — has grown.

In the 18 months since President Bush announced the surge, our troops have performed heroically in bringing down the level of violence. New tactics have protected the Iraqi population, and the Sunni tribes have rejected Al Qaeda — greatly weakening its effectiveness.

So we’ve got a bit of momentum, maybe..depending on the way Sadr goes, which seem seems to be quietly at the moment.   He then goes on a bit about the current state of Iraqi politics and makes on the most salient semantic points I’ve seen in a while.  Note the bold.

Only by redeploying our troops can we press the Iraqis to reach comprehensive political accommodation and achieve a successful transition to Iraqis’ taking responsibility for the security and stability of their country. Instead of seizing the moment and encouraging Iraqis to step up, the Bush administration and Senator McCain are refusing to embrace this transition — despite their previous commitments to respect the will of Iraq’s sovereign government. They call any timetable for the removal of American troops “surrender,” even though we would be turning Iraq over to a sovereign Iraqi government.

A wonderful point here, as we are giving power to a government we put in place, not the insurgents or AQI (obviously).  To call this surrender is to embolden the enemy.

He then points out that leaving in a responsible manner is not only desired by the Iraqis, the U.S. and the World, but that it can be done responsibly.

As I’ve said many times, we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 — two years from now, and more than seven years after the war began. After this redeployment, a residual force in Iraq would perform limited missions: going after any remnants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, protecting American service members and, so long as the Iraqis make political progress, training Iraqi security forces. That would not be a precipitous withdrawal.

And then with the strong finish, with some excellent rhetoric and a very simple statement (bolded for your pleasure).

In this campaign, there are honest differences over Iraq, and we should discuss them with the thoroughness they deserve. Unlike Senator McCain, I would make it absolutely clear that we seek no presence in Iraq similar to our permanent bases in South Korea, and would redeploy our troops out of Iraq and focus on the broader security challenges that we face. But for far too long, those responsible for the greatest strategic blunder in the recent history of American foreign policy have ignored useful debate in favor of making false charges about flip-flops and surrender.

It’s not going to work this time. It’s time to end this war.

And so it is.

LOL at MTP (CEO P.a.y.)

RobotPirateNinja Poli-Fi, us Tags: , , , , , 2 Comments

I’m watching “Meet the Press” this morning with Tom Brokejaw (who is demonstrating how skilled Tim Russert was to call people on their b.s. to their face.  It’s harder than Russert made it seem) and I just saw something that really wanted to make me laugh out loud.

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) was there defending Barack Obama and Carly Fiorina (mentioned a good deal in this post) was defending John McCain.

The topic came up briefly, but both McCaskill and Tom Brokaw missed the point that Fiorina was a perfect example of the failed, hugely paid executives.  McCaskill made the point that CEO pay was out of control and mentioned it was something Barack was concerned about as well.

Neither pointed out they were sitting with someone who had been fired for poor performance and was given a $21,000,000 payout.   I wonder which side of the issue of executive pay she stands on?  Which is the one McCain does?

This is further reflected in the fact that McSame’s head economic advisor was trying to tell everything that the “recession is all in the mind”.

Here is Gramm on CEO pay (and now you know why Fiorina works for McCain)

Phil Gramm Quote on CEO Pay

I don’t like McCain, but I’d sure be happy if he brought ex-Senator Phil Gramm along for the ride:

… Wall Street bankers make tens of millions of dollars in salaries and bonuses each year. How would he justify these fat pay days? “It’s simple,” he lectures, sounding very much like the Texas A&M economics professor that he was in the 1970s: “In economics, we define labor exploitation as paying people less than their marginal value product. I recently told Ed Whitacre [former CEO of AT&T, who retired with a $158 million pay package] he was probably the most exploited worker in American history because he took Southwestern Bell, which was the smallest of the former Bell companies, and he turned it into the dominant phone company on earth. His severance package should have been billions.”

Read the whole thing.

Technorati Tags: ,,,
And this is Gramm’s quote from last week.  And recall, Gramm was a senior economic advisor for McCain writing policy.

The former senator’s suggestion that much of Americans’ economic pain and uncertainty is psychosomatic came in an interview with the conservative Washington Times. “You’ve heard of mental depression. This is a mental recession,” he told the paper. “We have sort of become a nation of whiners. … You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline.”

All this whining from the peons, as the decisions I’ve made over the years come home to roost.  Woe is they and their cake (which they can buy with a gas tax rebate*).

Mr. Gramm, a budget hawk in Congress who’s known Mr. McCain for decades, played a key role in rescuing the campaign a year ago. But that didn’t stop Mr. McCain from issuing a sharp critique of the comments while campaigning Thursday in Michigan.

And so Phil gets tossed under the bus faster than you can say, it’s the

Mr. McCain – clearly unhappy with the distraction – said that people who’ve lost their jobs or are struggling to pay bills aren’t suffering from a ” ‘mental recession.’ … America is in great difficulty, and we are experiencing economic challenges.”

Asked if he still would consider Mr. Gramm for Treasury secretary or another top administration post, he said, “Senator Gramm would be in serious consideration for ambassador to Belarus, although I’m not sure the citizens of Minsk would welcome that.”

It was probably a joke, but he never cracked a smile.

[full story]

You know he’s got a shiv ready to go for that bastard.  I’ll bet he wants to cut his nuts off.
Anyway, it kind of tells you which side of the coin McSame is swinging and how everything he sees is reflected through that coin.
I wonder if he understands how his war is making that coin worth a bit less in the eyes of the world?
Continue reading →

Another Reason I Can’t Vote For McCain (Updated 7/8/8)

RobotPirateNinja nerd, Poli-Fi, robot, tech, us Tags: , , , , , 2 Comments

There are a number of reasons that I find the idea of voting for John McCain for President to be…unpalatable.

Some are big things, like the torture thing and the 100 year war thing.

But some of my reservations are small and petty. This is a small and petty one.

John McCain doesn’t know how to use a computer.

This isn’t conjecture. This isn’t bullshit. It comes straight from his own mouth.

You can see that mouth speaking those words here.

Question: Do you use a Mac or PC

John McCain: “Neither, I am a [sic] illiterate who has to rely on my wife for all of the assistance I can get.”

Small and petty to be sure…but….Daaamn…really?! You don’t even use a computer?

It certainly explains a lot…at least to me.

UPDATE: It looks like this was a pretty timely post (despite the fact that McCain admitted his lack of basic modern knowledge back in March). There has been a general response to McCain’s tech cred given by Carly Fiorina, former CEO of HP.

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) – Hewlett-Packard Co. Chairman and CEO Carly Fiorina, one of the most powerful women in corporate America, is leaving the troubled computer maker after being forced out by the company’s board.

Shares of HP (Research) jumped 6.9 percent in heavy trading on the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday on the news. But at one point, the stock was up as much as 10.5 percent.

“The stock is up a bit on the fact that nobody liked Carly’s leadership all that much,” said Robert Cihra, an analyst with Fulcrum Global Partners. “The Street had lost all faith in her and the market’s hope is that anyone will be better.”

Here’s what Fiorina had to say recently…

[Jim Puzzanghera] asked her about McCain’s opposition to so-called network neutrality, proposed government rules that would prohibit Internet service providers from charging websites for faster delivery of their content. McCain is on the side of the cable and phone companies, which argue that the rules would squelch investment in new broadband networks. Obama has been a big supporter of net neutrality, a huge issue among online activists that adds to his Internet buzz factor, leading some (OK, it was us) to ask if Obama is a Mac and McCain a PC.

Carly Fiorina: There’s no question that it is to our economy’s benefit to have more Internet access, more broadband capability, to have this country more wired, so to speak, as we move forward…. I think John McCain understands the way to get that done effectively is by principally allowing business to get it done as opposed to a big government-mandated program. And business won’t get it done unless they see sufficient return on their investment.

The problem here and with big business and net neutrality, is that maintaining an open, level playing field on the internet costs potential profits for these businessses.  If they could find a way to charge more for the same thing, and charge people more to access their fat dump-truck tubes (as would happen if network neutrality was nixed), they would make more money…and the people would lose an amazing resource, not to mention creating huge barriers of entry for the next myspace/napster/youtube.

When you have a computer illiterate President, you can be damn well sure that he doesn’t understand network topology and packet switching, and therefore doesn’t have a clue as to why soooo many computer savvy individuals are standing together to try and defend their realm.   We know what can happen once the network is compromised.

We’ve already seen what happens in the Internet realm when Big Business and Big Brother get together.  When you take this already proven propensity for snooping and mix it with a 70-something computer illiterate President the result can only be one thing.

A bad thing.

Politic Like a Rock Star, Politic Like a Rock Star

RobotPirateNinja cool, myth, Poli-Fi, President 08 Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

Obama’s Convention Speech Moved To Stadium, Democrat Will Accept Nomination At Invesco Field, Which Can Hold Up To 76,000 – CBS News

(AP) Barack Obama will accept the Democratic presidential nomination before up to 76,000 people at the Denver Broncos’ football stadium instead of the smaller arena where the rest of the convention will be held, party officials said Monday.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said the final night of the convention would shift from the Pepsi Center, which can accommodate 21,000, to Invesco Field at Mile High.

Obama. He’s bigger than Pepsi.

This sounds like a fun move. I have absolutely no doubt the place will sell out. I’m just left sadly wondering if security is going to be tight enough.

Ahem….

UPDATE: Just got this from the Obama Campaign.  Looks like they know the “common people” like to play the lotto.  Political lotto…

Robot Pirate Ninja —

Join Barack at the Open ConventionI wanted you to be the first to hear the news.

At the Democratic National Convention next month, we’re going to kick off the general election with an event that opens up the political process the same way we’ve opened it up throughout this campaign.

Barack has made it clear that this is your convention, not his.

On Thursday, August 28th, he’s scheduled to formally accept the Democratic nomination in a speech at the convention hall in front of the assembled delegates.

Instead, Barack will leave the convention hall and join more than 75,000 people for a huge, free, open-air event where he will deliver his acceptance speech to the American people.

It’s going to be an amazing event, and Barack would like you to join him. Free tickets will become available as the date approaches, but we’ve reserved a special place for a few of the people who brought us this far and who continue to drive this campaign.

If you make a donation of $5 or more between now and midnight on July 31st, you could be one of 10 supporters chosen to fly to Denver and spend two days and nights at the convention, meet Barack backstage, and watch his acceptance speech in person. Each of the ten supporters who are selected will be able to bring one guest to join them.

Make a donation now and you could have a front row seat to history:

https://donate.barackobama.com/yourconvention

We’ll follow up with more details on this and other convention activities as we get closer, but please take a moment and pass this note to someone you know who might like to be there.

It will be an event you’ll never forget.

Thank you,

David

David Plouffe
Campaign Manager
Obama for America

And there you have it.  It’s a raffle for back stage tickets to the political event of the year.

Brilliant!

That’s About All She’s Good For Now

RobotPirateNinja iraq, Poli-Fi, President 08, us Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

FROM BAD TO VERSE FOR HILL – New York Post

March 31, 2008 — SARAJEVO, Bosnia – The Bosnian girl who famously read a poem to Hillary Rodham Clinton during her 1996 visit to the war-torn country is shocked – and her countrymen infuriated – that the former first lady claimed to have dodged sniper fire that day.Emina Bicakcic, now 20 and studying to become a doctor, told The Post she stood on the tarmac at the air base in Tuzla, greeted Clinton and even had time to share the lines of verse she’d written – all without fear of attack from an unseen enemy.

“I was surprised when I heard this,” Bicakcic said, referring to Clinton’s assertion that she braved snipers upon landing, ducking and sprinting to military vehicles.

Other Bosnians said they had one of two reactions to Clinton’s debunked action-hero account of her visit: laughter or anger.

I think about all Hill is good for at this point. Laughter (R) or Anger (D).

Wrongo, Hiliary

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Obama Gets Boost; Clinton Urged to Quit

PITTSBURGH (AP) – Barack Obama got a surprise boost in the last big state of the long Democratic campaign Friday with an endorsement from Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey Jr., while another Obama supporter sought to nudge Hillary Rodham Clinton out of the race.Clinton leads by double-digits in Pennsylvania polls, and Obama hopes Casey’s endorsement will earn him a second look from the state’s white, working class and Catholic voters—groups that have leaned toward Clinton in other Democratic contests this year.

Clinton, on the other hand, is hoping a victory in Pennsylvania will help persuade party “superdelegates” to support her and allow her to catch Obama in the race for National Convention delegates.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont senator who endorsed Obama in January, said she was never going to win enough delegates, and he suggested she should throw in the towel in “the interests of a Democratic victory in November.” A number of Democrats have expressed concern that Republican John McCain is getting a head start while Obama and Clinton fight on.

Undeterred, Clinton said the competition would only strengthen the party in the long run.

It’s time to go back to serving the good people of New York as well as humanly possible. Humanly.

She would make *has made* a good robot. And a bit of a pirate. Now it’s time to become a Senator….long-term.