Moved

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Thanks Hillary

Well, it's finally over.

After a long race, the primary is finally over. Hillary Clinton has given a glowing endorsement of her former opponent Barack Obama. I just have to say that I'm happy that this is the way she decided to end it. I'm am elated that she has made the choice not to take this and drag it out to August. With her backing Obama fully rather than bitterly just saying the race is over we now have the chance to see a page in history turn come November and then January. I honestly didn't expect her to end it this way, but now that it's over I am just so happy that this is how it ended. Sorry for sounding redundant, but I really just don't want to see another Republican in the White House.

This brings me to my main point today. Just because the primary is over doesn't mean that we can relax. There are still a lot of bitter Clinton supporters out there who are claiming that they're going to do everything in their power to get McCain elected, some going so far as to say that a McCain-Clinton ticket would be the real dream ticket at this point. This is something we're going to have to prepare to fight against for the next four and half months. This is something that we are going to have to counter-act, and we're going to need Hillary Clinton to follow up on her endorsement by truly doing everything in her power to get her voters to follow her to Obama, and to a Democratic White House. She has to do everything she can to make sure that come January we're not singing "Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran". She had created a mess out of the primary and it is now her responsibility to this nation to clean it up before we end up turning the Middle East in to a field of radioactive glass.

Again, thank you for ending the election on this note Hillary. Now please, make things right with your supporters.

His Nose Was Too Big

As some of you may know, one of the "masterminds" behind the September 11th attack, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, went to military tribunal yesterday. He may be charged with war crimes, for which his penalty would be the death sentence.

Now, I realize this man most likely had an involvement in an attack that resulted in the death of some three thousand plus Americans (if you're not counting the war in Iraq that somehow resulted from the attack). However, I think in this particular case we should consider staying the death penalty, and should do the same in any cases where a terrorist is convicted. Death is the last thing you want to give someone who believes they are fighting in the name of God, Allah, or whoever else may have a following of extremists. When you give a man like this death, his death will be celebrated as a victory by his brothers-in-arms, and he will welcome his death with open arms, as Mohammed has stated. To give these men the martyrdom they seek will not be a victory for America, but just another reason to give their comrades a reason not to fear any punishment they may meet an American hands. To give them a life sentence would be to make their efforts more in vain. If they can't even die for their god, what's the bother in trying? Maybe this would just cause an increase in suicide attacks. Maybe it would result in less attacks overall. How could we measure the effect of letting these men live a life that's wasted by rotting away in prison? Who knows. The point is, we can't just send these men to their deaths if that's what they're asking for, it's not a punishment for them.

Also, I have to bring up the fact that Mohammed made a comment about his nose being drawn too big by a courtroom artist. Are you fucking kidding me? Why are we reporting on that?! We're prosecuting a "terrorist mastermind" and you're reporting on a comment about a courtroom drawing?

You people are hacks.

Good Tuesday

Here we are, finally down to the end of the Primary elections. We have Clinton down by more than 100 delegates with only 48 left up for grabs, and about half of those are likely to go to Obama. We're nearing the end, my friends, of a long circus of an election. We knew who would be winning this election from the day that Obama won 11 straight primaries. We knew who would be winning this election when Obama over took Clinton in pledged delegates. We knew who would be winning this election when Clinton started losing super delegates to Obama. We've seen this coming for a long time now. Because of this, I just can't help but ask the question: Why didn't Clinton see this coming? Why is Clinton still fighting for this? The actions Clinton has been taking have hurt our chances of dodging another four to eight years of having a Republican president. McCain has been able to start on his general election campaign without the distractions of the Republican primary while we've got Clinton trying to grasp at straws claiming that the super delegates will tell the voters that she's the only real choice for the Democrat presidential candidate. We knew in April that she would lose the election, and her insistence on staying in the election has allowed McCain to run unopposed for the three months to define himself to the voters of the nation. It's only been very recently that Obama has started his general election campaign by shifting the focus from his campaign against Clinton to his campaign against McCain. How long ago could we have shifted this focus if we didn't have a fly buzzing in our ear? How long ago could we have begun the fight to drive the Republicans out of the White House and give ourselves a chance for some change in the way politics work?

At this point, Clinton's aides have let us know that she is not planning on ceding the election to Obama, that she is not going to withdraw from the race. She may have headed back to New York, Bill Clinton may have said that this was the last race he would campaign in, but she is still not giving up her fight to be back in the White House. Will we have to wait until the Democratic National Convention in August before we can start the campaign against McCain? Clinton needs to realize the damage that she's causing her party by staying in the race, and that McCain is going to use that to his advantage. Let's get this over with before we have troops going into Iran. Let's get this over with before we're bombing Syria. Let's end this primary election and move on to defeating the greatest threat currently posed against American freedom: Four more years of Republicans in the White House.

Who Are The Real Defenders?

Recently a company called Media Defender launched a SYN attack on a legitimate website called Revision3. This company runs a private torrent tracker which it uses to distribute its own media on the net. Their administrators noticed that someone was trying to exploit a security hole in their system, and when they locked down that hole the attackers retaliated with a SYN attack shutting down the site for the weekend going into Tuesday. They didn't just shut down their Bit Torrent setup, the shut down their FTP and their e-mail when the attack spilled over into the other servers. They caused a measurable amount of damage to an innocent site because the may have been exploited by someone else as well.

Media Defender is trying to say that this was all unintentional (well, at least the part where they hit a legit company). Of course, they did mean to run a SYN attack against the host, and they were loading fake torrents onto the host. They're just saying they didn't realize the host was legit. Rather than calling up Revision3 and saying "Hey guys, we found this back door on your site, we think pirates might be using it for their illegal downloading" they decided they'd just walk right in as well and start trying to catch those pirates with a large amount of fake torrents.

Whether this attack was intentional or not this attack doesn't matter. What does matter is that it brings something into the open which the pirate community has been claiming for a long time now: Media Defender will and has launched Denial of Service attacks at people it believes are pirates, something that is illegal in the United States. This is something they've been specifically hired to do by organizations like the RIAA and MPAA, as well as individual studios. This is a Wild West mentality where we are no longer innocent until proven guilty. This is people being deliberately attacked on a suspicion of illegal activity. This is an action that is counter to our nation's ideals of freedom, and if we could bring them to their knees before, we can kill them this time.

Big Talk, Big Stick

"Speak softly and carry a big stick..."

These were the words of Theodore Roosevelt, and for a long time our country lived by them as our foreign policy. We exercised real diplomacy, speaking with the leaders of enemy nations to help prevent war. We recognized that as long as we had that big stick in our hands we didn't need to make threats to other nations to keep them from attacking us or our allies. What I want to know is when we lost that realization. Now we have a politician that is being attacked for his idea that we should be meeting with people we're at odds with and try a good, old-fashioned conversation to see if we can reconcile our differences, while having that big stick (read United States Air Force) sitting in the background. It seems our idea of good foreign policy has become waving our big stick around and then yelling "You better not mess with us, this is what we've got if you do!" We don't talk, we don't ask, we just say "We're the boss" and then point to our stick.

This is not a foreign relations policy, this is a terrorist recruitment tool. This is a way for nations opposing us to find young, easily influenced people and say "America is our enemy, America is a threat." If we weren't going around the world pointing to our big stick, this wouldn't be as much of an issue as it is. I have to wonder if it has occurred to our current leaders Roosevelt's ideas of diplomacy could improve our nation's image in the eyes of the world. I have to wonder if they realize that real diplomacy, really working towards a peaceful solution, is going to give our enemies less of a reason to hate us and to get others to hate us. Maybe instead of attacking the idea of being diplomatic, the Republicans should pull their heads out of their asses and start a conversation that encourages peaceful solutions to international problems.

Who am I kidding. This isn't going to happen until we get some real change in this country, until our entire political environment changes. But this isn't going to happen. America isn't going to open its eyes, it's going to take someone forcing them open.

Swindled

Viacom, I think it's time that you invest in some new legal advisers. This lawsuit against YouTube is going to get you nothing except for paying out the ass in wasted legal fees. If your legal advisers were worth the money you pay them then you would realize that there are already two cases that have set a precedent for systems which can be used for both non-infringing and infringing copyrighted material. Hell, one of those cases has happened within the last four years! Haven't you read anything about the case against Grokster? That program was even design for the purpose of illegal file sharing, and it was still spared the chopping block because of the Sony Rule of 1984. An application that can be used for both infringing and non-infringing uses may not be held as a liable party for the copyright infringement of the people who use the program. In this particular case with YouTube, the service is clearly designed for a non-infringing purpose and is largely used as such. I would say put money on the fact that a higher percentage of what is posted to YouTube is non-infringing than is infringing. Grokster certainly couldn't boast that, but MGM still wasn't able to get them held liable because of the previous precedent which was set in 1984. You're claim regarding the Digital Copyright Millennium Act is a moot point as well, as Grokster was brought to court for this issue after the Act was put into place. I think it's safe to say that your legal advisers are swindling you if they're telling you that there's a chance in hell that you'll win this case. No, you're just going to look like the giant asshole of broadcasting networks that can't pull it's head out of it's ass and realize that the world around you is changing more rapidly than you're willing to adapt.

Oh yeah, and I still know all about the ONE campaign...

Johnny Boy

Oh Johnny Boy, you rascal you.

You have put so much emphasis on your military record, your time as a P.O.W., but you won't support a bill to help the young people of this country who have decided it is their duty to follow your lead? Oh no, you say you want to give them benefits, but the problem with the current bill is that the soldiers aren't getting in the way of bullets enough times. No, they should have to re-enlist two or three times before they get those health benefits, that help with college. They should risk there lives more than once in the defense of the nation they're so proud to serve before we will help provide mental health care, after coming home from seeing all those people die at their own hands. We need them to see more friends die, get hit with more shrapnel, get shot in more limbs before can help provide the care they need.

I understand that Obama hasn't served, that he doesn't know what it's like to go to war, but then again, neither did Bush and you seemed fine with him sending thousands of kids oversees. The truth is you are a hypocrite. If you're going to be so dead set on a person's need to serve the nation in combat, you better be offering them some great benefits when they come home with a broken mind and a missing leg.

The Church of America

I am of the opinion that the Church of Scientology International should be declared the official religion of the United States of America. Lately I've been thinking about these two fine groups, and I really think that they're made for each other. Let us compare the two groups' management and their principles:

MONEY
Is there anything that money can't buy in America? We sell everything, even our votes are for sale. We sell them to the politician that promises us the biggest tax breaks and three month gas tax holidays. Our politicians then turn around and sell their votes in Congress and the White House to the corporation who will send them on the most paid trips to Scotland to play golf. Everything that we have has a price on it. Why not our faith? From Scientology's educated point of view our salvation should cost us, and by Hubbard, we're willing to pay for it. We've got people all the way from Joe Blue-Collar-American to Tom Rich-As-Hell Cruise doling out money to get control of their Body Thetans. It only makes sense that this pricey religion for the everyman be made into the Church of America!

POWER
If there's one thing we love more than money here it the good ol' U.S. of A, it's the power that the money buys. I don't think anyone understands this more than David Miscaviage, the current head of the Church of Scientology. This is a man who has used the power of money to convince the I.R.S. that what is clearly organized and making money as a corporation is in fact a non-profit religion that should be tax exempt. And if you can convince the I.R.S. that you shouldn't be paying taxes, you can convince me! The only other people who can manage this feat are giant corporations like Exxon-Mobile, and they had to set up off shores tax havens to get around those pesky taxes. Scientology clearly understands what it means to be American, because they didn't even have to leave the countries jurisdiction for their tax exempt status. This is just another great reason to make them our national Church.

FEAR
Who in the world is better at striking fear into the hearts of their enemies than America? We have a nuclear stockpile that made Soviet Russia shake in their boots, we've got "Shock and Awe" tactics in the Middle East, we've got the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act and it's warrant free wiretapping here at home, and if anyone understands that this is the way towards freedom, it's the Church of Scientology. To protect their copyrighted documents on The Bridge to Total Freedom the Church has been attacking anyone who leaks this information onto the Internet with their mightiest weapon: Litigation! If there's anything that represents America is the power of the lawsuit. In an effort to keep Freedom proprietary the Church understands that it needs to strike fear into the minds and hearts of all those un-American thieves that would claim that Freedom shouldn't cost them money. Clearly these people know what America is all about.

These correlations in policy and values just shows that the Church of Scientology and the United States of America were made for each other, so it's up to us to convince them to tie the knot. To not push for a declaration of their love would be entirely un-American and if we don't, shame on us all for not embracing this marriage with all of our hearts (and wallets).

Four More Years!

I've got a splitting headache. I think the headlines are to blame for this. Every time I open up my news feeds all I can see is Hillary Clinton. She seems to have gotten around that media bias she was so intent on carrying on about. But is this a good thing for her, or for any of us who are tired of the "leadership" that we've been seeing for the past eight years? Let's say she somehow manages to get Michigan and Florida's votes to count towards her pledged delegates. She goes on to win the primary based on this, and we get to the general election. Can we really vote for someone who has laid on this amount of slime to her campaign? Is she any better than Karl Rove? She signed a pledge with the other candidates at the beginning of the election saying that she would not campaign in Florida or remain on the ballot on Michigan. She then sent letters to Florida Democrats reminding them to vote, and remained on the ballot for Michigan, breaking that pledge and winning both states in the process. Now she's hurting bad in the race to be the candidate for President of the United States of America, and she's going even further back on her pledge, attempting to get the delegates seating at the Democratic National Convention! She's yelling "Sexism, Bias!" but has she once stepped back and looked at the way her campaign could be viewed by the people she's trying to get to vote for her? Can we really trust that she'll be a better President then John McCain when she's using tactics like that? I, for one, am seeing the lines blur here, and I'm starting to wonder if there is a difference between these candidates. If she were to go to the election in November we'd be pretty screwed. I don't want this election to just be another vote for the status quo, I want to see a chance to change things, shake them up a bit. Politics in America need a change, and Hillary Clinton is not going to be that change, and John McCain sure as hell isn't going to change the way things have been operating.

Please America, don't make me try to expatriate...because if these people are the only real choices I have come November, I might just have to consider that.