friend today about this situation in DC.

Here is a link to the videos we are referring to.

I ask that you take a look. I wonder if this is

the process that is gone through everytime

that one of these types of stories makes the

news? I like the conversation, and ultimately…I
justify my viewpoint at the end…I will let the chat

speakfor me at this point…enjoy!
_____________________________________________________

Friend: so get this

ZeDing: actively getting “this”…

Friend: my friend was arrested yesterday

Friend: I HATE TEH COPS

I LOATHE THEM

ZeDing: haha…damn kids

Friend: no. i fucking hate them i want to flush them from society

hold on ill forward

ygm

ZeDing: irmm (I’m reading My Mail)

Friend: http://our.ircai.com/posts/your-diminishing-liberties.html

ZeDing: yeah…that’s not a good thing

Friend: o the irony

celebrating liberty by dancing at Jefferson

ZeDing: but you are going to condemn law-enforcement as a whole

because of this?

Friend: s memorial

only to be arrested

yes

because it is the police who are responsible for their own image

they dont want ot be viewed as pigs? clean up ur image

ZeDing: is that officer “the police”?

Friend: the officer represents his profession

as any time a professional exercising the actions proscribed by his

profession reflects on his profession’

that’s why we have pr departments. because frequently, the actions

of several individuals reflect on the institution as a whole

ZeDing: “reflects on…” But doesn’t summarize

I am not defending HIM…or the action of arresting your buddy

but I wouldn’t throw a blanket judgment on law enforcement as a

whole because one power-trippin a hole at the capitol “didn’t like

the nerds growing up”

Friend: fuck the police

ice t was right

ZeDing: bah…I object…inflammatory

your personal connection to the event has fogged your perception

Friend: nope. every libertarian in the country and on the

blogosphere is up in arms about this

ZeDing: you kids and yer crazy causes and stuff…

I bet you there aren’t any mid-west people that are “up in arms”

about this

you east coasters spin up like weed-whackers

Friend: my friend when to jail for a night!

for dancing!

and sat with vandals and marauders!

and druggies!

FOR DANCING

ZeDing: goddamn hippies

did your head just pop?

Friend: yes

ZeDing: hah…sorry

Friend: i am developing an aneurysm

i am so full of foamy fury

ZeDing: you should have a beer and a deep-breath

ZeDing: look at it this way…the cop…is probably just as big

a fan of Jefferson as they where…and felt that the sanctity

of that great shrine was in danger of being defiled…so he did

what he thought was best with regard to the preservation of

that mighty homage

…?

maybe?

Friend: defiled?

there were 15 people dancing

silently

bothering no one

that’s a completely crap argument

the memorial is huge

15 people silently dancing

ZeDing: apparently they were bothering “someone”

Friend: not break dancing

just wobbling, basically

NO THEY WERENT

the six witnesses reported nothing and mentioned that they

weren’t bothered

it was MIDNIGHT

there were 6 others besides the 15 dancers

What about freedom of expression? all they were doing is

dancing at the memorial

an expression of admiration and love for a founding father

it wasn’t even an assembled organized crowd

just some friends, dancing

there is no explanation or excuse

u will find none

ZeDing: so 15 people gyrating inexplicably in the middle of

the night in memorial park in DC? Yeah…I wouldn’t give it

a second thought if I was the guy whose job it was to keep

the place under a watchful eye…

I am not saying he should have arrested anyone

but we don’t know the whole story either

Friend: WHY WAS AN ARREST MADE? My entire friend

asked was, “what law am I breaking by dancing here?”

ZeDing: did he immediately walk up and start cuffing?

Friend: the cop even refused to show his badge when asked

repeatedly

that’s breaking their own law

u are required to show your badge and number

ZeDing: 1 v 15…I’m not wasting my time with a badge either

Friend: no, he cuffed her when she said, “excuse me, what

law am I breaking?

he pushed her up at that point

Versus 15?

The other 14 left!!

they walked off

ZeDing: HAH

Friend: it wasn’t a mob!

it was one girl

ZeDing: her friends ran away when the cop showed?

Friend: the others walked off. she walked up to the cop

and asked what law was being broken

ZeDing: nice

Friend: no

they walked

and when she was arrested, they filmed it and went

to the police station with her

and spent the night there

they didn’t leave her

they were just walking away but she went up to the

cop and asked the question

Stop trying to find something wrong that she did here.

she did nothing and the cops are going to be humiliated

Because they fucked with the wrong crowd. these are

political bloggers and journalists

And this has been farked.

And as soon as possible, the police will be red-faced

with embarrassment. the little shits

ZeDing: well…of course it will be a big story…but you

are proving my point by not even considering that

there is another viewpoint here…

it’s like a story that I saw last week

some punk trustfund baby took issue with a text-book

he was asked to read in class…because it DARED to

question the notion of man-made global warming…it

imply called it into question…as part of a rational

thought process…but somehow…this became a

national news story because this kid is SO

indoctrinated that to even QUESTION the idea is

cause for rebellion

Friend: how did he rebel?

ZeDing: he called some group in to evaluate and

lobby to get the text change…one sec I’ll find the story

http://www.wnbc.com/education/15837397/detail.html

“He was especially troubled with a section on global

warming which questions if it exists. With the

help of the director of the NASA Goddard Institute for

Space Studies, that passage was changed.”

Friend: how is this analogous at all??

ZeDing: you reaction to this is how I perceive your

(and likely the media’s at large) reaction to this scenario

…one you have made up your mind on a subject/event/

cause/thing…people become absolutely blind to the idea

that there could be a differing viewpoint

Again…I am not saying that what this particular cop did

was right…

But you have clearly amplified the scenario to

something beyond what it is…

Understandably to an extent…

Friend: how can I be blasé when my friend just spent a

night in jail for dancing

I know these people; they weren’t up to harm anyone.

they really were just going to dance a bit

ZeDing: ok…and if the system works as it should…there

will be no long term effects…on anyone

but that’s not what you want, Right?

Friend: no, we want to demonstrate that there is

something wrong when police can arrest someone

and make up the charges later, al the while refusing

to show a badge, WHICH IS REQUIRED BY LAW TO DO

it’s harassment

ZeDing: so you’re saying that her friends walked

away when a random man (with no clearly visible id)

told them to disperse…and she decided to stay…alone

and ask said random-badgless man about laws?

I would argue that it was pretty clear that this was an

officer…and what charges were made up later? I think

I gotta read it again….hold on

Friend: dude, just watch the videos

it’s all on video

so there’s your “other side”

I know it was clear it was an officer

but the law states that you have to show your badge

that’s the law

if someone asks, you have to present your badge

u cant withhold it

and they didn’t

so it doesn’t matter that he was wearing a uniform

ZeDing: I am scared of the video…the last time I saw

a video like that it was some punk kid who installed a

camcorder in his car to tape the police when he got

pulled over.

Then there was “don’t tase me bro”

Friend: dude

watch the video

u said u wanted the rest of the story

its all fucking there

documented

ZeDing: once again…I don’t want you to get the wrong

impression…I am not automatically saying that your

friend was in the wrong…I am just saying that we

cannot assume in every case that the first impression

of a scenario is the right one

I will watch the vid as soon as I can…I promise

and I will let you know when I have

Friend: thank you’

ZeDing: crap…can you linky me to the vid pleeze?

Friend: http://www.youtube.com/user/freethejefferson1

ZeDing: Ok…well…I get your point I do. But I also empathize

with an uninformed, possibly undereducated security guard

reaction to that particular situation by calling the police and

asking people to leave…put yourself in his shoes before

demonizing him/them. AND…I really have to say that the guy narrating the scenes

there is not doing anyone any favors with the tone he is

projecting…as if he is some altruistic individual that is

simply there to educate Frank the overnight security

guard on the finer points of liberty…

with that said…I didn’t see anything that should have

led them to arrest anyone

but we also didn’t have a vantage point on what she,

individually, was saying or doing for a few minutes

there. And who was she asking for a badge?

I never saw that part.

ZeDing: but I do see this getting blown up in media circles…

and I see it getting even more skewed than it may already

be against the security guards and police in question…

I don’t mean to belittle the situation that your friend is in…

nor do I think it’s ok for law enforcement to get away with

anything…but I do see a real danger in the concept of

police having to justify every action to the satisfaction

of everyone around them, prior to acting…that

defeats the purpose…it interrupts the process…and it

certainly makes for great TV…so it will still be there even

though I think it’s bad

]]> http://zeding.wordpress.com/2008/04/14/jefferson-memorial-incidentcops-behaving-badly/feed/ 1 zeding http://zeding.wordpress.com/2008/03/29/why-is-google-black-earth-hour/ http://zeding.wordpress.com/2008/03/29/why-is-google-black-earth-hour/#comments Sat, 29 Mar 2008 17:46:42 +0000 zeding http://zeding.wordpress.com/?p=27 ]]> So you may have noticed that Google.com has changed its background from the default white, to black…signifying that they “turned off their lights” for Earth Hour.

So..I guess I am going to enter some largely uncharted territory here and make the following observation. The people of the US, and the world at large are blindly following the lead of a caste of “Global Warming” and “Global Climate Change” advocates towards a new socio-economic scenario that, if made clear, no-one would want.

“Global Warming” is a sham. It is bad science, backed up by either un-informed figureheads, or fully aware power-seekers…now to include the saviors of all things nerdy…Google.

I know, a lot of people who read that sentence are immediately going to be turned off. I expect that. Our indoctrination into this plot is almost complete, and I have to admit that they had me suckered at one point not to long ago. Then I started looking at some of the other information that is out there…above and beyond the statistics and data presented to us by the media at-large. Here are some links, I encourage you to take a look:

Junk Science

GreenWatch

National Review

Try to wade through the right-wingishness of the surrounding context on those sites and look at some of the stated figures, I promise that if you do you will find at least a couple things that encourage you to question the default response about “Climate change.”

My own observations:

1. Over the past year or two we have gone from “Global Warming” being the buzz-word of choice, to “Climate Change.” Could it be that the proponents of this farce have realized that by using the word “Warming” in their sham, they unwittingly backed themselves into a corner? What if people realize that the current global climate trend is actually lending itself to marginal cooling?…I guess by saying “Climate Change” they now have THAT covered as well.

2. The proposed solutions that keep popping up, end up in one way or another, doing nothing but increasing the cost of living for Average Joe. Take for example this little proposal…the FEDERAL Governement has mandated that every lightbulb in YOUR house be a compact flourescent bulb by 2012. Yes…that’s true. The United States government (Land of the free you might recall) has determined that, having presumably solved the rest of our problems, John Q. Public is too stupid and uninformed to decide what kind of lightbulb to use in his own home. So, they made the decision for us…instead fo the $0.50 incandescent bulbs we have used for 100 years now, we are going to have to use $3.60 a piece CF bulbs because they “are better for the environment.” Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of special interest…any guesses on who the lobbyists that got that one passed represented? (G.E., Sylvania…the folks that MAKE those CF bulbs.)

3. It is a contemptable example of humanity’s narcissim to think that we can directly impact the climate of our planet. Sure in science fiction movies, we can “terra-form” mars to support life, and push eyeballs back into Arnold Schwarzeneggar’s head (duh…Total Recall…Quatto?). But in reality, the world is a really big place. The Earth is doing things, and using processes to do things that we have no realistic claim of understanding. How long was it that humans were around before we even know we where on a sphere instead of a plane? How can we now, over the course of only 50-60 years of data, make the assumption that we understand enough about life the universe and everything to say thatwe are having ANY impact…let alone a negative one. We can make those claims because we are the only ones listening, and as the “public” we are the only ones who can argue to the contrary…and we don’t.

Look, I am not in favor of toxic waste in every lake, and litter on every sidewalk. I agree that we have to be good stewards of the Earth…you don’t sh*t where you eat…but there is a line being crossed with the “Global Alarmists” claims. That line is the infringement upon my personal freedoms and well-being. Energy costs (i.e. gas prices), food costs, new taxes…every aspect of my daily life is experiencing a direct impact from this movement, and I am not being given a choice of whether or not to participate…that is unacceptable and I hope more people start to see it that way…or someday when we all live in little eco-friendly plastic pods in giant eco-friendly hive communities all sterile and delightfully lit-up by CF

Essentially, it was his call to republicans to go out and ensure that there would be 2 candidates fighting over the democrat nomination for as long as possible, by having these folks go out and vote in the democrat primaries for whichever candidate seemed to be lacking in momentum at the time…be it Hillary or Barrack.

Now there is apparently a call by some for criminal election tampering charges to be filed, in regards to Operation Chaos,  against Rush Limbaugh, for the Ohio primary. 

The idea is basically this, when registering to vote in the democrat primary in Ohio, voters have to sign an “Oath of loyalty to the Democratic Party principles.”  And that by encouraging citizens to break this “Oath” Rush Limbaugh is somehow acting in a criminal manner.

I am gonna go ahead and toss a bulls**t flag out on this one.  At what point was it that the American people let go of their free will and accountability for their own actions?

First and foremost, if I sign an “oath of loyalty” to a private organization (which is what the Democrat party is, regardless of the impression we get fro the media at-large)…it is between me and the private organization if I decide to break that oath.  There is no bearing on criminal law there.  If I promise my wife that I will take out the trash this morning, and decide that I am not going to do it until this afternoon…I cannot be arrested for that…sorry folks…there just no criminal ramifications there.  (Could she sue me over it?  Yes, she probably could…and would likely win, as I SUCK at following through on house chores…but that’s another issue entirely.)

Then, even if this was some sort of criminal violation…how is it Rush’s fault?  Once again, I will have to go back to my parents’ statement they made to me a million times growing up…”If they told you jumping of a bridge was cool…would you go do it?”  If so, who’s fault would it be that you were now dead?  Would it be the fault of the person who told you it was cool?  Or would it be your fault for buying into it?

It would seem that in the United States today, we are inclined to believe that it is at least partially the responsibility of the person who told you it was cool.  This is a ridiculous cop-out.  This belief is an extension of the entitlement mindset that people have today.  “Why should I work for it, when I can whine about it and get it for free?”  It is in the same vein that we lose all personal accountability…”Why should I suffer hardships for my decisions…someone should have been protecting me from that!”

I hate to tell ya folks…life sucks!  That’s how you learn.  When you take away personal accountability you are also taking away any internal motivation towards excellence.  At some point the prevalence of this school of thought is going to be widespread enough to effect you directly (arguably…the rising tax burden on every single household in this country should be direct effect enough…)

In the end, maybe Rush Limbaugh’s call to act was a crass one.  But it is any different from the advertisements Obama aired in Pennsylvania that called on Republicans to change sides and vote for “change”?

In the end there is really only one person I have to answer to every night before I fall asleep…and it’s ME!

Rush’s Site

Uh oh…Oprah’s Army is talking about it too!

As of right now #15 on Google Trends is ratemycop.com. This site came into the limelight a couple weeks ago as I remember and was basically there because the original hosting group (Godaddy) decided that they didn’t want to be involved with any site that could somehow, someway be looked at as “controversial.” (Let’s ignore for the moment that GoDaddy’s adverts featuring scantily clad women with no discernible connection to web hosting, have been looked at by some as controversial.)

Aside from the minor outrage by “internetists” (my phrase…*coined*…for folks that spend all day jumping from places like Digg.com, FARK.com, Slashdot.org, del.icio.us…in other words…geeks like me) that a big hosting firm like GoDaddy would drop a client due to their content, the big deal here was that police were feeling “infringed” by the site.

I have to ask the question, Why? Police are the people’s employees, hired to protect the public safety, and serve the public interest.

Public safety and public interest often are at odds with specific individuals’ interests, and sometimes their safety. That is why we empower the police with the authority that we do. For a law enforcement officer to perform in this role requires a near constant moral and ethical taxing, so the individuals that are truly suited to this work should be held to a high standard, and a high level of scrutiny.

Why is it then that when the perspective of that scrutiny shifts from internal (police, policing the police) to external (the public policing the police) that there is so much fear and discomfort?

If I where a betting man (I can’t afford to be, but if I could I would), I would say it was because there is something to hide. In my opinion, public office carries with it an implied requirement of professional “full-disclosure.” That is not to say that I want to know about what they do when they get home, I could care less (barring actual criminal statutes being broken.)

But if there is an officer who fails a written qualification test 4 times before finally getting a passing grade…that is of concern to me. If there is a specific officer that has, for whatever reason, a history of filed complaints, I as a tax-paying member of the public, want to know that, and I feel I deserve an explanation of the corrective actions taken.

To insinuate that the public-release, of public-information in a more public-friendly format is somehow “endangering” police officer beyond their daily call-to-duty is ridiculous. If information is deemed too sensitive for public release, steps should be taken by the leadership of that organization to re-classify it as “Internal Use Only.” At that point, said information being displayed in a public format DOES constitute reason for concern.

It has been my experience that the only people that dislike police officers are the people who are caught breaking the law. But, that isn’t to say that there are bad apples among the law-enforcement community as well.

From the perspective of a good cop, I can see this as being intimidating as well. A whole new layer of scrutiny on your daily work. Take for example the friendly officer that let you get away with a warning for rolling through that stop-sign last week. What if you log on, enter his/her badge number and submit positive feedback for them about letting slide this time…and it turns out that your is the 10th positive comment this month talking about loose enforcement? Now do they face possible repercussions at work?

Bottom line, it is a complicated thing, the Internets. Information about everything and everyone is becoming more and more available, and with that availability you will eventually run into situations where value (monetary or otherwise) is placed on that information. Anytime valued is attached to a thing, there is the possibility that someone somewhere is going to have an increased interest in it…and it is when peoples interests are affected that actions take place that can be construed as positive OR negative depending on the eye of the beholder.

What do you think?

First and foremost, the fact that there even exists 11,000 pages of schedules over the course of 8 years is sort of astonishing:

8X365 (+2 for leap year extra days) = 2922 days

At that rate…she had to have kept 3.76 different schedules for everyday that her husband was in office.  Excessive?  Maybe. But let us take another look at something involved in the 11,000 pages of schedules released today.

As an experiment I jogged over to Office Depot’s website to take a look at prices on copy paper.

Office Depot’s Best deal on paper right now.

So, with this in mind, here is some more math.

500 sheets of paper/ream, 10 reams/case = 5000 sheets of paper/case = 3 cases to cover the 11,000 pages required to print each schedule ONCE = 3 X $34.99 = $104.97

So if the only person that got a printed copy of the schedule was the first lady herself, we are talking a hundred bucks over the course of 8 years to make sure she was on time. 

HOWEVER, let us not forget that this is the First Lady we are talking about here.  She has a staff:

(From Wikipedia)

The Office of the First Lady of the United States is accountable to the First Lady of the United States for her to carry out her duties as hostess of the White House, and is also in charge of all social and ceremonial events of the White House. The First Lady has her own staff that includes the White House Social Secretary, a Chief of Staff, Press Secretary, Chief Floral Designer, Executive Chef, etc. The Office of the First Lady is a branch of the Executive Office of the President(EOP).

So it is safe to assume that we would need at least 6 copies of this document everyday for 8 years.

6 X $104.97 = $629.82

Another point of contention here is that these are folks that will be working in and around the White House. They aren’t going to be using the cheapo copy paper from Office Depot, in fact it is likely that they are using very heavyweight paper with an embossed watermark and fancy letterhead…the closest I could find on-line is this listing: which has 2000 sheets going for $229.99.

Using the same math from above, we determined that we would need 6 X 11,000 schedules printed, 66,000 sheets (at a minimum) 66,000/2000 = 33 X $229.99 = $7589.67

So…we are talking in the neighborhood of $7589.67 of taxpayer funds being devoted to printing schedules for the first lady and her staff (roughly).

Here’s the deal, I don’t care that we spend money on the first family.  It’s gonna happen whether I bitch about it or not.  I don’t even care that we spend rather ridiculous amounts of money on them, it sort of goes with the territory as they are figureheads for our country and should be allowed to exercise a little flair.

The problem that I have with this is that while we do spend far too much doing far too little, we are also being asked to except this unbelievably overcooked “itinerary” scenario as proof of viability for office.

Does the Clinton campaign actually expect that the American people at large are going to be swayed that Hillary is suddenly THAT much better of a candidate for the office of President because there are 11,000 pages of schedules saying she was in or around some big decisions while hubby was in office?  How can they even conceive that the American voter will even BEGIN to peruse a fraction of these documents?

The only people that are going to take a hard look at these pages are the press, and the opposing campaigns.  The former is going to look for anything they can use to spin the data in her favor, or against her.  The latter will be looking exclusively to smear or disprove any claims of heightened political experience or skill based on these documented schedules.

Ultimately, all this does in my humble opinion is prove to me that Hillary’s campaign is supremely desperate to find some way to pop its head up from behind the Obama-Buzz-Cloud.  And that makes me laugh, because I think it is fair to say that any other campaign would have thrown in the towel at this point but Hillary is clinging to the idea that she was destined for this job, and she’ll be damned if some n00b from Illinois is gonna nab her shot at the prize.

NOTE: The figures attained and their sourcing in no way constitutes endorsement of the products listed…unless, of course, they was to discuss possible royalties for the massive influx of sales over the next few days.  

SECOND NOTE: Feel free to double check any of my math…I used the built in Windows XP calculator…

In all seriousness, when are we going to stop this ridiculous bail-out trend and just simply let this economic correction take place. 

I am no economist.  I can only speak from a place of casual observance.  But what I see happening is the steady degradation of our currency’s value, predicated by the Fed’s handling of the current economic situation.  Every-time those Fed rates decrease, our dollar is worth less in the eyes of businesses here and internationally. 

Let’s be honest, Banks are businesses. 

When we borrow money from banks, we are guaranteeing them a return on that interest.  Unless we default.  LOTS of people are defaulting on loans.  LOTS of loans.  The banks accepted loan applications from people that couldn’t possibly repay the loans in the long term because of the secondary securities market where banks sell the loans to each other for a portion of the expected return from the interest.

Bottom line, when the Fed cuts rates, and the stock market surges…it’s not a good thing.  Contrary to the impression provided by most news sources, unless you are heavily invested in the stock market…it’s rise and fall likely has little to do with your economic standing.  In fact I would argue that unless you are invested precisely in the Dow Jones Industrial Index corporations…it is a ridiculous indicator of the countries economic well being.  When the United States GDP relied heavily on that particular cross-section of corporate entities, that measure was valid.  Today, the economy is not so much driven by the all-mighty corporation, as it is by an indexing of the many hundred and thousands of businesses that actually PRODUCE in our country.

Ok…I am rambling now…and demotivating myself.  I need to go home, drink a beer, and slaughter massive numbers of n00bs on Call of Duty 4 to relieve my stress.  (I really hope that someday soon we get another “Videogames are making our kids killers” story so I can rant on that.)

Linkishness -

CNN Money’s story: Fed Rate Cut

AFP – Interesting news about oil after we reduce interest rates: Fed Rate Cut

The Supreme Court today is hearing arguments from D.C. that recently enacted a “ban” on firearms.

Here is the problem…when the government puts a law in place, regardless of what particular branch of government it is, you are still talking about an externally imposed set of rules.  By that I mean that just because the law says that the speed limit on this particular freeway is 70mph, doesn’t mean that at any given moment there aren’t 100′s of vehicles going faster than 70mph.  There is no speed limit high enough to satisfy the personal desires of every driver on the road.  Our imaginary freeway could have a speed-limit of 200mph and some rich thrill seeker would inevitably smash his Bugatti into the median at 205.  Conversely, lowering the speed limit will only create more infractions of this particular law.  Regulation in-and-of itself cannot change behavior.

The same logic can be applied to the idea of gun controls.  Putting external limitations in place is not going to prevent those individuals who would ultimately be using these weapons for nefarious deeds from continuing to carry and use them in ways they deem fit.  That being said increasing or decreasing the government imposed regulations will not have a long term effect on anything other than the regulations, and the government imposing them.

If, tomorrow, the Supreme Court of the United States declared the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution “outdated, and no longer necessary” we would be looking at widespread outrage, if not significant demonstrations/riots.  That much is obvious.  However, the likelihood is that the supreme court will deliberate on this issue very delicately and therefore it will take time.  The real issue at-hand is not whether or not the 2nd amendment guarantees the “right to bear arms” but at what level does it guarantee that right?

Individually? Or Collectively?

I would argue that in either case, the government should not be allowed to infringe upon that right for any citizen of our country. 

It is my stance that D.C.’s gun control laws are unconstitutional and should be overturned.

Linkers:

CNN’s Story: 2nd Amendment

L.A. Times: 2nd Amendment

Washington Post: 2nd Amendment (Icky…gotta sign up)

It is honestly hard for me to relate.  I spent my young life in Minnesota.  Going through school the highest number of “minority” students in my class, EVER, was 2 or 3 out of 30.  It simply wasn’t an issue of tolerance, or intolerance.  There WAS no issue.  Not until later in life when I joined the military did I start to see some of the things that the senator mentions. 

“Outside of ‘polite conversation’”…I can wholeheartedly relate to that.  I have been in conversations where people used racial epithets that make my German/Polish/Irish skin crawl…but I usually said nothing.  I have also been in conversations where particular ethnic groups are self-deprecating to get a laugh…arguably just as bad. 

Obama mentions this, and makes good points about how it isn’t enough for people to make their own change, but that societal change is required for us to “perfect our Union.”  The only problem that I have with Obama’s approach on societal change is that I don’t think that it can successfully come about due to Government influence.  Regardless of the nature of that influence…that change is going to have to be self-motivated…just like the internal change that must occur first.

The bottom line for me is that, I agree, that there is no question that race is an issue in America.  There are LOTS of issues in America.  Contrary to the mood of this speech, not every issue facing the American people of ANY race, color, creed, is a product of race.  There is not one answer that is going to solve this (Obama said that).  I would argue that outside of the concept of Utopia, there is not a society of Human beings either now, in history, or the perceivable future that has a snowball’s chance in hell of finding a solution to the inequity people feel in their hearts and minds.  I think it’s best if everyone finds a role for themselves that is as comfortable as possible for the moment…and keeps hope alive that tomorrow could be better if we work at it.

Here’s the transcript of the Obama Speech

And two excerpts that I thought were interesting.  (Although I have to mention that I approached this transcript expecting something different, and I have to say that I was impressed by his non-combative stance on the subject of his pastor.)

“Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity.” - And all this time I thought his campaign had the message of Change…something not really related to unity in any way.

“And I confess that if all that I knew of Rev. Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and YouTube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way.” - He said Youtube…amazing how far we have come that at least a snippet of the impetus for Obama’s speech today was the fact that a website was making available the controversial comments in question.

First and foremost I hope these writings will be to-the-point and somewhat insightful. I also will do my best to offer explanations for the reason I feel the way I do as often as possible.

Derisory, currently Google Trends tells us that the use of “derisory” as a search term has rocketed today (Actually their term is “Volcanic.”) It is being searched, and this is purely my speculation, because of a comment made by Joe Lewis (the second largest shareholder of Bear-Stearns) about the looming buyout proposed by JP Morgan. The term is used in the sense that the offer on the table is completely and inexcuseably undervaluing the shares. Obviously Joe don’t wanna sell his shares that were valued at $30 yesterday, for $2 today. Makes sense to me.

Check out the Derisory story.

I don’t bring up all of the above at random. I am no financier, and I am certainly not a “player” of the stock market. What I am though is a “somewhat informed” individual who thinks that it is hilarious that one of the hottest search terms of the day is a compounded reaction to an individual word that clearly LOTS of people didn’t understand when uttered by a single person of questionable importance.

That’s what I hope to do with this blog. I am going to continually watch Google Trends for searches that people are using, and when I find one that pokes me in the eye and drives me to react…I will do just that. These will mostly be reactions of a political nature, as I see our country headed in a terribly scary direction right now, and hope to possibly sway some minds. But occasionally I may rant on the lighter things in life as well, like my son, my wife, my pets, or even video games (yep…nerds have political opinions too!)

In any case I hope you enjoy and I hope you come back…lots more to come!