Google, Youtube, Etc

Google owns Youtube. Al Gore is a big shareholder in Google. It makes me wonder if the content of Youtube is able to be manipulated by the powers that be. I did a search for the famous Bill Clinton speech where he spoke the immortal words: " I did not have sexual relations with that woman." I embedded it below, hopefully people will copy it to other sites so that it does not somehow "disappear" from the internet, as impossible as that sounds. Of all the billions of videos on youtube and the millions of political ones, this was the ONLY copy of Bill's speech.

Sweatshops are WRONG! Unless they make Ipods, then they're OK.

So Ipods are made in sweatshops, you know this right? So how can the punk scene anti-sweashop human rights protesting among us wear one with pride? How can any of you buy a $300 luxury device that was made by someone earning $50 a month and forced to live in a private dorm and NOT receive visitors? Thats some pretty gross humanity.

Here's a link showing that what I said is true:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/15/AR2006061501898.html

I'm Busy With The New Business, But This Should Be Entertaining Enough For You

Ever since Weezer begat EMO as a "lifestyle choice," it has forever been associated with leftist causes and notion. The demographic of the modern Weezer-type EMO (not to be confused with the genderless flock-of-seagulls hairstyle EMO) owns a Mac, is late twenty-something-ish, has a job doing something in computers, watches John Stewart and votes Democrat. Now to be fair, this class is ill defined by way of fuzzy borders and subjective definition.

Seeing as Weezer-EMO bands have a non-traditional leftist approach to life, it puzzles me why they insist on looking like 60's Era Republican ICON, Barry Goldwater.

Now don't get me wrong, I actually like this look, and Weezer must really be honoring the 1950's with their sweaters and trousers while wearing chuck taylors. Their vintage look is 50's to a fault, but I wonder why a progressive type modern EMO band would choose to dress as the people did in a time when politics wasn't so "progressive" and people cared about things like high school football teams. All thats left to do is for the lead singer to get a buzz cut and appropriately call himself "Buzz." Seriously. Next thing you know they'll be kicking around a football and dressing like Biff Tannen in Back To The Future.

Why Conservatives Are Glad That The Republicans Lost

Lets face it, even when we account for the fact that most of the Democrats elected recently took conservative stances on social issues (Ford in Tennesee invoking "Jesus" constantly, former Republican Webb in Virginia supporting gun ownership) and that most state referendums voted on had an outcome in-line with conservative ideology, Republicans still have to face the fact that the voting public chose the big "D" over the big "R."

Goldwater Republican values and ideology has been in decline since Reagan left office. As simply as I can explain it, Republicans have become as bad as Democrats in helping to bloat government with huge spending and irresponsible stewardship of public office. Does this make the Democrats the better party? Certainly not, because statistical evidence suggests that the country has not chosen a "new direction" (which the talking head Democrats keep parroting on television to indicate that the new "direction" is "left.") For now the Democrats have the upper hand. Although some blame the Democrat media, for every scandal Republicans feel was "trumped up" they must face the fact that it existed to be trumped up in the first place.

And though I know Democrats want us to be"whining" and "depressed" like they are when they lose elections, its hard for Republicans to be when they know that the problems their party faces are able to be fixed in the two years leading up to the 2008 elections.

On top of this, the Democrats running the House and Senate will do what they always do, and in doing so will remind the public why they were booted out in the Republican revolution of 1994.

Happy Veterans Day. Even to John Kerry.
And Happy Marine Corps Birthday.

-Semper Fi-

Bush The Democrat?

BUSH NEEDS TO STOP BORROWING PLAYS FROM THE DEMOCRATS PLAYBOOK

Internment devoid of constitutional protection? Regime change? A sketchy premise for war? The American public has seemed to forget that these ideas did not originate within the Bush administration, but instead, have been around for years and were last seen during the presidency of certain Democrats.

It was F.D.R. who signed Executive Order 9066, allowing the military to bypass the constitutional protections afforded American citizens. Some were detained for up to 4 years and lost their homes and property. Most of these were American citizens with Japanese ancestry. Racial profiling? Sure it was, but it was done so in the name of national security. This should sound eerily like Guantanamo Bay, except that those held in Cuba are not citizens like the rounded up Japanese were. If anything, F.D.R.'s folly in signing Executive Order 9066 took more constitutional rights away in the name of national security than Bush ever could.

Let us not forget John F. Kennedy, a Boston favorite, who was very unhappy with Cuba's Fidel Castro in the early 60's. His solution? Authorize the Bay Of Pigs Invasion with the hope of overthrowing Castro despite a recommendation not to go ahead from the Joint Chiefs Of Staff. The idea was that there existed such opposition to Castro that the invaders would be welcomed with open arms. As history shows us, they were not, nor did John F. Kennedy get his regime change. Instead we created an international incident that gave the US a black eye for years to come. It is rumored in certain literature that Kennedy disliked Castro and often talked of his removal even before he became president. Sound familiar?

And last but not least, we have LBJ. The president who helped us into Vietnam with help from the Gulf Of Tonkin resolution and a trumped up attack on a war ship. We watched LBJ "stay the course" while public opinion in support of the war dropped from 85 percent to a low which caused thousands of protests around the country. It is interesting to note that the UN Secretary General at some point explained that this Democrat's war in Vietnam was no threat to the west. We don't need to get into LBJ throwing money at the "war on poverty" while Bush does the same with "no child left behind."

I'll end my story here, as I believe my point has been made. When we criticize Bush for actions and solutions, we need to remember that he's doing no more than following in the footsteps of some of the greatest Democrat Presidents. In solving the nations current problems with plays from the Democrat handbook of solutions, one can make the argument that, despite his prima facie Republican affiliation, we have a Democrat in office. And look what this Democrat has wrought.

Rethinking US Military Composition Myths

Any liberal will tell you, in between tugs on their bong, that the poor make up the majority of military enlistees. While this myth may survive on college campuses by being passed between pony-tailed teachers, it does not survive when tested with real world data in studies like the one conducted by the Heritage Foundation here.

To forward their anti-war standpoint, the anti-war crowd would have you believe that along with the many injustices and indignities the already put upon poor have to deal with, they are also shouldering the burden of defending the United States. The anti-war crowd hopes that the idea of the poor as soldiers will somehow make you anti-war. This is why people accuse liberals of trying to incite class warfare; somehow in the liberal mind the poor are dying for the whims of the rich. Does "No blood for oil" come to mind?

Crazy isn't it? That the anti-war nuts think the morals of nation-state sanctioned murder can be so simple that they boil down to the economic standing of the person pulling the trigger.

Either way, all this discussion is moot because as with most things, the study linked above found that the middle class shouldered the burden of the US military. And it makes sense, the rich don't have to and the poor don't want to- leaving the middle class to use the military as a way to start their upward mobility. Pair being a veteran with college and you can get hired anywhere. Back when I was in grad school a good 10% of students were former military. And all of them were from exactly where the study said they'd be from- the middle class.

Liberals will never understand this, in their mind we still have a draft that drags poor people out of community college and forces them to shoot babies when all the soldiers want to do is go home and give away their life savings to charity. They just don't get it, and I suppose they never will.

For Those Who Say Religion Doesn't Belong In Politics

In between cheating on his wife and partying with communist sympathizers,Martin Luther King Jr. found time to create a social justice philosophywith underpinnings rooted squarely in the Christian version of God. His idea that the laws of the United States were out of sync with the moral laws of God was the driving force in his campaign to expand the rights ofAfrican-Americans. His reasoning was NOT secular and he did NOT hide his religious rationale. He shouted it from podium to podium, book to book,loud and proud.

Today, what would those who fight for a secular society say about this? Maybe they would accuse Martin of violating the oft misunderstood legal fiction of the "church and state." Maybe he would get threatening letters from the American Civil Liberties Union. Atheists would be forced to take him aside and remind him that there is no place for "God" in American law. Secularists could have effectively shut down his campaign, which so proudly mixed God and rights to the benefit of an oppressed people. But they did not; instead, the secularists who agreed with Martin kept quiet about his injection of God into an argument about government and civil rights law. Some justified the mix as a necessary political evil in securing greater civil rights for African-Americans.

In the not too distant past we had an election in which strong support was given against gay marriage across America. The people who voted against homosexual marriage because their religious beliefs were not compatible with it were basically using the same argument that Martin Luther King Jr. did, that the laws of theUnited States which might allow for gay marriage are out of sync with the moral laws of God.

When the message was effectively delivered by statisticians picking apart polling numbers, secularists went crazy. Some compared the United States to the Taliban, and some compared the surge of God fearing voters to Islamic fundamentalists. Made universal, this line of reasoning would make Martin Luther King Jr into some kind of zealot pushing a religion charged agenda with political goals on the people.

Separation of church and state has been challenged time and time again. The Supreme Court has set precedents on top of other precedents in order to make laws more concrete, articulate and encompassing to events that interact with religion. What the separation of church and state does not do, is ban those with a religious belief from voting and exercising their constitutional rights- even if their votes are partially based on their religious teachings. People cannot logically support the religious underpinnings of Martin’s civil rights philosophy on one hand, and then call Christian voting blocs the “religious reich” on the other.

It is shallow and ignorant to consider the "political aim" of a religious movement when deciding concretely what space in the political process religion should occupy. This thinking perverts and complicates the role religion can possibly play, leading to animosity and contradiction over time

In the space of a day, the label of "religious fanatic" had replaced whatsome were calling well informed and reasonable voters. And these suddencries of intolerance, homophobia and injection of church into governmentare from people who wouldn’t dare call Martin Luther King Jr. a religiousfanatic for using God’s law to modify American law.

Don’t be confused, religion in both cases is a means to a political end. In both the cases of gay marriage and civil liberties, religion has been used to secure a certain political outcome. In scoffing at the numerous state gay marriage amendment outcomes, critics are more specifically scoffing at the USE OF RELIGION in that process. By making this criticism universal, we would also discredit the use of religion as a philosophical foundation for the historical expansion of African-American civil liberties. And that’s not something I’m ready to do.