The word of the day is free...

Here are the numerous definitions of free from the Yahoo! education reference pages. When talking about the "free market", I think I like the fourth or fifth definition. Demoncrats and neo-Republicons seem to support the principles of organizations like the UN and WTO and other international bodies. Just today, Dubya talked about attempting to create more compliance (through Congress) with the WTO regulations. This is the same Republicon majority Congress that is supposed to be helping the Shrub lower the deficit. And yet they still find plenty of pork to throw into the mix. Back to free trade and the WTO, I don't see a chance for free trade to work when many thousands of pages of documents bind it. Check out the WTO "panel reports" for trade issues against the United States. The market should regulate the market. Instead, we have a plethora of committees that believe that they can outsmart all of the forces that go into making goods flow equitably to and from all of the countries of the world. Free my ass...

This Ukraine thing...

George, one of the best ways to lead is by example. Our elections should have been 100% transparent. I know that 100% can't be achieved, but we can and should aim high. Hell, the Air Force does. I'm sure that our elections were fairer than the ones stirring up so much crap. However, let the people there sort it out. Why are we so interested in seeing the opposition win? Are we driving a dangerous wedge between potentially strong allies like Putin and America by being so adamant about the outcome and possible fixes? Is the desired Ukrainian leadership worth that possible rift? I'm sure (as sure as John Kerry was about an $87,000,000,000 vote) that our brilliant leaders are asking these questions of themselves. Maybe we should let the natural forces of freedom work for once. We might not have as much "support" in the short term, but we wouldn't be viewed as attempting to meddle in the affairs of other countries. Before we go and "fix" any more countries, we need to rewire that "beacon light" that "guides freedom-loving people everywhere". Fix this place first.

Is Martha Stewart so damn out of touch with real people that she failed to consider the fallout (and double entendre) that would accompany revelation of her choice of smuggling methods?

I was glancing at John C. Dvorak's blog this evening.

It's old news by now, but he posted about a website where people are apologizing to the world for Shrubbie's victory. I found that mildly funny. In fact, I find that almost as funny as the people who vowed to leave the country for four years. I wonder if the one-way airline ticket sales to foreign countries reflect the many vows that were being made. I doubt it.

There was a nice, short speech given in the House last week about moral values and the morality of allowing the national debt to grow to 69% of the GDP of the United States. The speech is in the center column of this .pdf file from the GPO. Democrat solution = tax more. Republican solution = tax less, spend more and we'll just make more money or something. Something is wrong with both of those.

Check out the latest issue of Secrecy News from the Federation of American Scientists. The large version of the satellite picture of Fallujah is amazing.

Anyway, back to the sorryeverybody.com thing... I won't apologize but I will vow to fight the dumbest legislation/policy that comes out of our government over the next four years through all civil methods available. Unless things get totally out of hand, there won't be any revolutions or anything. Sorry!

Attempt #3...

I started contemplating this post at around 8:30 P.M. Central Standard Time. In the meantime, my laptop spontaneously rebooted and then blogger.com decided to be a beeeyaatch. It's a totally slow night and I'm sitting around veggin' with a piña colada. Yeah, so it' smy fourth one...

It all started while we were kickin' back watching the 1986 movie version of Little Shop of Horrors. An hour into that, Suzanne went back to watch one of her daily soaps. I'm not the soapy type so I sat in the living room watching the umpteenth repeat of The Matrix on one of the movie channels. That was only until something else came on.

As much time as I spend using the computer (right beside Suzy), you might find it odd that I haven't checked my main e-mail account for close to a week. When I logged on this evening, there was an invite to join myspace.com from my dad that was close to a week old. I had seen MySpace before so I figured "What the hell?" I went on over and signed up. We'll see how that works out...

Where in the hell is this dude? One would think that his incarceration would stay in the news. Instead, we are force-fed the elections, the Peterson case, and last week's basketbrawl. Speaking of old news, what in the hell ever happened to the case of the bomb-collared pizza guy?

One of the movies I glanced at after growing slightly bored with The Matrix was 8 Mile. One interesting thing came to mind... 8 Mile has overtones of a young individual trying to find himself. One of my favorite recent sci-fi flicks is Star Trek: Nemesis. The thing that came to mind is the question of what Marshall Mathers would have turned out to be if he had been an average suburban white kid. We frequently have discussions at work about morality and upbringing and genetics and environment. Very few things are certain. Somehow, the discussion always degrades to a "God's about to call us back" vs. "alien teenager is about to press Ctrl-Alt-Del on his Universe Sims game" match. That's a certainty.

SO is piña colada number five...

At work the other night, one of the control room operators said he had visited this blog...

He said, "You're an angry young man." The link he used to get here had the following picture...





He followed the link from Achim's site. I took that picture after being on the receiving end of a hit-and-run.

I tried to reason that I wasn't really so angry. Thinking more about it, I realized that I probably am angry. I received a publication from the union I belong to the other day. They presented their editorial view of how they wished that the election results had been different. Of course, they were coming from a "labor-friendly" angle. John Kerry, friend of labor, one of the senators who voted yea on NAFTA. The union presents a grandiose vision of an attempt to figure out why 33% of its membership voted for Dubya. If they haven't figured that out yet...

I'm often pissed at the people who won the election, too. I won't dredge up all that negativity right now. I'll have four more years that should provide ample opportunity to present my jaded view of the world's power brokers. I will bring this up, though. If the administration wants to do something about Iran, our "street cred" has been damaged in the eyes of many of those who are in a position to bring diplomatic power to bear.

Additionally, this was quite a sickening report... More par for the course I suppose.

During the campaign, my candidate was on a Faux News daytime television show. Linda Vester asked Michael Badnarik about his view on Iraq. He provided his answer and she asked him, "Have you been there?" Hey, I don't think she's been there either so she has to rely on Fox News for info... I can tell you I haven't been there. There ARE good things going on there. There are bad things going on as well. Bad things also happened when the megalomaniac was in charge. One thing that I'll continue to find funny is that we deemed those actions not war-worthy when the megalomaniac was fighting against the Iranians. One of several future dangers that I see is that we are providing a training and breeding ground for future jihadists. For a decidedly non-Faux News view of events in Iraq, click here. I'm rambling... Sorry!

Anger isn't always a bad thing. If you utilize anger to attempt to bring change through the peaceful channels we have in place in this country, you've done a damn fine thing. I don't think I'm there yet, but I've got four more years.