Things That Just Piss Me Off

A lot of people do not understand the conflicts earley legislators had in this country. Those conflicts defined what this country was to be. The main conflict was Federalism vs States Rights.

Regardless of what people “think” the civil war was about, it was also about States Rights vs Federalism.

The early federalists believed that the federal government should make all the laws and decisions and that the states would just follow. The other side of the conflict believed each state had the right to make it’s own laws.

Remember, before the colonies joined together to form the country, each was a colony and they created their own laws. Before some states would join the US, they made sure their rights to make their own laws were protected.

There are certain laws that only the federal government can or should make. The rest of the laws should be decided by the voters of each state. Nevada wants to legalize gambling, but other states do not. That is a good example of how state laws differe and how state laws can supercede federal laws. There is no federal law legalizing gambling, but the state of Nevada legalized it anyway.

In California, they legalized medicinal marijuana. The federal government disagrees and has made marijuana illegal. Despite actions by John ASScroft when he was attorney general, the state still has the legal right to pass a law that legalizes medicinal marijuana. The voters voted for it. Done deal and their right to do so.

That brings us to the death penalty. Each state voted whether or not to reinstate the death penalty. The voters in each state voted. Many voted to have the death penalty, some did not. Texas voters decided to use the death penalty.

Now the supreme court, representing the federal government has stayed an execution to “examine” one method used in the execution of prisoners, lethal injection.

That is their right to do so. They can and should examine different methods used in executions.

That does not supercede the right of the state to continue to use those methods in implementing the death penalty. The fact that other state have halted their executions until they find out what the supreme court says about lethal injection does not supercede the right of Texas to continue.

They made their decision and Texas has made their decision. Perfectly ok if you believe that states have the right to make their own laws.

Texas Planning New Execution Despite Ruling
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL and LINDA GREENHOUSE
Published: September 29, 2007

HOUSTON, Sept. 28 — A day after the United States Supreme Court halted an execution in Texas at the last minute, Texas officials made clear on Friday that they would nonetheless proceed with more executions in coming months, including one next week.

Though several other states are halting lethal injections until it is clear whether they are constitutional, Texas is taking a different course, risking a confrontation with the court.

Several legal experts said the Supreme Court reprieve would be seen by most states as a signal to halt all executions until the court determined, probably some time next year, whether the current chemical formulation used for lethal injections amounts to cruel and unusual punishment barred by the Eighth Amendment.

Texas, which has a history of confrontations with the Supreme Court over its prerogatives in criminal justice, does not appear interested in waiting. That forces lawyers for condemned prisoners to appeal each case as high as the Supreme Court.

The current challenge to the death penalty is on a much less fundamental level. Even if the Supreme Court rules in favor of the two Kentucky inmates who brought the challenge to lethal injection, the result will not be to overturn any death sentences, but rather, at the most, to require a different method to carry them out.

It doesn’t even matter whether you are for or against the death penalty. It does not matter if you are for or against gambling. The voters in each state have the right to vote for what they believe.

It’s called democracy. The voters of Texas voted to have the death penalty. The death penalty is being used at the voter’s request. The fact that Texas is continuing to use a legal method of execution for prisoners means they are upholding what the voters told them to do.

If you live in a state that has the death penalty and you do not believe it’s right, then use the democratic process to get it voted down. Again, it’s called the democratic process.

But instead, we have people who whine about laws that get passed when they are of the minority opinion. They whine and they protest. Freedom of speech is a good thing. Trying to get a law you do not believe in voted down is part of the democratic process.

So I don’t blame critics for being outspoken. I don’t blame those who believe the death penalty is wrong for speaking out. As for the whining part. I can do without that.

Bush and Cheney have said over and over again that oil is not at the heart of the Iraq war and they want us to believe they are trying to get all the factions to centralize their government and security.

Yet, they arm sunni militia groups, giving them more power. Yet, they let oil companies sign contracts with the Kurds that goes directly against the centralized government theme.

When will people realize that what bush and cheney and other republicans say and what they do are two very very different things?

From the NYTimes
Official Calls Kurd Oil Deal at Odds With Baghdad
By ALISSA J. RUBIN and ANDREW E. KRAMER
Published: September 28, 2007

A senior State Department official in Baghdad acknowledged Thursday that the first American oil contract in Iraq, that of the Hunt Oil Company of Dallas with the Kurdistan Regional Government, was at cross purposes with the stated United States foreign policy of strengthening the country’s central government.

“We believe these contracts have needlessly elevated tensions between the K.R.G. and the national government of Iraq,” the official said, referring to the Kurdistan Regional Government.

Hunt Oil, a closely held company, signed a production-sharing agreement with the Kurdistan Regional Government this month. The company’s chief executive and president, Ray L. Hunt, is a close political ally of President Bush and serves on the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.

Imagine that. Another friend of George W. Bush getting a lucrative contract in Iraq and the first oil contract at that. Bush has pushed cronyism to new levels.

He appointed Michael Brown to FEMA, a very important position involved in our safety, which he claims he ios always focused on, who had absolutely no experience even remotely related to emergency management.

He tried to appoint Harriet Miers toi the supreme court. I guess he believed that if she can get him off those drunk driving charges, she’s qualified for the supreme court.

Then when she didn’t pass muster, he nominated John Roberts to the supreme court. It’s really just coincidence that this is the same John Roberts, who as an attorney, was instrumental in getting the supreme court to put GW Bush into office after the 2000 election fiasco.

It goes back to daddy bush as well. In 1992, George H. W. Bush nominated Roberts to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, but no Senate vote was held.

On July 19, 2005, President Bush nominated Roberts to the U.S. Supreme Court to fill a vacancy that would be left by the announced retirement of Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

Following the September 3, 2005 death of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, Bush withdrew Roberts’ nomination as O’Connor’s successor, and on September 6, announced Roberts’ new nomination to the position of Chief Justice. Bush asked the Senate to expedite Roberts’ confirmation hearings in order to fill the vacancy by the beginning of the Supreme Court’s session in early October.

One thing we can say about bush. He is loyal to his cronies. He seems to believe that he is above the law, therefore all of those who touch him are blessed as well.

back to Iraq

Under draft versions of the national law, the central government would have a say in whether individual oil contracts are legal. The Iraqi national oil law is one of the 18 benchmarks established by the Bush administration to evaluate the Iraqi government’s progress.

So basically, Hunt had to get this contract done before the new law gets passed so they can try to use legal avenues to keep it after the national law gets passed. It’s the old saying, “It’s easier to ask forgiveness than to ask for permission”.

Iraq’s oil minister, Hussain al-Shahristani, has said the Hunt Oil contract is not valid, though there is a provision for reviewing and possibly approving it in the proposed oil law. The intent of that law is to pool oil revenue to distribute it equitably to the Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish areas of Iraq.

Privacy Advocates are going to love this one. Skype is justy named as a possible partner for voice recognition software that listens in to your VOIP calls and displays ads relative to the words you say.

New service eavesdrops on Internet calls
Software monitors calls, displays computer ads based on subjects spoken

NEW YORK - A startup has come up with a new way to make money from phone calls connected via the Internet: having software listen to the calls, then displaying ads on the callers’ computer screens based on what’s being talked about.

For instance, a caller talking about going for dinner might see ads to local restaurants and restaurant review sites, while someone pondering whether to buy a new computer might see ads for computer stores. Relevant unsponsored links also appear.

Will the next step be trying to eliminate the search engines like Google by letting you say a word into your computer and have relevant websites popup based on what you said?

It’s coming. Likely Google will beat others to the punch on it though. They are in a great postion to deliver results from speech recognition. In 1998 I had a coder make me an application to do just exactly that.

We created a database of words and associated those words with urls. Whenever I would say a specific word, my computer would tap the online database and go to the correct url.

So if we were able to do this crude system in 1998, then surely Google has this coming out for us soon with all the improvements to speech recognition software.

Because we depend on fossil fuels so much, many put the need for more fossil fuels way ahead of alternatives. Ford, other car companies, and the oil companies killed the electric car and have suppressed other efforts to get us off of fossil fuels.

It’s all about bottom lines. When oil companies can monopolize alternative fuels, we will get alternative fuels. What the US government and the oil companies conspire to do is to make sure no one comes out with an alternative that might effectively put the oil companies out of business. They do not want any shift of power to happen.

In a free market society, if you build a better mousetrap that makes the other guy’s product obsolete, then you win the market share. That’s a true free market. The US has no free market. The Fed determines interest rates, which determines stock prices and both affect the value of the US Dollar. That is not a free market by very definition.

Proppping up failing companies is also anti-free market. If you go bankrupt, no matter who you are, you should be allowed to go bankrupt, regardless of how that affects investors or owners of those businesses.

Ahhh, but here’s the rub. Those failing companies contribute a lot of money to the campaigns of politicians that can vote to bail them out when they get into trouble. A free market means you are also free to fail, opening the door for another entrepreneur to grab their market share. That is free enterprise.

The only people that get hurt by the current situation is the small business person who has a better idea and a better product for consumers. They start beating the big guy, the government runs in and bails the big guy out so he can stay ahead of you. Maybe there should be a law that says that if the government spends money to bail a company out, they must also give the same amount of money to all their competitors. That might limit the number of times we do this.

Back to the coal thing. Because of our dependence on coal, mine owners are willing to do whatever it takes to get more coal and make more profit, including drilling so close to fault lines that there is bound to be a collapse. Every day without a collapse is pure luck. Then when there is a collapse, the owners tell us all how well they are following regulations and how much they are doing to rescue the miners.

Here’s a good example of such a mine and mine owner from the NYTimes

Panel to Consider Stronger Regulation of Utah Mines
By DAN FROSCH
Published: September 25, 2007

The commission, created by Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. after last month’s collapse at the Crandall Canyon Mine, is expected to hear testimony from mine operators and those who live in the tight-knit surrounding towns, many of them coal miners whose relatives have toiled underground for generations.

So in other words, the panel will hear from mine owners and those that work for them and depend on the mines to make a living. It’s like convening a panel to look into how the Iraq War is doing and appointing the guy in charge of the Iraq war to be in charge of the investigation into the Iraq War. Wait . . . they did do that.

At first glance it looks like they are giving miners a say in how things will be regulated. But their bosses will be there. Their living depends on keeping their job. They are not going up against the mine owners and will say basically what they have been told to say and the government will once again have an excuse for not doing anything.

Do you think children should be allowed to vote on what laws we pass to protect children? The regulating organizations need to do the regulating and stop asking the mine owners for their opinions. If the mine operators cannot produce enough coal, then we will be forced to find alternatives. WIN WIN.

Mr. Huntsman expressed frustration at the federal mine agency’s handling of the disaster and the process by which the Murray Energy Corporation, the mine’s co-owner, received approval to conduct retreat mining at Crandall Canyon. The procedure involves shearing thick pillars of coal and is often considered risky.

A report issued in February by the House Committee on Education and Labor concluded that the agency was too slow to address risks laid out by the Miner Act and to approve two-way, wireless communication systems that would allow miners and rescue workers to stay in touch when something went wrong underground.

According to the Miner Act, the federal agency must create regulations for the installation of the systems by 2009, but agency officials say they have not found a communications device durable enough to function in the extreme environment of a coal mine.

We can get private companies to build a spaceship capable of leaving the earth’s atmosphere without blowing up, but we can’t get anyone to build a better walkie talkie?

It’s excuses like this that let’s you know that politicians are not going to do anything that might hurt the mine operators that contribute to their campaigns.

Ok, yeah, the Iraq war does have a lot to do with controlling the oil in the middle east, but that’s not the real problem anymore.

President bush can say all of his reasons for not pulling troops out of Iraq. He can say he is making progress, but it is a lie. The surge put 30,000 extra troops in Iraq 6 months ago. He now says in just 6 more months he will bring 30,000 troops home and calls this a success.

So basically, bush’s definition of success is to report that in just 6 more months we will be right back where we were 6 months ago. Wow! Thanks george! Only one year to achieve this amazing benchmark for success. Only one year to achieve absolutely nothing! What a pres!

As everyone knows, corporations in the US lobby congress and the president for whatever they want. They bribe there way into legislation that benefits these mega-corporations.

They are the real reason we will not be leaving Iraq anytime soon. Many of these super-corporations have contracts worth billions of dollars that are dependant on the Iraq War being alive and well.

Politicians need the money these corporations give to them to get elected, so don’t count on the democrats to put a stop to the war either. The Iraq war is now about these corporations maintaining their billion-dollar contracts.

From the NyTimes today
Graft in U.S. Army Contracts Spread From Kuwait Base
By GINGER THOMPSON and ERIC SCHMITT
Published: September 24, 2007

Major Cockerham is behind bars, accused of orchestrating the largest single bribery scheme against the military since the start of the Iraq war. According to the authorities, the 41-year-old officer, with his wife and a sister, used an elaborate network of offshore bank accounts and safe deposit boxes to hide nearly $10 million in bribes from companies seeking military contracts.

The accusations against Major Cockerham are tied to a crisis of corruption inside the behemoth bureaucracy that sustains America’s troops. Pentagon officials are investigating some $6 billion in military contracts, most covering supplies as varied as bottled water, tents and latrines for troops in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan.

The inquiries have resulted in charges against at least 29 civilians and soldiers, more than 75 other criminal investigations and the suicides of at least two officers. They have prompted the Pentagon, the largest purchasing agency in the world, to overhaul its war-zone procurement system.

Much of the scrutiny has focused on the contracting office where Major Cockerham worked at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait, a world away from Castor in more than miles. Until the buildup to the war in Iraq, it was a tiny outpost with a staff of 7 to 12 people who awarded about $150 million a year in contracts, according to Bryon J. Young, a retired Army colonel and the current director of the Army Contracting Agency.

This is just the tip of the iceburg. This goes all the way to the top. Of course they will go after the lower-level bribe-takers and not go after those high up in the bush administration that began the war just so these corporations could make more money.

Maybe it was part of bush’s plan to battle unemployment. Give a lot of business to a bunch of war contractors because they promise it will create new jobs. But either way you slice it, this administration began a war to benefit several corporations bottom lines.

The oil companies, the war contractors, and the politicians all make money as long as the war continues. Our soldiers die to make sure they get their money. That is the reality.

Keep supporting it and pretending you are supporting our troops as bush likes to repeat all the time. What you are really supporting is our troops dying so politicians and multi-national corporations will make more money. The proof is there. From this story to cheney and haliburton, the proof is right in front of you.

Will you stop already? You are just encouraging those people. Every time you click on a popup ad, you convince some marketer that popup ads are a good idea. So, stop it! Don’t click popups!

The fact is that marketers do believe that because they get a few clicks on popups that they are a good idea. But if you are the owner of a website and you are selling popups, it’s you that is losing money.

I unsubscribe or block every website that I visit if it gives me a popup ad. That means you sell an ad that uses popups and it’s you that loses visitors and business. The advertiser gets their few clicks from the people who don’t know any better.

You, as the owner of the website likely loses 10 visitors who will never come back for every one click the popup advertiser gets. And if it is you, the website owner who is using popups, then you damage your own business. That includes those cute little sliding “subscribe to my stupid newsletter” popups that scroll across the screen, blocking the content I came to read.

Then there are the real idiots who own websites that put in popups so the little x to close them is off the screen so a user has to drag it over to get to the x and close the popup. Oh yeah. That will make us like you so much more. Ohhh, there’s no little x to close the box. Now I have to buy something! Yeah right. If you are using these you are an idiot.

Then there are the fake warning popups. Such and such has been detected on your computer! You are being tracked! Click here to get help! Oh my GOD! I have to click that right away! My computer is infected! A popup just told me so! If you are clicking these fake alerts, please don’t have children. We do not need to lower the IQ of the average american citizen any further.

Then those clever webmasters who disable the back button. Oh yeah. This will force us to buy something. We can’t leave! Oh my GOD! I’m trapped on this website. Better get my credit card out and buy something! Like we would trust anyone who tries to trap us on their website. If you own a website and you think disabling the back button will somehow make you more sales, you should not be allowed to operate a computer.

Helpful Tip for Webmasters: If what you are about to put into your website will annoy people, you will not make more sales. That’s pretty much a no brainer. Of course so are some webmasters. They will never get it.

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