I like Barack. But he is saying “nothing” so as not to risk his good position to win the Democratic nomination.
I am looking for a candidate who is less a wimp. More an anti-Bush.
“Tell me, Barack, who do you want to nuke?”
Click PLAY or watch Gravel at the Presidential Debate in South Carolina on YouTube.
Meet the Next President of the United States of America | Wake Up From Your Slumber
I got another scam letter from the bogus DROC.ca.
Who is responsible for shutting them down?
This time I sent a complaint notice to the Competition Bureau of Canada.
Competition Bureau – Thank You
Here are a few other complaints I found on the internet:
Register.com v. Domain Registry of Canada
=== original post May 13, 2006
I got junk mail from the Domain Registry of Canada. It looks pretty official. Perhaps an invoice, though it says, this is not a bill.
They are urging me to renew a domain name I own for only C$40 / year. It expires in 6 months and they do not want me to miss renewal nor overpay with my current domain company.
Yahoo! sold me the domain for US$4 / year and will renew for less than US$10 / year.
Many people are still getting rich over-charging for domain names. Don’t be fooled by DROC or any of that ilk.
Sad. Sad. Sad.
I was just in a small University town near to where this happened.
It seemed idyllic at Penn State.
What a tragedy.
At least 33 people are dead and more than a dozen others wounded after a gunman opened fire at a Virginia college on Monday in what is being described as the worst campus shooting in U.S. history.
Not Muslims. Not even close.
That would be the homophobic, anti-semitic religious lunatics of Fred Phelps’ Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. (Independent Baptist church not affiliated with any known Baptist conventions or associations.) They are mostly one family.
These adults are as foul as any lunatic fanatics anywhere.
Sick, sick, sick.
I wonder how they celebrate Easter Sunday.
You need a strong stomach to watch this BBC documentary on YouTube called The Most Hated Family in America.
Will the 2008 American election be won or lost on-line?
I’m not sure.
Initially I felt Obama might be swept to power by the internet. But he still has plenty of time to blow it.
In this week’s PrezVid Show, I grade the latest YouTube videos from each of the candidates. It’s a sorry lot. As a group, they are still blowing the opportunity to use YouTube to connect with voters in new ways: more personal, direct, informative, fun. The grades:
John Edwards — Best of the bunch. He, like Barack Obama, posts a speech to a labor convention and I expect them both to pull out hard hats and lunch pails. But he’s passionate and the video is well-organized, giving us his stump-speech stands on Iraq, the environment, and health care. And he even snarks at Barack Obama. Grade: B
Barack Obama — He keeps making Sally Field videos: They love him, they really love him. At another union confab, Obama shouts to the choir but still says little. Grade: C
Hillary Clinton — She was the teacher’s pet with her early videos. But lately, Clinton has been sloughing it off. He latest show just hauls out the hubby to beg for money (and considering her record-blasting take so far, money is the least of her concerns. Grade: C-
Dennis Kucinich — Grade: B
Chris Dodd — Grade: C-
Joe Biden — Grade: C
John McCain — Grade: C
Mitt Romney — Grade: D
Rudy Giuliani — Grade: D-
Ron Paul — Grade: F
Bill Richardson — Grade: C-
Duncan Hunter — Grade: D
Tommy Thompson — Grade: F
Chuck Hagel — Grade: D-
Sam Brownback — Grade: F
I threw my support blind behind Barack Obama on Dec. 26th, 2006.
The main reason was the overwhelming support he was getting on the internet.
Here is who the MySpacers are supporting.
Data Mining: Text Mining, Visualization and Social Media: ObamaSpace
But will they vote?
Hillary’s page is not getting much love:
March 23, 2007 – I made a strange new friend today on MySpace. Her name is Hillary Clinton. Frankly, we don’t have a lot in common.
I only knew “McNamara” from the reference in the Simon and Garfunkle song:
I been Norman Mailered, Maxwell Taylored.
I been John O’Hara’d, McNamara’d.
I been Rolling Stoned and Beatled till I’m blind.
I been Ayn Randed, nearly branded
Communist, ’cause I’m left-handed.
That’s the hand I use, well, never mind!
The first album I ever bought was Simon and Garfunkle.
Though I grew up in the Vietnam era, I was never a vocal protester. My mind was on local things. Sport. School. Friends.
Later I became strongly anti-war. (that’s a separate post)
I’d heard great things about a documentary called The Fog of War and finally got around to downloading it.
It’s fantastic.
Robert Strange McNamara is one of the most interesting and compelling figures in modern history.
He was hand-picked by President Kennedy to become Secretary of Defense in 1961 and was a senior advisor on US policy through until he was fired (or quit) in 1968.
McNamara recommended the Bay of Pigs invasion and was at the table during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Three times the USA came close to using nuclear weapons.
McNamara has said that the Domino Theory was the main reason for entering Vietnam. His resolve to “win” the war waned, especially after protester Norman Morrison set himself on fire Nov. 2, 1965, dousing himself in gasoline, holding his baby girl, in front of McNamara’s office. (The baby was saved.)
Though McNamara was “the chief architect of the Vietnam war”, he eventually came to believe it a mistake. LBJ lost confidence and let him go.
Film maker Errol Morris had a fantastic story. And did a fantastic job of editing. I recommend it to one and all.
Though many of the “lessons learned” could be applied to Iraq, McNamara has consistently refused to comment. And he has never apologized.
The Fog of War – Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara
The Fog of War – Wikipedia
You can watch the movie free in a tiny window with streamed video.
You, me, every politician.
Why not the arms industry?
I want to THANK bomb makers for THINKING OF THE CHILDREN.
British arms manufacturer BAE Systems is designing “environmentally friendly” weapons, including “reduced lead” bullets, “reduced smoke” grenades and rockets with fewer toxins, The Sunday Times said.
Other initiatives include developing armoured vehicles with lower carbon emissions, safer and more sustainable artillery and even recycling or composting waste explosives, the newspaper added.
“Weapons are going to be used and when they are, we try to make them as safe for the user as possible, to limit the collateral damage and to impact as little as possible on the environment,” Debbie Allen, BAE Systems’ director of corporate social responsibility, was quoted as saying.
Arms Industry – Wikipedia
Being an “evening person”, a golfer and a Canadian — I’ve always liked Daylight Savings Time.
(For 10 years I lived in Saskatchewan where we did not have DST and suffered some confusion because everyone else in the country was.)
On the internet, however, the consensus seems to be that the benefits are not worth the bother.
For example:
… assuming you use the same amount of lighting in the morning that you normally do, how much can you expect to save thanks to an extra hour of evening daylight for four weeks? Not much. Let’s do the math, assuming you have five 60-watt light bulbs you regularly use every evening:
28 days * 1 hour * 5 light bulbs * 60 watts = 8.4 kilowatt-hours (kWh)
Using the average residential cost per kilowatt-hour of 10.22 cents from November 2006, here’s how much you’d save:
8.4 kWh * $0.1022/kWh = $0.86
So after an act of Congress, millions spent in computer reprogramming and schedule adjusting, and kids waiting for buses in pitch dark, you can expect to save 86 cents a year thanks to the extension of Daylight Saving Time. And if your house already made the switch to energy-saving CFL bulbs like we did, cut that savings to 19 cents.
How Much Will You Save With the Longer Daylight Saving Time? About 86 Cents. | Punny Money
A map of the world showing countries that use the death penalty and those that have abolished it.
(via A Welsh View)
Of course I am for the abolishment of the death penalty everywhere. Except in very unique situations. Saddam Hussein’s trial was bungled, I understand, but I have no quarrel with him being put to death.
Rick McCharles 
