It has been a little while since I have posted. I have been getting back in the swing of things with work and all. The funny thing is that I had it all planned out what all I would get done on the computer, and small projects completed while I was out of work recovering. But it turned out that I spent most of the time snoozing. The Lortab and Darvacet cocktails rendered me into a helpless time warp that was nice. Peaceful slumbers, until the night I was wired and did not sleep for nearly 20 hours. I guess the medicine caught up with me. Fortunately I wasn't in much pain, but the medicine was nice.
Unfortunately, the past couple of days I have been getting a little more "uncomfortable", but I get my stiches out tomorrow, and most likely I will get another prescription. When I went Monday to get them out, the doctor decided to wait until Friday. Hopefully the incision won't open back up a whole lot, but the doctor said it will open up some. Ugh!
I will get back on my rants and opinions since so much has happened since I slowed on my posting. So here we go;
Did you know....
1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies:
Diebold and ES&S. (which the company I work for, prints some ballots for them)
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight>> of the U.S. voting machine industry.
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0916-04.htm http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are>> brothers.
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/private_company.html http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizerand donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/main632436.shtml http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=16478865. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He>> became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.
http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004/03/03_200.html http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/031004Fitrakis/031004fitrakis.html6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.
http://www.blackboxvoting.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=26 http://www.hillnews.com/news/012903/hagel.aspx http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/000896.php7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice-presidential candidates.
http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_28/b3689130.htm http://theindependent.com/stories/052700/new_hagel27.html8. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes.
http://www.essvote.com/HTML/about/about.html http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html9. Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987/041020evotestates/pfindex.html10. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm http://www.diebold.com/solutions/default.htm11. Diebold is based in Ohio.
http://www.diebold.com/aboutus/ataglance/default.htm12. Diebold employed 5 convicted felons as consultants and developers to help write the central compiler computer code that counted 50% of>> the votes in 30 states.
http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,61640,00.html http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/10/301469.shtml13. Jeff Dean was Senior Vice-President of Global Election Systems when it was bought by Diebold. Even though he had been convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree, Jeff Dean was retained as a consultant by Diebold and was largely responsible for programming the optical scanning software now used in most of the United States.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0312/S00191.htm http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf14. Diebold consultant Jeff Dean was convicted of planting back doors in his software and using a "high degree of sophistication" to evade detection over a period of 2 years.
http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf15. None of the international election observers were allowed in the polls in Ohio.
http://www.globalexchange.org/update/press/2638.html http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/10/26/loc_elexoh.html16. California banned the use of Diebold machines because the security was so bad. Despite Diebold's claims that the audit logs could not be hacked, a chimpanzee was able to do it! (See the movie here:
http://blackboxvoting.org/baxter/baxterVPR.mov.)
http://wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,63298,00.html http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/487419017. 30% of all U.S. votes are carried out on unverifiable touch screen voting machines with no paper trail.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/main632436.shtml18. All -- not some -- but all the voting machine errors detected and reported in Florida went in favor of Bush or Republican candidates.
http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,65757,00.html http://www.rise4news.net/extravotes.htmlhttp://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0411/S00227.htm19. The governor of the state of Florida, Jeb Bush, is the>> President's brother.
http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/news/local/7628725.htm http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10544-2004Oct29.html20. Serious voting anomalies in Florida -- again always favoring Bush -- have been mathematically demonstrated and experts are recommending further investigation.
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/tens_of_thousands.html http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1106-30.htm http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/110904.htmlhttp://uscountvotes.org/Now, I am not a staunch liberal, I am against any corrupt administration that is for special interest and note the good of the people as a whole. The problem with politicians, as I see it, is that they serve their own agenda versus the people. In years past politicians served the people, and ruled for freedoms. I truly believe politicians soon will be trying to rule religion into our lives, which is the opposite of what the country was founded under. The reason I am against putting religion in politics is actually a simple reason. Should the religion that is put in is not one that I believe, I shouldn't have someone elses beliefs forced upon me, whether it be Muslim, Judaism, Christian, Buddhist, Wiccan, or any theism. Therefore, religion should not be in politics.
Some may say that religion should be in politics for the morals. I heard an interisting thing from a friend on this subject today. There is a group locally that is trying to eliminated nudity in strip clubs because the believe it is immoral. (for the record, I do not attend these businesses, but I don't oppose them.) Now these people don't have to go to these places, so are they afraid of the temptation? Why should they be the moral police for everyone else. But it does boil down to one thing, morality is what you do when noone is looking. So, only you truly know what your moral standards are, regardles what public stance you take.
We should have socialized healthcare. Cancer costs an average of 250,000 dollars to treat one case. And while the publicized healthcare is more efficient, they have to keep profits up for shareholders, pay the large salaries for executives and the huge corporate costs, the rates seem to actually wind up higher than what the savings are worth.
Abortion is a moral and medical issue, not a political issue. A woman who has been raped should be able to get a safe abortion, and this is in Roe V. Wade. I saw a survey somewhere, and I can't cite it verbatim, but it said that most people who have an opinion on Roe, have never read the decision. So people need to really think things out before jumping on a bandwagon. So here is an opportunity
Roe V. Wade. Say, if you, or your wife, depending on your gender, were raped, would you want to have to go full term with a reminder of this act to only have to either give it up for adoption, or raise it. Should you spend the time to truly depate both sides with yourself... you know. Or say your daughter gets pregnant, should she get the proper medical attention or a back-ally coathanger job that not only could kill her, but destroy her chances of a child in the future. But in this situation you have to consider the parenting that led to this point in the childs life.
Now that you may be sufficiently angry, or agreeable, I will state my stance on abortion. I am against abortion for convenience. I am against an abortion for a child who had sex too early. I do agree on abortion for rape, medical issues that the child won't survive with, or if the mother may die during childbirth.
Now the next issue that people are all tense about, when does life begin. Let's look at the definition of life; the time a person or thing is alive or exists. (Webster's New World Dictionary)
A cingle cell organism has life, this is not refuted, and is widely known. When a cell splits and replicates, this is an active function that requires no outside source for this to happen, therefore that is life, right? a bacteria is alive, a mold is alive, algae is alive. So when thinking of it this way, Life begins when the sperm penetrates the egg. Obviously, this is a symbiotic relationship with the mother, but this ends after 9 months as far as 24 hour attachment. The absolute dependancy lasts for a few years after birth. Some argue that life doesn't begin until birth, and these people, could not have a true understanding of life, as it is defined. But with all of this said, it is clearly a medical issue, and not a political issue. Therefore, it should be left to the medical field and individuals morals. Personally, I would never condone an abortion except in extreme situations, which is rare, but noone else should have to live by my standards.
Lastly, The government should not borrow from the social security funds. This is not a good practice. We are suffering from it and it will get worse, because of this practice we began in the late 80's. Our fiscal policies should be fairly conservative, and we shouldn't have a large government, but yet here we sit with the largest government in the history of the U.S., under the administartion that preaches small government and fiscal responsibility. I like the talk, but it seems like all propoganda. We have the largest budget deficeit, the loosest spending policies, and the national debt is just completely oposite of what the republican's stand for. Also, they stand for morality, but yet there are more corrupt politicians under the banner of republican, than under any other party label.
O.K. I am sure you are about sick of me now, so I will give you a break.
Snappy
