Starting Over

88 year old Veteran talks crap about McCain

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com — Fri, 5 Sep 08 00:24:00 UT

At the event, Fox News showed up with a camera and grabbed this awesome old Veteran:

She talked a lot about how awesome McCain's military service was as her "lead in" to asking him if he supports McCain... yeah, at an Obama event. *shakes head*

He gave her quite a mouthful though. I'm paraphrasing, but it went something like this:

Fox: Is John McCain's military service and time spent as a POW important to you as a voter?

Obama Veteran: Let me tell you, I served in WWII and I know several people who were POWs. I know people who are still serving in the military and let me tell you something. If you are a POW and all you give is your Name, Rank and Serial Number you don't come out fat. You come out skinny as a rail because they don't treat you well. John McCain gave them more information than his name and rank because he came out of that place fat. I don't trust McCain. Obama is my candidate.

Bahahahaha, I love this guy!

McCain mentioned it in his speech tonight and has been honest about it all along, although he's been willing to let people lie about it for him (like when Bush lied about McCain never cracking under the torture). McCain did in fact crack under the torture and signed a confession for war crimes against the Vietnamese people. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying he's a pussy for cracking, I probably would too. I just mention this because I know that the knee jerk reaction to the old Veteran's statement above will be to defend McCain... and well, both are right. McCain did suffer brutal torture, but the old Veteran's distrust of McCain is founded because McCain did trade military information for medical treatment and did sign a confession of war crimes.

Obama SoCal HQ: They thought only 150 people were going to show....

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com — Thu, 4 Sep 08 22:37:00 UT

From Obama for America SoCal HQ Opening

The SoCal Obama Campaign HQ opened tonight in the Palms area near West Los Angeles. They didn't realize it was going to be such an event, but they joked that Sarah Palin had obviously done a really great job at energizing OUR base. heh.

They weren't really prepared, there wasn't anywhere near enough room inside. They went down the street knocking on business doors and found one who had a big parking lot in back and would let us gather.

I went because I want to volunteer and help out... and I learned something about myself. Without someone ELSE to help, I was motionless. I wasn't sure where to go after the impromptu rally portion. There were people around who I could ask, but they were mobbed by people. I just didn't feel the motive force to insert myself forcibly in front to talk to one of them (which is how everyone else was getting in and getting attention).

I was waiting to talk to a woman would had a badge that said she was a Volunteer Coordinator. She was dealing with some really rude people who were miffed that they couldn't get upstairs (the cool place). They would not drop it and kept handing her pieces of paper proving their worth to go upstairs but she continued to be polite. While I was waiting for my turn, another person came up with a basket of flowers and gave them to the Coordinator. Now she's holding her bottle of water, the papers from the rude couple and a huge basket of flowers. The rude people haven't left yet, and they give her their business cards to include with the other pieces of paper... and then try to hand her more stuff and she's totally overloaded.

Finally, action found me. I stepped forward in front of the rude couple and asked the Coordinator if I could help her and hold some of those things. She handed me the basket of flowers, thanked me and asked me to take them upstairs to the receptionist..... upstairs. Take that, rude couple! booyah.

Once I got upstairs and delivered the flowers, I was able to talk to several volunteers and put my name on every volunteer sign-up sheet I could get my hands on. Including the one held by Kal Penn, the actor who plays Kumar in all the Harold and Kumar movies.

The night was crazy, but being a nice guy won out in the end and I think I got my foot in the door.

More Lies at the RNC

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com — Thu, 4 Sep 08 09:44:00 UT

Theresa sent me this article which does some fact checking for the RNC speeches.

The absolute worst of the group was Mike Huckabee who said Palin "got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States."

Not only is it a lie. It's a HUGE lie.

Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor's election, and got 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525.

Biden received 2328 votes JUST in Iowa. He dropped out after Iowa, but was still on the ballot in many states and continued receiving votes for a total of 76,165 votes.

Math is hard, so let's sum up:

Palin's 1525 < Biden's 2328
Palin's 1525 << Biden's 76,165

Another which was just utterly insulting was Mitt Romney who said "We need change, all right â change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington â throw out the big-government liberals, and elect John McCain and Sarah Palin."

Hey Jackass. The Republicans have been running Washington. 8 years of Republican President and the Democrats only retook the majority in Congress in January 2007! Seriously, wtf? How do these people just lie so blatantly?

Palin gave her big speech last night. She's a good speaker, very charismatic. Not super, but definitely good. She even ad-lib-ed a joke in the middle of her speech about Hockey Moms (at least it felt like an ad-lib). One thing that annoyed me about her speech though was she refused to say Obama's name. When politicians only say "my opponent" or "the other side" and refuse to say the name of the opponent, that's a sign of weakness in my book. They are so afraid to give Obama any sort of air time that they are frightened to even say his name. I know it's a long standing tradition for many politicians, but I still consider it a show of weakness.

Palin said, "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending ... and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere."

Palin is full of shit. She had absolutely nothing to do with the end of this earmark. (I had this wrong in a previous post and have gone back and noted that). Congress did away with this "bridge to nowhere" earmark in November of 2005. Palin was not elected as Governor until November of 2006 and didn't actually assume the office until a month later. It's a lie! It's all a gigantic lie! Oh, but maybe she said during the campaign that she didn't support the Bridge? No, she said during the campaign that she supported the Bridge.

Conservative Pundits Leak Truth Through Open Mic

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com — Thu, 4 Sep 08 09:21:00 UT

One thing that the Republican are amazing at is speaking with one voice. They can hit their talking points... HARD. While listening to the pundits before and during the RNC and listening to all of the interviews where people are just rabidly in support of Palin... I got the impression that they didn't believe it, but that was the party line so they were repeating it.. HARD.

Juan Cole's Informed Comment just showed me I was right:

Here is the transcript:

Mike Murphy: You know, because I come out of the blue swing state governor world: Engler, Whitman, Tommy Thompson, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush. I mean, these guys -- this is how you win a Texas race, just run it up. And it's not gonna work. And --

Peggy Noonan: It's over.

Mike Murphy: Still McCain can give a version of the Lieberman speech to do himself some good.

Chuck Todd: I also think the Palin pick is insulting to Kay Bailey Hutchinson, too.

Peggy Noonan: Saw Kay this morning.

CT: Yeah, she's never looked comfortable about this --

MM: They're all bummed out.

CT: Yeah, I mean is she really the most qualified woman they could have turned to?

Peggy Noonan: The most qualified? No! I think they went for this -- excuse me-- political bullshit about narratives --

CT: Yeah they went to a narrative.

MM: I totally agree.

Peggy Noonan: Every time the Republicans do that, because that's not where they live and it's not what they're good at, they blow it.

MM: You know what' sreally the worst thing about it? The greatness of McCain is no cynicism, and this is cynical.

CT: This is cynical, and as you called it, gimmicky.

MM: Yeah.

Palin believes Iraq War is a "task that is from God"

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com — Thu, 4 Sep 08 09:02:00 UT

Palin: Iraq war 'a task that is from God'

"Our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God," she said. "That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that plan is God's plan."

God isn't just interested in Iraq though, Almighty God is also in support of gas pipelines:

Palin told graduating students of the church's School of Ministry, "What I need to do is strike a deal with you guys." As they preached the love of Jesus throughout Alaska, she said, she'd work to implement God's will from the governor's office, including creating jobs by building a pipeline to bring North Slope natural gas to North American markets.

"God's will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that," she said.

The more and more I hear about Palin, the scarier she gets. Any President who feels that his or her actions are directed by God is DANGEROUS.

Jon Stewart explains my feelings

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com — Wed, 3 Sep 08 23:27:00 UT

Tonight on The Daily Show Jon Stewart was talking with Newt Gingrich and asked him about Sarah Palin and Bristol Palin and Bristol's pregnancy. Jon's statement was much better said than I've been able to say, but is right in line with my feelings on it.

Here's my transcript typed while pausing my TiVo:

Jon: One serious issue that I do want to address is... sort of... close to my heart, the issue of the teen pregnancy. They have said "This was Bristol's decision and we should honor that." I have a daughter. The reason why I think it's fair game is Sarah Palin is on record as saying she would veto abortions for women even in the event of being raped. So what she is in essence saying, "Respect my family's ability to make this decision and elect me so that I can keep your family from having the same opportunity."

Newt: No, that's not true.

Jon: That strikes me as hypocrisy.

Newt: What's she's saying is, you and she can have a policy debate about whether or not Obama's position defending infanticide by abortion doctors was appropriate in the Illinois Legislature. Or whether...

Jon: No, no, this isn't about Obama. I'm going be her words. No abortion, even in the case of rape.

Newt: Obama's position in the Illinois Legislature was one extreme, her position may be the other extreme. That is a policy debate. The minute you mention her child....

Jon: but when it comes down to her family she says "Respect her decision."

Newt: No, she says "Respect the privacy of her daughter" which is very different.

Jon: She said it was Bristol's decision. That was her press release. It was Bristol's decision.

Newt: Right, and Bristol's decision was to keep the child because..

Jon: That's another word for "choice."

Newt: .. because in Alaska today, they certainly have choice.

Jon: I'm just saying, if she was President that choice would be removed from the family and the government would make it which is why I think it's a legitimate issue.

CNN actually does its job!! ZOMG

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com — Wed, 3 Sep 08 22:44:00 UT

This is so refreshing to see. I've been asking the same questions Campbell Brown is asking in this clip. "Just name one... name one thing..."

Brilliant!

If more of our media stood up to the lies and rhetoric of politicians and political commentators (of all parties), perhaps we could fix many of the problems in our political process.

John McCain cancelled his interview with CNN as punishment saying that question Palin's Foreign Policy experience was "over the line."

I just emailed CNN and told them how proud I am of Campbell Brown. CNN should not look at this situation as "we lost an interview with McCain" it should see this as one of their people did their job beautifully and John McCain responded like a spoiled child.

Campbell Brown. I want to have your babies.

EDIT: I forgot to include the hat tip to Informed Comment.

McCain can't raise his arms above his head

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com — Wed, 3 Sep 08 22:27:00 UT

I've heard multiple speakers reference that John McCain cannot raise his arms above his head and how it's a constant reminder of the sacrifices he made for this country.

Why can't he raise his arms above his shoulders?

He was tortured. He was forced into stress positions. It sucks. I can't imagine how painful it was and those times left permanent scars on him.

So, why am I posting about this? I'm posting because John McCain allies himself with President Bush and Vice President Cheney who authorized torture. How the fuck can he possibly stand next to these men who use facilities outside of the United States to TORTURE people beyond the range of US laws?! HOW?!

When McCain rejects these deplorable people who authorize torture, THEN he can use his POW time for political gains.

While he continues to stand with these people who torture prisoners, his time as a POW is meaningless.

His torture was horrible, yet he's ok with inflicting that same permanent damage on other people. That should tell you something about his character.

Tech Note: Google Releases Web Browser named Chrome

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com — Wed, 3 Sep 08 10:41:00 UT

Google released Chrome, a new web browser.

It looks pretty darn cool, it doesn't have a Mac or Linux version yet, but I'm sure it'll be coming along soon.

They created a comic which describes the new design and features of Chrome. The central point of Chrome is that it's almost entirely brand new. Most web browsers still have their roots in what the web was like in the 90s. They've used the Safari WebKit as the basis for the rendering engine, but they've updated it and the world that they run it in is a whole new one.

It's designed from the bottom up to be secure and fast. It works from the assumption that the security WILL get breached at some point. It compartmentalizes the system so that when it does get breached, the offending code will be locked in a small jail and will be unable to affect things outside of its sandbox. In addition... all other browsers work as one "process" running on your computer and has multiple "threads" running inside each process. So, if one thread helping with a webpage gets hijacked by a virus or malware then the whole application is infected. Chrome runs each new Tab has a separate process with a mother process that controls them all. Processes are encapsulated environments which is hte small jail to which I just referred. As soon as you close that Tab, that process is killed which means even if that Tab got infected with a virus or malware, the malware dies along with the tab.

The other part that they got help from someone else on is the JavaScript engine. A brand new Javascript execution engine will remove speed problems, memory problems and is better able to handle today's javascript needs because it was written... today.

It looks pretty hot and sexy. It doesn't have all the features of every browser, but that's sort of the point. A good balance between what you need and what you want so that it can be fast, secure and useful.

I'm excited to try it out on the Mac.

Lies at the RNC: Lieberman is not a Democrat

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com — Wed, 3 Sep 08 08:07:00 UT

Watching Day 2 nearly drove me insane. The number of outright lies was astounding and the only time any of the media did their job and confronted those lies was only once by Chris Matthews.

Lieberman claimed to be a Democrat in his speech. He said:

And that brings me directly to why I am here tonight. What, after all, is a Democrat like me doing at a Republican convention like this?

The problem is.... Joe Lieberman is a registered Independent.

He ran as a Democrat and lost because he doesn't actually represent the same positions that most Democrats support. After losing the primary, Lieberman registered as an Independent and secured enough Republican votes to win the seat in Congress again.

The Republicans are outright lying.
Joe Lieberman is outright lying.
Chris Matthews (MSNBC) was the only one to challenge this lie. The rest of the media should be ashamed for standing there while the Republicans lie and staying silent.

If all you are going to do is hold the microphone during an interview, you can be replaced by a metal stand.

Palin Problems

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com — Tue, 2 Sep 08 22:05:00 UT

Starting with the biggest one today.... Sarah Palin's 17 year old daughter is pregnant. Obama says that children are off-limits for politics. I agree. However, Sarah Palin is not. Palin refuses to support sex education, only supports abstinence education. I don't think anyone should be taking shots at Bristol (the daughter). However, I think we should be hitting Palin HARD for a clearly failed policy of "education."

McCain only met her once before offering her the job. A lot of questions have been raised about how little vetting was done on this pick. Considering that every VP needs to be ready to be the President, picking someone who hasn't been vetted is reckless and irresponsible.

Palin pressured Public Safety Commissioner to fire a State Trooper because that Trooper was locked in a bitter custody battle with the governor's sister. When he wouldn't fire the Trooper, she fired the Commissioner.

Palin lied about her support of the "bridge to nowhere". (EDIT: I was wrong here, this earmark was proposed and shot down before she was ever Governor, but she publicly supported it during the Gubernatorial Election) ~~As Governor she acquired a $223 million earmark for this bridge,~~ which was directly opposed by John McCain. Now that she's McCain's VP choice, she says she was against the bridge from the beginning. Complete lie.

They say she fights against corruption, but she currently is the subject of 2 ethics investigations for abuse of power.

Palin doesn't know what the Vice President DOES.

There are so many more... but I'm too tired to keep going.

Sarah Palin is not Hillary Clinton

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com — Sun, 31 Aug 08 09:40:00 UT

I didn't write about this before because I wanted to write about Obama and his speech first. It was pretty obvious that McCain released the name of his VP running-mate the day after Obama's DNC speech so that the media coverage wouldn't just be all about Obama.

He chose Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. *sigh* It's very disappointing. After slamming Obama constantly for being inexperienced, he chooses a person who has even less experience.

So why did he pick her? He wants Hillary Clinton voters.

Which... is just... fucking ludicrous.

Hillary Clinton actually fights for Women's Rights. Sarah Palin is so pro-life/anti-abortion that she doesn't even support the option of abortion in cases of RAPE. Hey, I know you just had one of the most traumatic experiences of your life that will likely scar you forever, but hey, look on the bright side! You get to have a constant, painful reminder of it every day for the next 9 months!

Several women that I've spoken to about her are offended that McCain would try to manipulate them in such a transparent way that would possibly put Palin in the office of President should anything happen to McCain.

You can read Sarah Palin's wikipedia page, but you have to be careful about anything you read there. During elections and such, wiki pages are highly volatile and subject to partisan edits. However, this one in particular should be taken carefully... because
Palin's wikipedia entry was scrubbed clean before the announcement.

Obama's Speech at the DNC

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com — Fri, 29 Aug 08 08:34:00 UT

I LOVED it.

Not that you are surprised by that. I was happy to see him take some good, clean shots at McCain, I'm hoping that he'll be hitting him harder in the weeks to come. CLEANLY.... but hoping he'll be hitting him hard.

There were a lot of things about the speech that I really liked, but I'll just pick this one out for this morning. I can't find a transcript of the speech right now, so I'll paraphrase.

He said as President he would ensure that we aren't using foreign oil within 10 years.

This is the kind of stuff I love. I want the President to give us positive vision for the future. I want the President to invest in improvements in technology and environmental safety. I know the parallel has been drawn many times, but if JFK can say we're making it to the freakin' moon, we can figure out a way to leverage our technology to find cleaner and domestic fuels.

These types of change aren't doable in a short period of time without determined and widespread action. That kind of action CAN be driven by the President. After all, if the most powerful person in the most powerful country in the world can't accomplish this, then who can?

Celebrity Not a Dirty Word

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com — Thu, 28 Aug 08 18:05:00 UT

I somehow missed this beautiful music video inspired by Obama's "Yes We Can" speech:

The song is by will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas and I was introduced to it because he performed it just now at the DNC. After his performance, he was interviewed by MSNBC's Dimitri Martin wanna-be who asked him:

MSNBC: The McCain campaign has attacked Obama has being a "celebrity" and not really a politician. As a celebrity, how do you feel about that and do you think it's a fair attack?

will.i.am's absolutely wonderful response: When there is a natural disaster... an earthquake, a hurricane.. you call on us and we're there to bring awareness and raise money. I'm an American. I live in the United States. When I travel around the world and represent America.. it says "America" not "Hollywood." I'm not a celebrity today. I'm celebrating what Obama has done to America. There's nothing wrong... celebrity is not a bad word. If he is renowned for how he's brought the world together then we should celebrate that. Don't be jealous because you have not mustered the emotion of America. It saddens me that they choose when to be patriotic. What is wrong with us being patriots to our country? It saddens me.

I just had the WEIRDEST experience...

kennysjournal6@journalscape.com — Wed, 27 Aug 08 20:12:00 UT

During our break in Zang Fu class, this woman in the class came up to me and asked me how tall I was... I answered 6'2". She asked if I could do her a favor.. her back was out of place and she needed someone to pop it back in. Ok, sure, I've done this a lot...

I stand up and ask her how she'd like me to do it. I have a couple of different ways that I usually do it.. stand behind and lift them up or having them lay down and push with my hands, etc.

No... her way is to stand front to front and have me squeeze her toward me.

*blink*blink*

Um, ok... I put my arms under hers and wrapped them around her... and I'm taller than her, so her arms are up around my neck. The teacher walked in after we were in this position and stopped to double take.... because it honestly looked like we were totally making out. Someone even joked in the background "Wow, this is a pretty good pick-up line!"

She inhaled, exhaled and I squeezed. She said it needed to be like 3 times stronger squeeze than that.

Ok, but dude, this is just WEIRD.... and did I mention that I don't even know this chick's name?

Inhaled, exhaled, I squeezed and heard a pop. She said, "Ok, almost there, but there is still one more. I need you to really squeeze! Squeeze like you are going to kill me."

...

Not only is this REALLY weird, but I'm really having trouble just thinking clearly. Yes, she's attractive, but it's not like I'm turned on... it's just STRANGE. I've never done this to her before... or really ever even TALKED to her before and she's asking me to exert an amount of force on her that is not trivial while our bodies are pressed together and arms wrapped around each other. Have I mentioned how weird this is?

I ask her, "ok, are you sure? I can squeeze really strongly, but I don't want to hurt you." She assures me she'll be fine. I do, I try to exert more force. I get the last pop. She thanks me and we talk briefly. She says that it's been so hard to find guys in LA that can squeeze tightly enough to do it. She says they tell her they are squeezing as strongly as they can... and they are wimpy. I realize though that I was BARELY squeezing her on that last try. It's weird to me that I told myself to squeeze ridiculously strong, but didn't.... but granted, the whole situation was freakin' weird and my brain was probably just not working.

Oh, and I know her name now. Weird.