Bright Lights

If you have been following the news at all lately you should know that the Health care Reform Debate is sharply divided along the lines of “Haves” and “Have-nots”. Of course, I’m not speaking economically here. I’m referring to those that “have brains” and those, who, well don’t. Am I being a little harsh? Well, let me give you a sample of what I mean.

Getting Pwned, Congressional Style

First on our list is a woman who was, and I will say this over and over, “Pwned” by biblical proportions by Rep. Barney Frank (D) of Massachusetts. She equated H.R. 3200 to Nazi Germany, and President Barack H. Obama to Adolf Hitler. Now, I am not certain how she makes a connection between H.R. 3200, a bill on reforming the modern American Health Care System, and Nazi Germany, and frankly I don’t want to know. However, for those who seemed to have forgotten, if you remember from school World War II was about the hostile takeover of Europe by the National Socialist (Nazi) German Party led by Adolf. It involved the systematic killing of Jews, Gypsies, the Disabled, Muslims, homosexuals, and pretty much anyone they didn’t like, for whatever reason. I may have been asleep during that part of history class, but I don’t recall WWII era Germany making headlines over sweeping health care reform.

Now, I have to commend Rep. Barney Frank, who is not only Jewish but openly gay as well (meaning being in anything like Nazi Germany would be far from a vacation), for keeping his cool and not physically harming this person. Although, he did proverbially torpedo her like she was a U-Boat. I would really hate to be this person right now. Not only did she make herself look like an absolute fool on international television, but, she opened herself right up for being verbally toasted by an elected official. However, no act of idiocy goes unpunished, so the unnamed woman will get the wonderful joy of bringing about a new term for the Republican Party. Henceforth, we shall call them ‘The Dining Room Table‘. It is only fitting, since she’s not the only Dining Room Table that seems to be too engrossed with Hitler these days.

The Ultimate Social Faux Pas, or, When Stupidity Attacks

So, we have our first Dining Room Table getting slammed by a Congressional figure, but in Las Vegas, another Dining Room Table takes the sport of Grand Stupidity to a whole new level.

Wearing a shirt from the Israeli Defence Forces, a woman repoted by KTNV in Las Vegas as Pamela Pilger, decided to interrupt a Las Vegas news crew talking with an Israeli Jew about health care in Israel. If you guessed her interruption was a “Down with Health care” shout, you’d be wrong. If only that is all she did. Instead, she gave the man a “Heil Hitler!”… a Jewish man… getting a “Heil Hitler!”

I doubt there is a better example of the ultimate social faux pas. You would think that after the man said “Heil Hitler? To Me? I’m Jewish! Shame on you!” she would have slithered away into the dark abyss she came from. However, that would have required a conscience, something clearly lacking here. So after he explains that without insurance it cost him $8,000 for a 2 hour visit to the ER, she mocks him with a sad whiny sound.

Clearly I’m missing something here. I mean, I used to think the conservative side of the coin was an intelligent group that had viewpoints different from mine. While I don’t want to go and claim that anyone who is conservative is also incredibly dumb, I do clearly think their spokespeople need better training. Ms. Pilger should also probably refrain from putting her foot in her mouth in the future. It tends to cause Athletes Mouth.

Just the Beginning

Sadly I am certain that outbursts like this are just the beginning. What is also sad is that most people have not read the bill in question! I have gotten up to 300 pages of this 1017 page document, and so far I don’t find anything reprehensible. The plan is a good one, including the public option. What amazes me is that people think that blogs and emails are ‘real news’, that the Media is trying to hide some scandalous part of H.R. 3200. Newsflash, ladies and gents, there is no scandal, there is no cover up, and quite frankly, there’s nothing to be so disgustingly mad about. Blogs, including this one, do not constitute ‘news’, and emails… well, emails are their own special form of dubiousness. Did no one pay attention in school? Just because you read it in an email, or a blog, does not mean it is necessarily true. That does include Bright Lights, which is why I’ve sourced everything with links above! This is what we like to call research, and it is so easy a Dining Room Table can do it.

Or, perhaps not. They’re too busy with delusions of Nazis and ihren Kampf (their struggle). I would implor, if not outright beg, anyone and everyone to stop listening to the absolute BS that is being thrown out there by Hannity, O’Reilly, Beck, Limbaugh, and others of The Dining Room Table Party. The outlandish lies and downright vile contempt coming from the conservative side of politics is disgusting.

Your Homework Assignment

Read H.R. 3200. Then, and only then, do you have the right to speak about it. If you can’t take the time to read the bill, why should anyone listen to what you have to say? I mean, if you haven’t read the bill how can you have formed an opinion? Oh, you heard about it. Take the time to read the bill, that way you can make your own opinion. Homemade opinions always taste better and are lower in saturated fats, sodium, trans fats, and toxic waste.

PS – I have to add, after reading this, the request to read this DailyKos Diary Post.

The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent anyone else’s view in any way, including those of my employer. Anyone named above is either a public figure or has had their name in print by a major media outlet. All issues are sourced with corresponding video. Any analysis or critique of the encounter is within my First Amendment Rights. I bear no requirement to remove anyone’s name from this post as long as it has been sourced correctly.

So, I’ve held off writing this rant for a while, but I feel I just have to after a post on TechCrunch. The writer complains about AT&T’s continued failures and how ‘once the iPhone is available on other networks’, he’s gone.

The iPhone is not really that great of a piece of equipment. In fact, I would have to say it’s pretty much a pile of shit. Why? It’s a product of Apple, that’s why. Oooh touch screen! Yeah, you can get that on hundreds of other phones, smartphones, and PDAs. They’re not all that great, because they’re always dirty and smudged. But, what is worse about the iPhone is it has spawned a new breed of Apple Fanboy, and they are growing in annoyancy.

I’m not one to stand here and defend Redmond for even a moment. I’m a devout Windows user but I know they’ve had major flaws. Their Internet Explorer team needs to be repremanded for running fast and loose on IE8, slinging code and incorporating a push-beta. Yet, for all their problems, Microsoft is still king. When you buy Windows, you’re buying the OS. Don’t want their OS? Ditch it. Want to put in new parts from a different vendor on your computer? You can. 

Apple on the other hand, they don’t sell anything. It’s more of a long term lease. In order to use their products, you have to use their other products. In short, once they got you in the door for an iPhone or iPod, they got you on the hook for iTunes, and if they could do so, a shiny new Mac OS X. My problem with Apple has never been one of saying that their OS is horrid. In fact, it is pretty decent. Their PC designs are OK too, very trendy. However, that’s all about Apple has ever really been. Decent and trendy. If you like Apple because you like Apple, that’s fine.

My real allegience falls on the Isle of Man. Canonical, the driving force behind Ubuntu Linux, will be awesome once they get more big named companies to agree to write drivers for the Open Source OS. And once MS Office 2010 comes, bringing with it Web Based MS Office, Ubuntu will be a wonderful lightweight option.

Back on topic. I really hope Verizon never agrees to the the iPhone on their network. The iPhone is crap, really does not do anything overly special that other SmartPhones offered by Verizon can’t do already. I would love to see Verizon tell Apple to go suck a core, then walk over and shake hands with Mr. Google himself and bring aboard Android. That would be impressive.

Eitherway, the hype over the iPhone just makes me shake my head. AT&T was crappy pre-iPhone, and it was crappy post-iPhone. Expecting anything different was really, really stupid.

233 years ago, a group of men (and the women who supported them) committed treason against the Crown of England. There was a passion, a drive, a desire to be free that produced a nation born of liberty. Committed to single purpose, to rid themselves of the tyranny of the distant Crown, they fought a battle that stained the ground, clouded the rivers, and filled the air with the burning smell of gun powder.

That was 233 years ago.

Today, what was a cause to shed blood for is barely a resemblance of its former self. If at this point you feel that I’m talking about carriages and top hats, I’m going to have to ask you to continue reading with more urgency than you have ever experienced. This letter… it is about you.

233 years ago, this nation was formed with some very lofty ideas in mind. The establishment of a government that empowers itself from the confidence of the people, and enacts its will as long as that will holds dear to the constitution. The establishment of a sectarian society in which religious freedom is guaranteed. A nation in which its citizens were secure in their property and papers. As one can imagine, it didn’t take long for the stories of a land of free men circled the globe and called deep into the soul of many a family.

What we have created though is a nation far, far different from the ideas set forth 233 years ago. We sit here with a government that empowers itself through corruption and greed, ensuring corporate interests that paid for election campaigns get their repayment in the form of ink and pen. For the eight years prior, we saw an administration that viewed the Constitution, the supreme law of the land, as nothing more than very old toilet paper upon which to wipe their asses upon. We see a society where God has become such a mythical power that many will take up arms in defence of ‘His Word’, killing others simply because they do not believe as they do. We’ve been left with a nation whose government has routinely spied upon its people since the early part of the 20th Century. Today, a different story runs around the globe, and it is one in which we are the boogeyman.

If it is hard to see, I’d like you to open your eyes.

233 years later we have a disparaging class war that is getting more virulent with each passing hour. The wealthy continue to sip champagne and drive their expensive foreign cars, while whisking to the District of Columbia in a private jet to beg the Government for more money, our money.  I don’t know about the rest of you, but I haven’t been able to afford to even fly coach for over 4 years, much less buy two of the cheapest tires available for my car. Yet some rich bastard has the gaul to fly to the District of Columbia and ask for money? I don’t care if he came by fucking donkey cart. I guess he should have realized his seven figure salary plus perks might be playing a part why the ship he commands is on fire and sinking faster than the bilge pumps can go. Meanwhile, you and I are stuck on the bottom where our options are to either crack the last casket of Rum and be shitfaced when it all goes wrong; or hold our breath and hope we survive.

In 233 years we have developed a society that worships credit. I don’t dare fantasize that I’m not part of that mess. I have debt, and a lot of it. Not nearly as much as friends who have gone to college on student loans, but I have my own share. Yet, I sit looking at the website for University of Massachusetts and pondering taking out some student loans to get a Certificate of Journalism from their institution. A piece of paper that says I know how to write.

La-tee-da, I’m already doing it. However, paper speaks volumes. I wonder maybe if all that it really says is how willing you were to put yourself in debt for a piece of paper that says some douche-bag told you how to write.

Friends, let us not continue the fallacy of today. Let us not continue to carry this burden. Let us tell the wealthy corporate bastards they can pay their own way. Most importantly, let us take a lesson from our brethren in Iran who have something we don’t have: balls.

That’s right, I didn’t stutter. We don’t have balls. Do I see anyone heading to the District of Columbia reminding our elected officials that the first words of the Declaration of Independence is “We The People”, and how the rest is a license to revolution? You may ask “What about you? Why haven’t YOU got off your fat ass an gone to D.C.?”

I’m ready to go once enough of you are willing to put rubber to pavement.

I’m not saying revolt. I am saying go and remind them that we still retain that right.

But, instead I am afraid many will find it easier to sit at home and grumble, drinking the kool-aide being dished out by the likes of Limbaugh, Hannity, and, O’Reilly. Perhaps you find Lou Dobbs more to your liking, finding various reasons to blame all our hardships on the Mexicans.

Here’s a newsflash: we wouldn’t have as much of an illegal immigrant problem if the affluent didn’t find their cheap labor such an appealing resource.

No, instead we’re going to wave our flags this Subordination Day and listen to music about how real men die in war, and how America is this beautiful place of freedom with freedom on the side. I’m not sure which to call it anymore, Subordination Day or Delusion Day. Either way it is NOT Independence Day.

As I do every year, it is time to read the document that brought us to where we are today. Read it, and don’t skim over it. These words and phrases are the most important ones your eyes will ever have the distinguished honor of witnessing.

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

I don’t expect anyone to actually give a damn this year, much in the way no one has actually given a damn in years past. However, I hope maybe, just maybe I have reminded you that freedom means recognizing when you’re in slavery, and that Blind Patriotism is the ultimate perversion of the vision of our Founding Fathers.

• Panda Express, New Books (including leatherbound TKAM), and a excellent day of fixing epic fails. I’d say today was a good day. #

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• I know everyone is upset over Neda being shot in cold blood, but she is just one victim of the violent backlash of #iranelection. Just one. #

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• Green in Arizona today for Iran, and Green Tomorrow. #Iranelection You have the support of the Citizens of the USA. #
• Pass on information on setting up TOR in addition to proxies to those within blackout zones http://www.torproject.org/ #iranelection #
• So, a thought: here we have a political movement in a far away land aided directly by people in their underwear at home. #iranelection #
• The Iran prez seems to like his traffic law analogies. #iranelection #

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• Viva la revolucion verde de Iran! #
• “People shouldn’t be afraid of their government, a government should be afraid of it’s people.” A hard lesson being learned in #iranelection #
• #iranelection Two words for anyone needing to export info. Onion Routing. TOR is your friend. That is all. #

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• I’m not looking forward to Monday. I’ve got to call my counselor and get out of these classes pronto. I just can’t do it right now. Sucks. #

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• Starting 6-14 new schedule: 8a-5p sun-thurs w/ fri & sat off. Woot! #

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