April 25, 2005

I need to be on Larry King Live

With all the religious insanity out there on the talk shows - I need to be part of it. I need to be on Larry King Live to debate these people about what is real. And why me? Because I'm the founder of the Church of Reality - a religion based on believing in everything that's real.

What I want to do to challenge these religions in debates. I'm ready to take then on in any forum with a significant audience. Every time the word reality is said it challenges their belief systems based on what is real. America has turned it's back on the real world and it's time to bring reality back into religion. If anyone can hook me up - please let me know.

marc@perkel.com

Posted by marc at 02:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Bush supporters have to pay high gas prices too

I get at least some consolation in that those who voted for Bush have to pay $2.50 a gallon too and they too have to pay higher taxes for less services and generally suffer like the rest of real America.

But - will they get it when they are paying $5.00 a gallon? I doubt it.

Posted by marc at 02:18 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

April 24, 2005

Bolton Worked to Stop 2000 Election Recount

No wonder Bush is taking care of Bolton. Original Story

"I'm with the Bush-Cheney team, and I'm here to stop the count."

Those were the words John Bolton yelled as he burst into a Tallahassee library on Saturday, Dec. 9, 2000, where local election workers were recounting ballots cast in Florida's disputed presidential race between George W. Bush and Al Gore.

Bolton was one of the pack of lawyers for the Republican presidential ticket who repeatedly sought to shut down recounts of the ballots from Florida counties before those counts revealed that Gore had actually won the state's electoral votes and the presidency.

The Dec. 9 intervention was Bolton's last and most significant blow against the democratic process.

The Florida Supreme Court had ordered a broad recount of ballots in order to finally resolve the question of who won the state. But Bolton and the Bush-Cheney team got their Republican allies on the U.S. Supreme Court to block the review. Fearing that each minute of additional counting would reveal the reality of voter sentiments in Florida, Bolton personally rushed into the library to stop the count.

Bolton was in South Korea when it became clear that the Nov. 7, 2000, election would be decided in Florida. At the behest of former Secretary of State James Baker, who fronted the Bush-Cheney team during the Florida fight, Bolton winged his way to Palm Beach, where he took the lead in challenging ballots during that county's recount. Then, when the ballots from around the state were transported to Tallahassee for the recount ordered by the state Supreme Court, Bolton followed them.

It was there that he personally shut down the review of ballots from Miami-Dade County, a populous and particularly contested county where independent reviews would later reveal that hundreds of ballots that could reasonably have been counted for Gore were instead discarded.

Miami-Dade County Elections Supervisor David Leahy argued at the time that 2,257 voters had apparently attempted to mark ballot cards for Gore or Bush but had not had them recorded because they had been improperly inserted into the voting machines. A hand count of those ballots revealed that 302 more of them would have gone for Gore than Bush. That shift in the numbers from just one of Florida's 67 counties would have erased more than half of Bush's 537-vote lead in the state.

But attempts to conduct a hand count were repeatedly blocked by the Bush-Cheney team, culminating with Bolton's Dec. 9 announcement, "I'm here to stop the count." A few days later, the U.S. Supreme Court would stop the count permanently, with a pro-Bush ruling in which five Republican-appointed justices, in the words of noted attorney Vincent Bugliosi, "committed the unpardonable sin of being a knowing surrogate for the Republican Party instead of being an impartial arbiter of the law."

Bolton was a key player in the fight to delay the Florida count long enough to allow for the Supreme Court's intervention, and he got his reward quickly. Despite his record of making controversial and sometimes bizarre statements regarding international affairs, he was selected by the Bush administration in 2001 to serve as undersecretary of state for arms control. And he is now in line to become the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Before he is given that position, and charged with the job of promoting the spread of democracy around the world, however, senators would do well to consider the disregard John Bolton showed for democracy in Florida.

Posted by marc at 06:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 21, 2005

Will the Bankruptcy Bill Kill Christmas?

Letter to the Editor

Now that the credit card companies have their debt slavery bill it makes me wonder if they are going to be happy with what they got. This bill might result in people changing their behavior and becoming more responsible. And what do I mean by more responsible? I mean - people spending less money. No more impulse buying. After all - if you are going to protect yourself against bankruptcy, it means that you are going to be a lot more careful in your spending. The bottom line is - it's going to hit the economy hard. The law goes into effect in October and that's when people will really stop spending money,. We'll see if the credit card companies are happy come Christmas. Looks to me like Christmas has been cancelled.

Posted by marc at 07:03 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

April 18, 2005

Does God choose the Pope?

In theory - God controls the cardinals when they choose the pope so that the cardinals choose the pope that is God's choice. If that is true then:


  1. Why doesn't it take only one vote that's unaminous?
  2. If some cardinals vote for someone other that the elected pope - does that mean they are out of touch with God's will?
  3. If enough cardinals are out of touch with God - then could they elect a pope that God wouldn't have chosen?
  4. Why doesn't God just show up and pick the pope?

I just hope that God doesn't pick a pope who allows preists to have sex with children.

Posted by marc at 10:54 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Unimpressed with Mozilla Thunderbird

I've yet to figure out what all the hype is about Mozilla Thunderbird. I'm an old Netscape user and been using the old swiss army knife Mozilla all in one package for years. Mozilla is deviding it up into separate applications and is phasing out the original Mozilla. And I ask myself - why?

Additionally - the new versions of the software - Firefox and Thunderbird don't have all the features of the original Mozilla. After trying Thunderbird for about a month I decided to switch back. Thunderbird left me wanting.

It may sound trivial but you would think that if they are creating Thunderbird of of Mozilla code that it would have all the features of the original - but is doesn't. Little things like in the pannel that shows the folders - Thunderbirs doesn't allow you to see the total number of messages in each folder. That's something I want to see.

And - with Mozilla - when you get new email in your inbox - you can see the new message appearing at the bottom of the list without having to scroll down. Thunderbird doesn't have that.

The only advantages of Thunderbird that I noticed are:


  1. I like the name better.
  2. I looks better.
  3. When something crashes - the browser and the email crash separately.

Other than that - I'm not impressed. I think they shouldn't phase out the old until the new one is as good.

My 2 cents ...

Posted by marc at 07:51 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

April 14, 2005

Why should Eric Rudolph Fear Death?

Letter to the Editor

Eric Rudolph - a pro-life terrorist plead guilty to being a serial killer in exchange for immunity from the death penalty. What confuses me is why does he fear death? If he truly has faith then being dead is an opportunity to go to Heaven. If God really wants Christians to assassinate the heathens then shouldn't they welcome death so that God can reward them? Muslim mass murders don't fear dying because Muslims terrorist are true believers. I don't think Mr. Rudolph is as strong a believer as he claims to be. He's only pro-life when it comes to saving his own sorry hide.

Posted by marc at 08:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 13, 2005

John Bolton - Where have we seen him before?


Judge Charles Burton, chairman of the Palm Beach County canvassing board, holds up the last ballot the board was able to consider in the manual recount of ballots as Democratic lawyer Mark White, left, and Republican lawyer John Bolton watch at the Palm Beach County Emergency Operations Center Sunday, Nov. 26, 2000, in West Palm Beach, Fla. On Election Day 2004 partisan lawyers are planning to be at polling places they consider important or prone to trouble as the best remembered controversies in the 2000 Florida election grew from technical voting problems, many of which still exist; an estimated 32 million voters in 19 states will use punch cards. -AP File Photo

----

Diplomat says he received no assurance of a reward

Bolton, the U.S. diplomat now responsible for arms control issues, said no payoff was promised for his decision to join the post-election fray. He had worked for the first Bush administration and, finding himself in South Korea on election night, contacted former Secretary of State James Baker in Texas to see how he might lend a hand. The reply: Go to Florida.

''I think, frankly, most of the people who did it just went down there by instinct,'' Bolton said. He said he received no legal fees, although the campaign paid his hotel bills and other expenses.

Bolton was part of the legal team and a ballot observer in Palm Beach County. Then he rushed to Tallahassee as the recount battle reached higher courts.

It was his role, on Saturday, Dec. 9, 2000, to burst into a library where workers were recounting Miami-Dade ballots and relay news of the U.S. Supreme Court's stay in the on-again, off-again presidential recount.

''I'm with the Bush-Cheney team, and I'm here to stop the count,'' he was quoted as saying in news reports at the time.

The Florida fraternity included major figures in the Bush administration, notably Theodore Olson, the current solicitor general, who worked on the case in both Tallahassee and Miami, then argued candidate Bush's case before the U.S. Supreme Court, and Robert Zoellick, now the U.S. trade representative, who served as a virtual chief of staff to Baker, Bush's main Florida strategist…

----

So - this is about payback for helping Bush steal the 2000 election. Interesting that the corporate media isn't mentioning this. Especially since this is an Associated Press story.

Posted by marc at 06:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 12, 2005

Rolling stone Exposes the Dominionists

Is the religious takeove of America just a myth? This Rolling Stone Article shows Christian evangelicals are plotting to remake America in their own image.

It's February, and 900 of America's staunchest Christian fundamentalists have gathered in Fort Lauderdale to look back on what they accomplished in last year's election -- and to plan what's next. As they assemble in the vast sanctuary of Coral Ridge Presbyterian, with all fifty state flags dangling from the rafters, three stadium-size video screens flash the name of the conference: RECLAIMING AMERICA FOR CHRIST. These are the evangelical activists behind the nation's most effective political machine -- one that brought more than 4 million new Christian voters to the polls last November, sending George W. Bush back to the White House and thirty-two new pro-lifers to Congress. But despite their unprecedented power, fundamentalists still see themselves as a persecuted minority, waging a holy war against the godless forces of secularism. To rouse themselves, they kick off the festivities with "Soldiers of the Cross, Arise," the bloodthirstiest tune in all of Christendom: "Seize your armor, gird it on/Now the battle will be won/Soon, your enemies all slain/Crowns of glory you shall gain."

Meet the Dominionists -- biblical literalists who believe God has called them to take over the U.S. government. As the far-right wing of the evangelical movement, Dominionists are pressing an agenda that makes Newt Gingrich's Contract With America look like the Communist Manifesto. They want to rewrite schoolbooks to reflect a Christian version of American history, pack the nation's courts with judges who follow Old Testament law, post the Ten Commandments in every courthouse and make it a felony for gay men to have sex and women to have abortions. In Florida, when the courts ordered Terri Schiavo's feeding tube removed, it was the Dominionists who organized round-the-clock protests and issued a fiery call for Gov. Jeb Bush to defy the law and take Schiavo into state custody. Their ultimate goal is to plant the seeds of a "faith-based" government that will endure far longer than Bush's presidency -- all the way until Jesus comes back.

More in Article.

Posted by marc at 08:19 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

April 11, 2005

How America sees the World

Letter to the Editor

Some people don't understand why American President Bush wants to send John Bolton to the United Nations. John Bolton is a man who understands the New World Order. He understands that there are two kinds of people in the world - Americans - and foreigners. And it's up to the Americans to help bring civilization to the poor ignorant foreigners. We give them loin cloths, teach them English, build them a Wal-Mart store, and teach the heathens some religion. The Bush administration is truly confused as to why the foreigners aren't welcoming John Bolton's help.

Posted by marc at 09:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Disgraced Cardinal leads Mass for Pope

Letter to the Editor

Disgraced Cardinal Bernard Law, who moved priests who raped children from church to church so they can rape again, led a Mass for thousands mourning Pope John Paul II at St. Peter's Basilica. What this says to me is that the Catholic Church doesn't take the issue of priests raping children seriously and it makes people everywhere question the moral standing of this religion.

In the last week we've heard how great the late Pope was and it made it look like being Catholic really meant something. But I doubt anyone is going to take a religion seriously that lets those who support child rape play a such a major role in the Pope's funeral. This is a man who should be in jail. I can't believe he's still a Cardinal!

Posted by marc at 09:11 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

April 09, 2005

Being Consistent

Letter to the Editor

One thing that most people believe about George Bush is that he's consistent. But I'm not sure being consistent is going to help persuade people to like his Social Security reforms. When you look at his legacy as president so far, it doesn't look real good. He turned the worlds biggest surplus into the worlds biggest deficit. He ignored the warnings about bin Laden, who is - still free. We went to war in Iraq on bad intelligence. Medicare reform is a failure. Taxes are up, the dollar is down. The flat worlders want to control the schools. And the government wants to put tracking chips (RFIDs) in federally issued ID cards to spy on everything we do.

So - do we want Bush to be consistent with his past when it comes to Social Security? I don't think so! I think we should put it off another four years and focus on paying off the national debt. I don't think we can afford to risk Social Security with someone who has a bad track record.

Posted by marc at 03:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 05, 2005

Bush says: Social Security Trust Fund is Fiction

Letter to the Editor

Bush atated today that the Social Security Trust Fund was a fiction, saying that it's just an IOU. That's because he took all the money and gave it away to his billionaire friends in the form of tax cuts for the rich. Under Clinton we had a surplus and we were paying off the borrowing left by the previous Bush and Reagan administrations. What is Bush's solution - more borrowing. This time he wants to borrow money and gamble it in the stock market.

I remember the good old days when Republicans wanted a balanced budget amendment and at least gave lip service to fiscal responsibility. Bush's statement that the Trust Fund is fiction means that he borrowed the money and he's not paying it back. Bush claims that the Democrats don't have any ideas on how to fix Social Security - but that's not true. The Democrat's plan was fiscal responsibility, pay back the trust fund, and run surpluses. And I think it's a better plan that borrow and spend and gamble in the stock market.

Posted by marc at 03:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Bankruptcy Bill is Morally Bankrupt

Letter to the Editor

I find it amazing that Congress wants to write a bankruptcy bill that penalizes consumers to the benefit of credit card companies. It is so much in favor of corporations that credit card companies can take away your child support payments! They should change the Declaration of Independence from :"We the People" to "We the Corporations". And they are doing this at a time when the national debt is bringing the entire nation into bankruptcy. If I were rewriting the bankruptcy laws I would make members of Congress personally responsible for paying the national debt and take everything they own if they can't pay. Instead we are becoming slaves to the fascist state!

Posted by marc at 06:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 04, 2005

Unix File Permissions Suck

I love Unix. I have several Linux servers and when it comes down to it - there is no other OS to use for Web and Email servers. (BSD, Macs and other Unix OS's are of course included) But in many was the Unix community is hopelessly stuck in the past. And one of many examples of this is the Unix file permissions. Hopelessly primitive - and so entrenched in the minds of the Unix community that you can't even get then to comprehend anything beyond the limitations they are used to.

My networking experience started with Novell servers and DOS workstations. Novell Netware - as of version 3 - had a rich set of file permissions that allowed for fine grained access permissions. Over the years I started working with Windows which had far less permissions. This was a big step down from Netware - but the real step down was going form Windows down to Linux.

Linux permission are so primitive that it amazes me that they can be of much use at all. Creating security to protect one user from another is nearly impossible. The rules are so primative as to verge on insanity - yet - when discussion this with Unix heads - they just don't get it.

Unix is built on the concept of one owner and one group for each file or directory. In fact a directory or folder is like a file that contains a list of other files and directories. So permissions to read or write files have no relationship to creating and deleting files because the creating and deleting are controlled by permissions on the folder.

In Unix - there can be a file that I have no permission to either read or write - yet I can delete the file. That is insanity. But if a Unix head is confronted with this - they just don't get it that it's insane. They are brainwashed into thinking that this is somehow normal the same way that primitive religions believe throwing virgins into a volcano is normal.

In contrast - on a netware server if you have no read or write access to a file at all, then you certianly can not delete it. In fact under Netware if you can't write to a file, you can't delete the file. Now that makes sense! And - if you have no rights to the file, you can't even see it in a directory listing. If you have no rights under Netware - it's as if the file isn't there.

Fine Grained Permissions

Netware also allows for fine grained permissions. I can say - I want these three users and these three groups to have this set of permissions and it works. I can add as many individual permission sets to any file or folder I want. Unix has no such control and it makes it difficult to restrict users for security reasons while giving them enough permissions to do useful work.

Inherited Permissions

Unix has no mechanism for permission inheritence within the file system. Under netware when a user or group is given permissions to a folder - those permission apply by default to all files and directories under that folder. And one can control what is inherited through setting inherited rights masks. Unix has nothing like this. In Unix - if I create a file in someone else's directories I have to run chown on it to give that person permission to access it. Under Netware - or Windows - they already have those permissions.

Case Sensitive File Names

Another example of unix cult thinking - case sensitive file names suck - are user unfriendly - and create problems maintaining the system It puts the burden on the user to get the case exactly right. Windows is supperior in that you can store file names in mixed case but you don't have to get it exactly right to match the file. But Unix heads will never agree with you because it requires change and inspite of the fact that they are geniuses - they are among the most resistent to change of any group of people I've ever met.

Unix could be Fixed

You can get Netware and Windows like permissions under Linux. What you can do is run Samba and then mount samba shares locally in order to get windows like access. There is also a netware emulator that runs under Linux that gove linux the ability to pretend to be a netware server. So Linux could do the job if the developers would get out of the cult mind and start thinking outside the box.

Conclusion

Linux needs to be forked in a way that creates a Unix like OS with the ease of use of Windows. In order to do that there needs to be fundamental changes in the design concepts where ease of use is one of the most imporant factors. Unix comes from a time where ever byte and every CPU cycle was important and small and simple for the programmer was most important. But we live in a different world now where delivering power to the end user is most important and we have lots of processing power and lots of memory.

What needs to be done is - let the computer be smarter so that the users can move on to higher level work. File permissions need to be fine grained and easy to use. Right now the Linux community is as boxed in by acient code as Windows is processor bound. It's time for Linux to awaken and get a new vision for the future and make a break with the past.

Not trying to be a bash Unix guy here - but to ignore the problem is to ignore reality. And Linux isn't a religion for me. It's a tool that I want to see improve.

Posted by marc at 07:54 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

April 03, 2005

National Press Club Brings back jeff Gannon

He's Back! Jeff Gannon / James Guckert is back at the National Press Club.

Yes, the same day that the prestigious Washington, D.C., journalism organization plans to present a lunch talk by former Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee, it will also allow the former White House reporter/escort to be on a panel discussing bloggers and online journalism.

Jesus - this guy is talking about real journalists like me? First he's a fake national corrispondent. Now he's a fake blogger and online journalist. No - this guy is a republican paid fraud.

Gannon, whose real name is James Guckert, resigned his job with the conservative Talon News last month after it was revealed he had used a pseudonym, had little journalism background, and had ties to male escort Web sites.

It wasn't ties to male escort sites. He owned gay male porn sites and advertized himself as a gay male whore.

Still, Press Club leaders will include Gannon on the panel April 8 that includes Wonkette.com editor Ana Marie Cox, National Journal's John Stanton, and others. Gannon has been asked on numerous occasions about charges that he worked as a prostitute, and has refused to deny them.

Gannon told E&P today that he always considered himself a legitimate journalist, and "perhaps their invitation is recognition of that."

It is in recognition that the rest of the journalists there are whores too. They are merely Republican surrogates that report the news the Neocons write for them.

Press Club President Rick Dunham, who also covers the White House for BusinessWeek, called Gannon "a figure in the news" who is involved in an important journalistic issue.

And they say bloggers have no journalistic standards!

"The panel came together because we wanted to discuss some issues that came about from the Gannon case," said Mike Madden, a Gannett News Service reporter and a member of the Press Club's Professional Affairs committee, which is organizing the free event. "So we thought, why not try to get him?"

The issues they should be discussing is why they are covering up for him and trying to legitimize this fraud. The real story is why there is no story.

Gannon's ability to gain access to regular daily White House briefings, despite not being able to obtain a permanent "hard pass" or a congressional press pass, sparked new discussions among reporters and White House staff about who should be granted regular access.

There is a simple system when it comes to White House access. You have to sell your soul to the Devil.

"The idea was talking about these issues and who should be allowed to set up shop [as a legitimate journalist]," Madden told E&P. "It is not intended to be a forum for [Gannon] to present his side unchallenged. It is going to be moderated and there will be others on the panel."

As if these guys are going to tell us who is a legitimate journalist.

When asked if giving Gannon a spot on the panel wrongly legitimizes him as a journalist, Madden disagreed. "It depends on how you look at it," he said. "He is there because the panel is presumably going to talk mostly about his case. He was, in large part, the central figure in the case that got us interested in the topic."

Maybe they sould invite O. J. Sompson to a women's conference to speak on domestic violence?

Dunham said "journalists should be given a chance to question him." Reminded that many reporters had interviewed Gannon in the past month, Dunham still believed his presence would be good for the event. "I want us to be on the news," he said. "I think it is better to have people ask any question they can ask."

The Press Club's Web site, however, does not tout the event as focusing on Gannon but rather as a discussion about the differences between "bloggers" and "journalists." In other words, it is a journalism panel, not a press conference featuring, say, a politician or author in the news.

There is not different between bloggers and journalists. The issue is the difference between the Washing Press Corpse and journalists.

John Aravosis at Americablog, which highlighted the Press Club event on Monday, wrote: "What is GannonGuckert doing there at all? Like he's an expert on the difference between blogging and journalism? How so? He thinks journalism means parroting press releases and transcripts. As for blogging, again, he started a so-called blog 3 weeks ago and now he's representative of all bloggers?"

John Aravosis at Americablog should be there instead of Guckert! John is the blogger that EXPOSED Guckert as a fraud. So instead of inviting the journalist to speak - they invite the fraud!

Gannon told E&P he "thinks it is a good opportunity for me to speak to issues related to bloggers." He also added that he was, "trying to stay out there where people can see me."

The above picture will help people see you. You're no more a blogger that you are a White House corrispondent.

Dunham hopes to have the panel covered by C-SPAN, but said no final decision by the cable channel had been made.

"There has been a passing thunderstorm of interest in this," said Julie Schoo, who handles logistics for the press club, but she did not have details of how many people have signed up to attend.

Posted by marc at 10:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack