Letter to the Editor
The Supreme Court today ruled that bush is not king and has to obey the law when it comes to locking people up without a trial and torturing them. It's sad that only 5 members of the Court get it when it comes to the concept that we are a nation of laws that apply to everyone. Bush is going to continue to ignore the law and do it anyway on the claim that he is above the law. The only solution is to impeach him.
I don't know about the rest of you but I'm liking Firefox less and less as it seem to be foing down hill. There's two bugs in particular that are really making me want to run something else.
First, there must me some kind of memory leak issue. I'm running XP and have a gig of ram. I keep a lot of windows open and everything runs fine for a while but after three days of work, and I do work it hard, it gets slower, and sllooowweerr, and sssssllllloooooowwwwweeeeerrr, until it finally chashes. Usually I have to shut it down when itstarts taking 15 seconds to close a window. Once I shut it all down I can start Firefox again and it's good for 3 more days.
Then - for some reason Firefox stoped responding to refresh tags that allow sites to redirect the page to another page. So it will sit that with a blank page and I have to view source and cut and paste the URL to go to the page that I was supposed to be redirected to.
I'm finding I'm having to use Explorer more and more just to be able to get work done. If Firefox wants to overtake explorer they are going to have to make their product better, not worse.
Letter to the Editor
The so called Flag Burning amendment doesn't have anything more to do with flag burning than the Patriot Act has to do with patriotism. People are led to think that the purpose of this amendment is to stop people from burning flags, but it is not. The true purpose is to criminalize any behavior that the government doesn't like by broadly interpreting the concept of "flag desecration" to mean any form of expression that they consider unpatriotic. Please tell your senator that this is just a cynical attempt to undermine freedom.
I see in the news that Bush is trying to sucker Arlen Spector into a deal on domestic spying.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060625/ap_on_go_co/eavesdropping_2
The idea is that congress will pass a new law that will somehow solve the problem of Bush's illegal wiretapping. However this would be a serious mistake. Last Friday I was in Federal District Court in Northern California in the Electronic Frontier Foundation vs. AT&T case. In this case as you might have read the Bush administration is trying to block the lawsuit on the basis that the domestic spying is a military secret.
I was there in court and this is something you won't see in the news because most of the reporters left early but the Justice Dept. lawyers told the judge that if Congress passes any law restricting domestic spying that they would ignore the law and threatened the judge with a constitutional crisis if he ruled against them. So Arlen is going to get screwed because no matter what law they pass Bush will not follow it.
What's important here is to get a lot of people to call Alren Spector ASAP (Monday) and let him know that he's about to get screwed because bush lawyers told the judge that they will refuse to obey the law. The number for his office is 202-224-4254. Please do whatever it takes, posting on your web sites, on other's web sites, and do a special mailing to your lists to get the word out. We need to get Arlen's attention and make him understand that he's being suckered.
Letter to the Editor
They were caught listening in on our phone calls without a warrant and they said that it was only between Americans and foreign terrorists. But it turns out they are tracing all phone calls. Now we find out that they are looking into bank accounts. Will we soon find out that they are tracking all our spending without a warrant? Are they lying about this too? When the government breaks the law then there is no law.
Letter to the Editor
I was in the courtroom today in San Francisco watching the Bush Administration argue in front of the court that Bush was above the law. They stated that the Electronic Frontier Foundation can not sue AT&T for tapping our phones without a warrant. I sat there in amazement as they actually told the judge that if Congress passed a law prohibiting what they are doing that Bush would refuse to obey it and it would create a constitutional crisis. It was like I was a witness to the death of freedom.
Yep - I was actually there and they really did say that.
Letter to the Editor
North Korea is about to launch a missile test to see if it can create a weapon that can hit California. For years the Republicans and the military have been claiming that we have a missile defense system that can keep us safe. So - lets see if Korea launches its test missile if America can shoot it down. If we don't shoot it down I think it's an admission that we can't.
A few days ago I wrote about Wells Fargo charging me a $29 fee for a no fee credit card. I called them about it and they said they would remove the fre. They said it was for a "Rewards Program" that I didn't sign up for. So a few days go by and the $29 is still there. I call again. The persom appologized and said that it would be taken off this time. So - I wait over the weekend and today it's still there. So I call a third time and they say that they cancelled the rewards program, but didn't remove the charge from my bill. They claim that this time they are going to get it right.
I haven't used this card but they already made three mistakes and all in their favor. That's what I call - fraud.
06-23-2003 update
Looks like they finally reversed the charge - twice. Now my balance is -$29.!
Letter to the Editor
It's an election year and the Republicans are dragging out their second election year political stunt to further curtail our rights with a flag desecration amendment. What does this mean? All they have to do it print a flag on anything they don't want debated to make it an act of flag desecration. If Republicans want to support and honor the flag they should pass a law requiring that all flags be made in America. I find it offensive to see Republicans posturing behind a flag that is made in Communist China.
So Wells Fargo Bank talks me into a no fee credit card and I get the thing and without having ever used the credit card I see a $29 fee on it called the "Rewards Anual Program Fee". I called them up and told them that the bank had told me it was a "no fee" card and they did take the fee off. But I think that it is unethical that they offer a no fee card, add a fee, and then you have to call them to remove the fee from their no fee card,
I do no believe this was an honest mistake so watch out when gettig a "no fee" card from Wells Fargo Bank or any other bank.
Apparently this guy was widely considered to be a crooked judge and had made a lot of enemies. I did a google search and turned up this web page:
http://www.legalreader.com/archives/001590.html
Having been through the family court system myself there is a real issue with corrupt judges and how to stop them. In many cases the only way to remove a corrupt judge from the bench is with bullet. I'm not advocationg that, but if you don't look into this judge's history you aren't seeing half of the story. If what all these people are saying about this judge is true it reflects an issue with society that needs to be addressed in order to protect future judges from the same thing.
From what I read here it looks like there were a lot of people who were ready to shoot this judge.
Letter to the Editor
The Republicans, in an attempt to reassure religious conservatives, suggest that we need a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in order to protect heterosexual marriage. But wouldn't a better way to protect marriage be a constitutional amendment banning heterosexual divorce? Think about it.
First there were calls to build a wall on the Mexican border. Now they want to defend the Canadian border. I say, let's just build a dome over the United States!
If we built a dome then we can protect all our borders so no one can get in. It would solve all our problems. No foreigners to take our jobs, no trade deficit, it would keep out hurricanes, protect us from global warming, and keep aliens from outer space from breeding our women; an issue that the religious right is passionate about.
The way I see it if you're going to fantasize and come up with fake solutions to fake problems, then why not go all the way? However if we are going to embrace reality then we should be looking for real solutions that will actually work.
KIEV (Reuters) - A man shouting that God would keep him safe was mauled to death by a lioness in Kiev zoo after he crept into the animal's enclosure, a zoo official said on Monday.
"The man shouted 'God will save me, if he exists', lowered himself by a rope into the enclosure, took his shoes off and went up to the lions," the official said.
"A lioness went straight for him, knocked him down and severed his carotid artery."
The incident, Sunday evening when the zoo was packed with visitors, was the first of its kind at the attraction. Lions and tigers are kept in an "animal island" protected by thick concrete blocks.
Thinking about getting AAA Auto Insurance? Don't! These guys are a bucnh of morons.
I has AAA Auto insutance for 4 years from 2002 to 2005. Usually you would think an insurance company would want a customer's business but not these guys. Never had an accident, never was late on any payment, but they decided to silently cancel my auto insurance.
I pay by the year and normally whenever my policy comes due I get a notification by phone or a call by an agent who says, "hey Marc, you're insurance is due. Want to buy another year?" And I say sure and give them my credit card number. Easy mony for them you would think, but no. They don't call, they just canceled me leaving me without insurance for 5 months.
Luckilly I wasn't pulled over, had an accident, or had my car stolen. Had anything happened I would have been totally screwed. They put me at extreme risk without even a call. I have not points on my drivers license and never made a claim. I was a pure profit customer.
After spending over an hour on the phone getting transferred everywhere and talking to morons they said the cancelled me because my AAA membership dues weren't paid, something else I had given them a credit card for and they didn't renew. And they said that I didn't send them back some form they send me about some ex-roommate I was living with about her driving my car. But that was over a year ago and she's not living with me anymore and quite frankly it's none of their god damn business who I'm living with and who else might drive my car. I thpught it was rather Nazi of them to expect that I have to get their permission as to who I might loan my car to.
So - I went online and got a Geico policy because I needed immediate coverage and I'm definitely not doing business with those nazi AAA Auto Insurance bastards again. So if you feel link I do, tell AAA to go fuck themselves. And let them know that I sent you.
Sometimes it's easy to get discouraged in the face of illusion but there's one thing to always remember. Reality is here to stay. Reality isn't going away. Reality always was and always will be. Reality was there at the beginning of time and will be there till the end of time. And no matter how many people believe in things that aren't true reality stays the same.
It is always there and you can always turn to the real world, embrace the truth, and we as a society can make better choices. Reality can change your life today. You can embrace it, explore it, own it. Thinking about reality is the joy of being real in the sacred moment. You can become one with the real world. Let reality into your soul and experience the knowledge that everything in the world is real.
Reality gives us strength. it gives us courage. Reality gives us the true freedom to make the most out of who we are and what we will become. We owe our very existence to reality. If we reject reality, we have nothing left.
We are surrounded by all this wonderful knowledge. Knowledge that we can grow, that we can share, that we can build our future with. We can use reality to build a better tomorrow, a world that we can be proud of and we come together as one people, as one planet, to live in peace and let reality take humanity to its full potential. We have the power to choose our destiny. To decide what we will become. Let us therefore make the best choice possible and let reality guide our decisions in everything we do. We can become the dream.
This is the Gospel of Reality. Go forth and proclaim it!
Letter to the Editor
A lot of people are saying that the 24 civilians killed in the Haditha cover up is the worst scandal of the Bush presidency. People are saying this one is worse than Abu Ghraib. I don't agree. This scandal isn't really Bush's fault. In contrast Abu Ghraib was an operation that had it's roots at the top. Bush wanted people tortured, but not murdered. In fact, I think there are a number of scandals that are worse than Haditha.
For example, the secret offshore prison scandal is far worse because it's something that Bush was involved with. The same is true for other failures like the trade deficit, the failed Medicare drug program, the 9 trillion dollar debt, the high price of gas, 2500 dead soldiers, hurricane Karina, the failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, his failed
Social Security plan, the 2 stolen elections, immigration issues, troops on the border with Mexico, outsourcing jobs, high interest rates, insurgents, terrorism, the election of Hammas, bankruptcies, America's damaged reputation, NSA spying, CIA leaks, Halliburton, Stem Cells, drilling in Alaska, Mission Accomplished, no WMDs, Gitmo, 9-11, Osama bin Laden still free, tax cuts for the rich, FEMA, the high price of housing, Harriet Woods, all children left behind, record oil company profits, the nuclear crisis in Korean and Iran, and turning peace and prosperity into war and poverty.
Bush can't be blamed for everything. I say that global warming, bird flu, Cheney shooting, and Haditha are not his fault. Let's not blame Bush for the things he had nothing to do with.
I just filled out one of the Zogby online surveys and they have Atheist/Realist/Humanist back in the list of choices. I just wanted you all to know that and give John Zogby some good energy for including us in his survey again. As you know there's a lot of pressure out the by evangelicals to exclude reality based religion from everything they can so it takes a little courage to stand up to that. Cheers to John Zogby.
Letter to the Editor
On 9-11 New York and Washington were attacked by terrorists. Now Bush has decided to cut anti-terrorism funding by 40% for those two cities. I guess that we need to make sacrifices in our homeland security budget to make sure we have enough money to give the rich more tax cuts. How bad does it need to get before America impeaches this moron?