Monday, April 11, 2005

101 Ways Fonda Can Redeem Herself

This post has been bumped to aquire more fondness for Fonda.

"Hanoi" Jane Fonda claims she has found God and now realizes the error of her ways when she was young. She says she really loves the military and always has. It was just some childhood stuff that she took further than she ever intended. Really, we should accept her apology and feel sorry for her because of the tragic threesome she was forced to endu...

*thump*

*ca-chung-chug-bump*

*THUD!*

Sorry about that. I got dizzy and fell down from rolling my eyes too much.

I'm sure it's blatantly obvious that she could care less about the troops and she's only looking to make a quick buck off of her book. She's not even remotely sorry for what she did. If she were really sorry for what she did she could have really done something to show it. In fact, I have compiled a partial list of things that would redeem her in the eyes of many Americans.

101 Ways Fonda Can Redeem Herself

1. Have her ashes shot from a cannon, like Gonzo...only while still alive.
2. Take all of the proceeds from her book sales and donate them to Vietnam veteran (The American ones) based charities.
3. Give all willing Vietnam vets a chance at their own threesome. Heck, maybe they could just run a train on her.
4. Force her to marry her long lost lover, John F. Kerry, for life. Her only reprieve would be if she could get him to sign his DD-180.
5. Burn herself in Tienanmen Square.
6. She could uncover and capture Osama Bin Laden
7. Send a hand written letter to every Vietnam veteran, living or dead, apologizing for her behavior. Each page would need to be at least one page in length or contain one genuine tear of her sorrow.
8. Re-marry Ted Turner. - by: Tran Sient
9. She should have to spend time in a locked room with the mothers, daughters, wives, and sisters of those tortured and killed because of her big mouth, tiny brain, and nonexistent heart. - By: Patty-Jo
10. Check herself into the Hanoi Hilton until each and every living Vietnam Vet provides her with a personal letter of forgiveness. - By: Ogre
11. How about watching Barbarella continuoulsy for the exact same time that all Americans were held POW from 64 to the last returning POW? - By: GMRoper
12. How about funding college for the grandkids of those who died in the Hanoi Hilton. - By: GMRoper
13. How about giving everything she owns away and living as a cloistered nun in comtiplative prayer for the next 150 years? - By: GMRoper
14. Liquidate all of her assets and divide the money among the families of all those who lost their life in Vietnam and then die bitch die! - By: David Holtz
15. Well, we could put her on a deserted island with the sexual predator-in- chief Slick Willie and see how long she can resist his persistent charms. - By: Billy Budd
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As you can see I didn't go the full 101. I'm looking for the good citizens of the blogosphere to help me out on this. So send me your tired, your poor, your huddled crasses. I am now accepting all input from anyone. If it goes over 101 then so be it. I managed to grab seven off the cuff and I wasn't even born during Vietnam. I'm sure some of you out there have much better zingers and much better experience. (any and all responses will gain a link to your blog as well.)

Stress sucks

Well, I'm not sure how much blogging I'll be able to get done this week. I'm going to be rather busy with things. What things you may ask?

1. I need to get my last class registered (which is overbooked) so I can graduate. Did I mention that today is the last day of registration?

2. The IRS wants $910 for tax year 2003 because they recieved a W2 from the Navy I left in 2002. Calling the Navy (DFAS Cleveland) they informed me that I owe 1,900 due to overpayment. I need to call DFAS Denver (Which is cloded today due to a blizzard.) in order to fix my W2 because they were the ones who sent out the fraudulent W2.

3. My subcontractor was dropped from our contract and we need to put in our resumès to the primary contractor if we want to keep our jobs. It's not too big of a deal but employment concerns are always very stressfull.

4. Wait for the next thing to break in the house. If anyone out there owns a home you will understand what I'm talking about. We've just been through some circuit breakers (small cost but big stress if you don't know what it is. We thoght the water heater had gone out.) and a complete replacement of our AC and Heat pump system. A crack was fixed in our car window today as well. What's next?
5. The thing I forgot. There's always something.

Please pray for the job to offer me a huge raise and everything else to work itself out the way the lord had intended.

Stress sucks.

Sunday, April 10, 2005

MOOOving to greener pastures.

Within a week or so I shall have my new digs ready to go. I have recived my passport for Munuviana!

Right now it's just a blank canvas waiting to be painted. I shall have to change that first. For those that want to prepare your links you can direct the new ones to:

http://www.warmonger.mu.nu

I'm also thinking of buying http://www.warmonger.us (sort of a play on URLs)
Do you think that's the right one? Let me know.

Freedom from hospice

I'm sure everyone's heard that Mae has been released from the hospice and sent to a hospital where she has been recieving the proper care she deserves. If we're lucky, we'll get a note of thanks from Mae herself in a few weeks, once she has recovered.

We have real issues in America when things like this happen with frequency. I'm sure that for this one life we assisted in saving there are probably twenty out there that we never even heard of. Is this the America that we should be expected to live in? Are judges, with or without a law degree, considered gods of their own creation?

Something is wrong with the way things work and I hav no answers on how to fix it. Does anyone know for sure what needs to be done? Is it the judges? The hospices? Is it us?

Saturday, April 09, 2005

Blogger News Network goes Google News

Yes, it's official. After some wrangling with the code of BNN it is now accessible through Google News. We went live while we were all sleeping last night. Today is a good day for BNN and bloggerdom in general.

Let me begin by saying that no average aggregator blog can become a news source. I need real content outside of repeating what other people say in order to become Googleworthy. Even the likes of Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit and Little Green Footballs have been unable to get in on the grounds of not having enough original material. Well, that's all we're about, original reporting material.

So what does this mean for BNN?

It means we should be expecting more hits from Google than ever before. If you are capable of wording things appropriately you can get your story read by more people by being more relevant to their search. The more relevant we are to their searches the more hits we get. Remember, the more hits we get the more likely people are to click the obligatory link back to your own site, meaning more traffic for your own blog.

This also means that we are more of a legitimate company to businesses looking to advertise on news services. We're official now. We can be considered real news and be able to leverage that point with advertisers. No longer are we just those rascally bloggers in their pajamas. Now we're rascally bloggers in pajamas with credentials.

This leads to yet another potential benefit: We could call ourselves official press. I am currently unclear of what makes a press corps person official or not. Are there dues to be paid? Do we need little "press" badges? (Badges! We don't need no stinking badges!) I'm sure that at the current time there are locations that will take the fact that Goggle accepts us as news as admission of a real source and allow us the same privileges based on that. Others will not be as easy. I'm sure that if one of us tried to claim press at the White House press room we would be laughed at, but that might not always be the case.

We are not quite there as of yet. We need to push our bounds, do interviews with who we can and act as official press when we have the opportunity. Town hall meetings, public announcements and other press related avenues are merely a stone's throw away. There will come a day that your everyday blogger will be given the opportunity to ask the President a question, as press.

Cross-posted at: BNN

UPDATE: BNN hit the front page next to CNN. Here's the image. Robert Hayes has one up as well.

BNN. All the news that's fit to blog!

Granddaughter legally yanks grandma's feeding tube against wishes of living will

Is this Worldnetdaily story true? Is Mae Magouirk being murdered at a hospice? Oh, I'm sorry. That's the wrong word. Allow me to be PC: euthanized against her written wishes by her granddaughter.

Maybe this story is complete junk and maybe it isn't. All I see so far is a single article from a single paper. Here are a few choice tidbits:
Mae Magouirk was neither terminally ill, comatose nor in a "vegetative state," when Hospice-LaGrange accepted her as a patient about two weeks ago upon the request of her granddaughter, Beth Gaddy, 36, an elementary school teacher.

Also upon Gaddy's request and without prior legal authority, since March 28 Hospice-LaGrange has denied Magouirk normal nourishment or fluids via a feeding tube through her nose or fluids via an IV. She has been kept sedated with morphine and ativan, a powerful tranquillizer.
...
Todd explained that Gaddy had only a financial power of attorney, not a medical power of attorney, and Magouirk's living will carefully provided that a feeding tube and fluids should only be discontinued if she was comatose or in a "vegetative state" – and she was neither.

Maybe I can get a power of attorney to mow Michael Moore's lawn and do the same to him? Is that all that's needed? A quick power of attorney for anything?
The dehydration is being done in defiance of Magouirk's specific wishes, which she set down in a "living will," and without agreement of her closest living next-of-kin, two siblings and a nephew: A. Byron McLeod, 64, of Anniston, Ga.; Ruth Mullinax, 74, of Birmingham, Ala.; and Ruth Mullinax's son, Ken Mullinax.
...
In her living will, Magouirk stated that fluids and nourishment were to be withheld only if she were either comatose or "vegetative," and she is neither. Nor is she terminally ill, which is generally a requirement for admission to a hospice.
...
According to Mullinax, his aunt's local cardiologist in LaGrange, Dr. James Brennan, and Dr. Raed Agel, a highly acclaimed cardiologist at the nationally renowned University of Alabama-Birmingham Medical Center, determined that her aortic dissection is contained and not life-threatening at the moment.

Okay, so Mullinax says the doctors said this. Where were the doctors for comment? Couldn't we get a statement from them?
Gaddy, however, was not dissuaded. When Ken Mullinax and McLeod showed up at the hospice the following day, April 1, to meet with Todd and arrange emergency air transport for Magouirk's transfer to the University of Alabama-Birmingham Medical Center, Hospice-LaGrange stalled them while Gaddy went before Troup County, Ga., Probate Court Judge Donald W. Boyd and obtained an emergency guardianship over her grandmother.

This is just way too confusing. Is the only thing stopping this woman from consciousness a judge granting someone complete custodianship based on the sole testimony of a granddaughter? So you're telling me that if I can slip a twenty under the judges robes (or a hot blonde) I can get some old person the hospice treatment? Maybe we really need to rethink the judicial system in this country. While they ask for the citizens of America to foot the bill for their home security they give us reason to want to violate that home security. Is this what I'm seeing or is there a piece missing from this case?

I see only one possible avenue of truth that could be derived from this. Was Mae Magouirk lucid or vegetative upon her removal from the hospital illegally? (Yes, it was illegal. Her granddaughter did not have the proper authority at the time. She effectively granny-napped her.) If she were vegetative then I could understand this. It would be a granddaughter carrying out the wishes of an old lady that wants to go. If she was lucid then we have judicially assisted murder by way of hospice.

Cross Posted at: BNN

Friday, April 08, 2005

Potentially my last Terri post

Today I recieved an e-mail from Corie Schweitzer at Insane Troll Logic. At first I thought to myself that this was going to be another one of those things that would make me want to smack another right to lifer upside the head for not knowing when to quit. Fortunately, she had the sense to come at this from an intelligent angle. For that I commend her.

This whole fight should never have been about "right to life" vs. "right to death". It should have been about "right to choice". Her entire article outlines the bull in several states, particularly Texas, that removes one's right to choice in America. She prings to light the fact that most states carry laws that do not reflect a person's own interests but the interests of what some doctor would want.

Go read to whole thing: LINK

P.S. I would be posting about Mae Magouirk as well, but I haven't done enough to look into it yet.

Thursday, April 07, 2005

Five Questions Meme

William Teach over at Pirate's Cove hooked me up with the five questions meme. This is how it goes:

1. Leave me a comment saying “interview me”. The first five commenters will be the participants.
2. I will respond by asking you five questions.
3. You will update your blog/site with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions. (Write your own questions or borrow some.)

Here were the five questions. I'll split them up into separate posts. Anyone who knows me understands that I have this problem with my fingers: there is no off button.

1. If you could be any superhero, which one would you be?
Kyle Raynor, the new Green Lantern.

Everyone loved Hal Jordan as Green lantern. I hated his guts to the core. He was some smart jock hotshot that was given everything. He took advantage of it and never paid a price. It was a bad example of the cool group.

The Kyle Raynor style GL is different. For him it runs off of his creativity. Whatever he can make in his mind it can happen with his ring. I think that would be absolutely awesome for me. Being a big geek, I've actually laid awake at night imagining what I could have done with the GL ring in this or that situation. It makes anything that you can dream up. It feeds off of your imagination. That has got to be the coolest superpower that money can buy. Not even for the "anything at your fingertips" aspect of things, but for the inventive, thought provoking nature of it.

Question 2 (This is the long one.)

2. How would you spend the perfect day?
10:00 AM - My wife wakes me up with an ice cold beer. (I'm about 30 pounds lighter and not worried about gaining weight.) We talk about meaningless plans to go absolutely nowhere on the island and how our son is having such a great time back in Washington with Grandma. She continues to be amazed at how well he can read and how well behaved he is.

10:10 AM - She finishes the last three or four gulps of beer in genuine "chug" fashion and ends up with that little drizzle of beer run down the left side of her neck, between her tanned, supple breasts, catch the corner of the small crevasse under the one on the left and become absorbed underneath it. (Oh, did I mention she was naked?)

I eagerly, yet delicately, take one slow lick that spans the bottom of her breast, slowly up her chest, along her tender neck and end at the corner of her lips where we end in a long thirsty kiss and embrace. We have wild, passionate monkey-sex until we both explode, panting heavily and sweating profusely.

10:11 AM - Just kidding.
10:30 AM - She gets up after a couple of minutes on her back catching her breath and walks out the door, still nude. She stops at the doorway, looks back over her shoulder with the bottle in her hand and says "go back to sleep."

11:20 AM - She wakes me up with a single spoonful of food. I taste some meat, probably pork, cheesy and several other things that I am too asleep to try and recognize. All I know is she is working on yet another meal that is par for her course...which is nothing short of phenomenal, four star, experimentation.

I give her the thumbs up as I try to fathom the taste she's just put in my mouth and she skitters towards the door again. I hear something sizzling louder in the background. Before she leaves the room I manage to swallow quickly and blurt out "that's excellent honey!" before she leaves the room. Again she stops at the doorway, and blurts out "go shower."

11:25 AM - While in the shower I try and remember if she was wearing anything other than her cooking apron. I vision was pretty foggy and could have been mistaken, but it appeared she had not put any clothes on other than her apron to protect her while she was cooking yet.

11:45 AM - Nope, I wasn't mistaken. I find her on all fours cleaning up something sticky that had fallen on the kitchen floor with a Clorox wipe. Since it's sticky, she's scrubbing a little and making that irresistible body movement that has gotten many a man ogle many a woman without even know they're ogling. She stops, turns her head back to look at me and gives me a giddy, approving nod. (Use your imagination.)

12:15 PM - By this time we've cleaned up and at least found underwear and tee-shirts. Fortunately, the concoction she made up for lunch was in the crock pot and ready to eat.

She pulls a bottle of chardonnay from the refrigerator, pulls the stopper off, (It had been opened the night before.) and pours us each a glass with what looks like white chili but isn't. We talk about our plans for that evening and laugh about a few things. She hands me a list of things she needs me to pick up in the village. She explains that she has to go to the other side of the island to pick something up and it would just be faster that way. There's no real rush, it just needs to be done by six, when we go out.

12:45 PM - Fully dressed in one of those flowery summer dresses, my wife goes out to pick up her items. One the way out we exchange a slow, close kiss and she gives me a quick grab and a look as she heads out the door. I decide it's about time to check my blog and do some World of Warcraft.

12:50 PM - 100,000 hits! Alright! I guess it was the right thing to send those social issue solutions off to congress after all. Who would have thought we could get a unanimous vote of confidence in both the House and Senate? The French might even adopt the idea.

*Yawn*

I'll check my e-mail tomorrow. I'm sure none of it's going anywhere. I'm glad Glenn Reynolds volunteered to guest blog on American Warmonger. He's so kind and eager to help out since I converted him from worshiping Satan. He even got Markos to help out!

It's time for some hardcore troll killing...Warcraft style...Level 61? Oh hey! they created a new level just for me! How kind of Blizzard!

- Time Passes -

04:00 PM - Man that was fun! I didn't think you could take on a monster like that by yourself and WIN! Utterly amazing! Well, I better go out to the village or no nookie for me tonight!

04:15 PM - I run around through the shops, picking things up wherever they're needed. Somehow I end up with one of those coconut drinks with way too many umbrellas as I meander my way through the little vendor shops. For some reason there's a bungee jumping place. I've never tried it and have always wanted to. It only takes about ten minutes out of my schedule and was well worth it. Woo Hoo! That was such a rush! I'll have to rub it in to my mom. (She was deathly afraid that if I tried it the cord would break so she forbade me from trying it at every opportunity I ever had.)

04:50 PM - After collecting all of the stuff, apparently for tomorrow's lunch, I take the water route back to the beach house. Crisp blue water is lapping at my ankles as I stroll along the beach without a care in the world. For some reason I have a Corona in one hand and the bag of groceries in the other. It's not one of those brown paper bags that are awkward to handle or the plastic ones that cut your hands. It's the kind you bring from home, with the nice leather handle that's easy to carry no matter how much stuff is in it.

05:00 PM - I arrive at the beach house, drop the stuff on the kitchen counter and hear the water running in the bathroom. She's home and she's in the shower. I take a quick peek at the clock.

Yep, we've got time. Fortunately, we upgraded our bungalow to one with a deluxe open shower. You know, the kind that's not just a tub with a nozzle. It has about four jets with a couple of seats. I really love the feel of her skin when it's wet and soapy like that.

05:10 PM - Yep, I told her it would be quick. We're both satisfied and that's what counts. Time to get dressed up to go out.

05:20 PM - Okay, I'm ready to go. My wife has just started putting on makeup. She's not going to put on much tonight since it's been warm out. I guess that gives me some time to play around online for a while. Maybe I can scan through my e-mail now.

*Click* *click*

My, that was nice of Markos to handle all of the hate mail for me. I guess someone who's been dealing in hate for so long would have a talent for being able to remove it. It's good that he's changed.

Let me check a few blogs since I have time. Hey, Rusty, Teach and Roper are going to be the new Deans at Harvard, Yale and Stanford! That's just as good as when DC was named the new director of homeland security. Jane started it all when she was named editor in chief of the NYT. She paved the way for less bias and more truth to come out in the world. I just love it when my friends succeed.

06:01 PM - Ding Dong! Hey, it looks like the limo's here. So where's my wa- WOW! I know she looks great all the time but that dress is just stunning! We're ready to go to dinner now. I'm so glad we rented the big limo. It would have been such a let down for my first time in a limo being packed like sardines in the back. (No, I've never been in a limo.)

07:30 PM - After the nice champagne treatment in the limo and the enjoyment of the company of around ten of my good friends we've crossed the ferry back to the mainland and found our way the restaurant. I have no idea how much this is supposed to cost, I'm just glad that Tony Blair decided to pick up the tab. I hope nobody spits anything when I ask about the spotted dick.

09:00 PM - Man, I've never had that before. That was the most incredible food with the most incredible wine I've ever had. I should have warned that guy with the violin not to come over. I hope the string marks wear off of his face. It just felt so good to beat one of those annoying guys down like that. Well, it's time to go to the club. It's my birthday and everyone's buying for me!

09:30 PM - It was so nice of Tony to reserve the VIP room for us. It's too bad he couldn't stay. He was a real card, that one. Alas, leading a country does have its disadvantages.

Well, now to the club. We dance until about 11:30 PM when my wife whispers in my ear that she has a special surprise waiting.

11:30 PM - We go up to the roof of the club and there's a helicopter primed and waiting for us. Luckily, that new drug that came out which prevents you from getting too drunk while maintaining a comfortable buzz was available to me on the market. It really works wonders. That company was such a wise investment when it was trading for $0.10 a share. Now that they've split even ten times and are sitting at $100 a share I'm really kicking myself for only putting in $10,000. (That comes out to $51,200,000 dollars for those with no calculator.)

11:55 PM - After a beautiful ride the two of us arrive back at the bungalow beach house. We scamper inside out of the chopper's wash and into the house. She starts to giggle a little bit as she leads me to the room that I haven't been allowed to go into all week. She tells me to wait at the door as she's stripping off clothes down the hallway. She enters the mystery room with a quick glance back and a giggle as if she knows something, enters the room and locks the door.

11:59 PM - I hear the click of the lock opening and her voice saying "Okay. It's time. Are you ready? I'm ready, come on in." I stand there with a look of utter amazement like none I haven't had since I was a small child. It's incredible! It's amazing! It's...

12:00 AM

I'm sorry, you only asked for a day. That's all there is in a day. It's over now. Go home and make your own dreams happen. I'm still working on mine.

(Honestly, I absolutely love surprises. The end is perfect for me.)

Question 3

3. You have 5 minutes with Tony Blair: what do you ask him?
Five minutes, hrm. That's about five quick questions. Here goes:

1. Is the British media completely blind to concepts outside of ultra liberal or is that just how it looks to America? Are there papers that we don't get press about that are completely conservative?
2. Why, after all of the ridicule you have received, did you have the faith to stick by George W. Bush even though it could have cost you the next election?
3. Have you ever wanted to just kick another head of state squarely in the nuts, and if so who would it be? Chirac? Putin? Schroeder? Someone else?
4. I know that many politicians are simply reacting to what they think people want them to hear but you have proven yourself to be one that thinks about things for himself. Is there any topics floating around in the back of your mind that you believe would be an excellent idea to implement but know you would never get enough backing for to implement? If so, what would it be?
5. What do you make of this whole Camilla Parker Bowles thing?

Question 4

4. Who do you think is the greatest President ever?
I am going to have to trick question this. I don't think there is a "greatest" anything, even the president. Sure I could throw the big names around, Ronald Reagan, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, et. al., but I don't believe that any one of these men (or women in the future) are any better of a person than the other. Every one of the presidents we have had have faced challenges in their terms.

Kennedy had the Cuban missile crisis. George W. Bush had 9/11. Lincoln had a civil war. What would any one of these men have done in the other's situation? Can we say that JFK, the real one, could have handled 9/11 better than Bush? Could we say that Bush would have caused the United States to become two separate countries? None of us can say one way or the other. They are different men with different minds and completely different ways of dealing with things.

I know this is going to sound like a big fat cop out, but I think that the only real answer I can give to this question is that all of the presidents of these United States were the greatest president. I say this not because they did the best they could, but because they were elected by a greater body than themselves. They were elected by what could be considered the greatest set of minds on the face of the planet, IMHO: Americans. (WE THE PEOPLE are the greatest president.)

Question 5 - Finally!

5. Jello or pudding, and why?
That's an easy one. Pudding.

All you can do with Jello is watch it wiggle. If I wanted to watch something wiggle I'd go look at some porn or something. Besides, I can never get it to stay on the infernal spoon!

Pudding, on the other hand, is very versatile and has something that gelatin could never have: a taste outside of flavored sugar.

Pudding sticks to your spoon but comes off smooth and creamy with a simple lick. It's great cold or at room temperature, while Jello will actually turn into starchy Kool-aid at room temperature.

Effectively, you can make your pudding have nearly any flavor available in ice cream. You can even turn you pudding into ice cream.

Yes, pudding is definitely my choice. If I haven't convinced you that pudding is better than Jello let me ask you this hypothetical question:

Which would you rather lick off a couple of hot female wrestlers? Yes, pudding covers more ground.

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

Thompson's ashes to be shot from cannon

I never really bought into the whole "Father of Gonzo Journalism" jibe with Hunter S. Thompson. Sure, he was probably a firm fixture in many activist movements but I was never really influenced by any of that. I really didn't care. I'm sure many people besides me have felt the same way. Would the same hooplah have been made if a more professional yet less "free-wheeling" journalist had died? Probably not. Overall, he was nothing to me. I was not really a fan of his. To the journalistic world he was a hero whose steed was a big giant fist...or a blue guy with a hooked nose. He was an idol to those that carried a pen.

There is one single solitary way that I have the utmost respect for him: The way he had planned to be memorialized. There's just something bad-ass about having your ashes shot from a cannon.

Go read the article:
LINK

Compared to who?

I'm sure you've heard references between George W. Bush and Hitler, or Stalin, or Mussolini or even Satan. How about a comparison to Thomas Jefferson in the 1800-01 elections. Source: Presidential Campaigns - Paul F. Boller, Jr.:
By the end of December it was clear that the improbable had happened: not even one of the Republican electors had witheld his second vote from Burr after all and as a consequence there was a tie for first place: 73 votes for Jefferson, 73 votes for Burr, 65 for Adams, and 64 for Pickney. This meant that, according to the Constitution, the "high-flying Federalists" were going to have their way: it was now up to the House of Representatives, controlled by lame-duck Federalists, to choose the President. The obvious choice was Jefferson; everyone who had voted in 1800 knew he had been running for first place. But what was obvious wasn't necessarily palatable to die-hard Federalist Congressmen; many of them preferred Burr if only because they disliked Jefferson so much. And Burr did nothing to dissuade them from supporting him for first place, though he did nothing directly to advance his cause.

On February 11, 1801, the House of representatives met in the unfinished Capitol building in Washington to pick a President. The town was crowded with people; hotels and boarding houses were chock-full and in one place fifty men slept on the floor with their coats in blankets. When the balloting began in the House chamber, every Congressmen but two was present; and one of the two, who was ill, lay in bed in an adjoining committee room and had his ballot brought in for him to sign. Each state had one vote, which was determined by a majority of the state's delegation; but if the delegation was tied the state cast a blank ballot. On the first ballot Jefferson failed to get the nine votes necessary for election; eight states went for him, six for Burr, and the other two were evenly divided and did not vote. So the congressmen tried again - and again and again. As the balloting continued with no change in the results, many of the Congressmen sent out for nightcaps and pillows and took short naps between ballots in their chairs or on the floor wrapped in coats and shawls. Six more days and thirty-five more votes produced the same outcome. It began to look as though March 4, designated as inaugural day by Congress in 1792, would come and go without Adams's successor being chosen. Outside the Capitol building there were noisy demonstrations for Jefferson. A score of men in a huge sled went shouting through the streets waving a big banner bearing the words, "Jefferson, the Friend of the People."

There were numerous efforts to break the deadlock. Some of the Federalists approached Burr promising him their support if he agreed to carry on Federalist policies if he became President. Burr resolutely refused to give such assurances; he held back, though, from bowing out of the contest for first place. But Hamilton, who had helped bring Adams down, now intervened to prevent a Burr victory. He had not really changed his mind about Jefferson; but he held Burr in even lower esteem. He regarded the New Yorker as the "Catiline of America," utterly without principle, public or private, who would employ "the rogues of all parties to overrule the good men of all parties." Jefferson, by contrast, though a "contemptible hypocrite" and "inctured with fanaticism," at least had some "pretensions to character." "I trust the Federalists will not finally be so mad as to vote for Burr," he wrote New York Senator Gouverneur Morris. "I speak with an intimate and accurate knowledge of character. His elevation can only promote the purposes of the desperate and profligate. If there be a man in the world I ought to hate, it is Jefferson. With Burr I have always been personally well. But the public good must be paramount to every private consideration."

On February 17, six days after the voting had begun, several Federalist Congressman who had been supporting Burr and failed to get any commitments from him decided to cast blank ballots and end the dead-lock. On the thirty-sixth ballot that morning, one Vermont Congressman and four from Maryland abstained from voting and thus gave those states to Jefferson; and Delaware and South Carolina, previously for Burr, cast blank ballots. The outcome: Jefferson won with ten votes to Burr's four. As news of the House's decision spread through the land, exuberant Jeffersonians fired guns, rang bells, and proposed toasts to "Jefferson, the Mammoth of Democracy." But the Federalist Gazette of the United States huffily reported that the price of whiskey and gin had risen since Jefferson's election and sniffed: "The bells have been ringing, guns firing, dogs barking, cats mewling, children crying, and Jacobins getting drunk." Jeffersonians had jeered that Adams was "President by three votes" in 1796; Federalists now retaliated by calling Jefferson "President by no votes" because of Federalist abstentions in that "certain points of Federal policy...would be observed" if he became President. Jefferson vigorously denied giving any such assurances; but it seems likely that some of his supporters sought to reassure the Federalists about what he would do if he became Chief Executive.

Hrm...how many similarities to Bush and current times can you see in that? I see at least five. You should too. I highlighted them. Don't see the link? Here:
73 votes for Jefferson, 73 votes for Burr,

Didn't bush have a virtually deadlocked vote with Gore? I'm pretty sure everyone remembers this election. It has been the topic of debate between Republicans and Democrats for some time.
many of them preferred Burr if only because they disliked Jefferson so much.

WOW! If you can't pick this one out you may want to get a new prescription for your glasses...or check yourself into the moonbat wing of the loony bin.

Wasn't this most recent election supposed to be the "Anybody but Bush" election?
On the thirty-sixth ballot that morning,

These guys voted and re-voted for six days straight. They cast their votes a total of thirty-six (36) times in order to get a winner. There were no lawyers deciding who won the election, no judges deciding who would be president. It followed the path of a legitimate "checks-and-balances" democracy. For all of the whining and crying about how close this election or that election was Bush's "close calls" were nothing compared to what Jefferson went through. Remember that number the next time someone says that Gore or Kerry were robbed: Congress voted 36 times to decide the President over six days of continuous voting.
President by no votes

Okay, this is a pretty easy one. Anybody? No? Okay: Selected, not elected.

~~~~Side moral to this story~~~

If anyone can remember a while back to when I booted my first person you will remember that the last straw was his comparison of Bush to Hitler. I initially intended to throw this post up as a quick rebuttal but looked at the situation a bit more deeply and decided not to get into the pissing contest anymore. You can compare Bush to nearly any group or person if you dig deep enough. There is very little, save the current war on terror (and that's debatable), that is new or different than things that have already happened someplace, sometime in history.

I see both sides, left pissing and moaning about different things. They are outraged that there is a filibuster. They're infuriated that Bush stole an election. Terri Schiavo was murdered, or was given a merciful freedom from her prison. They both say that this or that is the first time [fill in the blank] has ever happened in [xx years, months, ever]. They really don't have a clue what they're talking about. The only thing it does is turn things into an angry issue with only two sides, both of which are usually wrong. Even though they tote their superior knowledge of history repeating itself they are too blind in their own rage and are destined to do just that.

[end rant]

Crossposted at: BNN

Monday, April 04, 2005

Just a smidgen of work

Go check out GM Roper's new eagle. It came from a photo he took an a trip to Alaska. He took the photo. I did a quick photoshop and put it online. It's a really sweet picture. You can get stuff like that as well. Just ask me or e-mail me, or my partner Ogre. We're in the business of doing this kind of stuff.

Pumping Pixels

...and since I'm on the subject, go vote for GM Roper in the KotB tourney. I do.

Sunday, April 03, 2005

Even geeks get computer stupid

Okay, I admit it. Even us ùber-geeks get computer stupid. Let me explain.

Today I installed a new video card into a computer that was using onboard video. I went into the bios like I'm supposed to, changed settings, rebooted, everything seemed like it should work. I had even seen the card work on a different computer. No problems right? Wrong.

I just spent an hour wondering why I couldn't get my monitor to kick in with the video card. I chacked and re-checked everything. Removed the card and reseated it. Finally, in an act of desparation I went to the manual to look and see if there was an extra special setting that I had missed. Nope, not a setting out of place.

I then went to the troubleshooting section:
Problem, screen is blank

1. Screen Saver is enabled - not a problem
2. PC is in standby mode - not a problem
3. PC is in hybernation mode or is off - not a problem (Are people really this stupid?)
4. Monitor connector is not properly connected to the back of the PC - Okay, I guess I really AM that stupid.

Monitor cable has now been moved from the built in video card into the new one. Everything works fine now. Yes, even ùber-geeks are computer stupid sometimes.

Thursday, March 31, 2005

Anti-stupidity Alert!

Rally for Social Security Reform

My dad just received this from the chairman of Washington's Republican party. Here is your opportunity to meet the American Warmonger in person. Hell, sounds like a fun afternoon. If I had time I'd bring my paper on it. As things are, I'll just have to wing it.

Democratic Senators Patty Murry, Maria Cantwell, Mary Landrieu, Barbara Boxer Blanche Linicoln and Barbera Mikulski will be holding a Town Hall Forum in Downtown Seattle to criticize President Bush's vision of strengthening Social Security. Democrats have been quick to condemn the president's plan but have failed to offer an alternative solution, save simply raising taxes.

Join Generations Together in a rally outside Seattle Town Hall to show your support for Social Security reform. Help send a message to Democrats. Work with President Bush to save Social Security!

Thursday, March 31
Seattle Town Hall
1119 8th Ave
(Entrance on Seneca Street)
12:45PM

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

I've been Terrilanched

This is just too weird. I've been watching my sitemeter climb the closer Terri gets to death. I went from around 120 hits to around 350 hits yesterday. Much of it had been from Hyscience or Blogs For Terri but yesterday was different. Yesterday I began recieveing a mess of hits from Terri herself. Yep, Terri has her own blog...well...sort of. Some smackboy decided it would be really funny to throw up a couple of posts with noises spelled out and call it Terri's blog. It was a really stupid idea.

I guess the most ironic part about this is that I had been priding myself on not being launched by any big blogs since my inception. Now here comes this sounding board of a topic that I have a semi-different idea about and everyone wants to tell me how much of an idiot I am for not agreeing completely with their truth about things. I am frankly very tired about this case. It has gone on much longer than it really needs to, but for some reason unbeknownst to me it has given me more traffic than I've ever had before.

So now that I'm getting a bunch of hits about this, here's the deal:

I'm rather sick of this whole ordeal and both sides of this case have really pissed me off. I no longer care if it's a dry or wet, hot or cold, sweet or sour death. I no longer care what your truth is on what life is or is not. Unless your name is Terri Schiavo you do not know what is going on...unless she's really PVS, then no one knows. I'm sure everyone has meant well with their articles saying Terri will feel no pain because this article says so, or she's really alive and only needs a shunt for a full recovery because of this article. It just doesn't matter to me anymore.

If you would like to debate the case on the merits of a person's rights to choice, whether PVS or not, by all means beat me up. If you have something on the legalities of what this could mean for future cases, by all means speak up. If you have irrefutable evidence as to why or why not Terri is or is not feeling something there are several other blogs that would love to take your truth and round file it. I, for one, am getting a bit tired of it.

..and I'd like to take this moment to apologize to my cousin for blowing up on her. This has been coming to a head for a while and I should have been a little more careful about the words I chose to write. I'm just getting a bit tired of being called wrong by people that only know their part of the truth.

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Terri is Black!

According to reports Jesse Jackson has joined the fight for Terri Schiavo's life because those against her continued life have racist motives.
"This is one of the profound moral, ethical issues of our time, the saving of Terri's life," the civil rights leader said. "And today we pray for racial equality."

Mr. Jackson also made mention that:
"I have known black pedophiles and Terri is no pedophile." said Jackson. "The only thing Terri is guilty of is being comatose while black. This would not have happened to a white comatose patient.

Mr. Jackson also made mention that lack of brain capacity has never stopped him from making political, religious, ethical or even extramarital decisions before:
"Terri has no less brain capacity than I do. I am sure that with rehabilitation she and I will regain our ability to be effective and productive members of the black community in America, Lord willing.

He made reference to being able to help the world with the religious leader Osama Bin Laden and then had to have his feeding tube reinserted.

In honor of Nickie Goomba, this has been a satirical cross reference of Jesse Jackson in the news.
Michael Jackson and the Race Card: "Don't Leave Home Without It" by Larry Elder -- Capitalism Magazine

CNN.com - Jackson joins fight over feeding tube - Mar 29, 2005

Another fine blog

As promised, the EiP pink OLD Navy fleece pullover Babe has been provided with one all expenses paid blogger blog. It has been designed by yours truly, Franz. Chalk this one up as another fine blog by Pumping Pixels.

Please welcome Yup'ik Rock to the blogosphere!

If you would like another great design like this one, you know where to find me:
gmail: jeremy.bol@gmail.com

Eventually, I'll get the portfolio up, but right now I'm sort of supposed to be on vacation.

(note: I started Yup'ik Rock on Sunday. It's complete, or near complete on Monday night. Miss Patriot has been waiting for her blog design, from a competing designer, for several weeks now.)

Sunday, March 27, 2005

Random thoughts on Terri

Well, the way things are looking Terri Schiavo will be passing on peacefully after her tongue swells and cracks, nose bleeds, etc, etc. and she finally has one last violent cardiac arrest. There's not much that can save her at this point. As far as I can tell any appeals will be going through Judge Kevorkian, so no reprieve will be found.

I've had some time to just think about the case and have sort of formed a different opinion about this whole situation. I've been contemplating whether I should post this or not. I don't want to tick off the right to lifers, but I'm not really one of them and sort of have to say something about it, so here goes:

If I were in Terri's shoes I would have wanted to be put down a long time ago. Could I recover? Hell, I don't know, but I wouldn't want to be left as a treant. I say treant because I don't think she's a vegetable, but I don't really think she'll ever be all there no matter what sort of therapy she gets. I doubt she would even be able to do anything without major assistance. I would want to be put to death. I do not follow with the ideal that all life is precious no matter how crappy it is. If you want to be put down I have no problems with it. More power to you.

To caveat this I believe I have taken more of the libertarian approach on this issue. I feel that Terri did not give the proper indication to decide one way or the other about her state. I don't believe one side or the other as to whatever she said. I think they're both lying about things.

It seems rather curious to be as to why someone would wait over seven years to say that she wanted to be put to death. On the same token, I don't believe that she made judgment to the contrary either. How many people in their mid twenties have really thought about a living will?...okay, BEFORE Terri Schiavo? Have YOU written you living will?

As an example, my mom, Patty-Jo, is 48 years old and has a free living will sitting on the table, unfinished. She'll get around to it...maybe. Sigh. I really don't think Terri paid it a second thought and both sides are wrong.

Now having said this, the only two groups able to determine Terri's condition are the government and Terri herself. Since Terri has this really strong speech impediment she can't quite speak for herself. I really wish that Judge Doom had given her over to DCF. They may not be the most kind and gentle people when it come to certain things, but at least you could get a third impartial party involved.

To throw out the devil's advocate argument, Judge Greer and all of the other judges do not really care about all of the facts. Greer has made up his mind many years ago and the rest of the judiciary is standing behind him on solidarity alone. Even if they looked at the records they already had a decision in their minds. It was over before it started, and that's really screwed up. That is why I would prefer, personally, to see DCF get permitted to look into this...which Judge Dredd dismissed.

The whole point I'm trying to make is that the only person who can make the life and death decision for Terri is Terri. That is why I believe this is wrong. Does it happen in many more cases than this where the judiciary will make life or death decisions? Yes, and that's rather screwed up too. It's rather unfortunate that the lady down in Texas had her baby pulled off the ventilator without her permission and there is nothing that can legally be done. Mom should have had the choice, it's constitutional: LIFE, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

...and if I'm ever in the same situation, pull a Kevorkian. I'll come back from the dead and kill you all if I'm starved to death...try me.

Friday, March 25, 2005

I just can't leave well enough alone

Well, I've made the major change to my site layout. If need be, I can change it back at the drop of a hat. My blog site is sort of like my sketch pad for ideas.

Speaking of ideas, my next major task will be moving the sidebars from the right to the left, staggering them and matching the towers to the top of my sidebars.

Let me know if it would be too much. I wouldn't want to offend anyone.

Almost forgot, Today I'll by flying out to Washington state to meet up with family. Depending on how things go I may be blogging a bit less than usual. I thought of bringing in a gnome to help with the rif-raf while I'm out, but we all know how that ends up.

My old offer of having a second blogger for the blog still stands. If you're willing to give up your own blog I may be willing to give you half of the proceeds*


*This site does not take in any money.

Thursday, March 24, 2005

NEW TOONZ

Just put up a new indie tune. He sounds like a Skynard age band. The clip is short, but don't make that keep you from litening or picking up his album. I haven't heard music like this since...well...Skynard.

Go give it a listen on the right, under "Supporting Indie Bands".

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Schiavo parents prepare Supreme Court appeal

Well, it's down to the wire folks. There's not much left to be done. There's about two more possible saves in this case. So, what are these saves?

1. An appeal to the Supreme Court of the U.S. can be made. It would be an unprecedented event for the same court that has refused to hear this case several times before. Considering the reaction of several lower courts, it does not look like the Democrat heavy Supreme Court will even see the case, let alone vote in favor of giving Terri life.

2. DCF in Florida has recently had a neurologist examine Terri's medical record and determined that there was a likely misdiagnosis. He considered her "most likely in a state of minimal conciousness". What this means is that DCF can intervene if it so chooses and deem Terri a ward of the state. This would take all decision making abilities from and of the current people in the case and make it a decision based on DCF's findings, free and clear of persuasion by either side. This appears to be the most logical choice in this case.

So what would Terri becoming a ward of the state enable?

Making Terri a ward of the state would enable the personal backstabbing on both sides of things come to an end. There would be no opportunity for Michael Schiavo to intimidate doctors, nurses, small shrubberies, etc. from providing care and/or therapy to Terri. He would no longer be able to prevent video from reaching the court system through legal means, swallow tests from being done, personal effects in the room, strolls outside, etc. He could no longer manipulate the situation in any way shape or form.

On the other side of this coin, the Schindlers will no longer be able to slander Michael about what he has and has not done. There are oodles of rumors flying this way and that about what people have or have not said or done. Putting this in the hands of DCF would put things on a level playing field and prevent the he said/she said.

Whatever happens we need to have it happen, it needs to happen soon. Terri's basically on a state imposed hunger strike and if anything is delayed she will get nothing but dead.

Template change - yet again.

I've tweaked my template ever so slightly...can anyone tell?

Let me know if the new background image makes it hard to read, I'll lighten the pic up a bit.

Teach, let me know if I'm still covered for the American Flag League. If not, I'll change the image to the firefighters with the flag.

Should I change back? Should I keep it? How's it look?

A letter from th Daily Blitz

Jheka, of The Daily Blitz, recieved an e-mail calling for essays from 17-25 year olds. I'm too old to write for them, but you might be right up their alley. Here is the letter that was sent to Jheka:
My name is Seth Spores; I am one of the three editors and co-founders of College Tree Publishing. We contacted hundreds of university and college conservative and liberal groups, political science departments, and university news papers and requested essay submissions from people in the 17 to 25 year old age group on political and social issues. The end result was What We Think: Young Voters Speak Out, which was put out nationally in late October. The book was meant to be a running forum for political _expression of America's youngest voting demographic, and in that regard has been a success. Since the book was published in October, the book has already received national press on CNN, MSNBC, an hour long special on CSPAN-Book TV and has been nominated for the Franklin Award.

We are a non-partisan company possessing a Republican, Democrat and Libertarian leaning editor, trying to give fair and equal voice to all ideologies present among college age youth. We are currently accepting submissions for our next two books, What We Think 2 and What We Think About God and looking to increase the number of well written pieces. Our goal is to receive 10,000 submissions from now through summer, and to publish the top 200 to 300 in late third quarter.

I am contacting many blogs and other forms of media not necessarily connected to Universities, in hopes of reaching a wider base of essayists. We would like to know if you would run a short story on your blog, stating that we are requesting submissions for national publication. All authors are given full credit for their work, a short bio is dedicated to them in the back of the books, and we've been arranging book signings and talks across the country for authors in our current edition so these young authors get the credit and visibility they deserve. Let me stress finally that individuals submitting need not be in college to qualify for publication.

Please feel free to contact us with questions or requests for more information,
Seth Charles Guy Spores
Editor and Co-Founder of College Tree Publishing
seth@collegetreepublishing.com
www.collegetreepublishing.com

If you're 17-25 years old and capable of forming readable material there is a good chance you could have your essay published. Maybe I could lie about my age?

Anyway, Jheka is a good writer, good lawyer, and good Russian (as far as I can tell from only a snippet of reading his stuff). GO give him a look see.

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

STEAL THIS GNOME!!

I was minding my own business when I heard about this Gnome guy that quit his post over at Chuck's Place. He was supposed to guard the place from Harvey and Nick bringing in strippers and beer while Chuck went out to party for spring break.

Well, it didn't take long for Ogre and GM Roper to come by with the needed supplies to bust the place wide open. The next thing you know the gnome was going on a little spring break of his own. Hell, he went on another world tour.

Somewhere along the line he got a bit of color in his life and he's hanging out at my blog now:

Beer and Strippers

I think the thing that Chuck may have forgotten was that gnomes are suckers for what Chuck was trying to prevent from getting brought in:

Beer
That was an easy one. Gnomes love beer. If you have more than two beer steins at home I'd be willing to bet that you're suffuring from "gnome encroachment" as well.

MMMMMmmmm.... Beer...

Strippers
This was the hard part. You see, gnomes could really care less about long legged buxom blondes. Most gnomes aren't mountain climbers and don't want to go through the trials and tribulations of climbing some huge chick. Luckily, we were able to find this little lady hanging in one of the more seedy parts of town:

Hot Stuff Baby!

What a looker!

The moral of this story: Don't trust a gnome with a bad example, for he will rope him in with an ogre and end up with one hell of a paradox.

Please Help
This gnome needs traveling time. He's on a world tour. Put him on your blog. Write up a small story...or not. Trackback to Nick Here: http://blog.mu.nu/cgi/mt-tb.cgi/71993

We're trying to get a full listing of where the gnome has been so Chuck can see when he gets back. Let's make sure the gnome has a better trip than he does!

If you need a trackback tool you can use Wizbang's Standalone Trackback Pinger.

Marking World Water Day, UN to launch Water for Life Decade

Yes, I'm spinning this for Terri Schiavo. Wouldn't it be sort of fitting to put her back on food and WATER today? I mean, she'll go by dehydration before she goes by starvation. Maybe God was waiting for the right day, sort of a coincidental occurrence?

One can hope, can't we?

Monday, March 21, 2005

GM Roper for king!

Yep, GM Roper has a talent for kissing a.....er...wooing the judges. He's done a wonderful job at it. So good in fact that he's wooed me as well. So, on for week two. WOO WOO!

Okay, that sounded bad. Nevermind. I'm voting for GM Roper to continue his riegn as the new king of blogs. In fact, I believe the handing of the crown ceremony has just taken place. I handed my crown down in absentia. I still don't know where Absentia is but I must have been there. I was busy getting my teeth laser whitened. In an hour and a half my teeth have gone from a shade of yellow sticky to damn near copier paper color. This incredible imporvement only comes at the cost of about $575 (Normally $650 but they're running a $75 off deal for a while.)

Anyway, go vote!

Sunday, March 20, 2005

Fixing Social Security: The Options

Something that has been taking the front seat in the news today is Social Security. It has become something of the political hotbed in the past few months. We hear everything from there being no problem within Social Security to the current state of Social Security casing the fall of America in less than ten years. The truth of the matter is that none of us are completely sure as to what will happen. We have several options on the table and what I intend to do is define them in a manner that will simplify the effects each has on our society.

To begin, we need to define our current system and the factors involved with it. This article will deal with just a few aspects of the system: The age in which you are collecting, the totals payroll costs of the system and what portion of your salary is going to fund the system.

At the age of 62 you are eligible to receive minimum benefits for social security. At this age you can chose to get into the system at a reduced rate, or wait until subsequent years and receive a greater percentage of your graduated salary. Here is the statement included about retirement at age 62 from SSA.GOV:
You can get Social Security retirement benefits as early as age 62, but if you retire before your full retirement age, your benefits will be permanently reduced, based on your age. For example, if you retire at age 62, your benefit would be about 20 percent lower than what it would be if you waited until you reach full retirement age.

Your full retirement age at present is 67 for anyone born after 1960 and 65 for anyone born after 1937 with various changes in age requirements between those years. You can also chose to work until the age of 70 and gain increased benefits. A good representative of this system is also found at SSA.GOV:
Each additional year you work adds another year of earnings to your Social Security record. Higher lifetime earnings may mean higher benefits when you retire.

Also, your benefit will increase automatically by a certain percentage from the time you reach your full retirement age until you start receiving your benefits or until you reach age 70. The percentage varies depending on your year of birth. For example, if you were born in 1943 or later, we will add 8 percent per year to your benefit for each year that you delay signing up for Social Security beyond your full retirement age.

The next factor in this system is how much money you will receive at retirement. For simplicity’s sake, we shall use the SSA.GOV calculator to determine your income considering a person earning $60,000 for at least 10 years. We will not be including the inflation estimate as it gives an inflated number of valuations that do not equate to today’s current value. Retirement values per month are:
Age 62: $1,263.00
Age 67: $1,794.00
Age 70: $2,224.00

If these numbers seem small to you remember that social security was never meant to entirely replace other means of retirement. It was meant as a means of preventing poverty in old age. However, over time it has included several other at-risk populations, but was still not meant as one’s only means of income. (Sharp, 401) In fact, only 18% of Americans use it as such today. (Sharp, 408) It wasn’t meant to enhance your life, only sustain it.

To add an extra factor to this from someone observing the things that happen at retirement age, the above numbers are not as meager as the look. This comes into effect by taking note of the standard 30-year mortgage. Most Americans will own their own home by the age of retirement or before. The mortgage normally consists of about half of your total income. Say, for example, you are making about $4,000 per month (the calculation of $60,000 a year and 20% income tax) you will receive about half of that at retirement age or only slightly less.

The last factor required in order to better understand the current situation is how much social security is costing today. I am going to have to split this up into two different sections. There are topics that cover both the taxed end of things, and then there is the total of all Social security revenues combined for payout to our seniors and other at-risk populations.

As the current tax system for social security stands, we will pay 1.45% of our pay to Medicare and 6.2% towards Social Security. The business end of this is matching that of your individual contribution. It equates to 15.3% of your payroll. Once we reach $80,400 in earnings per year we no longer have the payroll tax on either side, but the Medicare tax of 1.45% remains on both sides, employer and employee. This makes your additional taxes total 2.9% of your remaining pay over $80,400. This will actually change the $4,000 per month at a base of $60,000 per year after taxes to $3,694 monthly. This means $306 of your hard earned money goes towards Social Security and Medicare every month.

The last portion of things that needs to be understood is the amount of money required to fund social security and where it is officially headed. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO):
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that spending for Social Security, adjusted for inflation, will rise from $483 billion in 2003 to $2.5 trillion in 2075. Those estimates are based on CBO's 10-year baseline budget outlook and the "intermediate" long-range assumptions of the trustees of the Social Security system.

From some of the reports I have been hearing about Social Security, I was under the assumption that we were paying a lot more into the system. To quote Professor Kim, Strayer University online:
Out of about $2.2 trillion government spending each year, 32% is spent on Social Security and Medicare…

If this were true, 32% of 2.2 trillion dollars equates to $704 billion instead of the aforementioned $483 billion. There are several other examples of misrepresented numbers and it appears that you can get a different answer to this question simply by asking another official who has checked his or her own numbers. It has become an area of extreme confusion. The best representation of accuracy that can be mustered is the Summary of the 2004 Annual Reports from SSA:

Summary of 2004 Annual Reports

Now we need to compare this rate of inflated Social Security benefits to the age demographics of people through several generations. This is where we can cross-reference and determine at what age Social Security will run out

Births by age and gender

By looking at the chart and calculating how much will be owed, it appears the first major decline in this system will rear its ugly head in 5-50 years. This is when those aged 50 will be 62, the minimum required age or 67, the fully vested age of Social security. If you’ll notice, 10 years after that, we will be in a much worse predicament, when those that are in their 40s are of retirement age.

Now that we have defined the problem we need to determine what can be done to fix it. How can we save Social security so that we don’t bankrupt America? As the government sees it there are effectively three methods of accomplishing this. They are raising the tax rate for those paying in, increasing the age of retirement or creating personal retirement accounts.

Personal savings accounts (PSA), in reality, do nothing to directly change the Social Security deficit. What they do is put a portion of your funds into a more direct account that you can have some personal control over. It does a lot to increase your personal retirement wealth, but does not fund the system. It really doesn’t do much against the system either. Remember that every dollar taken out of the system is a dollar that doesn’t need to be repaid to that particular retiree. Since the overall burden would be smaller the general fund would be more capable of supporting the smaller system.

According to initial ideals, the startup of this program would be one third of your social security benefits being put into your PSA. Taking the 2004 OASI from earlier, if left in a vacuum, we are left with 372 billion in the system. We are not in a vacuum though and will be subject to several external forces that may equate with a greater or smaller reduction in overall OASI.

As a sub-system within this program the extra money that is to be gained over the current system is at a minimum 9% more than Social Security's COLA adjustments per year. This is according to the total return on stocks after inflation for the past 50 years (From 1950-1999) as compared with COLA, or straight inflation adjustment. (Sharp, 414)

Rate of return for stocks

The first thing that we need to do to this 9.73% is to remove the 1% handling fee accorded to the model we are using for PSA, The Thrift Savings Plan. (TSP.GOV) This leaves us with an average of 8.73% gain on the current Social Security plan annually. The true rate of your return can vary by choosing either the G, F, C, S or I varieties of mutual funds or even lose money in the event of something completely catastrophic. (The two years after 9/11 were two such years.)

Some of the additional 8.73% on average could even go towards funding the aging Social Security structure. I believe 2% would bring in approximately four billion in free revenues. It would still leave an average annual gain of 6.73% over COLA for the individual per year.

Another potential hazard is something called the ripple effect. This is where you take a large sum of money and pump it into the stock market, artificially boosting stock prices. In the stock market’s need to retain stability the stock will flux downward to adjust for the real worth of a stock. It will retain several smaller ripples to the initial drop of 202 billion into the market, and eventually level off slightly higher than if no influx of cash were ever made.

To put this in perspective, Toys ‘R’ Us recently agreed to they buyout figure of 6.6 billion dollars. (MSN Money) The stock for this company instantly increased 8%. For the same 8% push from the 202 billion dropped into PSA’s you would only need to invest in 31 total companies. Each of the five TSP funds has several times more than this. (The C fund matches the S&P 500, or Standard and Poor’s top 500 performing stocks.)

Increasing the tax burden on Social Security has had success in preventing the total melt down of the system. It has also had some adverse effects on GDP. This is a basic principle of economics theorized under “Tax Incidence and Efficiency Loss. (McConnell, 652) The more you tax people, the less money there is to be taxed. This system contains an equilibrium point that we are currently close to already. Unless you plan on getting creative with how you tax people, like raising the payroll tax cap from 80,400 to something like 100,000, then you will have potentially created an economic recession, or at a minimum, a decrease in economic and tax revenue progression. The biggest question you would need to ask is if we are currently at, above or below our tax versus income equilibrium.

The third option on the table is that of changing the age of retirement. Currently the ages of retirement are 62 for your minimum available payout, 67 for your full payout (if you were born after 1960), and up to 70 for an extra payout. Theoretically, you could raise each of these ages by one or two and reap an overall tax savings of hundreds of billions of dollars. It would make sense too. People are living longer than ever before. The overall benefits per individual would be reduced to a more manageable level and you would be matching your system to a longer living society. Unfortunately, this would only delay the inevitable by one or two years. Politicians, being who they are, would more than likely spend the money in other programs and in turn have nothing left over for our seniors. They did it before in the 1990s when there was a surplus in the general fund that could have gone to insure Social security but chose to retire some of the national debt held by the public. (Sharp, 413)

So there you have it, three distinctly different alternatives to the problem of social security. Each system holds its benefits and drawbacks for implementation. The wrangling you hear on either side of the political fence is greatly exaggerated. You hear about how Bush plans to destroy the system through private accounts. (AARP) You hear how no one could feasibly survive on Social Security as it stands today. (CATO Institute) It appears the only thing they can agree on, now, is that there is a problem that needs to be addressed. That wasn’t even the case a month ago. You heard several voices of Democrat origins claim there was absolutely no problem. This is false. There is a very real problem that needs to be addressed immediately; not tomorrow or next year, today. The only way to destroy Social Security is to do nothing about it. We need to fix it.


BIBLIOGRAPHY

Sharp, Ansel M., Register, Charles A., and Grimes, Paul W., Economics of Social Issues. 16th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill. 2004.

McConnel, Campbell R., Brue, Stanley L., Economics. 14th ed. Irwin/McGraw-Hill. 1999

Social Security Administration (SSA): Retirement age and benefits quotes:
http://www.ssa.gov/pubs/10035.html

Social Security Administration (SSA): SSA Retirement Calculator
http://www.ssa.gov/retire2/AnypiaApplet.html

Congressional Budget Office (CBO): Current costs of Social Security: http://cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=4380&sequence=0

Comments from week 10 Strayer Online ECO405 Professor Kim, Hong-Jin: http://www.strayeronline.net/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=2134217&CPURL=
www.strayeronline.net&Survey=1&47=1016618&ClientNodeID=421648&coursenav=0

Thrift Savings Plan: http://www.tsp.gov/

MSN Money: Toys R Us buyout
http://money.cnn.com/2005/03/17/news/fortune500/toysrus/

Crossposted at: Blogger News Network

Social Security - Condensed

There is a full version coming shortly that will expand on this topic in much greater detail coming later tonight. It will prove the conjectures presented here.

Social Security will go bankrupt in five to fifteen years. There are three viable ways of preventing this from happening; Personal Savings Accounts, increasing or modifying the social security tax (yes, it's a friggin' tax, not a donation), or modifying the age at which benefits are reached.

Personal savings accounts (PSA), in reality, do nothing to directly change the Social Security deficit. What they do is put a portion of your funds into a more direct account that you can have some control over, albeit very little. The only deficit benefit reached through PSA's are a reduced overall Social Security system that can be funded more easily through the general fund. Afraid that the start up costs would kill us? Think again. The Thrift Savings Plan has been in effect for several years and runs at an overhead of only one percent.

As a sub-system within this program the extra money that is to be gained over the current system is at a minimum 9% more than Social Security's COLA adjustments per year. I'm sure some brilliant Senator or Congressman has already eyed this pot of money for his or her private tax dollars. Some of it could go to fund the outdated Social Security system, maybe 2% would suffice? It would still leave an average annual gain of 7% over COLA for the individual per year.

Increasing the tax burden on Social Security has had success in preventing the total melt down of the system. It has also had some adverse effects on GDP. If any of you have taken a basic college economics class you would be familiar with the static rules for taxes vs. available funds for GDP. The more you tax people, the less money there is to be taxed. This system contains an equilibrium point that we are currently close to already. Unless you plan on getting creative with how you tax people, like raising the payroll tax cap from 80,400 to something like 100,000, then you will have potentially created an economic depression.

The third option on the table is that of changing the age of retirement. Currently the ages of retirement are 62 for your minimum available payout, 67 for your full payout (in most cases), and 70 for extra payout. Theoretically, you could raise each of these ages by one or two and reap an overall tax savings of hundreds of billions of dollars. It would make sense too. People are living longer than ever before. Unfortunately, this would only delay the inevitable by one or two years. Politicians, being who they are, would more than likely spend the money in other programs and in turn have nothing left over for our seniors.

Hopefully this has piqued your interest ever so slighly as to what could happen to Social Security. We really are in dire straights right now. The full data and essay will be available later tonight. I just thought you would like a sampler.

Saturday, March 19, 2005

Houses Suck

Some of you may know my woes about heating and cooling. For a few years now I had to turn off my older computer because it would overheat and reboot. In the winter we would freeze. It was not a pleasant experience.

A few days ago we noticed that our thermostat had started kicking into Emergency Heat all by itself and then proceed to blow cold air. Our first thought was that it was the thermostat. It was old, really old. It was mercury powered old. We figured it had given up the ghost. If it hadn't it would be good to have a newer thermostat anyway.

I went to Lowes, picked up a cheap $40 digital one and thought it would be good. Little did I know that EM Heat was a special feature and there were no less than seven wires behind the old mercury thermostat. So, after returning that one and picking up the super, monster, do everything except do dishes for you, $80 programmable that would do EM Heat it was installed.

The problem did not abate itself. The exact same problem occurred, exept this time it was called AUX Heatand was in digital. Luckily we have friends that have A/C Heating and Repair freinds. We were shocked to be informed that the AC unit we had was the oldest one he had ever seen. It was 25 years old. He gave us the option of a quick $250 resealing and cleaning or the more costly but more needed replacement offer. For $3,395 we could have a complete brand new 3 1/2 ton Ducane AC and Heating system. Tomorrow we shall see if the new system does any better than the old one. There goes our new fence budget for the year.

The end is not yet here from our house woes. Today we woke up to no hot water either. The hot water heater is only about two years old. There is no way we lost both elements early. So, after checking the breaker about five times we called the same freind that knew the AC guy. Luckily, the guy we called is an electrician and came over faster than Dominoes. We were both puzzled. The system turned out to be getting no power. We checked the breaker and everything seemed to be in working order. On a wild hunch, he individually reset every single breaker except for the main.

Thank God for friends. Without them I'd be putting that damn thing up on the market tomorrow. Even with a crappy AC and no hot water I'm sure I could still pull off $250,000-$300,000. Thank God for a great housing economy.

Allah or Jesus

Have you ever heard of a guy by the name of Rick Mathes? Well, I have. I received an e-mail the other day from him the other day and remembered the name from somewhere but couldn't place it. Google is my friend.

Rick is the prison minister that completely annihilated a Muslim Imam when he came to speak at his prison. He sent me an article entitled "LETTER TO IRAQI PATRIOTS" for potential publishing, but I'm going to post the "Allah or Jesus" article that gained him some notoriety:

ALLAH OR JESUS

I attended my annual training session that's required for maintaining my state prison security clearance and during the training session there was a presentation by three speakers who represented the Roman Catholic, Protestant and Muslim faiths who explained their belief systems. I was particularly interested in what the Islamic Imam had to say.

The Imam gave a great presentation of the basics of Islam complete with a video. After the presentations, time was provided for questions and answers. When it was my turn, I directed my question to the Imam and asked: “Please, correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand that all of the Imams and clerics of Islam have declared a holy jihad [Holy war] against the infidels of the world. And, that by killing an infidel, which is a command to all Muslims, they are assured of a place in heaven. If that's the case, can you give me the definition of an infidel?"

There was no disagreement with my statements and without hesitation he replied, "Non-believers!"

I responded, “So, let me make sure I have this straight. All followers of Allah have been commanded to kill everyone who is not of your faith so they can go to heaven. Is that correct?”

The expression on his face changed from one of authority and command to that of a little boy who had just gotten caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He sheepishly replied, “Yes.”

I then said, “Well, sir, I have a real problem trying to imagine Pope John Paul commanding all Catholics to kill those of your faith or Pat Robertson or Dr. Stanley ordering Protestants to do the same in order to go to heaven.”

The Imam was speechless.

I continued, “I also have problem with being your friend when you and your brother clerics are telling your followers to kill me. Let me ask you a question…would you rather have your Allah who tells you to kill me in order to go to heaven or my Jesus who tells me to love you because I am going to heaven and wants you to be with me?”

You could have heard a pin drop as the Imam hung his head in shame.

Chuck Colson once told me something that has sustained me these 20 years of prison ministry. He said to me, “Rick, remember that the truth will prevail.”

And it will!

In my minds eye, this seems a bit extreme, and only represents one Imam's ideas and not the entirety of the Muslim religion...or does it?

But don't take it from me, go to the source, Rick Mathes.

Friday, March 18, 2005

More music

It's about time I changed the music a bit in here. Go listen to "Shady Grove" by Celtic Soul. just click the play button over on the right.

Terri Schiavo update

Well, I haven't said anything about Terri in a while, 'cept to eat a troll over at Holy Tornado...man they're tasty. Today has been a rather important day in the case.

Lets see, congress tried to get her to testify about Jason Giambi taking steroids...oops, sorry. That was the wrong congressional subpeona. She was subpeona'd to speak on behalf of people that have around 30 written statements from doctors saying you can get better, but being classified PVS because a judge deems it so. I think that's what it's about, right? We live in a really crappy place when a state judge is capable of deciding federal law. And I thought it was DOCTORS that had a god complex.

Anyway, back to the case at hand.

Relax everyone. Terri will not be dying any time soon. The House and the Senate are working right now to finalize the wording for the act that will prevent things like this from happening. If the Democrats think a fillibuster is called for I may have to shoot a few of them myself. Maybe I could give a few of them PVS while I'm at it.

Honestly, you shouldn't be listening to me on this matter. I'm just a poor source for this stuff. Roll on over to Cao's Blog. She's been rolling full steam ahead since this thing began. The only people I might give more props to on this are Hyscience and Blogs For Terri...maybe.

As bloggers we have done something to be proud of: We have made the Lesgistive branch take action to save a life.

No Time to Blog

I've been pressed to the limit for time this week. I have very little time to blog. In the meantime, go visit another one of my creations: Solomon's House If not for my template talent, but for the guy's sporadic and on target commentary.

Since I'm doing this in notepad, waiting for blogger to load, I have a moment to talk about Yemen. Jane, over at Armies of Liberation has a petition running, and would like you to sign it if you haven't already. Several middle east nations are buckling under to new found democracy and Yemen should not be one of the places left behind. GO make yourself count. Go sign the petition. You don't have to write anything fancy, you just have to stamp your big red X on some digital paper. The petition is to free a journalist who spoke out against the president of Yemen, who is also the superior judge there. You've heard of freedom of the press, right?


Last, but not least, how do you like the color change? I think I'm going to keep the sidebar color, because it makes things pop a bit more. I might change the center back to the tan color. Any ideas, let me know what you think.

Thursday, March 17, 2005

The Day For Green Beer!

It's Saint Patrick's day! Woo Hoo! You can't pinch me! I went green!

For those that are looking for something a little more traditional and can't get to Ireland today to kiss the Blarney Stone, I've brought all that magic home with me. Just pucker up and smooch on the big green X.


Kiss my stones!


Now tonight be sure that it is the beer that remains green and not your stomach!

Buy my stuff

I finally broke down and got a Cafepress site. Yes, the thong is there in case you're wondering. It's just not a Cafepress site without a thong! I just started it up and if you want to see a different design let me know and we can hook that up. Until then, go buy some T-Shirts!

[I have coffee mugs too!]
[Wouldn't it be cool to have a shirt that just says: American Warmonger?]

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Guys! I'm RETIRED!

Okay, it all started with Rusty from The Jawa Report breaking through his millionth hit. Honestly, it couldn't happen to a nicer blogger. He really deserves the traffic and has been rather kind to me throughout the blog-years (months). I congratulate Rusty on making a mark that many other bloggers may never reach. (Coincidentally, I just went over 15,000, just to put things in perspective.)

The intreaguing part is the comment he put in his millionth post:
GM Roper is trying to replace American Warmonger as the new King of Blogs competition. He's got my vote.

Really, I appreciate the link, but it sounds like Rusty has chosen sides between me and GM Roper....or at least that's how someone took it. The same statement could also mean:
GM Roper is vying for the crown that American Warmonger will be handing down after his forced retirement after three wins in the King of blogs tournament. I vote for him. So should you.

Sure, it's a little more wordy, but it solves problems like this:
Rusty at The Jawa Report says: "GM Roper is trying to
replace American Warmonger as the new King of Blogs
competition. He's got my vote."

I'd like to publish a 1-paragraph campaign statement
(50 words or so) from each of you about why you should
be King of Blogs. Are you game?

I'll include a link to both blogs.

Thanks!

Brian Blazevic

San Diego, California

The whole thing seems a bit funny to me. I think Rusty understood the situation, but wrote it in such a way as someone became confused. I'll give them both the benefit of the doubt. It doesn't mean I can't have fun with it. So, Brian, here's my paragraph in 50 words or less:
I do not know if I am a better king. I do know who the three judges are though: Songstress7, Mr. Ober, and PIETRO, not Nick Queen. I am also familiar with what makes the judges happy. After three consecutive wins and retirement you sort of learn these things.

Word Count: 49

Gee, I hope I win!...Okay, this has become a noteriety piece. I have to give it up to GM Roper. I'll be tracking this back the the KOTB and voting for him as well.

One more thing: New Eagle has me on his blogroll. I shall reciprocate.

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

Thank you

Well, I should have done this yesterday but was way too busy to think. Now that I've been able to assemple my thoughts, I'd like to thank everyone who voted for me, trackbacked, left nice comments, or otherwise pledged your support. You know who you are, but others do not, so here goes the list of people I know about:

FlightPundit
Daisy Cutter
Patty-Jo
Julie with a B (and all three of her work computers)
R-Cubed
Holy TornadoPirate's Cove
Silver Surfer 9090
Dr. Sanity
West Coast Chaos

If I missed your name let me know and I'll fix it.

Again, thank-you everybody!

I would also like to thank the judges for being wonderful sports about my constant abuse of the english language. If I ever need an editor I'll know where to turn.

Songstress7 from News From the Great Beyond (I still can't remember your real name.)
Ogre from Ogre's Politics and Views
Pietro From SmarterCop

The judges are only part of this though. I would like to thank the people that run this whole she-bang:

Nick Queen (Who is a real king among men...and just nominated me for the promised land!)
Christweb (who seems to be down.)
King of Fools

Most of all, I'd like to thank all of Munuviana for hosting such an event. Without them none of this would be possible. (Does this qualify as suck up points for the Ellis Island vote?)

Monday, March 14, 2005

COMING SOON....

...to a blogosphere near you.

Pumping Pixels

Getting tired of that tired looking blogger template? Having problems getting your Movable Type to move? Getting the full court press for trying to play with Wordpress?

We are Hanz and Franz and we are guaranteed to pump your blog up!

Have you noticed the lack of testosterone in blog design? Tired of blog designers that make you look like a girlie man? Are you a girlie man that want's to fake it?

We are here to help bring some muscle back to blog design. The bloginators are coming to restore your symmetry.


Come get your blog deeezigned or we will pop your neck like a cheeken' bone...pop.

[Steroids not included. Llamas on request.]
[We can do kickin' blogs for girls as well!]

Blogger News is getting old...

...well okay, Blogger News has just turned one month old. There is a call out for centrist and left minded bloggers to counteract people like me.

They're also looking for someone to design a cool banner and several buttons. I already have a few buttons on the way. I still need to work on a few banners, but the contest is open to all of the BNN members.

If you think you have what it takes to pontificate as good as a windbag like me go ahead and sign up. At last count there were 77 writers and growing. I think I may need to invite Orcinus if he hasn't already been invited. I've heard he's a good solid lefty.