I turned 35 today. That’s the minimum age to run for the office of the President of the United States of America. So, I’m in. Let’s do this. Just one problem, my fellow Americans. It costs a lot of money to run for President. So, to help America, I must first ask you to help me.

r3v for president.
Let’s stir some shit up, America.

PS: Thanks to my wonderful Annette for a fabulous night full of stuff they don’t let you do once you become President. ;) (We celebrated a night early to avoid the paparazzi.)

Thinkprogress.org, a blog hailing from the far left of the spectrum, has a lovely video clip of Ann Coulter commenting on John Edwards. Now, while Thinkprogress has a noticable bias and/or agenda, they can’t spin actual video and there’s no amount of missing context that would make this ok.

She calls Edwards a “faggot” while speaking to the “American Conservative Union”. The audience gasps a tiny bit in that quaint “oh no she di’n't” kinda way, and then fucking applauds. Of course, I think the only surprising part about that is that they didn’t stand up and shout Seig Heil.

Yeah, that was a not-so-thinly veiled nazi reference. (If this were Usenet, you could invoke Godwin’s Law, I suppose. Good thing it isn’t.) So, let me take a second to say that I don’t think the ACU are actually Nazis or even facists. (Ok, maybe facists.) More to the point, I think everyone who applauded her comments are a bunch of fucktards. And that’s not hyperbole, dear friends.

Ann Coulter is a fucking loudmouthed bitch who should be assaulting people with perfume spritzes at Macy’s not publicly commenting on, well, anything relevant. She’s the skinny, blonde, female version of Rush Limbaugh, so she’s essentially a big, fat, blowhard that doesn’t look like one. The world would be better off if we took her, Rush, Michael Moore and Al Franken and turned them into soylent green.

I’m sure her book sales have just had a little spike upwards.

FOAD, Ann. How’s that for ad hominem, you whore for the Republican party?

Via Smittie’s Ramblings:

An Iraqi Mayor Thanks the 3rd ACR: I didn’t see this in the mainstream media. This is a letter from the mayor of Tall ‘Afar, Ninewa, Iraq, thanking the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment for liberating his town from the control of Abu Mousab Al Zarqawi.

<snip>

Smittie, my friend who owns that blog, goes on to explain that he got to know some of the 3rd ACR while he was in Kuwait. (I cut the blog post there, because after that he gets into the Kerry fuckup and it’s a downer way to end an uplifting post. I only mention it to explain my partial quoting.) The letter from the Mayor is a very cool read and reinforces the fact that very few of the good news stories make it to the major media. (It makes me curious why the right wing new agencies don’t take these news stories and run with them. The media is so fucked up they can barely support their own bias, I guess.)

I don’t like us being in Iraq, but there is good that has come from it and I think it’s important to recognize that. I think it’s also important to think about what might happen to the good Mayor Najim Abdullah Abid Al-Jibouri and his town of Tall’Afar if we were to “cut & run” early. Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t want to go and I want out… but you have to get out the responsible way. Two wrongs and all that jazz, capiche?

I don’t know if I’ll ever get there, but every day I feel like I’m being edged toward Libertarianism by a combination of my own underlying philosophies and the disgust I feel as both the left and the right seek to infringe on our freedoms.

Via NBC11 a couple of weeks ago:

NBC11.com - News - State’s Same-Sex Marriage Ban Upheld: SAN FRANCISCO — A state appeals court ruled Thursday that California’s ban on gay marriage does not violate the constitutional rights of gays and lesbians, dealing a critical defeat to a movement hungry for a win after high courts in New York and Washington upheld similar bans in those states.

You’d think that California and New York, two of the most liberal states in the Union, could manage to not ban gay marriage.

Polls state that over half of Americans are against Gay Marriage. I don’t fucking get you people.

I know I have some friends and family that will think this is a good thing.

Via nbc11.com:

NBC11.com - News - Gov. Signs Bill On Cell Phone Use While Driving: Simitian, who has been working on the legislation for five years, said the bill “is a common-sense measure which will make our roads safer and save lives.”

<snip>

Simitian [the democrat state senator responsible for the bill -r3v], who has been working on the legislation for five years, said the bill “is a common-sense measure which will make our roads safer and save lives.”

I know it’s annoying, seeing bad (i.e. inattentive) drivers on their cell phones, yapping away when they should be paying attention to the road. I hate ‘em too. Almost as much as I hate the idea of this law.

Legislation of “common-sense” is the kind of thing that really irritates me. It’s just another little piece of freedom chipped away and more bloat added to an already too large government. The government doesn’t do anything well, so continually expanding their responsibilities is not something that should be done lightly. Especially legislating something they nothing about, like common-sense.

Additionally, and entirely secondary, it’s insulting. Same with the helmet and seat-belt laws. Frankly, I don’t care how many lives, if any, those laws have saved. I don’t believe it’s the government’s job to protect us from ourselves. Then again, I’m also for the legalization of drugs, prostitution and the right to die. So, what do I know?

Some will argue that those laws are for financial reasons. To prevent uninsured people ending up being fixed on the taxpayer’s dime, etc. That’s a problem with the health and insurance systems though. Fix those foundations, rather than adding on to an already shaky structure on top of them.

From the NYTimes (reg required, or bugmenot), via Digg:

WASHINGTON, June 27 — The Senate today fell one vote short of approving a constitutional amendment that would have enabled Congress to ban desecration of the American flag.

The vote was 66 to 34. To pass, the measure needed 67 votes.

read more‘|’digg story

One vote. That’s too fucking close. There are 66 Senators who either don’t get freedom of speech or don’t care about it. Additionally, I don’t think they understand patriotism either.

The whole thing reeks of a political land grab and it’s disgusting.

I’ve voted for Senator Feinstein several times now. That may be ending soon.

Via Boing Boing:

Diane Feinstein constituents - say no to banning MP3 streaming!: Cory Doctorow:
A Pledgebank campaign is looking for constituents of California Senator Diane Feinstein to sign on to vote against her if she keeps on supporting the PERFORM act, which will ban MP3 streaming and mandate DRM for Internet audio.

Link

(Thanks, Bri!)

I encourage you to go read what the EFF has to say about this. I’ve also read what Senator Feinstein has said on her own page. After doing a little more research, I can say with the utmost confidence that I am definitely against the PERFORM act and I think it’s a bad idea. I’ve signed the pledge publicly stating so, even though I don’t expect the pledge to do much directly. What I do hope, however, is that it generates more awareness regarding the issue.

According to this Time article, the White House has nixed four (out of twenty four) industry representatives that were going to attend the Inter-American Telecommunication Commission to discuss telecommunications standards and regulations because they supported Kerry in the 2004 Presidential elections.

“We wanted people who would represent the Administration positively, and–call us nutty–it seemed like those who wanted to kick this Administration out of town last November would have some difficulty doing that,” says White House spokesman Trent Duffy.

Uh, they’re industry representatives, not political representatives. If you need someone to represent the government, you send someone from the government. And besides, if they were supposed to be representing the White House, I don’t think the names would have been picked by the State Department.

We’re not talking about Joe Schmoe from some little company you’ve never heard of either. At least two of them were representatives from Nokia and Qualcomm. Yeah, you’ve heard of them, right? I’m no expert, but I think they’re fairly big players in the telecommunications industry.

Why this international telecommunications summit has been turned into some sort of partisan thing is strange to me. What’s the point? I thought President Bush was supposed to be a “uniter, not a divider“. Ok, you’re right… I never thought that. That’s just what he said.

4 more years of the Bush administration. I haven’t the words…

I’m happy to be living in a blue state, but on the other hand, Canada 2.0 sounds like a reasonable idea to me.

Being a staunch moderate, people closer to either end of the political spectrum are often confused about where I stand. Now, generally I just chalk this up to both the left and right being stupid, but I do understand how it might be confusing to some folk. That’s why I’ve decided to make it a little clearer….

I’m pro-choice, pro-gun, pro-euthenasia, pro-capital punishment…

That’s right. I’m looking to join the pro-death party.