I wrote this to some friends who are conservatives and are supporting Bush….

One thing people are confused about this next election is that it’s perceived to be about liberalism vs. conservativism. It is not. It’s about a progressive view of government vs. neo-conservatives. My thesis in this post, Bush is NOT conservative.

Traditional conservatives espouse 3 things (as a recent add in the NYT from 20+ GOP officials/governors).
1) Fiscal Responsibilty:
It seems that the last 12 years has born this out: The Democratic party is dedicated to fiscal reponsibility (dem pres. surpluses vs. republican pres. deficits). No one can refute this. It seems our country works best with a conservative house, moderate senate, and progessive president.

If you are an avowed conservative: has the Bush administration delivered? A 500 billion dollar YEARLY deficit is anything but that: the tax cut has not created one job (as there is still a deficit of 1 million jobs) and if the tax code wasn’t touched, (even with 9/11, economic downturn, and that horrible strategic error called Iraq) the deficit MIGHT have been kept under 50 billion and that’s being generous. No president has ever espoused a tax cut during a time of “war,” and any red blooded conservative should be pissed off. This is ESPECIALLY egregious because Republicans control both houses in Congress (i.e. the purse strings).

2) Conservation:
All Republicans from Theodore Roosevelt to that cold blooded bastard Nixon were still environmentalists (Reagan’s and Bush I’s legacy is a milquetoast on this) and have been rather progressive in this regard. They realized the importance of having a healthy environment by signing into law such things as the National Park Service (TR) and the Clean Water Act (Nixon). In this regard, a traditional conservative believes in conservation. As the Bush administration has clearly shown is that they have no regard for the environment and science in general. By using oil company “research” on greenhouse gases to halting higher standards of mercury emissions from power plants to the Orwellian named “Healthy Forests Initiative” (which will actually be used to cut down old growth trees and in fact destroy vast tracts of wilderness in order to “save it”). This administration is not conservative in that regard. Any red blooded conservative should be pissed off.

3) Small Government:
This seems to be the bread and butter of the conservative mantra (which is intrinsically linked to fiscal responsibility). Under Bush II, government spending has gone up. It even went up under Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton (but Clinton was progressive and not conservative). The number of people employed by the federal government has gone up. A true conservative believes in shrinking the government in all regards. There are three forms of this: a) Letigously shrinking government: like keeping the Bill of Rights/Constit. simple, upholding civil rights like privacy/search and seizure, and keeping regulations at a minimum. b) keeping beaurocracy small and non-invasive c) financial responsibility from a smaller government thereby lowering the tax burden. All of these things are perfectly legimate political ideas and true conservatives have espoused these ideas (I don’t necessarily disagree with this). Unfortunately, the Bush administration has failed in this regard too. By passing the Patriot Act in the middle of the night on a Friday, the administration has invaded our privacy by making it legal to track our library/bookstoore habits. This administration has suspended the writ of habeus corpus for Americans, like Jose Padilla, by calling them “enemy combatants.” (Certainly, these Americans are shady characters, but they are still U.S. citizens who deserve rights: if you want to call them traitor, then look in the Constitution because even traitors have rights Article III, sec. 3). And don’t get me started on prison abuse….

Whether you’re a Republican or Democrat, the idea of “big government” is a misnomer. Republicans believe in “small government” when it comes to social programs, but when it comes to the military, Republicans certainly believe in “Big Government.” Democrats believe in the power of federal social programs and especially during the post-Cold War, a smaller military. Neither *political party* believes in small government. Personally, I don’t know how a bigger military could have prevented 9/11. With strong allies around the world, why have a big military? With a healthy intelligence community (an egregious oversight of both Bush I and Clinton: after the Cold War, intelligence spending went down because many didn’t realize the new threat) why do we need a big military to fight terrorism when when it’s boundaryless? Terrorism’s problem is universal, but our adminstration, for some reason, thinks it’s our sole burden and is unwilling to work with other countries. Why? They don’t realize (and neither does Mark) that our country doesn’t need to convince the ultra-extremists that we’re O.K., our country needs to reach out to those who *might* sympathize with the extremists. These normal people who live in the Middle East have no reason to believe EITHER SIDE and they want change but don’t know who to trust. Well, Bush II gave them a reason to align with the extremists because of Iraq. Why should Joe Arab believe us when we invaded a country without SOUND PROOF. We gave them no reason to believe us! Attacking an oil rich country is EXACTLY what Bin Laden wanted (btw, where is he?), and those moderates are more in Bin Laden’s camp. That’s an utter failure.

One other misconception is that taxes will go up under Kerry and/or that your taxes will go down with Bush. Wrong. For us in the middle class, there are other taxes that we carry an undue burden. When you go to pay the taxes on your car,house, or food, that’s a state and local tax. In fact, state and local taxes have gone UP because the federal government can no longer send money to municipalities for stuff like police officers, firemen, and education: the states/cities have to make up for this lost revenue or cut services. Why? See conservative principal #1 and how there is now no fiscal responsibility!! In fact, the tax burden (as a percentage of total federal income taxes paid) of the middle class has expanded under Bush!

Lastly, the media is NOT liberal (usually this refers to broadcast media). Republicans have been crying about this for the last two decades. It’s a simple method used by coaches in sports: it’s called working the ref. They yell and yell and insult until the ref/media cowers. Look at any of the broadcast media: they’re owned buy huge coorporate interests!! Huge coorporate interests that overwhelming donate to the Republican party (opensecrets.org)! Look how GE, Westinghouse, and News Inc donate to the Republicans. Look at the coorporations that ADVERTISE on the networks: they overwhelming donate to the Republican party. There are only three categories that donate overwhelmingly to Democrats: Labor, Lawyers, and Entertainment. I hate to burst your bubble, but Entertainment, does NOT include GE and Westinghouse and certainly does NOT include the newsrooms (plus, look at some of the news orgs inside the Entertainment subsection: they give about 50-50 to the parties with Fox News…well you know how they lean). Here is the most profound thing you’ll hear from this paragraph: THE NEWS MEDIA IS NOT LIBERALLY BIASED, BUT PROFIT BIASED (thanks Al). They will report anything that will turn a profit (and not report if it will hurt the bottomline). What other proof do I have? CNN/FOX, et al, did not question our war in Iraq!! Where was this so-called liberal media when they never really questioned the motives and most importantly, THE EVIDENCE of Iraqi connections to Bin Laden and WMD?!?! I don’t want to toot my own horn, but before the war began: I REALIZED THAT IRAQI WMD AND AL-QUAEDA CONNECTIONS WERE A RED HERRING!! Look at my website: click on the “Journal Link” then go down to the March 12/13, 2003. If you had been reading international news in addition to blogs and the Knight-Ridder news service (Reuters, AP, and the Rev. Moon owned UPI also failed to report this stuff), you would have realized that there was no nuclear program, that there were no connections to Al-Qaeda, and that if there were bio/chem weapons in Iraq, why didn’t he use them against us in the last 13 years? WHY DIDN”T THEY ASK HARD QUESTIONS AND GIVE THESE PITIFUL REASONS FOR WAR ANY SCRUTINY? The thing is: They didn’t!!! How dare you accuse the media of being liberal when they utterly failed to do their job and became a mouthpiece of the administration.

I will say this: I have respect for the traditional conservative political philosophy because it’s well developed and cohesive (I disagree with some of its tenets, but that’s…just politics), BUT I GIVE NO QUARTER TO THOSE WHO SUPPORT NEO-CONSERVATIVES. People who support this president and its administration are intellectually lazy or are voting for Bush out of personal gain. I don’t know who you are voting for or if you’re voting: just remember George Bush is NOT a conservative. If you want an alternate view, and in my opinion, a more comprehensive vision of our future, go to johnkerry.com and look up his views. Also, listen to the media with a better understanding of their motive, and take Republican/Democrat smears with a grain of salt. However, I categorically say that those who vote for Bush are WRONG !!! A traditional conservative SHOULD NOT support this administration. Thank you. Maybe next time, I will tell you why voting for Kerry is RIGHT for a conservative..

So, am I suffering from writers block or have I developed some aversion to updating my website? Don’t quite know.
I know I’m very upset with the current state of America (that’s no shock there). I’m pissed off at the administration, I’m pissed of at the so-called “liberal media,” and I’m pissed at people who are continually suckered by the previous two. Everyday I’m outraged and everyday I want to write about it, but I don’t express it here due to the repetitive nature my posts would take.
I cancelled my newspaper subscription today. I used to be an avid newspaper reader, but it’s not interesting to me anymore. It glosses over the real problems both at home and abroad on top of the fact that it’s always a day late: I get my news online now and analysis follows about 10 minutes after the news breaks. The only reason I kept my subscription was the comics. It’s the only part I read daily as it was an effortless compilation of daily humor.
What do I do? I read blogs like Daily Kos, Talking Points Memo, and Wonkette (the last being a funny political/social gossip page). I also still read Salon and the news wires on Yahoo. Through these, I can follow links to articles and documents that provide a much sharper view of events than broadcast and dead tree news can provide (also see my January 21, 2004 entry about this subject).
Well, that’s all I have for now, and I’ll give everyone an update on my life next time around (unfortunately, not much is happening!)

Hey, and welcome back to my rarely updated website! Whoo hoo! Not much is going on…my Aunt and Uncle from Maryland are visiting! I haven’t seen them yet as they’re staying at Mom’s, but they’ll be headed my way soon and I’ll be going out to see them too! Also, the weather has been great and I’ve been out rollerblading. I’ve also had the opportunity to air out my apartment and here’s a little formula: (1.bachelor + 9.closed_windows + bachelor_cleaning_habits + many_Del_Taco_runs) x 160 days = FUNK! Yup, it takes a real man to admit it, but it’s time for spring cleaning–I just need to find someone to do it for me…ok, I’ll do it!
Now on to serious stuff: Did you watch bush’s press conference last night!? First observation: WHERE IS HELEN THOMAS? If you don’t know who she is, she’s the most senior member of the White House Press Corp who has covered all presidents since JFK, and as a courtesy, the first question goes to her. Since I didn’t see her and given that bush’s press conferences are as rare as a full beer in Pat Sumerall’s refrigerator (get better Pat! I hope your new liver works out!), I thought she had passed away. After a little research at www.dead-or-alive.org, I was shocked that she was still alive! Where is she? Apparently she’s been asking too many tough questions and the White House moved her to a less prominent seat: namely, not in the first 10ish rows (don’t know her exact location, but traditionally, she sat front row in the closest seat to the aisle). Why is the hard hitting Helen Thomas put in the back of the bus? Let bush speak for himself when he couldn’t answer a question asking to name a mistake he has made since 9/11:

I wish you’d have given me this written question ahead of time so I could plan for it. John, I’m sure historians will look back and say, gosh, he could’ve done it better this way or that way. You know, I just — I’m sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference, with all the pressure of trying to come up with answer, but it hadn’t yet.

And ending his response…

I’m confident I have [made mistakes], but you put me on the spot and I’m not quick enough on my feet to come up with one.

THIS MAN IS OUR PRESIDENT? I’m embarrassed! Why? It wasn’t a press conference! It was a horrible audition for a high school play! Reporters had submitted questions to him BEFOREHAND and he wasn’t able to answer those in a coherent fashion! It was obvious that he was following a script of talking points!!! And several reporters had the audacity to ask unscripted questions *gasp*!! And it wasn’t only that question. He refused to take any accountability for 9/11 and the failings in Iraq! Any rational person can believe that he is not responsible for 9/11, but it happened on his watch and at least he could say like any good leader, “The buck stops here!” .sigh.
My two favorite questions (paraphrased) were “Why do you have to appear with VP cheney before the 9/11 commission (when Bill Clinton and Al Gore appeared seperately)?” His response (not paraphrased), “Because it’s a good chance for both of us to answer questions that the 9-11 commission is looking forward to asking us. And I’m looking forward to answering them. Let’s see. Hold on for a minute. Let’s see. Oh, Jim [ergo: he moved on to the next question].” No shit Sherlock! If you’re in the same room, both of you will be able to answer the questions. But why does cheney need to hold your hand? He couldn’t answer it! Bush is uninformed about his own administration! Did you see him look down at his crib notes?! (I’ll give him crib notes for remembering reporter’s name, but he looked down during answers!).
The last question was asked by some dude from NPR (paraphrased), “Since these press conferences are so rare, do you think you’ve failed as a communicator?” His response (paraphrased), “er uh…uh…er..uh..er I don’t know. I mean…” Pathetic. Pathetic. Remember folks: Don’t Drink and Vote! You might vote for bush!

Congrats are in order for my oldest sister, Beth, and my brother-in-law, Josh: Megan Elizabeth was born late Monday night on March 15th! She was six pounds and five ounces! I’m an uncle for the third time!!
Click here and and here for pictures! What a little cutie!!
I would have a slick page for the pictures, but right now, I’m having a hard time getting my html editing software working and I don’t really feel like coding at this moment.
And speaking of pictures…I have pictures from the FIRST competition too. I was head ref! Click here and here to see me in action. Click here to see the arena from high above. The whole event was very rewarding and with all of the running I did, exhausting!
Oh, it may say, “Thursday,” above, but it’s actually 11pm Wednesday. That means: It’s still St. Patrick’s Day! Since I took the day off, here’s some pictures of the Dogtown St. Patrick’s Day Parade! It’s Elvis O’Presley! Lots of people showed up on this overcast day!

Update 3/24/04: I am too outraged (at Bush and co) by Richard Clarke’s, the former Counter-Terrorism head, 9/11 Commission testimony that I honestly don’t know where to start (or care to spellcheck!). I picked up his book, “Against All Enemies,” and the first chapter was gripping!! It detailed how, as crisis manager in the White House (which was evacuated except for crisis management staff), he was able to manage governmental continuity during the emergency. You won’t find a person who will disparage this account (on the right or left). He acted bravely and admirally. But now that he’s been critical of Bush’s “Iraqification of 9/11,” the administration wasted no time in attacking a fellow Republican who served Ronald Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton! Clarke is dumbfounded as to why Bush is running on the war on terror’s execution because Bush botched it by going after Iraq! Bush and the Republicans are shameless!
Here’s the quote of the day by Mr. Clarke:

“Your government failed you. Those entrusted with protecting you failed you. I failed you. We tried hard, but we failed you…I ask for your understanding, and your forgiveness.”

Clarke is the first Bush administration official, past and present, to publicly apologize for 9/11: he holds himself accountable! He is a class act and deserves our respect. I recommend either reading his book, go to C-Span to view his testimony (or read the transcript), or go to NPR.org to listen to his interview earlier today.

*Note: All the picture links in this post were pointing to a local file…I need to fix this, eventually.  Kooz April 5, 2008

What an exciting day! I’m head referee for the FIRST Robotics, St. Louis Regional competition! It’s a competition where high schoolers design then build a real robot and they play a game that changes every year (but is played on a field of similar dimensions). If you have a chance, check out The FIRST website and the St. Louis FIRST website! It’s a terrific organization!

In other news, I wish I could listen to Al Franken’s new radio show which will start to air at the end of March. It’ll be called “The O’Franken Factor!” Ha!!! From a story today at Salon.com (3/12/04, Geraldine Sealy): “Bill, I want you to sue us,” Franken said, referring to a case last year in which a judge threw out Fox’s request to ban Franken from using the slogan “Fair and Balanced” on the cover of his book, “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right.” The ruling earned tons of publicity for Franken, who said Wednesday: “We’re going to be baiting (O’Reilly) as much as we can.”

God Bless Al Franken!

Not much new to report! Everything is going well. My computer is running well! The problem was the motherboard…the motherboard I got now is very cool, and I’m happy I went with it! (It’s an Asus!). However, I won’t have DSL for a while, and unless I’m at work (which I am now–it’s 7pm!), I’ll be cut off from the digital world. But don’t worry: I have the newspaper and some cool off-line (aka. “normal”) games to keep me occupied.

Oh, did I mention how much I respect our president? Good, because I don’t. I find it sickening that our president will take an issue like gay marriage and try to score political points by amending our Constitution! Not only am I for equal rights for two consenting adults who love each other and want to have a lifetime monogamous commitment, but I’m against the legalization of discrimination. Why? “Gay Marriage” is a misnomer! There is no such thing as gay marriage because as I stated, marriage is the union of two people committed to a lifetime loving relationship. Now what despoils the institution of marriage more? Two committed homosexuals or any drunk moron getting married by a fat Elvis impersonator on a moments notice? What despoils marriage more: two committed women who want visitation rights when one gets ill or that the divorce rate is hovering at 50% (and that the divorce rate is higher in the Bible Belt!). I think it’s hypocritical of conservatives and the Religious Right to bemoan the largess and intrusiveness of government into our private lives and support this amendment at the same time.
If you like irreverent satire, I recommend this: Proposed Amendments based on Biblical verses. Now the Good Book shouldn’t be mocked (a good kind hearted ribbing is ok), but at the same time, so called conservative Christians should take their “literal interpretation in moderation” (an oxymoron?): if they want marriage defined on Biblical standards, then it should be all or nothing. The “this is how marriage has been for the last millenia” is misleading. Marriage has been defined differently by different people during different eras (even modern eras!).

Well, Wesley Clark is out of the race. It’s very disappointing to me seeing how I was an early supporter who started the Draft Movement’s St. Louis chapter. Wes is a great man who deserves better, but in these times of political turmoil, people felt more comfortable with established political figures like Kerry and Edwards. Surprisingly, I’m fine with that assessment and I’ll support either candidate!
What lessons did I learn? Politics is tricky business: it’s one part salesmanship, one part organization, one part loyalty/dedication, and all bullshit. Ha! Actually, b.s. should be “one part magic” but everyone knows there’s a lot of b.s. in politics.
I’ve gained valuable contacts in political circles, and I’ve learned a bit about myself: I could be a bit more organized. Usually, I employ the “oh, I’ll remember I put it there” style–others call it “active brain organizing.” Whatever it’s called, I’ll be aware of my cognitive hierarchies from now on. Also, I’m a lot shyer than I thought when it comes to one-on-one interactions–maybe I need to stop using terms like cognitive hierarchies. ha! But, put me in front of a group, and I’m as snug as a bug. I thought I was only shy with beautiful women–which, btw, I still am. However, lately, I’ve been getting over this shyness, and I’m having a much better time!
Computer Update Nothing new. It’s still not working even though I tried some new troubleshooting tricks…time to return some stuff. :[

I hope everyone enjoyed my last post. I thought having a hand-written blog would be innovative…but then reality hit. I have piss poor handwriting (and keep in mind all the bandwidth an archive of handwritten posts would require, not to mention the load times). Don’t worry…it might make another cameo!
Work is going well! And if you read my last post, the upgrade bug bit me in the ass–sorry Mom, er, posterior. I got a p4 2.8ghz processor with 1gb of RAM. I haven’t installed it yet because I haven’t received the shipment of RAM. I’m giddy like little kid before Christmas morning!
I also went shopping the other day for a pair of shoes only to leave the store with three pairs and a cashmere sweater. I’m not a clothes horse, but I really needed shoes and well…I’ve never owned a cashmere sweater before (it was 65% off!). I wore the sweater and the shoes on my date last night. Personally, the clothes are very unimportant–what was important was that my date was very cool and tons of fun…even though after dinner, I thought I was going to a karoake bar. But it turned out that the bar, Baileys (may it rest in peace) had turned into the South Side’s Chimichanga Hut (or something like that). Ooops! My bad! I also have to say that I love how icy it is in St. Louis! And I’ll leave it at that…
Update: 1/10/03 [SIC 4/5/08] As the philosopher, Murphy Lee, begins his paean, “What da hook gonna be?” he posits this tidbit: “What goes up, must come down” Last night I came down, my giddy inner-child turned into a miffed, butt-crack flashing plumber as I leaned over my disabled computer trying to figure out why my upgraded computer wouldn’t boot (for you techies, I’m getting the dreaded beep codes, aka: “Baby Talk”). Sigh…I’ll probably have to go through the return merchandise rigamaroo. But seriously, I’m not getting too worked up about this…it happens and it’s no big deal (especially in lieu of other folk’s problems).

Jeebus, several things are rattling in my head right now. Should I start out with something funny or something boring but stimulating?

Funny it is: I have a new word (some might call it a “meme,” I also nominate, “meme” as one of 2004′s buzzwords, but my new word needs to catch on before it gets the “meme” buzzword…er…moniker). It came about when I was helping a kid program and test his Lego Mindstorm robots. The kid wanted to know how they were manufactured. Coming from a 9 year old kid, that’s an impressive question. Unfortunately (but fortunate for me), he pronounced it, “Manufunkured (Man-U-FUNK-churd)!” And then that disco ball in my head lit up and I said, “Manufunkured?! That has got to be the coolest word I’ve heard all week!” So what does manufunkured mean?
Manufunkured: verb. rooted in the old P Funk English: 1. to make funk and funky thangs for the masses. 2. adj. something so steeped in funk, making the object required deep rooted funk.
Remind me to start a personal dictionary link on this page…I’ll use it in a sentence. My modified computer case, a summertime project of mine, will have a disco ball, dance floor, laser lights, and a smoke machine. It’ll say, “DPU: Disco Processing Unit. Manufunkured by Kooz!”

Now it’s time for the serious thoughts: I’m worried about the level of discourse in our nation right now (this coming from a guy who wants people to say, “manufunkured!). Is it that our ability to make informed and rational decisions is being gutted by the sheer quantity of information in cyberspace? What has happened to our epistemological conscience? With the internet, the validity of someone’s claim/assertion becomes problematic: especially if that person used internet based sources. On the surface, an argument may contain logical coherence, but the underlying sources, derived from the internet, usually cascade into a messy pool upon further examination. Since most online discussions have links to any source material, the internet was supposed to have made verification easier: but it hasn’t. Two reasons: a) interface. Look at the conservative Drudge Report website. It’s a bloody mess! So much crap is thrown at you, it obfuscates certain news items while blasting you with others. I’ve been to websites that are so chock full of links and didn’t take the time to organize their information, that it’s frustrating. b) Who has the time? None of us have the time to do background research, and sadly, the professional journalists/pundits don’t have the time either. And I think the latter is my real beef. Case in point. People have been attacking Wes Clark’s September 2002 Congressional testimony concerning a (at the time) possible Iraq war. On Drudge and several other sites (like powerlineblog.com), they cited his testimony as proof he supported the war on Iraq. I was shocked, and so I read the whole damn thing. I can’t fathom how they thought that he wanted this war with Iraq! He said, “use force as a last resort” [to paraphrase] multiple times and continually argued with Republicans that the U.N. and inspections were the way to go. But my point here, is that I wasted a lot of freakin’ time to validate this story and I shouldn’t have (ironically, I included the link)! Arrggh! And what’s sad, people will believe these people! Now I’m getting upset and it’s late…well, the moral of the story is: read anything that claims to be the truth with a wary eye. You never know: it could be totally mismanufunkured!