Libertarian

I found a new political quiz called the World's Smallest Political Quiz. As its name implies, its small. Its only ten easy and straight forward questions. So much simpler than the six-page, sixty-one question Political Compass test that has questions that you have to Google to understand.



Tags: Libertarian & Politics

Hannity

I actually like to watch Hannity & Colmes. I like to get a wide variety of opinions and well as I've stated many times -- yelling at the TV can be cathartic after a long day in class.

Although I do typically disagre with every position Hannity has, do not let that interfere with my next point. Everytime Hannity is debating with someone that he does not agree with, he tries to disregard them by telling them they have an agenda.

Sean, are you kidding me? Of course they have an agenda and so do you. Every person in politics has an agenda. That is the sole reason they are in politics. They want to create change for the better. Why would we want people in politics who did not have an agenda. What would they do -- sit on their hands and just agree with you all the time?

So, how is this a) insulting and b) able to disregard their position. It's not, you're just a douchebag and it makes you look foolish. Wait, I take back the douchebag comment. That would put Alex on the same level as Hannity and thats not fair. Alex is worse than him.

Tags: Debate, Hannity, & Politics

Stereo

Apple released a new product for the iPod called the iPod Hi-Fi. Basically, it's speakers and a dock for the iPod. Available for $349, the device has two 80-mm wide range speakers and a 130-mm subwoofer that can supposedly fill the room with sound -- similar to the Herbie Hancock Bose Stereo. It comes with a remote so that you can operate your iPod from around the room and it has the option to be powered by six D-cell batteries so it could be used outside.

(Note: There's a removable grill for the speakers
but I couldn't find a picture.)
Overall, I think it's a pretty slick new product but it has a few glaring missing features. First off, it doesn't have audio out ports. I'm positive that I'm not the only one that would like the option to plug the dock into a home-theater system. A 5.1 system would have a vastly superior sound. Secondly, it has no video output for your television. Newer iPods have photo and even video functionality now. Why not add the ability to view them on your TV? You can already do this with a cable hooked up the iPod, but that would require removing it from the iPod Hi-Fi. More importantly, if I want to use the remote to operate the iPod, I'd like to be able to see what I'm selecting. An output to the TV would allow you to do so.

In conclusion, it's a nice product -- especially for using outside on the patio, but I wouldn't consider it without the features I outlined.

Tags: Apple, iPod, Music, Technology

Statistics

Just a sample of statistics from the blog over the past thirty days. I wonder how many of the Internet Explorer hits were actually Firefox with Internet Explorer cloaking turned on. Additionally, my statistics engine didn't register certain people that I know check the site. I wonder how many people cloak their IP address.




Tags: Blogs, Internet, & Stats

Taxes

Apparently H&R Block screwed up their own taxes and has been reported to owe $32 million in back taxes. They should have just used TurboTax. It's guaranteed to be 100% accurate.

Tags: H&R Block, Taxes

Anonymous

I think its a safe assumption that people who read my blog know who Alex, the anonymous douchebag, is. In case you don't, I'll give you a quick recap.

Alex the anonymous douchebag went to Penn State. We met during the summer of 2001 when he was in a class of mine and started to date my friend, Colleen. Since the end of that summer, he's held a ridiculous grudge against me. Now, five years later, he still hates me and spends a lot of his time posting on my blog about how much I suck. Here's a brief list of why he hates me:

• A friend of mine dumped him
• I made fun of him because he claimed to fall in love with this friend after only two weeks
• He assumed she dumped him for me
• I urged my friend to get a restraining order against him because he started to stalk her
• I'm better looking than he is
• I don't live in Ohio
• I have friends
• I let a friend of his give me a blowjob in Lot 80

So, as I said, he spends a lot of his time posting irrelevant comments on my blog in an attempt to piss me off.

Recently he's been employing a clever new trick. He's been posting on other blogs under my identity to make me look bad. On one blog, he wrote "I hope you fall on the motorcycle going 60" and on another he wrote "I think that everyone born should be sex slaves. I think that you should be my sex slave as well and bend over and take it nice and hard". Tasteless? Soul-less? Yes, Alex has these qualities and many more.

The process is actually pretty easy. While posting a comment, you select "other" instead of "anonymous." Once selected, you type in the name and website of the identity you want to pose as. It's pretty slick but nonetheless an ethically void trick -- and I'm pretty sure it's illegal to make disparaging remarks while posing as someone else. Character Defamation comes to mind. Libel does too.

In any event, his actions have made me question my decisions on comment moderation and restriction. Should I moderate his irrelevant comments? No, I've decided to be the bigger man and let his word speak to his character. I respect free speech even when its hateful. Should I restrict comments to registered users? No, he would just create a profile called davesucks and use that to post. Moreover, many people leave relevant and meaningful comments on my blog and I'd be missing out on those. So, the desired effect does not outweigh negatives. But what do I do about his libel? Well, what can I do? I can't moderate his comments on other blogs. All I can hope to do is educate my friends about what he's doing.

Jealousy and hatred lead some people to do horrible things -- like waste their time trying to disparage others in an attempt to make them feel better about their own shitty life.

Safe

Hero

If I taught elementary school, I would model my class rules after this teacher. Awesome.

Time

I know we've only known each other four weeks and three days, but to me it seems like nine weeks and five days. The first day seemed like a week and the second day seemed like five days. And the third day seemed like a week again and the fourth day seemed like eight days. And the fifth day you went to see your mother and that seemed just like a day, and then you came back and later on the sixth day, in the evening, when we saw each other, that started seeming like two days, so in the evening it seemed like two days spilling over into the next day and that started seeming like four days, so at the end of the sixth day on into the seventh day, it seemed like a total of five days. And the sixth day seemed like a week and a half. I have it written down, but I can show it to you tomorrow if you want to see it.

Barbie

I'm not very religious but I do believe the apocolypse is near. Barbie and Ken's creator, Mattel was interviewed on CBS' The Early Show last week.


Aside from having a condo by the beach and a pink Corvette, she actually has a back story. Supposedly, Barbie broke up with Ken about two years ago for Blaine, a surfer. In order to win her back, Ken has changed and updated his appearance. So, he's arm candy again and now they are back together, just in time for Valentine's Day - stupid superficial bitches.

It's not that I'm amazed that Barbie has a backstory but rather CBS interviewed Mattel on national television to discuss Barbie's backstory. Maybe, this is why I watch PBS and listen to NPR.

Confidence

An eleven page article from the New York Times Magazine by Ron Suskind called "Without A Doubt."

It discusses his life, presidency, faith, and most extensively his complete confidence in his solutions and how his base believes he was delivered by God to lead us to victory.

It's long but interesting.

Rivers

Bob Rivers, a Seattle area DJ and famous producer of parody songs has come out with Cheney's Got a Gun sung to the tune of Aerosmith's Janie's Got a Gun. This time it comes with flash animation. Yes, I know this is in poor taste as well Dad.

Race

So, FX has a new show coming out soon called Black.White. where the take a black and white family and through makeup turn them into the opposite race so that they can experience first hand what the opposite race goes through. It's a great concept that will generate dialogue on the race epidemic that still permeates our society.

But, isn't this just the same concept as the old SNL sketch where Eddie Murphy goes "undercover" as a white man called "White Like Me" ... except not funny?

Bauer

So apparently the recent popularity of Chuck Norris' amazing feats and facts has spun off into websites revealing the little known facts of Jack Bauer, the main character in the show 24. Here's a sample of the Bauer facts:

* When in Jack Bauer's presence, Chuck Norris urinates sitting down.
* Tired of the incessant whining and complaining, Jack Bauer found the dogs and let them right back in.
* Jack Bauer's saliva is bullet-proof.
* After receiving repeated roundhouse kicks to the head from Chuck Norris, Jack Bauer was heard to ask,"Can you go a bit lower? I was crammed in an air conditioning duct between 7:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. and my back is killing me."
* Jack Bauer can eat five times his body weight in terrorists.
* Jack Bauer has the ability to smell sounds.
* Under intense interrogation by Jack Bauer, the fifth dentist cracked and admitted he recommends Trident for his patients who chew gum.
* On Jack Bauer's say-so, the film Gigli would cease sucking.
* Jack Bauer helped U-2 find what they were looking for.
* GI Joe plays with a Jack Bauer action figure.

Aura

Without much doubt, I can say that the upcoming Saturn Aura will be my next car and my second Saturn. I think it's coming out at the end of summer and Saturn just started doing ads for it. I'm getting excited. I really love the look of the car. I think it's much better looking, inside and out, than the Malibu and G6. Only the 9-3 is sharper looking on the exterior but I really don't like the Saab's interior. I know Saab used to make jets and that's great, but I don't want my interior to look like a cockpit.


It's built on the longer wheelbase version of the platform that the Pontiac G6, Chevrolet Malibu, and Saab 9-3 share, so it's a slightly larger car. Two engines will be offered but the one I'm excited about is the 250-hp 3.6 liter DOHC V6 that the Cadillac CTS currently uses. It's a great engine. It will also feature a six-speed automatic transmission, a first by GM in this class. There's a big chance that it will be offered with a six-speed manual -- oh what a dream. I really hate automatics in cars. It's standard procedure to offer a manual with their 4-cylinder engines so if the V6 manual doesn't pan out, I'll probably get the 4-cylinder.


I really like Saturn's market plan. It's going upscale to replace the spot Oldsmobile once had. It's really a great strategy. Saturn has a much better brand image than anything Oldsmobile could revive. As one friend once told me "Saturn is the GM car for people who hate GM" and there's certainly a lot of truth to that (well not in my case though). It's extremely popular in the media and society to hate GM and this is why Saturn's image should succeed where Oldsmobile struggled because there's a large demographic of people that don't even know that Saturn is GM and it isn't viewed as "your father's Oldsmobile."

In any event, I can't wait for it arrive at the dealership in town (btw - Saturn dealerships are reknown for their great experience and service) so I can go out and test drive it.

Square

After discussing the static deflection of a car suspension in my mechanical vibrations class, my professor had this to say:

And now you know the fine details of this stuff. Just don't tell any of your friends because Huey Lewis was wrong. It's not hip to be square. Trust me. This [pointing to himself] is what happens when you're too good at integration. ~ Professor Marsh

Correspondence

Well, after writing the entry on The Professors last night, I decided to email the two Penn State professors on the list to congratulate them for the honor David Horowitz bestowed on them. Here's what I wrote:

Dear Professors,

Congratulations on becoming two of the 101 Most "Dangerous" AKA Liberal professors in the USA. I feel honored to attend an university with a diverse faculty that holds a wide range of view points. The two of you should be honored to be on the list, even though the author does not feel the way I do. Making the list says that the two of you are leading voices in your respective fields and must be eliminated by the conservatives. That says something about your skills and merit. Congratulations.

Sincerely,
[Aventius]

Today, I was very surprised to see that both of them responded. Here's what the first said:

Dear [Aventius],

Many thanks. Truth be told, I think that in order to make that very exclusive list, one has to have (a) served time in a Maoist sect of the late New Left or (b) crossed David Horowitz personally. I think Sam and I fall under (b), just for the record, as do most of the top 101. But we'll do our best to be (cough) dangerous, now that we have reputations to live up to--

Best wishes,
[Professor #1]

And here's the second professors response:

[Aventius].

Ironically, I probably don't even belong on this list of radical professors. I'm not liberal (as I'm a libertarian and probably more conservative than liberal). I'm not anti-American, and students don't seem to think that I impose my thoughts on them. But I do think Horowitz is a nit-wit and so I'm honored to be the kind of prof that he would never be.

Best,
[Professor #2].

Cheney

Lets get this out in the open. Just like the other 98.3498% of hunting accidents, Dick Cheney was most likely intoxicated from alcohol. That's how an experienced outdoorsman like Cheney ended up shooting his friend.

As for the delay in getting the story to the media or even reporting the incident to the local Police -- Cheney had to sober up first. This is why the Secret Service did not allow the Sheriff's Department to question him.

Furthermore, does shooting small birds from a moving vehicle actually constitute hunting? Not in my book. That's more of a drive-by.

Woooooooooo

Professors

Just like Bernard Goldberg before him, another right wing blowhard has written a book listing "dangerous" people, and by dangerous they mean liberal. David Horowitz's new book, The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Acedemics in America, is another far right attack on the far left, except that it's only aimed at professors at American universities this time, and by professors they mean liberal professors.

I saw an interview of him on Hannity & Colmes, my favorite program on television, and by favorite I mean the one I like to yell at the most. The interview was just blah, blah, liberal professors, blah, blah hurting America, blah, blah, poisoning America's youth. Hannity fellated him while Colmes sat by without offering any dissenting argument as usual because that's illegal at Fox News.

After watching the segment, I decided to find out who was on the list. I have reposted it here. Seeing that Penn State had two people on the list made my day. It was nice to see a neoconservative call us out as a haven of liberal ideology but sadly, we were no match for Columbia University (who had nine listed professors).

But why Columbia University? I would have thought Berkeley would have been number one but they only had three "dangerous" professors. Then I read Horowitz's page on Wikipedia and it all became clear. According to the page:

Horowitz went to Columbia University as an undergraduate, later taking a Master's degree in English literature at the University of California, Berkeley. Horowitz became a prominent member of the New Left movement in the United States—a break with the earlier Communist Party USA.

...

As the years went on, however, Horowitz became very disillusioned with some of the tactics of the American Left

...

Horowitz's thinking gradually became more conservative; and today he is regarded as a leading conservative advocate.

Ah, so Horowitz resents how his New York upbringing and his education at Columbia University turned him into a liberal. Makes more sense now.

Further scanning his page, I read about his current political campaign that coincides with this book. It's the "Academic Bill of Rights." The ABoR is an attempt to legislate the hiring process and promotion of academics. Bascially, the movement wants affirmative action for conservatives - funny considering conservatives are against affirmative action.

The movement wants to accurately label each candidate as "liberal" or "conservative" during the interview process and then hire and promote academics solely on their skills and merits. You have me on the skills and merits part but not with the labels. There are more than two ideologies than liberals and conservatives.

I am so sick and tired of this left vs right crap. There are very few people that I know that are hard line followers of a political party. Most of the people I know (perhaps we're an elite bunch) have the intellectual ability to think for themselves and make their own decisions in the realm of politics. So how could academics, an extremely intelligent crowd, be limited to two ideological choices?

The great majority of America is a nice hue of purple rather than a divide of blue and red. The problem is that Americans don't know this. The media continues to depict us as left vs right, blue vs red, city slickers vs rednecks, ann coulter vs al franken, jesus vs mohammed and it is seriously hurting us because the depiction is not a true portrayal. There are never just two sides to an argument let alone in political thinking.

And then there's douchebags like Horowitz who write books that pander to an ideological group to enrage their hate for the other ideological group -- and conservatives are not the only ones to do this. I wish I could draw so that I could depict Horowitz wearing a bomb as a hat.

Conservatives

From a blog I came across.

It used to be the case that in order to be considered a "liberal" or someone "of the Left," one had to actually ascribe to liberal views on the important policy issues of the day – social spending, abortion, the death penalty, affirmative action, immigration, "judicial activism," hate speech laws, gay rights, utopian foreign policies, etc. etc. These days, to be a "liberal," such views are no longer necessary.

Now, in order to be considered a "liberal," only one thing is required – a failure to pledge blind loyalty to George W. Bush. The minute one criticizes him is the minute that one becomes a "liberal," regardless of the ground on which the criticism is based. And the more one criticizes him, by definition, the more "liberal" one is. Whether one is a "liberal" -- or, for that matter, a "conservative" -- is now no longer a function of one’s actual political views, but is a function purely of one’s personal loyalty to George Bush.

~ Glenn Greenwald

Brokeback

My 81 year one grandmother saw Brokeback Mountain the other night -- and loved it. Amazing.

Balls

Apparently, there are men with balls in France. Here's a story about two males joining the muslim cartoon protests advocating free speech. One was wearing a sign advocating the freedom of speech and the other wore the Danish flag. The video is crazy. Immediately after joining the protest march, they were surrounded and yelled at. Luckily, the Police stepped in and pulled these guys out before the mob could lynch them.

But here's the sad part - are there only two guys in all of Europe that have the balls to stand up for the freedom of speech. How come when the KKK holds an event, there are hundreds of demontrators present to counter the argument. Same goes for abortion protests and countless others. So, why haven't there been any pro-speech protests? Are we that scared of them?

Secondly, how can these protestors who are demanding to be respected (and not offended), not respect these two guys who are standing up for what they believe in. Hypocritical? Definitely.

Priceless

This is just awesome. We've all had shitty bosses and this is the best resignation I have ever seen, well except for "Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, you're cool, I'm out" but that was only in a movie.



I found it here.

Annoying

I guess it was only a matter of time before this showed up.

Sunerator

I understand that the vast majority of the people that read my blog have no idea what Sun Microsystems is but I couldn't pass this up. It's a kegerator made out of a large mainframe computer case. I wonder if the temperature is computer controlled.

Menace

He's the most dangerous man in the world and no, it's not Osama bin Laden. Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan is the man behind the nuclear programs in Pakistan, Libya, Iran and North Korea. He continues to sell his nuclear knowledge to every country in the world.

So, why did we go after Saddam when we should have going after this man? Oh right, he doesn't have any oil. The guy is even rumored to have worked al-Queda. Does he have any scuples? Guess not. He scares me more than Lil Kim, Captain Jihad, and 1000 Bullet Man combined because without Dr. Khan, these three wouldn't be as dangerous.

Religion

A comment I had on a blog article.

I'm no religion expert and am not even religious (aside from growing up in the Catholic faith, I would consider myself an Agnostic).

I have a hard time believing that Islam is a violent religion. I simply believe that Islamists can be a violent bunch and by Islamists, I mean fundamentalists. But you know what, I think Christianists are a violent and terrorist bunch too and by Christianist, I mean fundamental Christians.

Islamists react violently and call for beheadings. Christianists, like Pat Robertson has called for the assassination of foreign presidents (Venezuela) and many other verbal acts of terrorism.

Islamists had engaged in terrorism in the name of religion, but so have Christianists. Christianists have bombed abortion clinics in the name of religion. Christianists have killed gays because their religion tells them that it is wrong, but are all Christians Christianists? The answer is a resounding "no."

People may not be protesting the actions of Islamists in their countries but who in their right mind would? In a religion controlled country, it would seem it would be against the law to oppose the Islamists ridiculous opinions.

Furthermore, you didn't see people protesting outside the CBN when Robertson called for the assassination of the Venezuelan president. But I believe that most Christians were against his comments.

Just because people are not protesting does not mean the rest of the country shares their views.

I also blame the media for not searching out and giving exposure to Muslims (not Islamists) who disagree with the Islamists. It is their duty to represent both sides in order for their audience to not get a biased view that all Muslims are Islamists. The have failed to complete their responsibilities to the public discourse.

Lastly, you keep looking to CNN and the BBC to see people coming out in droves against the Islamists, but you're not going to find it. That story is not nearly as exciting as Islamists setting embassies on fire. The only news we ever get from the Middle East is ridiculous events and news related to the America's involvement in securing Iraq's democracy.

Also, Islam may have violent stories and laws laid out in the Koran, but so does Judaism and Christianity. The Old Testament is full of violence and on par with the Koran. So, judging the Koran as violent is turning a blind eye and giving a pass to the Bible. According to this website, the Bible has 837 verses that can be considered cruel or violent, whereas the Koran 331 similar verses. So is the Bible 2.5 times more violent? Nope. Both books contain cruel and violent passages but the vast majority of both religion's followers are good, honest, and compassionate people.

Restraint

Well, a week after I wrote my letter to the editor regarding the comments of Greg Miller, my letter was finally published in the Daily Collegian. The piece was on how the comments of Greg Miller had flawed logic and that saying the Greek system is the lifeline of Penn State is flat out wrong and offensive to non-Greeks.

Notice how even though I found Greg Miller's comments offensive, I had enough restraint to not throw Molotav cocktails and rocks at his fraternity house.

Hypocrisy

This cartoon explicity displays why I have a lack of compassion for the fundamentalist muslims who are so offended.


Andrew Sullivan made a great point on his blog yesterday that I wanted to reprint here:

"Muslim leaders say the cartoons are not just offensive. They're blasphemy--the mother of all offenses. That's because Islam forbids any visual depiction of the Prophet, even benign ones. Should non-Muslims respect this taboo? I see no reason why. You can respect a religion without honoring its taboos. I eat pork, and I'm not an anti-Semite. As a Catholic, I don't expect atheists to genuflect before an altar. If violating a taboo is necessary to illustrate a political point, then the call is an easy one. Freedom means learning to deal with being offended."

Also, does anyone else think that the Muslim in this cartoon looks a lot like John Turturro?

Cartoons

In case anyone wants to see the cartoons that the media won't show us, I found them.

Traitors

Yet another reason to hate Mike Piazza. Michael Joseph Piazza was born on September 4, 1968 in Norristown, PA. This makes him an American citizen and since birth, he has never had any other citizenship. So, why in the name of god is he signed up to play for Team Italy in the upcoming World Baseball Classic? I could be like Sean Hannity and say that he "hates America," but I won't. It's because he's a douche.

PLAY FOR YOUR OWN COUNTRY'S TEAM YOU ASSHOLE!

The list of traitors doesn't end with Piazza. Ronnie Belliard will be playing for the Dominican Republic. Frank Menechino, Frank Catalanotto, and Doug Mirabelli have all signed up to play for Italy. Ben Sheets has enlisted with Team England and Jason Isrignhausen joined the German squad. The list doesn't end here but I will.

Then there's Alex Rodriguez. Alex was born in New York City. His mother is Dominican and his father is American but he refuses to play for either team because he doesn't want to anger one of his parents. That's a load of crap. Grow some balls A-Rod.

I have no problem with foreign players joining the ranks of their native countries. Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz, and Albert Pujols will see no complaints from me for signing up with the Dominican Republic because they were born there.

I only have problems with the douchebags who were born in the United States and have chosen to play elsewhere because ... oh, my ancestors are from there. That's crap. Your ancestors left their countries to come to the United States. Stop disrespecting that and every other American.

You should represent the country you were born in or have your citizenship revoked and be forced to live in the Saskatchewan, where you can live in igloos and get mauled by bears.

Remix

I'm a big fan of movie trailer remixes (Shining, Sleepless in Seattle, West Side Story...). Here's a new one I found called Brokeback to the Future. Enjoy.

Lame

Yet another reason why abstinence should not be taught in schools.

Jell-O

Recently, I've been writing a lot of letters to the editor of The Daily Collegian, Penn State's student newspaper. Well, here's another. Douchebag, Greg Miller, decided to complain about how Fraternities are no longer aloud to use strippers and Jell-O wrestling to attract potential pledges. While, I'm not against strippers and Jell-O wresting, Douchebag made bad arguments and statements that just piss off all non-Greeks. Here's his comment:

Ok, so I can understand the ban on exotic dancers in fraternities, but is there truly a need to put a stop to Jell-O wrestling ("Fraternities OK with dancer ban," Feb. 1)?

I understand Penn State is trying to ruin the greek system, which is the lifeline of this school, but there needs to be some slack on this Interfraternity Council leash. Jell-O wrestling is pure entertainment. Are these girls forced to wrestle around in that green or red slop called Jell-O? No. Does it put down all the women out there? No. Jell-O wrestling is a voluntary act. These women enjoy tossing each other around, getting ready for the fight over a free T-shirt and cheap parting gifts.

So I ask you, why take away Jell-O wrestling? You may think you're attacking the fraternity system, but what you're really doing is depriving these women of a once in a lifetime opportunity here. I for one, feel sorry for them.

Greg Miller
sophomore - finance

Yeah, he's an idiot. Here's my response:

Greg Miller, you make bad arguments and issue statements that make non-Greeks dislike the Greek System ("Ban on Jell-O wrestling ends fun for fraternities," Feb. 3).

First, your arguments are bad. Although I'm against the banning of Jell-O wrestling, your logic is flawed. Jell-O wrestling is pure entertainment, but so is watching strippers. Girls are not forced to participate to wrestle, but strippers are not forced to strip. It's their choice of employment. Also, many people would argue with you about how Jell-O wrestling is degrading to women. Girls may enjoy it, but that doesn't mean it can't be considered degrading. The argument you should have made is that it this policy interferes with your personal freedom and freedom of speech or rather, expression. If the public doesn't like Jell-O wrestling, only the image of the Fraternity is tarnished, not Penn State's.

Second, you stated that "Penn State is trying to ruin the greek system, which is the lifeline of this school." I'm not in the position to debate Penn State's "attempt" to ruin the greek system, but I do wish to discuss your lifeline comment. The Greek system is indeed a part of the overall social fabric but, according to Penn State, only 12% of students are involved in the Greek system. How can 12% of the population be the "lifeline?" I suppose the 88% of us non-Greeks sit at home and do nothing outside of class and contribute nothing to the "lifeline." Thanks for creating a bigger divide between Greeks and GDAs.

UPDATE: I made the Collegian one week later

Panoramic

This is how professionals watch Notre Dame lose. I just got this picture from a friend and had to post it. Props to my brother, Dan, and his roommate, Jerray, for hooking up the big screen and the plasma screen. Oh, and yes that's Yuengling in my hand. I had to personally import it.


From what I hear, they will be having four tvs for the Super Bowl. That's just outrageously overkill. I love it.

Homely

Well, Microsoft has released Internet Explorer 7.0 Beta to the public this week. Although the browser has finally been upgraded to the technical level that Firefox has been for quite some time, it comes to no surprise that its ugly as hell. Microsoft makes decent products but my god do they need lessons in a) intuitive design b) style and c) ways to not make your products convoluted and ugly. Take a look for yourselves or check out their online tour.

Consolidated menus run rampant in the design. I'm sorry but I don't want a sidebar and consolidated menu for my links and favorite sites. I also don't need buttons strewn across the entire screen. Put all the navigation buttons together on the top left side (forward, back, refresh, stop, home, and maybe print). Your tab bar looks like ass, not "clean, clear and streamlined" as the tour states. In fact, the new layout is the complete opposite of clean, clear and streamlined. I'd call it ugly, convoluted, and bloated.

If that isn't the ugliest browser (Opera comes close... so does Camino), then I better call Tom Cruise for some tips on how vitamins and exercise will help my psychiatric problems. IE 7.0 is just continuing the trend that was set by Longhorn and Vista of technically stunning yet visually disgusting interfaces. It's truly a sad state when Linux and open source software have more appealing interfaces. I think I'll just stick with Firefox.

Speech

As most of you know, the State of the Union address was tonight on pretty much every channel. It lasted about forty minutes and was discussed by pundits and political analysts for about four hundred minutes. Anyway, the speech was pretty good. He spoke well and reached out to Democrats many times. Although the best part had to be when President Bush was caught off guard by the Democrats. After chastising Congress for not approving his plan to reform Social Security, the Democrats rose out of the seats and applauded themselves for blocking his proposal. It was priceless regardless of what position you take on the topic. Moving on, I thought that I would reflect on a few of the topics.

President Bush started off the speech by recognizing Coretta Scott King and applauding her efforts in the Civil Rights struggle. I'm sorry but Republicans, especially neo-conservatives applauding people who fight for civil liberties is a bit too much for me to handle. Its like LBGT praising the work of Rick Santorum.

Next, the President discussed the need for civil debates in the world of politics. He asked both parties to come together, to basically stop name-calling and yelling (Yes you Bill O'Reilly) and debate in a civil manner that is respectable and honest. I whole heartedly agree but excuse me if this is a bit hypocritical. The President and Vice President are known for only speaking at conservative venues with attendees throughly sifted to remove people who oppose their viewpoints.

He talked at length about the war in Iraq. He strengthened his position to remain in Iraq until the Generals wished to leave and refused to give a time table. He also glossed over the details that led us to war. Primarily he barely recognized the growing viewpoint that America had been lied to going into the war and that intelligence was either bad or forged. Then he went on to say that "hindsight is not wisdom," in order to defend the reason for staying in Iraq. Now while I agree that we need to remain in Iraq until the country is stable, hindsight does give us insight and wisdom. With hindsight, we able to see what went right and what went wrong and with this information we gain wisdom on what decisions we'll make in the future.

Then the President moved onto the topic of Iran. He stated that Iran was "held hostage by a small clerical league" and that it "must come to an end," but Bush failed to address how he might achieve this goal. He also addressed his stance on Iran's nuclear policy making it clear that "America will continue to rally the world" to stop their nuclear ambitions. Then he addressed the people of Iran (as if they were watching) and told them that they respected Iran and looked forward to a day when Iran had a democracy. Once again, how are proposing to promote democracy within Iran and how are you going to "rally" the world. I like both ideas but I'd like to know what the plans are to achieve this.

Ah and then he discussed the latest scandal of wiretapping. He talked about 9/11 and how "our government failed to connect the dots" because they had not been able to listen in on phone calls from terrorists within the US borders back to Al Qaeda. He outlined how his "Terrorist Surveillance Program" has been defended and supported by Federal courts. He ended the segment strongly stating that "we will not sit back and wait to be attacked again." My position of this wiretapping has been mixed. My previous blog entry pretty much summed up my apathy to this topic because we already have ECHELON. Bush explained how the plan directly targeted known terrorists and that the lists and resulting intelligence has been continually under the review of a select group of Congressmen. I like that there is oversight but what congressmen and is it bi-partisan? I'd prefer to know who had the oversight, because without that knowledge my theories of cronyism and bubble effect run wild.

According to Bush, America has created 4.6 million new jobs and that this number is higher than the European Union and Japan together. Sounds great but what kind of jobs? Are they good paying jobs or just more jobs at the local Walmart and McDonalds that just moved into every city? Jobs at Walmart paying $5.15 an hour, sometimes off the clock, are not good jobs. He then went on to defend his policy of not allowing protectionism. My view was that this was directed at the automotive industry. I took it as saying no to tariffs that the industry has been demanding, in order to compete with the foreign manufacturers. The foreign manufacturers have a tremendous economic advantage because of foreign exchange rates. Bush expressed that to engage in protectionism, it would be a form of economic defeat and that he believed in a free economy and that the American worker will continue to be competitive in this new global market. He said "no one can out compete or out produce the American worker."

Next, he talked about tax cuts. Blah, blah, blah. He thinks he can cut the deficit in half by 2009, blah blah blah. Every policy says this and I never believe it because it never happens.

He talked at length of social security and how by 2030, social security and medicaid (or medicare... not sure) would comprise 60% of the budget, creating an immense deficit. Sounds a little inflated to me but I agree the problem is significant. He outlined his plans to have a commission to study the baby boomer effect. Um... is it just me or does no one ever read these things or do anything they suggest? Most of the key parts of the 9/11 Commission were never enacted. Sounds like something that makes people clap at a speech but never does anything.

He took an odd stance on immigration. Earlier in the speech he mentioned how immigrants were vital to our economy and that it could not function without them. But later he talked about the need for enhanced border protection. I'm not sure if he was talking about Mexicans or Terrorists. Oh well.

He spoke at length about health insurance. For the most part it was the expected rhetoric but one thing stood out. He outlined his desire to have "Portable Health Insurance" that could move from employer to employer. Is this going to be like a 401(k) that I could "roll over" from one job to the next? Thats an interesting option. Would this reduce the load that corporations engage in with health care? Would this take corporations out of the equation? I'd like some more details, but I'm interested. Then he talked about the need to pass the medical liability reform and the camera cut to Senator Frist smiling. Blah.

One of the most important topics for me was his segment on oil. Like every previous year, he outlined the need for alternatives and that we were on the threshold of new advances. I'm sorry, but hydrogen has been on the threshold for about 15 to 20 years. Is it every going to come around? I'm doubtful. He described the need for more "zero-emission" coal plants (zero-emission? uh huh... sure) clean nuclear energy and the expansion of wind and solar energy generation. I like the idea and want to know more about the implementation. I strongly believe in the increase of nuclear power. Its the one of the fews that the French and I agree on. As for cars, he described the need for more research on batteries for hybrid cars (nice buzzword... always generates applause easily) and the generation of ethanol from corn, switchgrass (what is switchgrass), and wood chips. This I agree with. Ethanol is something that would dramatically decrease our need for foreign oil and is much more environmentally friendly. Its reproducible and has less emissions. Then of course, he rededicated more interest in hydrogen... ugh. I want to believe in hydrogen but its just so hard. Now as much as he is truly in bed with the oil companies, I was surprised to hear him say that we need to move beyond a petroleum economy. I hope he meant what he said.

He talked about other topics like education, science research, HIV, and embryonic research but they all pretty much bored me and he didn't bring anything new to the discussion, but he did say that "human life is a gift from out creator" and "should never be put up for sale." Dammit. I really wanted a pet T100 to be my bodyguard. Oh well.

Then after the speech, the Democrats had their response. I can sum up the entire thing in two statements. (1) Blah blah blah bi-partisanship is needed, and (2) Democrats can do better but we have no ideas.

Ok. I'm going to bed now.