unFocus

I’ve created a separate blog for the various technical unFocus Projects (History Keeper, and the Flash Commnication stuff), which you can find here: http://www.unfocus.com/projects/

That is where I’ll be posting all information related to those projects from now on (I may still mention it here on occasion though).

The intention is to keep this blog’s post more on politics, and on social commentary, and to use the other one excusively to the projects and related technical topics, and not much else. I may even make some time to post one of these days.

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How often do you hear people complaining about their rights being taken away? I hear it everywhere I go. Smokers are upset that they cannot smoke in public places, especially bars, and how next they are going to make it illegal to smoke in your own house. Free speech advocates are outraged at “free speech zones” and that the right to speak out against your government is severely limited at the times when it is most needed, during tragedy and war-times.

People all over the country are repeating terms like, “back in my day we could…” and “my father would be rolling in his grave…” and “The government is legislating on every aspect of my life…” But most people only care when they are directly affected, and blindly support other moves to massacre American freedom as it was meant to be by not being outraged EVERY SINGLE TIME.

48 Senators voted to close debate and vote on the amendment, in effect voting for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in the United States. In order to continue on with the process that number needed to be 60, and 67 to actually pass the amendment. Nearly half of our most prestigious elected legislative body voted to strip a portion of our citizenry of the right to proclaim their love for each other and get state and national recognition of that proclamation. Now, you can make an argument that the law should have nothing to do with the love between two people, and I would wholeheartedly agree, but if you make marriage a legally binding contract, than you had better make sure that you ensure, to all parties, a right to enter into that contract.

If you are concerned that marriage is defined as a union of a man and a women you can (1) change the definition (We do it all the time, and if enough people use it Merriam Webster will even update the word in the dictionary if you are really worried about being contextually accurate.) and (2) use a different word to refer to the unions between all people. This will also save you marriage success rate from its current plummet, because if no one is getting “married” they can’t fail!

Bush’s reasoning for his encouragement of the ban is to protect the sanctity of marriage. If you are concerned about the divorce rate then ban legal marriage altogether, if no one can married, then no one can get divorced. A gay marriage ban will not make those numbers go down. “All over the country, married heterosexual couples are shaking their heads and wondering how exactly the prospect of gay marriage threatens the health of their marriages,” said Senator Russell D. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin. (quoted in NY Times, 06/07/06)

Many couples attribute the problems in their marriage to money, but I don’t think Bush is all too eager to help them in this respect. In New Orleans, after natural disaster displaced millions and tore apart families, Bush was not concerned with the familial health and stability. In an already difficult situation, he actually figured out a way to make it worse, his obsession with Capitalism and his confusion about an economic system and our government (we see this all too often) made it impossible to do anything but make money. Instead of allowing the local people, whose homes and businesses were just destroyed, to rebuild their lives (such as the construction companies) Halliburton got the contract. The problem dear President is money. It is the root of marital disputes all too often, and it is the root of misguided politicians who averaged a C- in economics.

But many people do not care about the gay marriage ban, because some part of them feels as though it (homosexuality) is wrong. This is a huge mistake. The rights at some point are no longer being stripped from “them,” it soon will be you, and you will have cheered your politicians into it, or sat in silence. We should be outraged EVERY time!

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His balls that is. I am a few days late with this, but it is priceless. Several people I have spoken with have not read the transcript or have seen the video of this past weekends Whitehouse Correspondents’ Dinner speech. So here are the links to do both. The transcript can be found here. The video can be found here.

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Any random person who crashes their car, if the is a blood alcohol content of .anything, the investigation stops. The individual is labeled a reckless and drunk driver, inebriation is determined to be the cause the accident. The family of the “perpetrator” does not get to make statements in their defense, and the papers color them as a monster.
This week in Albany, NY an on-duty detective crashed his car, crossed 3 lanes, and came to a final stop on the other side. The officer had a blood alcohol content at 3 am when the accident occurred. He had been on duty for several hours. Several witnesses saw him at a downtown bar until approximately 10 or 11 that night. Unfortunately the officer died.

The DA doesn’t want to jump to any conlusions and the family is publicly outraged that the paper published the story of the detectives accident. They have a spokesperson and are the news of the night. The police are conducting a full investigation into the cause of the crash, and when excactly the detective stopped drinking. It is not so much upsetting that there is an actual investigation in this case. What is upsetting, is that had it been anyone else it would have been dismissed immediately. Someone would have heard the word alcohol and called for the investigation to stop. Why is that?

When there is an accident involving Joe Shmoe citizen who had a blood alcohol content of point-anything we, as a society, are disgusted. We scorn them for getting behind the wheel, and many times claim “that is what happens” in a cold-heartless shrug. But when a police officer who is on duty crashes his car with a blood alcohol level of .03, four hours after coming on duty, (which is arguably more dispicable because he is supposed to be enforcing the law and “making our community safer”) we as a society defend him?

I don’t get it, I don’t get it at all.

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The United States has become a scary place. A man’s life hangs in the balance today due to knowledge. A jury will soon decide whether he will spend life in prison or die via lethal injection. Why? Because he knew about the 9-11 attacks. I am horrified by what happened that day, but I am also equally horrified by the reaction of the American people and of our government. Making up justification for war, allowing thousands more to die oversees, and now this. The New York Times reported:

“Mr. Moussaoui, the only person to stand trial in the United States for the Sept. 11 attacks, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy. The jury ruled last month that he was eligible for the death penalty, even though he was in jail at the time of the attacks, because he had concealed his knowledge of Qaeda plans to fly planes into buildings.”

Am I the only one who finds this absolutely vomit inducing?!

Well at least the NYT has priorities. The first headline in the US News portion of the website (complete with a large photo) was that polygamists somewhere in the middle of the country haven’t paid their taxes.

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Has the whole Iraq thing gotten a little old? Are we tired of hearing about it and just don’t care anymore? Why is it that there are no massive protests against unsuccessful continued involvement in Iraq? Why have we forgotten all of the controversy behind the U.S. decision to unilaterally INVADE another country?

Well, he is doing it. Right now he is doing it. Planning his invasion. Are you paying attention? Because no one was in Iraq until it was too late. The UN proceedings and foreshadowing the media is already casting our new enemy in the suitable light for as dubious to prime us. But primer is thin and when one looks, one can see through it. Remember all of the lies and deceit and blame shifting for the two years prior to the attack on Saddam? I do.

Those of us who have forgotten or taken the it’s-too-late-now stance are about to be reminded, because yes ladies and gentlemen, it is coming. The shock and awe will arise again and Bush will roar. Iran, watch out! We don’t care that you were our ally until we declared you part of the axis of evil. We don’t care that all of your neighbors, who may be legitimate threats to the United States, have nuclear capabilities and you are seeking them for stability. You don’t look like us, you are all Arab over there, and you are bad. Because, that is right folks, in Bush’s America the national skin-color is white and its national religion is Christianity (unless you are giving him your money, then he only sees green, for example the attempt to sell our ports).

The same process has begun that we let happen last time. The stage is being set for the Bush show. The U.S. is calling for action against Iran at the United Nations. Fast forward a few months and we are invading. Fast-forward a year and thousands of our soldiers are dead and probably a hundred thousand innocents have passed with them. Fast-forward another few months and we have no idea what we were doing there in the first place, we are stuck. Remember now?

Iran is not Iraq, a war on terror that wreaks havoc, terror and more hatred is an inefficient one. In fact, wait. Well, that is odd. I cannot think of one single war that was actually an efficient problem solving method. Maybe we should stop talking about thinking outside of the box and actually get out of it physically.

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We in America have been at war with our public basically since our country’s founding. It is a ridiculous cycle in which one group of people (or several in some cases) is singled out as the enemy, and they are denied their rights. I refuse to believe that the Bill of Rights is a document that only guarantees the rights that are listed explicitly and only to those which the majority allows.

I believe that the rights of the people in this country (I am choosing not to use the word “citizen” intentionally) are far more extensive than that which is laid down for us in the documents. These are basic rights that cannot in any way be infringed upon, although we have seen fit to continually allow our government to do so, especially at war time when those rights become ever more important. Basic, as define by Merriam Webster means– 1:of, relating to, or forming the base or essence: FUNDAMENTAL, 2: constituting or serving as the basis or starting point. So it is reasonable to conclude that these rights are to be built upon and extended.

Therefore I argue that amendments to the Constitution such as those that grant blacks and women the right to vote are fantastic, that process was unnecessary and the strict requirements of an amendment only prolong the process. It is repetitive.
When interpreting the constitution there is no need to search for the rights of the people, or create a penumbra or shadow out of the first amendment. Nowhere in the constitution does it say or imply that any rights not listed in the constitution are non- existent, nor does it state that those listed are the only rights to be protected. The peopele of the United States must fight legislation that acts upon that which limits our ability to live without overbearing government intrusion. We need to start holding elected officials accountable for laws they are enforcing against us, and the motives behind them must be carefully watched.

Our representatives should not be limiting our rights, but acting in ways which allow us to utilize and explore them in order to pursue happiness. The courts should also be playing the role of looking at legislation critically, and the rights of citizens should be considered worth protecting always, not just in cases of discrimination.

Even this level of protection of your rights is split up into levels of importance, women you are not at the top of this list, though you are on it, homosexuals, you are not on the list an are therefore not protected if you are discriminated against based on that particular characteristic. This structural concoction of a Supreme Court Judge is bogus….ALL people should be protected under equal protection, as we are all human and therefore equal under the law. We need to start preventing our legislatures from enacting laws in the first place that violate the rights of the people in this country.

How is it then that an entire class of people can be banned from obtaining a marriage license? How is it that there is not massive uproar? I have heard legal justifications that marriage is not a constitutional right, I feel that I have addressed this issue already. (Feel free to criticize my argument or strengthen it….I am still formulating, could use the help!) The other argument is that homosexuals are not a protected class. Well, that just doesn’t make any sense to me. You should not have to show a history of being discriminated against (which homosexuals have, by the way) when you are challenging a law that is presently discriminating against you. Okay… so it is ok for us to discriminate against you today, because it’s not like we have a history of doing it? C’mon, are they kidding?!
This article was published on MSNBC:

“A ruling barring New Paltz Mayor Jason West from performing same-sex marriages has been upheld by a state appeals court. The Appellate Division of state Supreme Court has upheld a lower court ruling preventing West and other officials in the Hudson Valley village from performing marriage ceremonies without licenses.

The court said West acted beyond his authority when he presided over 24 same-sex marriages in February 2004. West was sued by a village board member and a state Supreme Court judge later issued a restraining order stopping West from presiding over any more ceremonies.

West was among the first public officials in the nation to marry same-sex couples, following San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. West was charged with violating the state’s domestic relations law, but the criminal charges were later dropped.”

This country is supposedly based on freedom and the pursuit of life liberty and happiness. How can that be the case if there is no presumption that we are free? All of us. How is it that we can possibly spread our freedom around the world, if we have no understanding of what that means?

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I just put up a new forum!

I put it up primarily to facilitate discussion of the various unFocus projects (history keeper, flash suite, the IIS permalink hack, etc.). But feel free to post anything relating to any post on here, or anything at all that you think we might find interesting. (this is not an invitation for spam - keep posts related to the topics covered on this blog).

Enter unFocus.com Forums

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What is happening in New Orleans right now is sickening. Those who are there have been telling us. Listen to Mayor Nagin talk emotionally about the situation, or Anderson Cooper. Go to CNN and listen, do not read the manuscript, watch it. Download whatever it is that you need to in order to hear their voices and, in the case of Cooper, watch his face wrench at the destruction and the fury about what is not happenning around the country to get these people help. Then get your behind to the red cross or on the phone, or writing a letter, or something and make a contribution.

We have an area of our country where our countrymen, or more importantly human beings, are dying. Right now someone is taking their last breath before going under. Right now a child is dying with no food and disease ridden waters flowing.

Where is the help? Why is their back patting going on already? Why are our medics from the National Guard unable to do anything?

Because they have been sent oversees to defend an oil supply that is inevitably going to cause more severe weather as we cause global warming. This is just the beginning, and our young folks, many are my classmates, are dying for…for I do not know what. Call up a soldier in Iraq, ask them if there is meaning in what they are doing. They will tell you they do not know, they are just trying to get home. Ask someone in New Orleans pulling people out of attics, like Mayor Nagin, if what they are doing has meaning. Or, better yet, ask yourself. They are saving lives. They are heroes. Mayor Nagin is my hero, and i want him running my country.

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Anderson cooper just gave to to a self contradulating Senator that was talking about all the great things that she and other polititians have been doing. In response Anderson Cooper basically told her to cut the crap, then described how he saw a dead woman’s body is being eaten by rats. Her response was to attempt to address his grevance, then move right on back to her talking points and thanked the president for his response to the emergency - and man did it ring hollow.

CNN video feed

Alternative Download Location

Update: the blog at www.crooksandliars.com is keeping pretty good score of who is saying what. It’s a good one to watch.

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