The Pre-election Circus

This is mostly a collection of quotes from a recent Glenn Greenwald article.  I highly recommend reading the entire article - http://www.salon.com/2011/12/31/progressives_and_the_ron_paul_fallacies/:

"As I’ve written about before, America’s election season degrades mainstream political discourse even beyond its usual lowly state. The worst attributes of our political culture — obsession with trivialities, the dominance of horserace “reporting,” and mindless partisan loyalties — become more pronounced than ever. Meanwhile, the actually consequential acts of the U.S. Government and the permanent power factions that control it — covert endless wars, consolidation of unchecked power, the rapid growth of the Surveillance State and the secrecy regime, massive inequalities in the legal system, continuous transfers of wealth from the disappearing middle class to large corporate conglomerates — drone on with even less attention paid than usual.

"Because most of those policies are fully bipartisan in nature, the election season — in which only issues that bestow partisan advantage receive attention — places them even further outside the realm of mainstream debate and scrutiny. For that reason, America’s elections ironically serve to obsfuscate political reality even more than it usually is.

"This would all be bad enough if “election season” were confined to a few months the way it is in most civilized countries. But in America, the fixation on presidential elections takes hold at least eighteen months before the actual election occurs, which means that more than 1/3 of a President’s term is conducted in the midst of (and is obscured by) the petty circus distractions of The Campaign. Thus, an unauthorized, potentially devastating covert war — both hot and cold — against Iran can be waged with virtually no debate, just as government control over the Internet can be inexorably advanced, because TV political shows are busy chattering away about Michele Bachmann’s latest gaffe and minute changes in Rick Perry’s polling numbers....

"The candidate supported by progressives — President Obama — himself holds heinous views on a slew of critical issues and himself has done heinous things with the power he has been vested. He has slaughtered civilians — Muslim children by the dozens — not once or twice, but continuously in numerous nations with drones, cluster bombs and other forms of attack. He has sought to overturn a global ban on cluster bombs. He has institutionalized the power of Presidents — in secret and with no checks — to target American citizens for assassination-by-CIA, far from any battlefield. He has waged an unprecedented war against whistleblowers, the protection of which was once a liberal shibboleth. He rendered permanently irrelevant the War Powers Resolution, a crown jewel in the list of post-Vietnam liberal accomplishments, and thus enshrined the power of Presidents to wage war even in the face of a Congressional vote against it. His obsession with secrecy is so extreme that it has become darkly laughable in its manifestations, and he even worked to amend the Freedom of Information Act (another crown jewel of liberal legislative successes) when compliance became inconvenient.

"He has entrenched for a generation the once-reviled, once-radical Bush/Cheney Terrorism powers of indefinite detention, military commissions, and the state secret privilege as a weapon to immunize political leaders from the rule of law. He has shielded Bush era criminals from every last form of accountability. He has vigorously prosecuted the cruel and supremely racist War on Drugs, including those parts he vowed during the campaign to relinquish — a war which devastates minority communities and encages and converts into felons huge numbers of minority youth for no good reason. He has empowered thieving bankers through the Wall Street bailout, Fed secrecy, efforts to shield mortgage defrauders from prosecution, and the appointment of an endless roster of former Goldman, Sachs executives and lobbyists. He’s brought the nation to a full-on Cold War and a covert hot war with Iran, on the brink of far greater hostilities. He has made the U.S. as subservient as ever to the destructive agenda of the right-wing Israeli government. His support for some of the Arab world’s most repressive regimes is as strong as ever.

"Most of all, America’s National Security State, its Surveillance State, and its posture of endless war is more robust than ever before. The nation suffers from what National Journal‘s Michael Hirsh just christened “Obama’s Romance with the CIA.” He has created what The Washington Post just dubbed “a vast drone/killing operation,” all behind an impenetrable wall of secrecy and without a shred of oversight. Obama’s steadfast devotion to what Dana Priest and William Arkin called “Top Secret America” has severe domestic repercussions as well, building up vast debt and deficits in the name of militarism that create the pretext for the “austerity” measures which the Washington class (including Obama) is plotting to impose on America’s middle and lower classes. The simple fact is that progressives are supporting a candidate for President who has done all of that — things liberalism has long held to be pernicious. I know it’s annoying and miserable to hear. Progressives like to think of themselves as the faction that stands for peace, opposes wars, believes in due process and civil liberties, distrusts the military-industrial complex, supports candidates who are devoted to individual rights, transparency and economic equality. All of these facts — like the history laid out by Stoller in that essay — negate that desired self-perception. These facts demonstrate that the leader progressives have empowered and will empower again has worked in direct opposition to those values and engaged in conduct that is nothing short of horrific. So there is an eagerness to avoid hearing about them, to pretend they don’t exist. And there’s a corresponding hostility toward those who point them out, who insist that they not be ignored.

"The parallel reality — the undeniable fact — is that all of these listed heinous views and actions from Barack Obama have been vehemently opposed and condemned by Ron Paul: and among the major GOP candidates, only by Ron Paul. For that reason, Paul’s candidacy forces progressives to face the hideous positions and actions of their candidate, of the person they want to empower for another four years. If Paul were not in the race or were not receiving attention, none of these issues would receive any attention because all the other major GOP candidates either agree with Obama on these matters or hold even worse views....

"There are very few political priorities, if there are any, more imperative than having an actual debate on issues of America’s imperialism; the suffocating secrecy of its government; the destruction of civil liberties which uniquely targets Muslims, including American Muslims; the corrupt role of the Fed; corporate control of government institutions by the nation’s oligarchs; its destructive blind support for Israel, and its failed and sadistic Drug War. More than anything, it’s crucial that choice be given to the electorate by subverting the two parties’ full-scale embrace of these hideous programs.

"I wish there were someone who did not have Ron Paul’s substantial baggage to achieve this. Before Paul announced his candidacy, I expressed hope in an Out Magazine profile that Gary Johnson would run for President and be the standard-bearer for these views, in the process scrambling bipartisan stasis on these questions. I did that not because I was endorsing his candidacy (as some low-level Democratic Party operative dishonestly tried to claim), but because, as a popular two-term Governor of New Mexico free of Paul’s disturbing history and associations, he seemed to me well-suited to force these debates to be had. But alas, Paul decided to run again, and Johnson — for reasons still very unclear — was forcibly excluded from media debates and rendered a non-person. Since then, Paul’s handling of the very legitimate questions surrounding those rancid newsletters has been disappointing in the extreme, and that has only served to obscure these vital debates and severely dilute the discourse-enhancing benefits of his candidacy."

Getting Credit Card Late Fees Waived

In the midst of swapping bank accounts and changing credit cards and payment methods, I missed a credit card payment.  It made me sick, I never miss payments!  While I was stressing out about whether it would affect my credit score, I decided to see what Ramit Sethi had to say about it.  I have his book and would recommend it to anyone and everyone who has to deal with personal finances (which should be everyone in the world that has the capacity to spend money and understand credit and investing).  One of his call scripts just helped me get the late fee waived, though the credit card company may have done that without me following his script, but the script gave me confidence.  Here's the first chapter of his book:

Introduction and Chapter 1 ("Optimize Your Credit Cards")

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Liberty Defined: Empire

A mixture of thoughts and summary from Ron Paul's book Liberty Defined.

The American Empire is the enemy of our freedom.  Our military occupies 135 countries.  We're as pervasive as the British Empire at its zenith, only instead of colonies, we occupy the world militarily.

We support the dictators of Arabia, Egypt, and other countries, Saddam Hussein was our ally at one point.  We supported him for a decade with their war against Iran.  He came to us and made sure it was OK for him to invade Kuwait, and we said, "Sure!" (What a perfect opportunity to turn our back on him, label him a tyrant, and begin our infiltration into the Middle East!)

We claim we're fighting a war on terror, a state-less war, an ideological war, yet a war that we insist fighting with bombs and guns, killing thousands of innocent people who just want to live their lives in peace.  In a year, our country has suffered as few as 14 deaths as a result from terrorist activities, yet thousands upon thousands are victims of homicide or car accidents and we don't spend near the effort to prevent those.  Some of the main reasons for terrorist threats are a direct result of us invading other countries and killing their citizens.

All this is horrifically placed under the guise of spreading Democracy.  Do we really spread peace and democracy with a military?  A democracy is nothing but mob rule, or rule of the majority.  Our country was created as a republic to limit this weakness of democracy.

As long as we continue to interfere in others lives by throwing elections, staging military coups, invading countries, and killing innocent people, we are an American Empire, one whose fall is not far distant at the pace we're going.

Liberty Defined: Discrimination

I've been listening to Ron Paul's book, Liberty Defined, to get a better idea of his position on certain issues.  I am amazed at how much I'm learning as well as understanding better certain political issues.  I'll try to mention some of the topics that particularly stand out to me.

I've never really thought much about Discrimination.  I've always disagreed with colleges limiting acceptance to a certain percentage of individuals in each race category, or reserving a percentage for minorities.  Dr. Paul goes much further by saying that affirmative action laws are unconstitutional.  The government does not have the authority to force us to integrate!

This idea was a bit unnerving at first, but eventually made a lot of sense.  Have affirmative action laws (or any laws forcing us to integrate) made us want to integrate any more?  Do people naturally want to mix and mingle, or do we prefer associating with people who are more like us (racially, intellectually, religiously, etc.)?  Should the government have any right to regulate our social interactions?  They do have a right to make sure people are free to choose, but that doesn't mean they have a right to participate (a right in the sense that government can force someone to accept them).

Maybe minorities think that if they aren't given these "rights" they will get lost by the wayside and the majority (ethnically) will get all the benefits.  As long as programs, institutions, religions, etc. aren't prohibiting attendance based on religion, there should be no problem.  Life isn't meant to be fair, we're all given opportunities to excel in our circle on influence.  We have to think on the level of, "Should I give the government any power to regulate or change my social interactions?"

I'm sure I'm not touching on all the points that were brought up, but I hope you get the gist.  Check out the book if you'd like to learn more, I highly recommend it, only being through the first quarter of it.

Streaming DVD Backups from External Networked HDDs to Windows Media Center 7 HTPC

I'm in the process of converting my DVD collection to .ISO files so that I can access them without having to actually load a DVD.  I have an array of external hard disks on my home network where the ISO's will sit, and then with MyMovies4 and Virtual CloneDrive I'm able to automatically link those ISO files directly into Windows Media Center 7 and watch any of them from the comfort of my living room HDTV that is connected to my PC.  We use this cheap remote, and love it.

Converting DVD to ISO


On Linux
Brasero DVD Burner worked for most DVD's, but when I got to the pesky Disney discs, I found the following instructions invaluable!

1. ddrescue -n -b 2048 /dev/dvd outputFileName.iso
2. dvdbackup -M -i outputFileName.iso -o dvd_structure
3. mkisofs -dvd-video -o finalISOFile.iso dvd_structure

On Windows

• DVD Shrink/Nero 7 - Rips and converts, Free, doesn't work with everything
• DVDFab HD Decrypter - Rips and converts, Free, doesn't work with everything

If you have troubles with security on any of the above AnyDVD or DVD43 seem to be helpful, though AnyDVD is a bit pricey.

Book Review: Stranger in a Strange Land

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The first half of the book was really good, a simple story about a Martian acclimating himself to earth life, enough to get out on his own. Once he goes out on his own with Jill, the story gets in to free love, narcisism, voyeurism, and is rather uncomfortable to read, though not explicit in its negative content. It's interesting to read the contemplations of religion and love and how complex those ideas are and how important they are to our humanity...

That first paragraph was written about 3/4 of the way through the book. My mind has changed quite a bit after completing it, and I'm glad I didn't give up on it. Though there is a lot of non-explicit sex in the latter part of the book, I think the author does a good job of helping us understand the purpose of this intimate bond between male and female, without making it come across as common or dirty. His concept of marriage and monogamy is quite flawed, but that does not affect the overall value of the book to me. The book did come in the onslaught of the hippie revolution, and perhaps contributed to some of the thought on "free love," but you'll have to read it for yourself.

The concept of Truth is an equally interesting piece of the book. Religion is not looked on very highly as a source of Truth, though it's never actually denied completely. Truth, basically, is understanding "Thou art God". I am God, you are God, the world is God. This comes off as blasphemous at first, but becomes more accepting as you realize that it's possible the author is insinuating that God is in all of us. Maybe Heinlein is also saying that there is no one greater than us (no supreme being), but I'll assume he isn't. God is in all of us, and it is through us that he is glorified. Too much to say here to have it make sense to you.

I recommend this to anyone. I actually listened to the audiobook and really enjoyed listening to the narrator.

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Our Inexpensive Phone Setup

I thought I'd share our phone setup to pass the savings on to others.  Right now we probably pay $2-$3/mo - that's with e911 service and a $.019/minute call-out rate, received phone calls are free (as are calls made through Google Voice, so we rarely pay the per minute rate).

What's Needed

• Linksys PAP2T-NA ATA (Analog Telephone Adapter) that we paid $50 for, this allows you to use a regular analog phone to make and receive calls
• Internet service (not sure how fast it needs to be for good quality, ours has been between 3 and 6Mbps and we've had no problems - so you may be able to do less)
• Analog phone (cordless or corded, doesn't matter)
• Google Voice Account - This will become your primary number, for $20 they can port your existing mobile or landline number into your account (This step is optional, but required if you want to make free out-going calls - at least for now.  Sipgate can do pretty much everything GV can, but will cost you $.019/min which is still pretty cheap - 1000 min would cost you $19.)  Google Voice can also let you choose which phones ring (all or just one) when certain people call, allows for easy call screening, and voicemails get sent to your email address.  The only downside is that caller-id doesn't work for us, but call screening helps, and as long as the contact is in our Google Contacts, it shows up correctly on our Android cell phones.
• Sipgate One Account - This is the actual telephone service that will make everything work and provide e911 (you'll need to opt-in to the e911 service and provide a payment method for it) - It doesn't matter what number you choose, you'll be using Google Voice to send/receive calls
• GrooveIP Android App - $4.99, This allows me to make free calls with my Google Voice account.  The quality isn't that great, but to not use up my very limited 300 min cell phone plan it's great - you can skip this if you're not worried about cell phone minutes.  Also only works if you have an Android phone with a data plan (cheapest option is VirginMobile by far! $35 for 300 min. and Unlimited data on 3G network)

The Setup

1. Plug your Linksys ATA into your modem/gateway and your phone into the ATA and configure it per these instructions (you'll need your Sipgate account for this) - this is the hardest part, but instructions are easy to follow.  You could probably plug the RJ-11 cord (telephone cord) into the wall and then into the ATA, that should provide connectivity from any RJ-11 port in your house, provided they're all wired together.
2. Add your new Sipgate number to your Google Voice settings
3. Download and setup GrooveIP if you have an Android phone with limited minutes

Using Your Analog Phone

• If you want to place a call with your analog phone and not be charged, you'll need to have access to a computer so you can get to your GoogleVoice account.  From within there you can make calls or send texts to any number, from any number in your account.
• For e911, you'll be best off not calling through GoogleVoice, just dial it straight
• Your computer doesn't need to be on to make/receive calls (only if you want to use GoogleVoice), the Linksys box and your modem/gateway do all the call processing - so you just need power.

Other Viable Options

• MagicJack - works for some people, we did not like it and it died on us after 6 months
• Skype - $2.99/mo. for unlimited US/Canada calls, you'll have to buy their proprietary ATA $49
• Ooma - $250 one time fee, after that all calls in the US (50 states) are free (not including taxes, which is pretty minimal).  I've heard a lot of good things about this product.  You pretty much pay for a regular year of phone service, and then you start saving.
• Skip a home phone all together and just stick with your cell phone.  We didn't like this option because my wife and I have limited cell phone minutes, and it's also nice to have a phone here when we have a baby sitter.

Book Review: Outliers

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a great book! I never looked at success like this before. In the interview that was included at the end of the audiobook Gladwell mentioned how at first his goal was to prove that successful people (outliers) were just normal people given extraordinary opportunities and ended up showing that anyone who puts in 10,000 hours at something can become an expert in the area. One thing that would have made this book even better would be to include the influence and assistance we receive from God. Gladwell mentioned that his mother prayed when she needed help and received help, but that was the only instance of identifying deity as a source of influence and strength.

I'd recommend this to everyone.

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