07NOV11 Cult of Apple

Simple Analysis 4.0 beta draft #1!

100% digital, done with the GIMP this time around. A little tongue and cheek prod at both Apple and Occupy Wall Street’s worship of Apple products while vilifying the very foundation of what Apple is; a multi-national corporation that has outsourced American manufacturing. Yes, Apple builds stuff in China too… They are a regular computer company that imports components and uses cheap labor costing Americans jobs… Just like that evil Microsoft and IBM.

Really, if they truly were devout in their Socialism, they’d run Linux devices. Every single one of them, but they aren’t smart enough to (well, some have got to be… but in general…).

24OCT11 GWOT Vets, BOHICA!

Once again, GWOT Veterans are in the cross hairs of the very government they served to protect YOUR liberties…  When you sit and read the articles, keep in mind how easy it would be to construe a wounded Veteran from recent operations in Iraq who loves to be prepared and live outdoors showing up at a surplus store.  Having been wounded, and losing limbs, they can easily be ‘profiled’ according to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force handout as a domestic terrorist.  This after MIAC, and the DHS Report in 2008.  BOHICA!

David Codrea’s Gun Rights Examiner article:  http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-in-national/fbi-adds-preppers-to-potential-terrorists-list?CID=examiner_alerts_article

PDF of the FBI handout to Colorado Surplus stores…  ColoradoFBISurplusStore

@Husker4Palin it’s time to shut down the feed

Twitter account @Husker4Palin is run by one of the contributers here at Politics4Nerds.com. The man running it is a very nice person, with a wonderful wife and two very sweet children. He is deeply ingrained into politics and is someone I feel could actually make a very good politician, if I could finally get him to understand that Reaganomics only worked on paper, not in principle. Yet, I wish he would close his twitter account…

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against Twitter, nor am I against a person using twitter to spread their thoughts, ideas, beliefs, or even coupon deals. What I am getting tired of are twitter accounts that do nothing aside from retweeting something else. I hate to bring up this account directly, but I feel I must. It was several months ago that he wrote an amazing piece, which can be found here (). The article was great, and now, like so many others, I see his talent being wasted by becoming a “re-tweeter” of information that is not even looked at.

Case in point, a recent retweet went out requesting Palin supporters to grab their keyboards and defend her and her movie as well as assisting forum poster Neil Flagg over at IMBD. First off, the original tweeter could not even get the name of the site correct (which is IMDB.com), but they are asking for assistance for political debate on a movie forum. Sadly, due to the limited viewing of the movie, I’m guessing that the majority of the people posting have not even seen the movie!

Twitter users need to stop retweeting every tweet from groups they follow and need to get back actually publishing and posting their ideas.

So, @Husker4Palin, what are your thoughts on retweeting?

25JUN11 Sudsy’s Debt Ceiling Speech Response

After listening to President Obama’s speech about the need to increase the debt ceiling today, I’m pretty flabbergasted at the stupidity of some of the things he said. Primarily the idea that money was ‘spending money on tax cuts’. This is the dumbest thing I heard the President say during his speech. How do you spend money on tax cuts? What tax cuts are, is taking in less revenue to begin with, not spending said revenue. How do you spend more by taking in less income? It makes no sense to me, but then I’m not a Washington double speaker from Chicago.

 

A “Cuts only Approach” is certainly a solid plan. Our tax structure is fine, and if there is reform needed, its a flat tax in which 100% of the working population pays the exact same percentage of their income no matter how much they make… This has worked in European countries rife with corruption and debt to reduce both factors considerably (Estonia for example, less tax evasion as result of everyone paying the same percentage… Its honestly easier to enforce!). But I digress… I’m getting out of my own personal debt. Sure, I tried to increase my revenue by taking another job or two (part time), but that doesn’t work as well, in fact I suffer more tax consequences as a result of that due to the tax bracket I’m in and how much is with-held (or not, and will be due come next April, thank you State of Alaska Dept. of Forestry for not with holding like I filled out on my paperwork for you to do…). Since that didn’t work, I’m taking steps that are nothing less than that evil “Cuts Only Approach” the President so fears. For my personal debt, it makes no sense to keep spending money if I want out of debt and have the same income. The same applies to Governments. Money, unlike Diplomacy, works the exact same be it be the microscopic personal economics of my home budget; or the macroeconomic international economics of the US Government. You are only worth your Income minus Liabilities.

 

Currently, our nation (and sadly my personal budget) has more liabilities than income. Best way to fix the problem is get rid of the liabilities as increasing the revenue gained will result in more disasters economically. Why do we need so many redundant US government programs? Why not let the States do that much better? Why should the US bail out failed business models such as the US auto and banking industries which would be better left to go ‘bust’ and allow the well built companies to continue to thrive? TARP just drew out the economic pain longer. We should have let them fail, accepted the pain then, and found ourselves recovering now. Any time the government steps in to take over, whatever it touches is tainted.

 

Honestly, with the mission in Iraq about complete its time to get our guys out of there. In Afghanistan, we should leave a skeleton presence as any nation that has tried to ‘tame’ that nation has ended up collapsing… Time to just let the Afghani’s determine their own fate (and sadly, its going to end up going back to the Warlords, as it has just about every time in that nations history). Another reality, is why are we even bothering with Libya? Really, our NATO allies who have all just about failed in their NATO obligation to spend at least 2% of their GDP can worry about it, or not. Other than letting CIA loose, we need our troops home from that mission as well. If any region in Africa needs our attention, its the piracy problem off the coast of Somalia (fixed by arming the US Merchant Marine Sailors, and letting the Green Berets, Rangers, SEALs and CIA have a heyday in Mogadishu again…). On top of that, the Army and Air Force don’t need NASCAR vehicles running races wasting our dollars on the track for ‘recruiting’. There are indeed places we could cut the military budget without compromising the current operations that are critical to our nation’s security.

 

This along with other cuts across the board, to include all the pet projects that Congress created for their constituents… No more pork! Cut everything but the REAL essentials! Stop wasting money! Its simple stupid.

08JUL2011 End of An Era

May it be the beginning of another. However, I don’t have high hopes for that right now with the current administration and their hostility toward technological development. Sadly, space holds so much potential for mankind to develop those cleaner sources of energy our President holds so dear… But he goes ahead and pulls the plug on NASA without so much as a ready replacement for the Shuttle. Sure the Shuttle was obsolete once it was built with the technology creeping around the corner that turned into the X-30 and Boeing DC-X concepts. However, none of those made it (though DC-X was close!) to be accepted by the bureaucracy of NASA… Time for NASA to get out of the way of private industry and let the industry develop space. Time for the EPA to back off and accept that space flight is cleaner than their continued acceptance of Chinese built solar panels (since few factories can exist to build them cheap enough in the US). The DC-3 was built just before the Great Depression, aviation technology soared to great heights throughout the 1930′s because of private industry. Time to take this economic downturn and and use it as motivation to develop space. However, it would require a better tax structure that doesn’t penalize success, and it would require less red tape to put a payload into orbit through the EPA, NASA, and other governmental regulatory agencies that need to be cut.

Unlimited data coming to an end on Verizon

Well, it looks like Verizon is the latest to get rid of unlimited data as well as charge for tethering under a capped plan. As much as I would love to explain in my own words what is wrong with this, let me share this well thought out piece from an Ars Technica poster.

Original author, DannnyB:
I have an interesting situation. My water utility sells me metered water for washing dishes, watering the lawn, showering, and other limited purposes.

The utility offers a Tasting plan for an additional monthly charge. Under this plan, I am allowed to use the water also for cooking and drinking. (Even though my water use is metered, and each gallon of water for cooking and drinking is delivered by the same pipes!)

Dear customer: our records indicate that you have been using water for cooking and/or drinking. Please upgrade your water rate plan to our convenient Tasting plan that allows for this usage. If you continue to use water for cooking and drinking, you will be signed up for the Tasting plan automatically.

I think the Tasting plan is just a fee that they made up. It isn’t a service they provide. They just want more money from me. I’ve got a workaround of using a container to obtain water from another room for the purposes of cooking and drinking.

Some people shout: Theft of service!
But what service? They’re already delivering water to me, and metering it, and I’m paying for it, and its delivered by the same pipes!

Some people shout: but you signed an agreement and using the water for cooking and drinking is a breach of that agreement!
Ask a lawyer about the term “unconscionable contract”.
Nobody in their right mind would agree to this if they had any actual choice in the matter. Just because they have the power and can force you into paying this ridiculous fee or doing without doesn’t make it right.

I say that this Tasting “service” is no service at all, it’s just a fee for delivering nothing at all extra to me. It’s a case of the utility wanting something for nothing. Yet people seem to think it is somehow wrong to use the water I’m paying for for drinking or cooking unless I sign up for the more expensive Tasting plan.

In order to add legitimacy to their Tasting plan, the water company says that the Tasting plan is actually delivering something: it includes an additional 2 Gigabytes of water per month, giving you 4 total Gigabytes of water.

But what if I only need 2 Gigabytes of water and therefore my existing monthly 2 Gigabyte plan is plenty? The water company already charges $10 per extra Gigabyte of water I use over the limit. So if I used excess water, it’s not like they wouldn’t get paid.

Furthermore, once I sign up for the Tasting plan, they don’t make any distinction between water used for drinking/cooking and water used for other purposes. I could use 3/4 of it for tasting, and 1/4 for bathing/dishwashing. Or any other split. Or all of it purely for tasting. So then if I paid for Tasting and used only 2 Gigabytes of water, which I already had paid for, then why did I need the Tasting plan?

I seem to be very confused about stealing water for tasting. Someone please set me straight.

I think the above hit the nail on the head quite nicely. I have no problem with the concept of paying for tethering on an unlimited plan, but if my smartphone plan is already capped, why am I being double charged? I just don’t get it.

It is times like this that I am grateful to be grandfathered into my Alltel plan.

03MAY11 Osama Bin Laden is Dead, thoughts on vice and virtue in the wake of this historic victory in a long running war between the Free World and the harbingers of Tyranny.

 

Yesterday I indulged in a bit of vice in celebration of death; albeit a bit more solemnly than I have before (I didn’t forget the lesson I learned cheering the death of Saddam while I was in Iraq…). My cartoon was a bit graphic, but a clear reminder of human mortality, as any one of us could be the man with a bullet in the head lying dead in our homes. Be it a death from pointless murder, to dying on the field of war (which Osama certainly did); we are dust.

 

This morning, while my children were sleeping, I at the tender age of 28 finally smoked my first cigar. I don’t intend to make it a habit, and its unlikely I’ll do so again either. In much the same way I was happy about Bin Laden’s death, it started out tasting pretty good. Then, toward the end of the cigar, I got the woozy light headed feeling (perhaps I shouldn’t have drank coffee beforehand!). Wrath and smoking, two vices; one I’m more prone to out of human nature, the other a lesson learned.

 

What can I take away from such experiences? Well, I’m sure both Chaplains I knew during my deployments would get a chuckle out of my experience here once Confession was over. After all, I should not celebrate the death of another human being no matter how vile they may be. I think Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. best sums it up:

“I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that”
— Martin Luther King Jr.

After fighting in the GWOT, you come face to face with the two sides of killing. On the one hand there is knowing that people who are trying to kill you and your countrymen are dead and no longer a threat, and it brings about the positive emotions all related to the ‘job well done’ after an operation, firefight, or foiled IED emplacement. On the other side, you have the “Gee, I just watched a human body cool on the FLIR” or “There was is a person somewhere in that burning car, glad there isn’t much left to see or I might lose my lunch.” First the good taste, later the woozy light headed feeling and bitter taste of reality (which includes thoughts of your own mortality).

Already the pundits on both sides line up. On the one hand you have the people who are in the streets celebrating, and for the families of the 3,000+ killed in the WTC/Pentagon/Flt. 93 attacks, I’m not going to hold this against them. This is a day for closure for them. The man who was the primary suspect, and indeed confessed quite gloatingly, for masterminding and leading the men who carried out the attack is dead. A murderer faces justice, and dies by the tools of his own trade. I’m positive the SEAL or other Operator that killed Bin Laden is just as aware of how easily it could have been himself (and could be himself in the future). Then there are people lining up calling those out in the streets no better than terrorists themselves, this coming from the people who hate America anyway, so it comes as no surprise to me.

My cigar makes a good metaphor for my own emotions in this case. It started out tasting alright (it was a ‘cheap’ cigar after all, only $7.55, and thankfully it was a small one as well!), but by the end the taste and the smoke was getting to me a bit (yes, I just puffed at it and didn’t fill my lungs with it, otherwise I’d have been puking…). The aftertaste is especially bad, and therefore makes it a habit not worth indulging in on a regular basis. I’m glad an enemy is a threat no more, but his death really isn’t something to celebrate. It brings closure, but no real joy.

Osama Bin Laden confirmed dead!

Thank you to all the men and women serving our Country that allowed this to happen. This is a historic day that will be remembered always.

–The P4N Team

13APR2011 Who Should the TSA be Watching for?!

Really, if any agency deserves budget cuts more than the TSA let me know… Wait, never mind, I can think of a few myself… However, maybe we should do away with the multiple redundant bureaucracy that is the Dept. of Homeland Security and send ‘Big Sis’ Napolitano back to New Mexico. Its obvious that these ‘enhanced’ screening techniques often times end up being used on children who aren’t involved in terrorism; along with grandmothers, grandfathers, and I’m sure handicapped folks. Being a father of toddlers, this disgusts me; being a GWOT veteran who went forth to kill terrorists in their own nation, this angers me further to see these amateurs ignore techniques that are far less intrusive and far more effective (yes it involves profiling behavior, not race; though since most of the crazy suicide bombers stem from one part of the world… however that behavior profiling might also yield some other results in other arenas such as battling drug smuggling…). So here it is folks the articles for your perusal from Glenn Beck’s The Blaze: Little Miss Drexel’s folks, and the Jihad Jammer. So, which Americans should we screen more closely?

Stan Lee and Arnold Schwarzenegger team up for pure awesomeness!

Who else but Stan Lee could make politics interesting. Check out the trailor below!