The Captain’s (B)log

It’s amazing how different things were. Even with the decisiveness of this last election, there were hardly any protesters in DC recently, at all…

A key reason the Internet has been such a success is because it is the most open network in history. It needs to stay that way. Barack Obama strongly supports the principle of network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet.

Technology | Change.gov.

I’m gonna hold ya to that, Barack.  That’s one campaign promise I’m not going to forget about when 2012 comes around.

(Just for the record, this is not an announcement of who I voted for/will be voting for.  That usually always remains a secret with me.    Though, I won’t be hesistant about publicly supporting an Obama presidency in 2012 if he’s been a good president.)

The New Yorker decided to formally endorse Barack Obama for president this week, in a piece involving scathing messages about John McCain:

Since the 2004 election, however, McCain has moved remorselessly rightward in his quest for the Republican nomination. He paid obeisance to Jerry Falwell and preachers of his ilk.  He abandoned immigration reform, eventually coming out against his own bill. Most shocking, McCain, who had repeatedly denounced torture under all circumstances, voted in February against a ban on the very techniques of “enhanced interrogation” that he himself once endured in Vietnam—as long as the torturers were civilians employed by the C.I.A.

The Choice: Comment: The New Yorker.

A very good piece in the New Yorker about the presidential election this fall — the quote up above resounded with me, greatly.  I used to have a lot of respect for John McCain — before 2004 he really was a “maverick,” going against the course of the rest of the Republicans in Congress many times — but since then, he might as well have been tied to Bush’s hip.

He — of all bloody people — decided to go against a bill against torture, a bill he helped to write.

The man’s not right in the head.

Every now and then, I peruse FreeRepublic’s boards, just to take a look at what the “enemy” is thinking — what I see sometimes scares me.

Pray for President Bush – Day 2753

Almost 50 years ago, a man who was running for President of the US gave a speech about how he wouldn’t let his religious beliefs affect—in any way—his functioning as president:

!http://i.l.cnn.net/cnn/2007/POLITICS/12/06/romney.speech/art.kennedy.jfk.jpg!
I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute–where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote–where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference–and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.

“_John F. Kennedy, September 12, 1960_”:http://www.beliefnet.com/story/40/story_4080.html

!http://i.l.cnn.net/cnn/2007/POLITICS/12/06/romney.speech/art.romney.speech2.pool.jpg!
Today we have presidential candidates saying things like “Freedom requires religion” and that “Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.”

Yeah… and what if you’re an atheist? What if you want to have nothing to do with religion at all?

Guess there’s no place for you in this country, eh?

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Shite. There. I’ve done it, I’ve become political again. May whatever God, G-d, or higher power you believe in have mercy on your soul.

The United Auto Workers union “went on strike today”:http://money.cnn.com/2007/09/24/news/companies/gm_uaw_strikedeadline/index.htm?cnn=yes..

The price of a barrel of oil has reached all new records (even if you aren’t seeing it at the pump yet — you will)…

“Relations with Iran are quite sour”:http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/09/24/us.iran/index.html…

The “new Dodge Challenger”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_Challenger is coming out next year…

Jesus, all we need is to elect some sort of inept southern Democrat to be President and it’s the 70′s all over again!

I think Dennis Kucinich will do nicely. (Ohio’s almost the south — at least right over the Ohio river it is.)