Well, it's happened to me. Something has come along that will forever limit what I can do with the rest of my life. My horizons have been narrowed. I see my future and that future is no longer as free and open with possibilities as it once was. What I now see is myself as a wage slave the rest of my days. I no longer have the option of going out on my own, of following the entrepreneurial path of being my own boss.

Why? What has happened to so constrict the options for my future? It's very simple, really. I became sick.

More after the fold.  

A great masterpiece of ancient Chinese philosophy says,

The ruler is the boat and the people are the water.  It is the water that bears the boat up, and the water that capsizes it." (Xunzi, 37)

Follow me below for a quick lesson in ancient Chinese philosophy and how it still works as a call for action and change...

On Tuesday, the American people gave a mandate to the Democratic Party to clean up our government. They gave us a mandate to make the government work for them. They gave us a mandate to improve their lives and bring us back to a respected place in the world. Let's not let them down.

By all means, let's congratulate ourselves, the people who elected so many great candidates and all of those who ran, both winners and losers. We deserve it, and it's appropriate.

At the same time, don't fool yourself into thinking that everything's completely different, that the world is new and never to go back to the dark times we just came through. We were given a mandate (much clearer mandate then Bush's 2004 man date), but it is still a trial run, not a permanent position. We still have to deliver

More below...

I was reading an article on Ray Kurzweil's site kurzweilai.net titled "Is AI Near a Takeoff Point?" One section of it raised some interesting points. (at least interesting to me)

The author, J. Storrs Hall, compares strong AI (that's Artificial Intelligence to those not in the know) and the controling of a true strong AI machine (a truly intelligent machine) to the control of a government. He begins by calling modern governments a type of huge computer system (with guns).

More below...

A very talented science writer recently won a prestigeous prize for popular science writing from The Guardian.

In an unprecedented politicisation of the most prestigious prize for popular science books, the winning author pledged to donate his £10,000 prize to the family of the late government scientist David Kelly.

More on the flip

With all of the stories swirling about with the NSA listening in on Americans without warrants, getting phone records, possibly even continuing Total Information Awareness (TIA) and other such programs, I think it's time those with sensitive information to communicate, or those who just don't want Dick Cheney reading their mash notes, to re-learn an almost-lost art that exploits the weakness of these programs.

The weakness? Volume combined with administrative costs.

Then answer? Check it out below the fold...

In the recently published Gospel of Judas, Judas is portrayed as a martyr who sacrifices himself so that Jesus can fulfill his mission. He is the only one able to see the larger picture and is willing to do whatever it takes.

What does this have to do with Bush?

You don't think all of this going on is actually the White House falling apart, do you?

What's Karl Rove's master plan? Find out on the flip...

Yeah, I've written to my reps and senators a few times over the last couple of years. I even write to my highly-Republican Senators: Burr and Dole every once in a while. Usually I try to appear reasoned and moderate, because that's who I am, and I assume I have a better chance of being heard that way.

Well, this time I had had it. I don't care if my Senators will never vote a hair out of line with our horribly unpopular president, I want my voice to be heard. The more people write, the greater the pressure. I don't care if they agree with me or ever do anything about it, but we won't let them know the level of support for action against this administration unless we tell them.

So, have you written to your representative and senators today?

Read what I wrote, below the flip...

Last Friday Hunter wrote a brilliant piece on the Great Conservative Walkback. One thread that comes out of that phenomenon that he touched on but didn't tease out more is the amazing similarities between this grand experiement of Conservatism and the 20th-century grand experiements in Communism. The lesson is the same, and we should pay attention to that lesson.

more below ...

This is not a political issue, but I figured if there's anyplace that would have someone who knows how advocacy issue think tanks are structured, dKos would be it.

I'm looking to set up what is currently an informal, virtual organization in my company promoting a specific methodology, into a cross-department, enterprise-wide think tank promoting this methodology. (it's a software-development methodology)

If anyone has experience, or thoughts about how to set up such a beast, come on over past the flip and read some more details and leave me your suggestions. I'm sure I'm not the only one interested in how to start an issue advocacy group.

More on the flip...

We've all heard or read about over-the-top rhetoric from such wackos as Savage, Coulter, etc.   You may even have read some of the excellent work of David Neiwert on eliminationist rhetoric.

As the traditional press is stepping up instances of comparing Democratic and liberal activists with Osama and other terrorists, it may not be far behind when internal enemies are targeted with the same rhetorical vitriol.

What does it look like from a personal level? What can cause people to think or speak like this?

More on the flip...

Newt issued a statement:

"The President has to decide: Is he the crony of a corrupt capital or the courageous reformer? What frightens me is that they [the White House] don't seem to know."

Rush Limbaugh puts his two-cents in:

"You [the Congress] haven't been doing the work of the country. . . . You guys are our employees and you treat people in the country like we are your employees and you're the boss."

Too bad these quotes were from 1992!

More below the fold

There are many forces that are coming together at this moment in time that point to the need for a constitutionally enshrined right to privacy. These different issues come from a variety of directions, domestic spying, attacks on the right to control your own body, increasingly easy access to your life through technology (see AmericaBlog's cell phone record sales), but all are centered around a shared perception that we have the right to private lives, private thoughts, private spaces, free from the prying eyes of others, and that these privacies are increasingly threatened. The threats are coming from our own government and the rapidly changing nature of technology. Trends seem to point to this problem only getting worse. We need to act.

You don't hear much about Afghanistan anymore. It's a shame because while Iraq is more of a hot-button issue, Afghanistan has the greater needs. Life is bad in Iraq. That's obvious to all, but it is a day in the park compared to Afghanistan. The poverty, repression and corruption are so bad it should shame everyone in the world with a social conscience. The group most victimized by the situation there are the women. Under the Taliban we saw the executions, the disfiguring, the repression. Many believed that it would get better once the Taliban were gone. It hasn't.

One organization has been fighting for women's right in Afghanistan since 1977. A more courageous, more dedicated group you will never find. Read more about RAWA below...

This month there will come before the Supreme Court a case on eminent domain. Needlenose has a nice summation of the central issue: big government and big business against the individual. The case looks at the right of a government to declare eminent domain on private property and then turn around and transfer the ownership to another private entity, like for a stadium, big box store (like Walmart), car dealership or whatever. More below the split.

Liberals have done more for the people in "fly-over" country then conservatives could ever have dreamt of, and now they've lost the ability to articulate that message so they've been painted as immoral, evil, anti-American and scornful of all that's good and wholesome in this country.  

That's a Democrat problem letting these slurs get by. I don't scorn all that's good and wholesome in this country, I scorn people who want to ignore that the Enlightenment ever happened and want to impose their 16th-century world-view on my life. I don't force anyone to have abortions, take birth control, go to movies, watch television, marry whom they want, eat French food or read a Harry Potter book. But I am sure as hell not going to let anyone take these rights away from me without a fight and without calling what they're doing idiotic, narrow-minded and bigoted. And I am sick and tired of being called evil, immoral, anti-American and everything else that's being flung about by such living scum as Ann Coulter, Michael Savage and other such mouth-breathing troglodytes.

I keep reading all kinds of commentators saying, "get over it, we lost, now let's get moving again." They suggest we start organizing again, start writing letters, talking to neighbors, etc.  I read about strategies to attract the red-state poor, the red-neck, red-state, wal-mart-shoppin' bigots who voted against gay marriage and for a ban on abortion, blah, blah, blah. Well, I'm sorry. It's not going to be as easy as just re-framing the message by saying different words.

I'll post to this periodically as the debate goes on. I'm watching and writing so some may be less-than-coherent, but it's mainly to record my impressions.