Everybody, chill out.

Chill Out!!

Ok, Hackett's out, due to some back room King-Making shenanigans.  Sucks, but it's a fact.  And although he got pushed out, he still remains a class act and I hope that in the near future he finds a position where he can re-enter politics.  

And while Brown's men may have done the pushing, and Brown may have even been personally involved, he is still a great candidate and will be a great Senator.  We're talking about politics here, not a game of checkers.  If you aint at least a little under-handed & ruthless, then you aint got a job.  Which is why, in my opinon, Hackett is dropping off the scene.  He won't sacrafice his character for the game.  And I respect that.

So now your pissed off, but your venom has poor aim (like a certain Vice President.. I'm sorry, cheap shot...)

So I voted this past Tuesday, and my polling place had just switched to the Diebold machines.  Last year we did the punch card thing, and since this was only my second time voting, I don't have any experience with anything else.  So I figure here, I'll give a quick little review of my Diebold voting experience, and a couple comments on what was right and what was wrong.

First off, I liked the touch screen voting better than the punch cards.  That's just a personal preference, though.  I am far more comfortable with computers than most people, especially in the area that I live in (a mixture of suburb and rural).  The punch card thing last year was pretty confusing to me at first, although I figured it out pretty quickly.  So this won't be a big diatribe against electronic voting.  I aim to keep a level head about the issue and try to view the positives & negatives from a relatively objective view.

My view of American politics has always been that of the two political parties, neither one even came close to representing anything that resembled my point of view.  I always felt that if I was going to feel at all represented in our representative government, it would require the ascendance of a `third party', that mythical beast of the American disillusioned.  However, it has consistently been proven that this `third party' fantasy is just that, a pipe dream.

So how am I, and the millions of Americans with a similar view, supposed to gain political clout in today's America?  I have ruled out the self-delusion of bringing a third party into political relevance (sorry green & libertarians & others, I just don't see it happening).  So here I present my thoughts on something that, while still not exactly a probable chain of events, is at least slightly less impossible.

Here's a story for the Yellow Elephant Brigade.  An illegal immigrant sneaks her way into the Air Force in order to serve what she views as her country.

VisaLaw has the background (This is from May 17, 2004.  An update to the story is included in Extended).

According to the American-Statesman report, Plata came to the U.S. illegally from Mexico City and hoped to join the military.  After learning she needed a Social Security card to join, she borrowed $2,000 from her mother and purchased documents from a man in Los Angeles who sold new identities.  After being assured that her new identity was that of a deceased person, Liliana Plata became Cristina Alaniz.

She went through basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio and served as part of the 822nd Security Forces Squadron with Operation Iraqi Freedom.  Alaniz (Plata) has consistently been praised for her performance on duty as well as earning an Air Force Achievement Medal.

More...

This little story here illuminates numerous aspects of modern day America that I feel are despicable.  Corporate greed, increasing power in the hands of the few, and assinine statements going unchecked.

First, here's the money quote:

The "product" he is referring to is your credit report, information his company has collected about you.  

Interesting little show here.  Done by Morgan Spurlock, he of Super Size Me fame, has a 1 hour show on FX, "30 Days", where he steps into the shoes of somebody else in America.  I don't know much about the series, heard an ad on the radio and decided to check it out.

First one here is Minimum Wage Earner.  He & his fiance lock up their credit cards, start out with 1 weeks worth of minimum wage earnings, and move to Columbus for 30 days.  Has a pretty good political slant to it too, so far some video of Ted Kennedy along with a basic history of minimum wage.

Brutal look at minimum wage America.  Morgan is a brave soul.  And his fiance, poor girl, I feel bad that Morgan somehow roped her into this deal.

PS, I know nobody in show biz, have only heard of Spurlock from his movie (haven't even got the chance to see his flick yet, actually), so no astroturfing here.

I think this series could be pretty damn good.

If you aren't watching it, it looks like it repeats at 11:00 PM ET.