Wanna know why democracy is failing in America?

It's because non-voting entities like corporations have more effective real power than individual voters.

http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/07/10883/about-alec-exposed

When corporations are able to draft legislation that benefits itself and only its members and a enables a system of government to enact laws that match, said system of government is no longer accountable to the country it governs.

Read more here - http://alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed

Hard to believe ...

... it's that time again.

You blink and summer's already half-way over.

Where did all that fucking time go?

Sometimes I get so caught up in the monotomy of the day's events, that I lose sight of the bigger picture. And of course, a lot of times I get to obsesseed with thinking about tomorrow, that I lose sight of enjoying moments in today.

I personally think it's a lack of sleep. Or maybe a lack of happiness.

For me, happiness comes from peace of mind, which for me is tied directly to accomplishment. I feel like I have to be able to look back and something I successfully did or created or achieved in order to feel good about myself. Is that vain? Perhaps.

I'm one of those people who is neither interested in being called intelligent when I do stupid things. I don't take it as a compliment when being called a good parent, when I spend much of my time yelling at my kids to stop jumping on the furniture, or stop waking me up at 3 in the morning.

And I don't like thinking of myself as talented, when I have so many ideas and thoughts that I never act on.

For me I guess, potential isn't enough. Accomplished reality is what I'm all about - that's what - I think - would make me happy.

Am I the only one who feels that way?

Gee what a fucking surprise .... Kerry DID win in 2004.

I always suspected this for a very long time ...

http://richardcharnin.com/FurtherConfirmationOfaKerryLandslide
http://www.buzzflash.net/story.php?id=1668496

Knowing what's gone on the last three years, I find it very sad. Unlike Obama, or even Gore, I thought Kerry would've made a really good US President. The guy had a vast experience and wealth of knowledge on a number of issues.

Really sad, for all of us.

Thoughts around being in a band

As you may recall, I recently practiced with a band for a show. It was a small gig. What started out as me just coming in to play on '6-7 songs, with all the music worked out', turned out to be really more like 20 out of 23 songs, with me coming up with the music.

The show itself was okay. I was a bit rusty, and could've stood to work on a number of things (i.e. ensuring the guitar was in tune after someone else was playing and so forth).

However it led me to realize a few things.

Working in this band was akin to being a software test consultant in an IT or product department of a large organization, where the leadership and team really have no drive or will to really do what's necessary to be successful for their customers. Instead people like me come in and show them what they are doing wrong and move things forward by sheer will and determination.

Then, when the release to production is deployed (i.e. showtime) the final curtain is drawn, and one is dropped like last week's Seattle Times (that is, not good enough to even wipe your ass with after a nasty offloading).

Except for one or two people, no one really seemed to really care how bad things were going. Indeed, it seemed as if no one really was recognizing (or perhaps wanting to recognize) how things would've ended really badly.

And other people on the team basically were there to socialize, or make snide comments, or simply argue because to do otherwise would jeopardize their allegiances with other 'core' members.

In other words, juvenile politics, just like in any IT org.

It's like a game, where the dice is loaded, and you're forced to roll them no matter what you're shooting for, or what the odds are.

So, I've come to the conclusion that this is the kind of game I think going forward I want to not be a part of.

I think it's time I start moving ahead with putting together my own band, my own org. One that is actually interested in performing good music (originals as well as covers) well, for a variety of good causes and efforts.

But wait! There's more!

I want to something a bit different. I want to stretch the boundaries of different kinds of music by taking all the influences and blending them into a variety of new ways and forms. And do so in a way that reaches not just folks in a particular community, but perhaps the globe.

But like anything and everything in my life, such grandiose visions and ideas come with a price - time, energy, money, know-how, and will-power.

The question I have for myself now - and over the next coming months - is, do I have the stuff to see it through?

We shall see.

An open letter to Chris Osgood.

Chris,

Enjoy your retirement and best wishes.

You shouldn't give a fuck about the Hockey Hall of Fame. You should not care if they choose to induct you or not.

You've got nothing to prove - to anyone.

And you've won the game's ultimate prize - three times, across different decades in two different stints.

That says a lot about you, not the team(s) you played for. You provided a lot of entertainment to a lot of fans, and your playing was invaluable to your's (and your teams') successes.

Thank you. The game will be a much lesser one without you.

Taking on hatred ...

... at least here's one man's approach.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/07/19/272594/with-one-day-left-muslim-hate-crime-victim-tries-to-save-his-shooter-from-execution/

Whether the person's a better man than me, I cannot say. I will say he's doing something I perhaps would not.

Brilliant.

Something every human being needs to read at least once a day.

Any time someone thinks they are better than anyone else ...

http://www.theonion.com/articles/report-you-know-you-are-a-fucking-idiot-right,20907/

Report: You Know You Are A Fucking Idiot, Right?

Gee, just when I think I cannot top the last post ...

... this stunning development comes along.

http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/now-fbi-looking-murdoch-medias-phone
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-fbi-news-corp-20110714,0,3287201.story?track=rss

Responding to allegations from several Washington lawmakers, the FBI has opened an investigation into whether Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. attempted to hack into the telephones of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the families of those who died.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/phone-hacking/8638851/Phone-hacking-FBI-launches-investigation-into-Rupert-Murdochs-News-Corp.html

It'll be a bit hard for the right-wing in this country to spin this, as the request for investigation came from a Republican House member.

Though this isn't to say the Democrats aren't getting in on this -

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/phone-hacking/8637942/It-is-in-America-that-Rupert-Murdoch-faces-ruin.html

Congressional investigations loom: Senator Jay Rockefeller, a Democrat who chairs the Senate commerce committee, has declared that if Murdoch tabloids hacked the phones of 9/11 victims or any other Americans, “the consequences will be severe”.

Want more proof that corporations don't think and are not accountable?

http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2011-07-11-Rupert-Murdoch-News-Corp-phone-hacking_n.htm

You seriously have to wonder if any of their American holdings were engaged in such criminal activities?

Hacking phone messages of murder victims and dead soldier's families?
Paying police for tips?
Illegally accessing medical records of a former British Prime Minister and his family?

Perhaps -

If angry shareholders have their way, the allegations of illegal phone hacking and corporate corruption that closed the 168-year-old News of the World, in London, will mark the beginning of a wide-reaching reckoning for the Australian business tycoon.

In a lawsuit filed Monday in Delaware, a coalition of institutional investors alleged, among numerous complaints, "These revelations show a culture run amuck within News Corp. and a board that provides no effective review or oversight."

Can anyone say Foreign Corrupt Practices Act? I wonder if Murdoch will?

Overheard on a bus - 07-11-2011.

" .... get a bulldog puppeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

As meowed like a cat by jailbait Asian girl to her emo Asian boyfriend this afternoon.

Here's a tip - pouting is cute; whining is not. And incessantly going on and on about wanting another kitten will get you several punches in the face by many irritated passengers.

An end of an era .... last NASA Space Shuttle voyage (STS-135)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-135

The journey that started in 1981 finally ends 30 years later come July 20, 2011.

What the future holds for travel into outer space, remains to be seen.

Wow, what I've always known about the Bloq Quebecois ...

... took the damn fucking Americans this long to figure this out?

"Bloc MPs also appear to enjoy their parliamentary perks and privileges, and are keen to serve long enough to claim federal pensions and benefits."
 
Gee, you'd think it'd have been easier to simply read my blog, instead of wasting diplomatic airspace with the obvious.
 
On the other hand ...
 
"COMMENT -- HERE TO STAY


-----------------------



¶16. (C) The Bloc remains well entrenched and likely to

continue to play an active, if highly Quebec-specific, role

in federal politics, while also maintaining a spoiler role

against future Liberal or Conservative majority governments.

There does not appear to be any prospect of the party

breaking up or giving up."
 
Obviously whomever wrote that was smoking too much fucking crack.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Canadian_Federal_Election
 
Most if not all the Bloq voters flocked to the NDP. Funny how that works. It often makes me wonder about Jack Layton and the NDP, I always believed they were some CIA front just like the Separatists were.
 
Maybe it's the economy - that they had to cut back funding and consolidate to one party? 
 

America! And the morons in the right-wing who are trying to ground it into dust.

Seriously?

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/07/07/262884/pete-olson-impeachment-debt/

If anyone is guilty of anything, it's the American Right-Wing and their treasonous 50+ year assault on the American taxpayer - especially the poor, and the middle class.

Ideas and focus.

I think I've finally figured something out.

What has been my problem much of my life?

It's simple. I start something, but never really finish it.

No really.

Completing something successfully has always been my problem. The lack of follow-up or follow-through.

I've always been a man of ideas. Seriously I have so many, it really is impossible to keep track of them.

Songs

Stories
Inventions
Business Ventures
Food
Technical Innovations

And there is lies the source of my problem. So many ideas, yes, but no filter to really know what's good, what's bad, and what's great, and not knowing how to move to the next steps.

I think I get randomized and I do it to myself, but why?

Is this a mid-life crisis? Is it a lack of focus? Maybe both.

No - this has been my problem for a long time. I've always known what it is I've wanted to pursue in life, and I've always known that desire will never leave me.

But somehow all these ideas come and I can never really seem to act on any of them in a concrete determined fashion.

Perhaps the reason is that I'm afraid I'll let some potential idea drop, and someone else will figure it out and run with it and make it a success.

I realize it was this way with school. I was very good in elementary school, good in high school, poor in college, and very poor in university. It seems I got worse and worse the more I was doing things I couldn't really stand.

Perhaps the answer is to focus on one area at at time (and learn to let go of the other ideas) long enough to make something of what I start?

Maybe ...

Well anyways, for now I've made a committment to myself to make it a point to document my ideas and do more than that. If it's a business idea, I should write it down and document (right there and then) what are the gaps, and the next steps. I should also make a determination to see how far I can go with something and not letting it drop till I know what I can do next. The goal is to have a preliminary business plan ready for one idea by the end of summer

As well, I've got a few other ideas in motion, but I also have made a committment to a list of songs that I need to work on and complete (basic music, plus lyrics).  The committement to myself here is to have 12 songs ready to record by the end of summer.

So I've made a point to also check back on this entry at the end of August and see how far I've gotten.

Y'all check back on this site now y'hear?

Innocent until proven guilty - not in America if you're a male foreigner accused of something really bad.

I always wondered what happened to the legal concept in American law, "Innocent, until proven guilty"?

Guess that doesn't apply if you're a man, especially a foreigner and the charge is rape.

I'm referring to the case of Nafissatou Diallo's accusation of rape against Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

What am I referring to?

I'm talking about this double standard that exists when a man stands accused of raping a woman. Once again, the American media go to great lengths to try and trump his presumption of innocence, by withholding the accuser's name.

But that's a fallacy in this day and age, isn't it?

It's not like in the information age, this information cannot be found - http://www.parismatch.com/Actu-Match/Monde/Actu/Nafissatou-Diallo-l-accusatrice-de-Dominique-Strauss-Kahn-292019/.

That link by the way, came from the English language Wikipedia entry which I started with ...

... and I note it too doesn't actually list Diallo's name there (The French language Wikipedia on-the-other-hand has a specific entry for Diallo.)

And let's be clear about something - It's not like we're talking about non-adults here. These are two adults.

But yet because the accuser is a woman, the American media thinks it's okay to get around that whole "innocent until proven guilty." thing. Sure, sully the guy's reputation (And while I'm not making any presumption of guilt - that's what a court case is for, it's hard to ignore the reality that it seems like the case is falling apart (h/t to The Disaffected Lib).

Note in the New York Times article, that they go to great lengths to indicate the accused's name, nationality, and foreign status, but leave out the accuser's name, why? What fucking bullshit.

Rape is a crime, and a very serious one to accuse someone of. I can't for sure know who's telling the truth, so I'm only speaking in generalities here. Till we reach the day when falsely accusing someone of rape is treated in exactly the same way under the law as an actual accusation  - with the exact same penalties, such double-standards in the American media (and by extension, American society), and continue to damage the true pursuit of real equality and justice for all.