is it like a journal locked up on your dresser?  Or is it more like a shopping list left on the ground that people tromp over on their way elsewhere? In any case, this has been a long-avoided part of my life.  I have decided, for the time being to make it more personal and less political. Frankly, I’m just plain tired of the political stuff.

Today is Halloween.  In the past I have made a point out of dressing outrageous and really getting into the spirit.  Today I am wearing an orange shirt.

Like most Americans, I have been following the election on the edge of my seat.  As many of you do, I have an interest in the Presidential, Senatorial and Congressional records.  In Minnesota there is a Constitutional Amendment to consider.  There are judges, county commissioners, water commissioners and there are other national races worth watching as well.

I can get really wrapped up and overwhelmed by the process.  Negative ads telling me to “Call Mergatroid Tell him not to consume the flesh of dead babies” and “Mergatroid, Communist, Anti-American and a baby eater.”  The saturation of these ads can lead to all-consuming behavior.

In 2004 I got very involved in Move On.  In 2008 I haven’t done as much, but I follow all of the news sites, the political sites, even some of the sites I don’t agree with.  I listen to political podcasts and I get RSS feeds from it all several times a day. This, along with some discomfort in my marriage has led to a stiffness. I hold my stomach in throughout the day, tightening my neck and shoulders.  When I say I find things “funny and unbelievable” I am also tightening up inside.

It reminds me of the description of how many people became tight and closed up after 9-11.  There were therapists on television telling people to turn the television off and take a walk.

Many of you will laugh and say “of course.” This doesn’t even merit a post, let alone a digg.  In any case, I find it useful.  A person recently told me to post more positive and consider that change can be productive.  I haven’t updated in some time, consider this a step forward.

I am seeing this stiffness in how I relate to the world.  The other day someone I work with gave me a simple practice called The Three Breaths.

The meditation is simple, when one is feeling stressed out one should simply observe the stress and be present with it for the length of three full breaths.  The process slows one down and makes one think about the source of the tension.

There are 5 days left until we all go to a neighborhood polling place.  In that time we will be overwhelmed with imagery that accuses and deifies people who are looking to serve in government.  When it is over, there will be some changes, some of them even remarkable, some heart-breaking.  In the end, we need to take care of ourselves, learn to filter out the noise and breath.

My recipe for you, or anyone suffering from too much campaign is to not follow the news too closely, not listen to the ads.  Don’t call Mergatroid…he’s not listening anyway.  Instead take a walk, notice the change of season and breath.

Here’s a few snapshots from this morning.

These are our Photos from our Bayfield Vacation

There are two ways to view the reality of the current situation in Iraq.  There is the neocon view of the situation:

“Everything is going so well, violence is down, even the surge troops are coming home, we have almost won.” Which is the same recycled dream from a certain aircraft carrier in 2003 with new words and less talk fo WMD.  The alternative perspective is that violence may be down, but its rising back up now that the summer is coming to an end and that there is a civil war going underneath the surface.

Who know the truth.  There certainly isn’t much MSM coverage of the situation on the ground.  Corporate news won’t tell you much because they don’t have to, and because it  isn’t all that important.  But sometimes the fact that they don’t tell you things can lead for you to question why this is.

Take the latest news from Nouri Al Maliki. He feels that we need to consider leaving Iraq, and that he favors a timetable. I wonder if this will get any coverage?

I have a bunch of technical reading on PDF. I enjoy reading tech manuals and such on open source Apps, and their are a number of great sourcesgreat sources for free ebooks. So, over the years I have ran them off on a laser-printer and either carried them around in binders or stacks. Its a waste of paper and I would love to be able to just keep them on a computer or e-book reader.

Now I am a confessed geek and I have tried since, oh I don’t know the days of the sharp wizard to read e-books on a device, but none have been satisfying. Let’s peek back.

My first device for reading e-books was probably a handspring visor. It was gray and black and terribly unsatisfying to read with. It kept my schedule kind of, but there was not graphics in the e-books and the reading experience was horrible.

Next, I switched to the dell Axim. I had a X5…which was nicer to read on, but the screen was still small and the graphics didn’t come with the PDF. It became something I carried around less and less after I got a laptop.

The laptop was a good idea too, but its hard to read on and its big, heavy and impractical. It takes forever to boot as well.

Finally, I flirted with using my ipod. Nothing more need be said here. It’s a great media player, but text is ugly.

So, I have been following the Kindle and the Sony Reader. The Kindle has advantages, especially the built in high-speed connection. The Reader seems more elegant, but its a Sony product. Still, I would love to get my hands on one.

What would be great would be the Astak e-book reader that has been umored to be coming out real soon now. If it is uner 200 dollars and 6 inchesit might be worth jumping on. We all agree that the perfect reader would be:

• small (6 inches or 9 inches at the most)
• portable
• easy to read(e-ink seems like this fits the bill).
• open to multiple formats(unfortunately none of the readers on the net cover all formats without conversion).
• a good refresh rate, boot speed, etc.  There is some talk about lag with both the Sony and the Kindle.
• a good battery life.

If someone were to build a reader that does all of this for under 200 this would be the year of the e-book reader.

So, in terms of FISA, Gun rights, faith based intitiatives and capital punishment Obama has adjusted his rhetoric (which might or might not be pandering or flip/flopping) to focus more on the indipendant and the centrist. This, as I have heard and read over and over again is a necessary part of the process of switching to general election mode. The candidate has to run to the center. I understand the tactical reason for doing this. The party activists are already on board and will stay on board with a wink from the candidate or the campaign. The need now is to go find the voter that hasn’t made up their mind and convince him that Obama is your guy.

In many cases I even agree with O on the stand. In terms of Gun rights, I disagree with the supreme court ruling, for example, but I understand that we have to go about changing the Constitution through a different method. I also realize it won’t happen in a America. I know that keeping more firearms around will just make us less safe, and that more firearms will equal more deaths. I get that my side in this fight has to organize and develop an Amendment to the Constitution banning handguns. Not likely, but it is the prescribed method of changing the Constitution as it has been understood.

I’m OK with the capital punishment rhetoric as well. Its a way for Obama to express moral outrage and to appeal to those that also hold this moral outrage. Again, I disagree, but not by much. A civilized people should never kill other people. How does that commandment go….thou shalt not….hmm. I also think its more expensive and doesn’t provide any additional deterrant to the would-be rapist or murderer. In fact, this is clearly a GOP talking point (as is the firearms arguments) and will not play well for Obama except in the case of someone that finds Obama more right than they thought. I even heard someone on talk radio yesterday say that they would consider voting for Obama because they thought he was the candidate of the right.

But the other two issues I am more concerned with. FISA needs to be a stand. Our consitutional right to privacy needs to be maintained, and buying in that the FISA bill is any sort of a compromise provides two valuable advantages to the other side. One, it makes you a flip/flopper. Clearly the GOP is not going to push this, since their candidate is vulnerable here. But most importantly it buys into the frame that the GOP would have you consider: We need to give up privacy to keep us from the terror. It’s not true and its a loser, and I find it seriously a sign of weakness that Obama is not willing to fillibuster this flawed legislation. Obama would be much stronger if he were to go to the Senate and participate in the Senate Fillibuster and lead his party. Think of the face time and the strength that this shows.

Lastly, faith-based initiatives are a bad idea. It might work when Government programs have failings, but what’s the larger message. Government can’t solve your problems. Further its way too easy to allow a church to use the money to convert. Their are guidelines, but the Bush administration has proven that these aren;t so much guidelines as suggestions. Bad policy move and bad political move.

Lastly we have the “Swift boating of John McCain” by Wesley Clark. This is over-blown spin (ironically brought to you by the person on McCain’s team who himself was a member of the Swift Boat Veteran’s for Truth)and seriously a tempest in a tea kettle. Really, Clark was simply saying being a war hero does not qualify you to make the decisions of President. McCain may have other experiences, but being a POW shows strength and bravery, but not executive decision making. How is that Swift Boating? The Swift Boaters made it seem that Kerry didn’t do anything that he said he did to win his awards. No one is denying McCain’s war hero status. For Obama not to point this out will give further cover to those who wish to further slander him–since the other side struck first.

There has been a lot of talk about how it is possible that given the most unpopular President in American History with a laundry list of crimes under his belt, that somehow the Democrats in the Senate are going to vote down cloture and allow the FISA *compromise* to pass.  I’m shocked, stunned and puzzled.

Here’s the thing.  The government after 9/11 (some timelines have it even before 9/11) went to the telephone companies and said we want all of your call data. By this we mean your calls.  Its not just the information about  who you called, but the content as well.  Basically, the government built a connection to the network to record everything.  Did they?  Who knows, but the government had access to every 1 and 0 that went down the tubes.  No warrant, no information about it, no court proceedings.  Nothing. They didn’t do this with every telephone company.  Some only allowed them to look at their records–Qwest, a hero in this for doing what they should have done asked for a warrant.

Now the government wants to protect the companies that participated in this by granting them immunity from prosecution.  But take that further, ths also means that they don’t have to testify against the government when asked to in one of the many civil cases.  That part is the worst part of the compromise.

Further, it grants the government the right to spy one nayone outside of the United States without any court oversight.  There is no court that is set up to insure that the spying in this bill is fair.  This is due to the fact that so many terrorists have a dirty bomb placed under a major city and are waiting for the international call to start the timer.  And you know what the timer is set to…24 hours.  blip blip blip

Actually there is a clause in the bill that would allow for review by the FISA courts unless there is a need for time to spy now.  I think the clause actually reads “If the Attorney Gen-
eral and the Director of National Intelligence make a determination under subsection (c)(2) and time does not permit the submission of a certification under this subsection prior to the implementation of an authorization under sub-section (a), the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence shall submit to the Court a certification for such authorization as soon as practicable but in no event later than
7 days after such determination is made.  blip blip blip”

The bill is 114 pages.  Many of the Senators don’t even know the specifics fo what they are agreeing to endorse, which makes for bad legislation as well.  Many Senators do not understand what the NSA and the Department of Homeland Security actually are doing.

More importantly the question is why? Here are some theories:

1. Many Dems don’t think America cares about this.  They think they will be held hostage to ads that state that they allowed the terrorists to win and we let the DHS not have what it needs to let Jack Bauer get the job done.   Isn’t that just like a politician.  I bet you are involved in the dirty bomb as well.
2. Many Dems think that it will make the base more angry which will get them out voting on election day.
3. Some Dems are complicit in allowing the governmetn to spy domesticly and want protection themselves.
4. Some Dems have received financial backing from their friends at the telephone companies.
5. Fear of the terrorists?

So which is it? My guess is that hte first one wins out and that the second one plays in as well.  In either case, it’s time to stop fearing the worst, most unpopular President and his party and start serving the will of the American people.  Its time to stand for something.  Its time to lead.  Speaking of, where is Obama on all of this? Oh yea.  Blip blip blip <cut to commercial>

  Watch this video
This is a wonderful little peice that shows how little journalism is done with Fox news. Show it to your conservative friends and ask for their comments. I will be peppering Gop Momma.

Ask yourself these questions:
-If this were a show run by journalists and paid for by a Green corporation, what would it look and sound like?
-What questions would be asked if Fox were owned by Robert Redford? Does that make a difference in how you view the world?