the true legacy of the bush 43 presidency

this week there was a mining disaster in the mountains of utah. six miners were trapped in a cave-in that blocked the exit completely. it was an accident so massive that seismologists mistook the accident for a small earthquake. in fact they thought that the earthquake caused the cave-in instead of vice versa.

so why bring this tragedy up with the bush debachle? his person in charge of mining safety, richard stickler, is one of those uniquely qualified individuals, no not how brownie was qualified to lead FEMA because he was the (failed) leader of the arabian horse association, but he is qualified because he was a lobbyist for the coal industry. not the miners, the mine owners. so you know what his deal is. similar to how the environmental agencies were stuffed with former lobbyists and presidents of big oil, this guy is there to look out for the interests of mines instead of the people who work them. and he has sure done a heckuvajob in looking out for those interests, as documented in this clip from last thursday's "countdown with keith olbermann" (thanks to olberman.org for the link- http://olbermann.org/ko/video_detail.cfm?id=5503 )

isn't it interesting that in the years since mining deaths have been statistically kept, deaths have gone down from the start of the roosevelt administration (franklin delano) until last year when 48 miners were killed. think about that- in the times when miners used pickaxes and lanterns and canaries to trowl through the earth there have been fewer and fewer deaths until the modern era, with modern equipment and techniques. so one would think that that trend should continue when it would be inconcievable that a person was killed in a mining accident. it hasn't happened.

since the sago mining accident in west virginia, there were studies done of what could make mining safer. congress didn't have the balls to make any of these recomendations federal. and at that time it was quite understandable. the republican christian conservative "permanent majority" didn't have the brain function to question anything that came out of the bush white house. and most of these recomendations co$t $om€ $om€ $eriou$ ca$h. so of course mine operators aren't going to enact them. now look where it got us. those 12 miners at sago have died for nothing because the federal government didn't (or more rather WON'T) learn from the disaster. these six have been added to the list. how many more will it take to get some changes made? 20? 30? 100?

add this to the long list of regrettable legacies this administration has foisted upon the country: an endless quagmire in a foreign country for a resource that it is unable to control because of the unstability the war caused, the scorn of the international community because of human atrocities such as human torture, biological atrocities such as producing about half of the world's greenhouse gases, and this war, the treatment of its own citizens as referenced to the katrina debachle in new orleans and the treatment of its own SOLDIERS wounded and otherwise from extending tours of duty from 6 months to 12 months to 18 months (because since the bush administration has gotten involved in iraq, enlistments have gone down so much to the point where the armed forces have had to raise age limits and change their screening processes to allow more unstable people in), to the conditions of the wounded soldiers' hospital rooms, to the political coverup of nfl player pat tillman's heroic
death/accident/fratricide/deliberate murder, the state of the middle class in this country where universal healthcare is so elusive in this country but not other industialized nations, and on and on.

but after the democrats siezed both houses of congress the rats have been fleeing the sinking ship known as ss. bush 43. not because the dems have gotten things passed (the dems are spineless powerseeking whores just as much as the republicans are); because they don't have a veto proof majority in the house, and they have a 50-49 edge in the senate. no they are fleeing because that bare majority has given the dems subpoena power and the ability to exercize oversight on the executive branch. notable names who have jumped ship: tony snow and the biggest name, bush's political brain karl rove. snow is significant because he is a former talking head of the republican party's cable mouthpiece the fair and balanced fixed noise ERRRRR fox news channel. rove is especially significant because it was his lowdown, unethical, devisive, confrontational, uncompromising, christian sympathetic, hot button strategies that not only got republicans in power, but also got democratic congressmen
fighting for their political lives trying to defend their records but also trying to (unsuccessfully) get campaigns on issues that mattered. he wanted to build a permanent majority in congress to ramrod its policies through the nation.

it may have worked.

for the wrong party.

and lets pray to [insert favorite deity or generic one here] that it isn't too late for the country (and the world) to get over the disastrous legacy of the worst president in the history of the modern free world ever.
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laptop update day 22

which actually should have been day 15. you see, it has actually been in
town since last week. plenty of blame on me for not calling back after i
got a message on the machine. however, compusa still doesn't get a pass
from me- i had ordered a hard drive backup before this mess started, and
when i started the machine back up, it was basically a brand new system
(meaning no backup had been restored). a hd backup costs 99 bucks, i will
getting my money back. although i only had it for a month, a month is
still a good amount of time to install and aquire stuff. i lost a big
chunk of the images that were taken in cleveland and others that i had
saved across teh intarweb.

oh well. alls well that ends well. i guess...

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Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/

laptop watch day 21- laptop update

there is none. i have no news, which is good and bad. its good because i don't have any of these pointless worthless calls from compusa saying that my computer is still being worked on. this was after i specifically told them not to call until its here. which is also a downside; its bad because 1) it still isn't here and 2) the way my luck has gone, they misconstrued the message as "don't call". considering that it took a second call to them for them to explain the limbo i'm in, this is not a good sign.

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update- resolution (?)

i just got off the phone with a local compusa rep. apparantly (from what i understand) the delay is not their fault, its the bureaucracy of how to repair which is holding things up. because the laptop is under warranty, the people who provide the warranty service wanted to make the requested repairs themselves, or acer requested it. from what this person said, most likely acer. so in reality, this is outside of compusa's perview. now the problem is that the people who has my laptop has to get the correct cds to actually perform the service. plus, they _still_ have no eta of when the repair is going to happen. someone is going to recieve a lot of hell for this, whether it be acer or the warranty service provider.

am i still mad as hell? yes. am i mad at compusa? other than the fact that until now, they had not explained to me one iota of what the hell is actually happening, not as much. however, it shouldn't have taken this long to explain the process and what was going on. they still aren't ranking highly in my book.

i did however get two things accomplished. i told them that i only want to be called when they have an eta and when it actually is back at the store.

i really think that this whole process could have been avoided by me downloading a vista image and reinstalling vista myself instead of playing it safe.

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reason number 3 why the indy "racing" league fucking shouldn't exist or come into existance

he walked away folks. but if his cranium and the nose of another car hit just right...

reason number 2: all of the things anton george has said were evil about CART (engine leases, road courses, penske, foreign drivers and foreign influence) now exist in his league. fucking hypocrite.

reason number 1: it allowed nascar to co-opt the term race into nascar race. it allowed the boring, repetitive oval racing to become ratings hits. before 1995, the american concept of a racing car wasn't a stock car, IT WAS AN OPEN WHEEL CAR. as a real race fan, it simply kills me to know that because of a temper tantrum fuelled power grab, ALL forms of racing in this country has suffered.

except for nascar. that is even if you can call it "racing".

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update

today i got a call from compusa. laptop is still not here, but it's still being worked on. i don't understand this- why am i getting updates on this thing? IT'S NOT HERE which is the only thing i care about. i am still very , very mad, compounded by the fact that when i called them up 30 minutes later (because i couldn't get to the phone until that time) i got their answering machine. customer service they are not excelling at. tomorrow, i'm going to call them and ask them directly three questions: 1. what is _really_ wrong with my computer, 2. why does it take TWO weeks to re-install an operating system, and 3. why does any laptop need to be sent to any repair center just to reinstall an operating system?

i am especially upset because this is not the compusa service center that i remember. before when i had taken my desktop in for more serious repairs, i had gotten it back within the week and it had stayed inside the jefferson county borders. and if that call that i got was in response to a 1000 charachter message that i sent to customer service of the national compusa website, that was an extremely weak make-good on their part.

also, i pretty much had not the day of hell at my job (manager of a mcdonald's) but something damn close to it. my good days are really good, my bad days put simply fucking suck. i was missing 4 people that night for a variety of reasons: one was sent home for insubordination, one was sorting out some personal issues (issues that i know about, but am not going to divulge here), one quit the day before because of some issues (issues that i really don't know about, but still wouldn't divulge here if i did) and one didn't show up. i managed to get one person to come in, but for the night i was down 3 and we had a busier than normal night both in the lobby and in drive thru. in addition to all of this, last saturday i had worked 11 hours, 6 at my store, 5 at another because that manager had to go to the hospital (i was assured that they would be back in a minute. which turned out to be 300 of them. i had gotten up at 8 to get to work by 10 and didn't stop working until 1122.
pm.) plus had to work an additional 2:30 the next day because the employee who quit mentioned above, quit as i was getting ready to head out the door.

all of this adds up to one upset, angry and frustrated manager. the good people don't stay, the bad ones stay way too long and we can't get people to care about the job at my store. at the other store, well, they had become the first ever to average into the ronald level of service at mcdonald's (a total of less than 145 seconds of the monthly average of the time it takes a car to place an order and recieve an order in drive thru plus the average of the time it takes an order to be made). that's at the other store that is a part of the same organization i work for. both stores average the same amount of sales. but one does exponentially better.

the only reason i'm still there is because i know that i am doing the best i can with what i have. but lately the people, mainly the crew people are getting me down. it's making work life that much more unbearable.
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upsetting

House Passes Bush's FISA Law - American Civil Liberties Destroyed

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/08/05/house-passes-bushs-fisa-law-american-civil-liberties-destroyed/trackback/

for the record, my democratic congressman was one of the 179 who had the sense to vote no. much love to the two republicans who care more about people's rights than to give them up playing the fear card.

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blogger posting for dummies

or the chronically lazy.

i don't care much for any of the bells and whistles that posting can
provide with all the colors and formatting. i found out that i can post
to the blog via e-mail (to an undisclosed address).

the benefits:
i can simultaneously post and send someone an e-mail at the same time. so
if i have the chance to send someone a nasty complaint letter, it can be
sent to both at the same time.

hitting the tab button actually tabs over instead of to the next element.

the downside:
that last post i made about my laptop? sent via e-mail. the formatting
is all screwed up, nothing really can fix that, unless i use an e-mail
client that can handle the html based code the blogger system is based
on. and with my browser of choice being opera, that isn't going to happen
anytime soon, but like i said, i can do without the bells and whistles of
just getting something off my chest.

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http://www.opera.com/
^^^look for this for crappy e-mail posting.

all this...to reinstall an os?

those who know me know that i'm not much for complaining.

okay, yes i am.

backstory: two weeks ago my laptop wouldn't boot up fast enough after a
restart. a restart which was caused by microsoft vista (surprise
surprise) unable to download and install updated drivers correctly. it
for some reason could not download and install any ati drivers worth a
damn. why is this important? when the ati device program fails after
waking up from sleep or hibernation, wireless internet fails with it. one
way to fix that- restart the computer. so i restart the computer. before
now, booting had been pretty much instant. now it was suddenly taking 5
minutes. so like a dumbass, i turn off the laptop by holding power, and
turn it back on. now vista won't start it has a startup recovery program
which has worked before. now? butkiss. startup recovery doesn't work.
so you're thinking "why not install the os?". the answer is, i would
have, but the disk that came with my laptop doesn't look like an install
cd. instead it looks like a can-your-computer-run-vista cd.

so deciding to err on the side of caution, i take it to the local compusa
where i had a 2 year warranty. i explain my problem. they take it in. i
expect to get it back by tuesday (i had taken it in on sunday morning,
there was a line of machines ahead of mine, the earliest they could get to
it was monday). so no big deal. i don't have a laptop for a few days,
all is well.

i really should stop assuming things.

i take it in on 7-22. i get a call reguarding my computer nearly a WEEK
later on saturday. this call isn't about "your computer is ready". no,
no. this is a call stating that acer has approved all changes, it has
been sent to the repair center. by the way, they tell me this after i
drive to the place with my laptop bag expecting it to be there.

huh? did i miss something here? all this is is a just-reinstall-the-os
problem. i know that, and i'm not that technically inclined. ok fine,
wait some more.

today, i get another call. the woman on the other end is garbled as hell
on the answering machine so i call up there and i say point blank is my
computer up there right now. she tells me that it is at the repair
center. so i drive up there again, thinking that i finally get my
computer back after two weeks when all it needed was an os reinstall.
again, i take my laptop bag up there. guess what. again i'm told that it
isn't here, it has been sent to the repair center. but isn't this the
repair center? no it isn't.

something else you should know about me, i am about as emotional as star
trek's vulcans- outwardly stoic, interally a raging inferno. i am not
happy. so i ask when should i get my computer back. i'm told a week to
10 days. and i'm pretty upset with the on-site repair center. one, they
call with updates on my computer when all i want is it back. i don't care
where it is, just as long as its in the store when you call me. this
endless game of phone tag does me no good whatsoever. two, obviously
there is a more serious problem for them to have to send it off to an
off-site repair center and for acer to approve any changes. a problem
that i have not been made aware of. three, (acer is getting hit with
this) acer tech support is CLOSED on the weekends, and CLOSED during
non-business hours central time. plus their tech support phone number is
found nowhere on their website. i had to search other sites just to get
told i was unable to get tech support until monday on a saturday night.
plus e-mailing my problem did me no good, because i got a response back on
tuesday.

so you see, as a consumer, i am about fed up with the entire process. i
want my computer back and if i can't get it back i want to know why.
compusa could have saved this post and my bagging on them heavily if they
said well beforehand what was really wrong and when i should get it back,
information i just partially found out today.

bottom line- compusa is good for purchasing hardware for your computer and
installing it quickly. but in terms of actually _fixing_ the damn thing,
much has left to be desired. as soon as the warranty is up on the laptop
at that place, i'm not going there for any sort of repairwork on either my
desktop or laptop ever again.

edit:  this is the problem verbatim from the guy who initially took my laptop.  tell me this doesn't sound like a quick fix:

Unit comes in under warranty/TAP. The unit is Stuck in a boot cycle. unit blue-screens and restarts. Unit comes with battery and no AC adapter. No other accessories.

sports update

i'm not a real big sports fan, but i am a fan of baseball, hockey, the chamcar world series and university of louisville ________.  occationally i'll post something of interest from either of those worlds.  for example:

CUBS WIN!!!

• um, the cubs win their game tonight against the philadelphia phillies 5-4 on a wild pitch in the bottom of the ninth.  coupled with the brewers 8-5 loss to the mets, the cubs take a percentage points lead in the central, their first lead all year long.  look out national league, these aren't your typical cubs (at least not yet.  and hope it stays that way!).  uncle lou getting himself thrown out of the game on june 2 has turned out to be the move of the season.  since that time, the cubs i believe have lost somewhere in the vicinity of 15 games.  come playoff time, the cubs are going to be a hard out, because this team is now scoring runs and pitching effectively for a good portion of the season.  
  
  and i don't think they've peaked yet.
  
  the cubs are winning without the benefit of the long ball.  last week against the fucking cardinals, the cubs scored all of their runs on singles only.  in st. louis.  besides, if we're flawed now, i'm not too worried.  look a the title the fucking cardinals fluked into last year.

• in champcar related news, or will be i predict, scott speed and scudiera torro rossa look to be parting ways.  i think its fair to say the american involvement in f1 turned out to be a bust on all fronts- the us gp was a failure but i believe that that has more to do with that coked up moron and destroyer of open wheel racing anton hulman george than bernie ecclestone or max mosley.  because of geroge, that contrived form of racing that most people find popular, nascar, has destroyed most of everyone's conceptions of real racing.   real racing doesn't constantly turn left for 3 long boring hours  for 500 miles every week for 36 weeks, nor does it have to manufacture championship chases because one team nailed it and ran away with races during the season. but i digress...  

              i believe there are only three logical places scott will end up: nascar, sportscars, or champcar.  and considering  all options, i think there is a 55-45 against that he goes to champcar, the money in nascar is  something that champcar now can't offer and probably never will be able to due to management's ineptitude.  

              but then again, champcar is far closer to f1 than nascar, so you never know.


listening to :  bart ehrman - misquoting jesus (which is not a song by the way, its an audio book.  go listen to one, you may learn something)

i hate blogs.

i really do.  so why have one (this being my second which probably won't be updated often if ever)?  basically because there are some (okay a lot) of items that really bug my conscience nationally and locally and even in small portions of teh in-tar-web that i have opinions on that people either don't care about or don't share my views in which cases, i get shouted down or ignored or dismissed.  so i guess i will be here posting things that bother me and at my other web log (my.opera.com/ctk) i'll post some more things that bother me.

pretty simple concept, ne?