Pauls Rants & Revelations

I came across this while cruising Digg. Since I’m a Barak Obama fan, I though it would make a nice addition here.

Originally posted on USNews.com

Compiled by the U.S. News library staff.

1. Obama was born on Aug. 4, 1961, in Honolulu. His first name, Barack, means “blessed” in Swahili and was also his Kenyan father’s name.

2. He says he hasn’t liked ice cream since working at Baskin-Robbins as a teenager.

3. His childhood nickname was Barry.

4. Obama is the third African-American senator since Reconstruction.

5. He married Michelle Robinson, also a Harvard Law School graduate, who supervised him while he was working as a summer associate in a Chicago law firm. They have two daughters, Malia and Sasha.

6. As an Illinois state senator, he sponsored a bill to require the police to videotape interrogations in capital crime cases. Illinois was the first state to do this.

7. A school in his father’s hometown near Lake Victoria in Kenya has been renamed the Senator Barack Obama Secondary School.

8. He loves playing Scrabble.

9. Obama and his wife bought a house on Chicago’s South Side in June 2005 for $1.65 million. It has four fireplaces.

10. His heroes are Martin Luther King Jr., Mohandas Gandhi, Pablo Picasso, and John Coltrane.

I’m not sure what the point is about saying how much he spent on a house (and the number of fireplaces), but other than that I thought it was an interesting list.

-Cheers

Its is simply astounding that people like this actually get elected to office. As a web developer, I know for a fact that any system that checks age on the internet can be fooled. Unless MySpace goes to the users house and asks to see their ID, there is no way that this system will be effective at all.

 Full story: The Battalion – Conn. Bill Would Force MySpace Age Check

Although it is important to check ages, I think that the case they are citing as the main motivator for this bill is a little weak. I really hope that doesn’t turn MySpace into a crap site with 10000 checks on it. No one will use it after that (remember Napster?). But it is still likely that this one case will be the one apple that spoils the bunch.

-Cheers

I find this really funny and a very good lesson for Coulter. Her mouthing off is now going to hit her in her bank account as her derogatory comments have disenchanted advertises on her site who are now pulling off their ads. Some of them are quite large (such as Sallie Mae) and, since her site receives thousands of hits just from her haters alone, will seriously reduce ad revenue.

The full story about this can be found here:

Companies to pull ads from Coulters Web site – CNN.com

I would say that the third party company in charge of placing the ads should dump her site altogether. If you take away her money (at least some of it) it could encourage her to stop being such a spiteful skank.

In other Ann related crap, Henry Rollins made quite a persuasive offer to Ann, which can be viewed on YouTube.

-Cheers

TX House Member Ron Paul [R] and FL House Member Jeff Miller [R] proposed on Feb 7th “to abolishing personal income, estate, and gift taxes and prohibiting the United States Government from engaging in business in competition with its citizens.”

H. J. Res. 23: Proposing an amendment the Constitution of the United States relative to abolishing taxes

Since the income tax as we know it is only about a centiry old (the 16th amendment was proposed in 1909 ratified in 1913), this bill will basically be putting everyone back to the old (and I do mean old) tax system where Federal taxes are 2% of your income, regardless of dependants, student status, or income (the rich often get massive tax breaks). This would be really great since I really dont like paying half of my earnings to the government. Contact you local state rep so push this bill.

 Barack Obama officially threw his hat into the presidential ring in an announcement today. This is a huge deal as he is not only the most qualified (in my opinion) to lead us, but also because he has not been in Washington long enough to succumb to the political corruption that is plagueing this country. The link below is the full arcticle about his annoucement:

BBC NEWS | Americas | Obama launches presidential bid

If I were anywhere near Illinois I would have gone out there to see him personally. I guess Ill just have to wait until he stops in Oregon before I can see him talk in person.

I was wondering who is running for president. Or who is thinking about it. Or who has formed some committee to think about it. Anyways, I know Obama and Clinton are pretty much set to run, but I was curious who others are up for it so I did a quick search and found an extremly helpful Wikipedia article on it.

United States presidential election, 2008

The article is long but worth the read. Personally, I’m going for Obama. But Hillary Clinton is a major player according to a poll by Polling Report (click here for report).

While I don’t see the future, and don’t know who I will end up choosing November 2008, it would be awesome if either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton were elected. A smart and articulate leader (such as Obama) would help the U.S. stop looking like fools to the rest of the world, while Hillary’s ballsy attitude will take the mickey out of a lot of blow hard bureaucrats.

Its a tough choice (for me anyway) to be sure.

-Fin

From what little I have seen from this man, I must say that I like him a lot. If the election were today, I would vote for him hands down. He is articulate, well schooled, and has a (seemingly) good plan for what he would do in office.

Now, I am by no means a politics nut. In fact, I hate politics with a passion. This is in no small part related to work, as one of the biggest pains in my life was having to work on a client site for a republican candidate for the Oregon governorship (who ended up losing btw). But when I see someone like Obama come on and start talking about shit that needs to get done, I cant help but listen. I am trying to keep a neutral opinion about all of the candidates until I hear what they all have to say, but it is really hard to do so what with my penchant for snap decisions and judgments that later come back and bite me in the ass. At the very least I will listen to at least one of each of the candidates’ speeches.

More info on Barack Obama: http://www.barackobama.com/

Even though the elections are well away, he is getting an early start. Im not even sure who else is running at the moment, but I’ll bet they are going to have to play catch-up to Obama the whole race.

Cheers