Where Are The Moderates?

There once was a time and place in the history of the United States where the government could, get this: GET THINGS DONE.

How the hell did we lose this time? I blame it on the lack of moderates these days. Due to the election and President Bush's blatant disregard for Democratic policies, both sides refurse to work with each other. This is, indeed, really, really bad.

Without moderates willing to compromise, nothing will ever be accomplished. In order to circumvent this, the Republicans have tried to push their majority in both the Senate and House of Representatives to new extremes. However, they are stopped in the Senate because of one key issue: Many votes require a 60/40 majority to pass, and the Republicans have only 55 seats in the senate.

Consider this: During the next 4 years, if the Democrats in the Senate rejected everything. No bill would ever come to fruition. No reforms or anything would ever come to pass. Imagine, in 4 years, if we had the exact same laws being stuck in Congress. It would be hell.

This is a call to all moderates to step out of the woodwork.

FCC What?

The FCC controls the ratings for television. However, there are some really freaky stuff with the FCC. There's a movie I saw, which was called Collateral. That was rated R. It consisted of a hitman, and a taxi driver. However, aliens vs predator was rated PG-13, which had more baddies beating the crap out of each other.

So, why is it that the FCC said AVP was rated PG-13, and Collateral rated R? Their basically the same, and both pretty damn violent. Both consists of guns, curses, etc. Supposidly, it is because Collateral contains people killing people without any moral reason. So, by their logic, I'm allowed to make a highly gory movie about Jesus land invading and killing everybody else. Its religeous, and its supposidly moral (by christian views), since their killing all the sinners. So, I can walk away with a PG-13 and a Christian version of Saving Privite Ryan.

The FCC also has the ability to say what goes onto TV, and what doesn't. Saving Private Ryan was going to go onto TV on Veterans day, but the FCC disallowed that. Something like Kangaroo Jack replaced that or something. You get the point. But why was Saving Privite Ryan taken off TV? If the parents are so worried about it, they should just hang over their kid's shoulders.

Alot of anime are also rated R just because of humans killing humans. Gunslinger Girls, I can understand why its rated R. It's pretty gory, and you have little cybernetic girls killing people. But anime such as Noir, I can't see rated R. So sure, there are two girls who go around shooting people, but it's not really that gory. That should be rated PG-13. Blood the Last Vampire should be rated R. That one is very bloody.

The FCC should be dissolved. If Bush took away some of the ABA's powers, then the FCC should not be allowed to run cencorship for TV. It's not our fault that there is absolutly nothing on TV, its the FCC's fault. If they keep on taking away every single human against human combat, then you might as well turn TV into care bears and jesus channels.

Informed people are right.

Hiya. This is Drucker. I think that, although the election is obviously over, and has been for a good month or so now, that politics should still be talked about. I really like that, how on election years, there is a sudden jump in political interest. This is for, well, obvious reasons. Still, I think most people should stay informed throughout all year, every year. This isn't going to happen.

You see, I am a liberal, democrat, whateveryawannacallit. So is the rest of this site. Now, Adar Weinreb (www.weinrebsway.com) is the exact opposite, a raving conservative, republican, whatever. Still, I have to listen to what he says. Why? Because he actually knows a small bit of what he's talking about. Now the opposite of him, those that are uninformed, are the ones who say things like, "Abortion is murdering babies!" and, "Stem cells come from dead babies!" Obviously, those people have dead baby fetishes. Anyway, they are wrong. If they, the uninformed conservatives, would listen for a small minute, maybe they'd be listen to reason. This reason would be that their morals should not immediately be the morals of an entire country. This is especially true for a government founded on a separation of church and state. Bringing morals from religion into a government is usually not a good idea. But, that's exactly what has happened. What is the main argument for the conservative against gay marriage? "It is a sacred institution!" or, "It's just not right." If something is sacred, then it is about religion. If something is right or wrong, it is about personal beliefs and morals. Neither of these should be brought into a government, if it has any intelligence.

The iPod Sucks

One thing I really can't stand is people that are uninformed with technology. If you are going to get an expensive piece of hardware, learn how to fucking use it first, right? Common sense. So, why do people buy iPods? Because they are fashionable, they are in style. What about the functionality? Crap. I think that the iPod is the Windows of MP3/audio players. Why do I say this? Apple owns 85% of the market for audio players. Everyone knows that there must be better things than the iPod out there, right? But because of the support and the fact that only the iPod is compatible with the AAC/iTunes proprietary formats, everyone uses them. Why do I use my Windows as opposed to Linux? Why, the compatibility, and the support. Why else would you use Windows at all? Linux is open source, doesn't get viruses, looks better, runs smoother, and best of all free. So why not Linux? The support. And this gets back to the first thing that I was saying. Why does everyone buy the iPod? Because everyone's getting them. Isn't that somewhat of a bandwagon effect? The screens on the iPod scratch very easily, as do their backs. I don't think I've seen one un-scratched iPod screen on an iPod that has been owned for more than a week. Why? Because the people who do buy iPods are idiots who don't know their motherboards from their CPUs. Know what I say to that? If you haven't bought an iPod already, don't. Jump off of that bandwagon. Get something better, something more personal, and something, most importantly, cheaper. IPods cost way too much for their own good. Here's a few items for those of you who are sane.

Creative products. These have touch pads instead of scroll wheels.

Creative Zen Touch 20gig.
Creative Zen Micro 5gig. (1 gig more than the iPod mini. Also, comes in more colors, and is cheaper. Black color shown here.)

Rio products. These are incredably small and portable.
Rio Karma 20gig.
Rio Carbon 5gig.
Flash players. These have no moving parts, so they're hard to break. Smaller sizes, though. Multiple companies.

Rio Forge 512meg.
Creative Labs Muvo 256meg.
That's enough for now. I only did two companies, but you get the idea. There's plenty of choices, why would you ever settle for an expensive pile of crap?

Exciting News and Times

Alright, before I begin this rant, let me clear up a few things. First, we have an RSS feed now. Firefox and I think Netscape users can just see a litttle RSS button in the bottom right and click on it. For everyone else, bookmark the link. I think. Or better yet, get a newsreader like this one. And also, a merry nondenominational whatever the hell you're celebrating this Christmas.

Now that that's out of the way, let's begin. You may think that just because all the fervor over the election has died down that everyone would stop bashing Bush, (well, almost everyone) but you're wrong. Here at Pamphlets of the New Generation we hate Bush. A lot. We hate him so much that we will continue to haunt him for the rest of his life. The main reason is due to his Presidency, but creating the Texans is a good enough one as well.

Let's begin. In his bid for the Presidency in the year 2000, as part of the process to elimnate rivals, he attacked John Mcain's record in Vietname. Sound familiar? Bush attacked the one senator respected by both the Democrats and the Republicans, and what happens? He wins the damn Presidency. Even worse, he wins because of the Supreme Court, not because of either the real popular vote or electoral vote.

Next, his first crisis, the China spy plane incident was handled so poorly I laughed. He couldn't even apologize, so the Chinese received a letter saying that the United States was "Very very sorry", which due to translation, was accepted by the Chinese.

Onto his failure to protect against September 11th. He actually received a memo stating "Bin Laden to Attack Inside the United States", but what did he do? He went golfing, on national television. Of all things, why would anyone ignore that?

He has failed the intelligence community's credibility with his claim to weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and he turned the topic away from that to spreading "democracy". And then his intelligence failed him again, losing 200 tons worth of explosive devices.

All this and he still claims to make our nation safer?

Bush's godly economic plan

As you know, our economy is declining. Who's fault? Corporations, stupidity, CEOs. Bush. Today were going to talk about Bush's so called economic plan. Bush cut taxes.

He said:
The guy at the bottom of the money tree gets a larger tax cu than the guy up on the top. Therefore, the guy on the bottom has benefited more than the guy on the top of the money tree.

Many Americans fall for that saying, because it looks good percentage wise. The poor people get more money, and everybody is happy.

However, Bush did not tell you that the tax cut was for the rich. The guy at the bottom of the money try may have saved around 100 dollars because of the tax cut. Now look at the guy on the top of the money tree. He/she has saved more than 1000 dollars due to the tax cut. Plus, that person's stock/bond money aren't taxed. So the person on the top gets more money than the guy on the bottom.

See the problem (results are not correct, just there for an example)?

Because of the war in Iraq, the bad timing to give a tax cut, Bush has raised the allowed national debt number to 8.18 Trillion. The original allowed national debt number 8.1792 trillion. This is 70 percent of the national economy. By passing this bill, he can now spend more money, and leave our country in more debt.

So who has to pay for this large debt? We do. Bush has planned to dip into our social security money pool in order to pay off this large debt. Plus, he refuses to raise taxes, and/or tax the money made from stocks. Now something just doesn't add up here. Why is he lowering taxes when he's just going to take money from the people themselves? The social security funds are from the people. So your basically just taking money from the people in a more discrete fashion.

We need this money to pay off our national debt. Bush doesn't think so. He's all for the tax cut.

Selling Computers in China

One of the dumber things that an American CEO has made.

Why? I'll tell you.

You sell a computer, and you make no profits. Most of the computers bought in China are comprised up of hole in the wall computer stores. You go there, pick out the parts, and they make them for you. Their faster, meaner, cooler, and sometimes cheaper than whatever computer companies try to sell to you. So selling computers is probably the dumbest thing ever. You set up factories in China, bribe the officials, etc. No one buys. You loose money.

Well, selling programs isn't any better. Windows XP has been pirated, and sent all over China to sell. No longer do you have to pay the regular 100 dollars for a copy, now you can spend a fraction of that price for Windows. Or they get linux. Whatever, the point is, you still don't make any money. This is the same thing with games. Their games are alot cheaper. Why? Because you don't really buy them from the companies, you buy them from guys who hacked the program.

So, why Americans persist to sell computers and stuff in China is beyond me. You might make money off of selling hardware, since the hole in the wall stores need parts. But thats about it. No one wants to buy factory made computers. Plus, in China, no one wants to spend ANY money on an OS. So maybe you can make millions of dollars since theres alot of Chinese people. But if a hundreth of the Chinese population spends money on your stuff, your not making much. With all the factory and shipping stuff, your probably loosing money. The Chinese? Hell, the guys who bought your stuff are probably hacking and selling them for the country.

Same goes with DVDs, CDs, and etc.

Gay Marriage...and no, I'm not gay

What would you feel like if the goverment denied you rights that other people had? This is a question everybody must consider before deciding whether or not they support Gay Marriage or not. You see, marriage is much more than sharing a last name. Marrige is something much more important, it's about your damn rights. This is why I asked my first question, because it is basically the same thing as denying gay people to marry. People who believe marriage is between a women and male don't know the background information behind marriage.

So marriage grants you more things than just sharing the same last name. You get benefits. Benifits which are very much useful for a married couple.

National benefits:
1. Access to Military Stores
2. Assumption of Spouse’s Pension
3. Bereavement Leave
4. Immigration
5. Insurance Breaks
6. Medical Decisions on Behalf of Partner
7. Sick Leave to Care for Partner
8. Social Security Survivor Benefits
9. Sick Leave to Care for Partner
10. Tax Breaks
11. Veteran’s Discounts
12. Visitation of Partner in Hospital or Prison

Several State Benefits:
1. Assumption of Spouse’s Pension
2. Automatic Inheritance
3. Automatic Housing Lease Transfer
4. Bereavement Leave
5. Burial Determination
6. Child Custody
7. Crime Victim’s Recovery Benefits
8. Divorce Protections
9. Domestic Violence Protection
10. Exemption from Property Tax on Partner’s Death
11. Immunity from Testifying Against Spouse
12. Insurance Breaks
13. Joint Adoption and Foster Care
14. Joint Bankruptcy
15. Joint Parenting (Insurance Coverage, School Records)
16. Medical Decisions on Behalf of Partner
17. Certain Property Rights
18. Reduced Rate Memberships
19. Sick Leave to Care for Partner
20. Visitation of Partner’s Children
21. Visitation of Partner in Hospital or Prison
22. Wrongful Death (Loss of Consort) Benefits

By denying people the right to marry, you are denying them the rights listed above. Saying it is against religeon is basically saying equal rights is against your religeon. Just because your a homophobe, does not mean you should discriminate against gay people. It's genetics. There's nothing they could have done about it. You might as well say people with OCD shouldn't be allowed to vote since they would keep on pressing the vote button. Or maybe bums shouldn't have any rights because they scare you.

I'm pretty sure democracy supports equal rights. So if you say marriage is only for a male and female, either abolish every single benefit listed above, or make it so gay couples can attain them. Marriage is much much more than just sharing your last name. It comes with benefits every married couple wants.

IM is bad

IM is one of the most popular inventions ever. You have a craptastic piece of software, and people send messages to each other. In other words, Its basically like an Insta-Email. Well, IM rots your brains. It destroys many things that languages require to function. Although many people don't feel the effects of IM, it slowly decays your mind, and annoys the hell out of the person who's right next to you.

For example, the word you. It has been degraded into the letter "u," in AIM. This is the effects of IM. Soon, after several hours wasted on AIM, you end up typing the word you, into the letter u. Trust me on this, I'm speaking from experience. It took me several weeks to undo that habit during 7th grade. IM is bad for you. In extreme cases, it leaks into regular speech. For example, the text ROFL (rolling on the floor laughing). I have heard, "roffle," said out loud during school. This also includes, "looool." This is how AIM rots your mind. It develops it's own laugage type thing. Which is bad. Your teacher probably hates it when you have the letter, "u," the text, ": )," etc. IT'S BAD.

Also, many of IM users are pretty computer illiterate. There is a function inside AIM where it turns off the sounds. However, everybody has heard the classic story of the guy who's roomate had AIM. The highly annoying sound has ticked many off. In the case of the story, the guy takes out his baseball bat and breaks the computer. It happens. Theres also the one's who are like, "NEVER! OR ELSE I DON'T KNOW WHEN I GOT IM'ED." You get the point.

IM has gone too far. Now they have electronics devoted to AIM. Your cellphone now has text messages. You have that little slidy thingy which lets you AIM whenever you want. This rapidly degrades the writing ability of many. It rips the language part of your brain out from your ears. It is bad for you. IM is bad.

Bush's Plans for the Supreme Court

Many of the Supreme Court judges are old, and they wish to retire. Bush has even gone to the length of attempting to set a required retirement age for the Supreme Court to push them all out. He has passed bills for the American Bar Association. Bush wants to change America, in a way that upsets many of the Democrats.

Bush has pushed a bill through congress dealing with the American Bar Association. The American Bar Association has one very important tas, it regulates who can be admitted into the Supreme Court. Judges who are admitted have the change to be picked into the Supreme Court. Most of the judges are moderate, and definently not bias. However, the bill states that judges no longer have to seek approval from the ABA. Now, the president can pick whatever judges he wishes.

Several problems arise with this. One of which is Bush's ideas for the, "perfect," society. Teaching abstenince in schools instead of birth control, no more genetic/stem cell research, no abortion, etc. In other words, he can now basically screw up the country however way he wishes. He can turn the US, into, "Jesusland." A land in which many of the democrats do not wish to live in. Especially if they start teaching prayer in school. Only god knows how pissed the Democrats will become.

This will also affect future generations. You see, the Supreme Court is not supposed to have a high concentration of hardcore liberals/conservatives. If you have a high liberal concentration, we have very er, loose laws. With a high conservative concetration, we end up with really freaky things such as the things planned in Bush's mind. Therefore, in 50 years, if a freakishly hardcore democrat steps into office and all the Supreme Court people retire, he may fill up the cabinent with liberals, and drastically change the society. Unless we get a president who is willing to repeal Bush's ABA bill, every single Hardcore president that steps into office in 50 ish so years will change the court, into something of his favor.

This has got to be Bush's most boneheaded idea ever. Not only does he now have the power to screw this country into a Christian palace, he now enables every single future hardcore president to nuke the country. Hopefully it wont happen, and the judges Bush picks aren't hardcore. But if so, I'm gonna really move to Canada...Or australia. FIGHT NIGHT.

The Scribe Returns! Christmas Edition.

For me, the Christmas season only began today, when I helped my dad put up those annoying Christmas lights on the tree outside (and got cut in the process), but nowadays, Christmas season begins in November. Stores even declare a "Black Friday" right after Thanksgiving, where the masses come and go from the shops like cicadas in the summer, only this time, it's annual.

Why?

Why has a religious holiday become so twisted into a commercial venture in the US? In other countries, the urge to sell is not nearly as great, but in the United States, Christmas is synonomous with gifts, money spending, and sales. In fact, companies rely so much on Christmas that they expect 40% of their sales to come from the very first day of holiday shopping alone. 40%!

In fact, why are we even celebrating Christmas in December? The Bible even says that Jesus was born in the springtime, March or Aprilish, so why celebrate his birthday now? What's the point? Do people in America want to be so greedy that they have to invent this holiday and skew what once was a holy day into a moneymaking scam? And what does the Church have to say about this?

Absolutely jack shit.

The Idiocity of SUV

Why would you want to buy an SUV? You spend 50 dollars on gas. Twice a week. It flips easily, it doesn't do shit with terrain (unless you have a REAL hummer), its basically a piece of crap. So again, why would you want an SUV?

Studies show that if everybody in the US changes from SUVs to Hybrids, we cut out oil consumption by more than half. Therefore, if we switch everybody to hybrids, we can tell the Saudi's to go screw themselves, and we can walk off without worrying about oil. Besides, with all the terrorist funding crap, it should be a good thing switching everybody to SUVs. We use less oil, the terrorists don't obtain such shiny-ish stuff. So they don't run around with the XM8, but they won't be able to afford as many AK-47s, RPGs, etc. Maybe then will we stop finding 200 tons worth of explosives. Maybe then we can stop the so called biological/chemical weapon development. Maybe then we can tell the terrorists to screw themselves.

The SUV is the most dangerious car on the road. First thing is that it flips really easily. I mean, they have a freaking, "Don't drive SUV," sign all over the highway. Notice the ripped tires? Yeah, those are all from flipped SUVs. An SUV flipping is already a bad thing. But its bumper thing is worse. Thats a big danger on the road. The SUV bumper goes up to say, head level when your sitting in a car. That thing comes running into you, your head gets splattered. A.K.A Your dead. So it's a pretty scary road hazard. Plus, the added height of an SUV means super agressive drivers. They think their so high up in their SUVs, and that they control the roads. So now you have agressive drivers driving into you. And we all know how scary the white gloves of terror are.

The SUV is a shitty car. Its badly designed, its a road hazard, etc. So WHY would you want one? It kills people, and it kills you. Maybe its because you like being high up, but that just makes you easy to flip. Besides, having a gas tank as large as an SUV is basically giving money to the Saudi.