Thrashing Through Cyberspace

A Sad Day

Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits.

RIP, George Carlin.

Obama's 1st General Election Ad

The Obama campaign has launched their first biopic general election campaign ad, and it's pretty good.

Another Reason to Avoid Wal*Mart: Police Detention

I was detained by the police today and accused of stealing. I was also illegally detained against my will by several Wal*Mart employees preceding the detention by police. My crime? Leaving Wal*Mart with four bags of sugar (that I had just purchased) without showing a receipt. I was threatened with being taken to jail, threatened with physical violence as I attempted to leave, and had to defend myself and my property while Wal*Mart security attempted to rip it from my hands. After I was released (having been completely innocent all along), I was lectured by the police officer and Wal*Mart manager about how next time I could make it easier on myself by just agreeing to give up my rights to their goons to begin with. While the initial employee who detained me apologized, the others, including the Wal*Mart Manager, did not.

I was at the Germantown Wal*Mart to buy four bags of sugar because earlier in the day I had been at Butler's Orchard picking 10 pounds of strawberries to turn into delicious jam. And to make delicious jam, you need lots of sugar. I grabbed four bags and headed to the checkout, where I also decided I could use some refreshment. I grabbed a Mountain Dew from the cooler, but the cashier had already processed my card for the four bags of sugar. He apologized and rang up another transaction for the Mt. Dew. At that point, he crumpled up my receipt for the four bags of sugar and handed me the receipt for the Mountain Dew. I headed for the exit, and was greeted by Wal*Mart security who wanted to check my receipt. I produced the receipt for the Mountain Dew and explained that the cashier had tossed the other receipt for the sugar. I would repeat this explanation 6 more times before this affair ended. There's more...

Continue reading "Another Reason to Avoid Wal*Mart: Police Detention"

Gandhi/Obama Progression: Ignore, Laugh, Fight, Win

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” - Mahatma Gandhi

This post is for all those people who laughed when I started Draft Obama. It's for my conservative poker buddies who explained how he stood no chance against the Clinton machine, and my more liberal friends who said "we like him, but America isn't ready."

It's for those at Daily Kos who attacked my posts there about Draft Obama, and those at MyDD who encouraged me. (How things change, huh?)

It's for anyone who thought that when a small group of us came together in 2006 and dedicated ourselves to encouraging Barack Obama to run we were in over our heads, naive, and didn't stand a chance. For Hillary supporters who fought tooth and nail for their candidate, but will now unite behind the winner.

Today, we all know what our small group knew over 2 years ago: Barack Obama will be the next President of the United States. Thank you to all who ignored, laughed, fought, and now have seen us win the first of the major battles on the way to hearing the words President Obama. Onward to victory!

Gaius Emerick Hanchar

Gaius Hanchar
Born June 2, 2008.
6 pounds, 10 ounces.

Congratulations Jake, Desi and the rest of the Hanchar and Sandoval families.

The Latest Meme

No one tagged me, but here it is. You can see your own results by running this command in the terminal

history|awk '{print $2}'|sort|uniq -c|sort -rn|head

  77 ssh
  36 karp
  20 ls
  20 home
  19 man
  18 exit
  16 abs
  13 sudo
  12 scp
  12 cd

karp is an alias to ssh to a server at work. home is an alias to ssh to my G5 desktop. abs is another alias to ssh to a server at work.

3 AM

I'll tell you one thing. If it's 3 AM and there's a crisis brewing in the world, the one person I ABSOLUTELY DON'T WANT answering the White House phone is anyone who voted for the Iraq War.

Hillary Clinton's BS Speech

Apparently Hillary Clinton thinks that she's going to convince people to vote for her by giving a speech tonight in Ohio where she tells a bunch of lies about the differences herself and Barack Obama. The fake "contrast" she's been trying to convince people to believe is this: Barack Obama gives pretty speeches but doesn't have any ideas and has never done hard work, while she's just got the brain and power to "get things done." Here's a line from the speech:

"…It’s about picking a president who relies not just on words – but on work, hard work, to get America back to work. Someone who’s not just in the speeches business – but will get America back in the solutions business…"

Well, I call BS.

When Hillary Clinton finished her expensive private law school, she went to work for a big law firm representing corporate clients and serving on the boards of companies like  Wal*Mart -- going to lavish board meetings and rubbing elbows with the richest of the rich.

When Barack Obama graduated from his expensive private law school, he didn't go hang out with fat cats at corporate board meetings. He went to the streets of Chicago where he worked tirelessly and for little monetary gain helping people as a community organizer.

While Hilary Clinton took over the ceremonial duties of first ladydom, she was given important roles such as selecting the White House china and writing official first lady cookie recipes. Her major "solution" that she championed while First Lady, health care, was a complete and utter failure of legendary proportions and a poxmark on the Clinton presidency.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama was still working late hours helping those less fortunate and downtrodden in Chicago, eventually being elected to the Illinois State Senate where, working across party lines, he championed legislation like ethics reform, campaign finance reform, and tax relief for working families.

Barack Obama isn't just pretty speeches. And Hillary Clinton isn't just first lady formalisms. But only one candidate is on the attack with words she knows aren't true. Only one candidate is willing to resort to kind of divisive and dishonest politics of the past.

Words have important meanings, and not only has he spoken eloquently about the kind of change he would bring, he's used the written word to spell out exactly what an Obama Presidential Administration would look like in his book, The Audacity of Hope. A book he wrote while at the same time working as a United States Senator, the same hard work undertaken by Senator Clinton.

These attacks and lies about Barack Obama not "being ready" to lead on day 1; these attacks and lies about Barack Obama being nothing more than flowery language; these attacks and lies about Barack Obama's record...It's such a pathetic act of desperation and bullshit and lies.

Exactly the kind of politics people are tired of, and the reason Barack Obama will be the next President.

Published Photographer

The Future First Family Waves
Originally uploaded by acaben

This is really exciting. The PBS documentary "African American Lives" (premieres tomorrow, Feb 6, 2008 at 9 on PBS stations) is using one of my creative commons licensed Flickr pictures on the documentary's website to represent the year 2007 in their historical timeline.

Here's the photo they chose:

I also wanted to point out how awesome it was to deal with Jess Ludwig, the PBS person who contacted me for permission to use the photo. We arranged some terms that differed slightly from the Creative Commons license, and she couldn't have been nicer throughout the whole process.

One More Prod: Vote Obama

If you need a bit more than the awesome Lessig video below, my friend Tom recommends this piece by Michael Chabon endorsing Obama.

Tom writes:

...hope is what we look for. It's what lets us Believe. It's what makes Nations Great. It's what allows us to remove tarnish, to do good works and to lead. It sparks those, like me, who've stood aside as those with zeal, not hope, have bent the nation to their will. It's interesting to watch something like this happen, as I certainly didn't expect to be in the camp of the leftmost candidate.But here I am. And here you all are. Please take a second to read Michael Chabon's endorsement of Sen. Obama in today's Washington Post. It's probably some of the finest political writing I've read in a while. Then go vote.

(Via Adventures in Troubleshooting.)