1. The endorsement of torture and the revocation of Habeus Corpus
2. The use of domestic propaganda to "correct inaccuracies" of the independent media
3. The power to declare martial law

I dare anyone to look me in the eye and tell me this is what Thomas Jefferson--or his fellow patriots--intended when he put ink to parchment on that "Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven".

Liberal, moderate, or conservative; it doesn't matter where you fall on the spectrum, if you truly believe in this nation and the values on which it was founded, you can not allow this desecration to continue. This goes beyond individual corruption, beyond the expected lies, beyond the sex scandal of the day. This strikes at the very heart of our nation and the ideals which it enshrines. This is a desecration and a perversion of the greatness for which this nation--and this people--have stood for 230 years.

This has nothing to do with party lines; this isn't what Dwight D Eisenhower, Barry Goldwater, or Ronald Reagan exemplified. This isn't about idealism; our country lost its innocence before it even gained it's name. This isn't about "giving in"; nobody dares to tell General Colin Powell, Maj. Gen. John Batiste, or my father--who stormed the Anzio beachhead in WWII--that they are cowards in the face of enemy fire.

This has to do with a few powerful men playing upon the fears and hatred of a people in order to divide a nation and steer it towards a tyranny that serves their own petty purposes.

This is not America. This is not the nation that birthed itself in blood and violence from beneath the tyranny of Kind George. This is not the nation that sent its men and boys to destroy the enveloping tyranny of Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito. This is not the nation that stood in cold determination against the tyranny of Stalin, Krushchev, and Brezhnev. This is not the country that decried the tyranny of Pinochet, Botha, and Castro.

This is not my America. My America doesn't fear bullies with guns. My America doesn't fear the Fourth Estate. My America doesn't fear the wisdom of the judiciary. My America doesn't fear due process and a jury of its peers. My America doesn't fear admitting its mistakes. My America doesn't fear the Truth.

My America has "nothing to fear but fear itself."

What about your America?

A silly title, but a couple of serious questions.

In Wisconsin--as well as many other states--this election includes a referendum on a constitutional restriction on marriage. It's almost always defined as the "gay marriage" issue, but the wordings of the various proposed amendments actually extends beyond that: "A legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized in this state". This outlaws common-law marriage, heterosexual domestic partnerships, and a range of other currently accepted situations.

In New Jersey, the Supreme Court recently stated that the ban on same-sex marriages is unconstitutional. The decision said that gays did not need to be included in the current definition of marriage, but must be afforded the right to a status which is equal to marriage--i.e., "Civil Unions".

Umm.... what, exactly, is the difference between a "marriage" and a "civil union", if they must be "of equal status"? It's a matter of semantics, isn't it? A = B They have different names, but they're the same thing. Are we really so afraid of "gay marriage" that we can't even call it "marriage"?

Which brings me to the 2nd question:

Why are people so afraid of it? I've heard, over and over, that allowing gay marriage will "destroy the institution of marriage".

Okay.... How?

I want specific examples. I won't accept quotes from the Bible, I won't accept "it's wrong", I won't accept "the next step is people marrying animals". I want specific examples of how 2 men getting married will cause existing or future marriages by a man and a woman to be ruined. I want specific examples of how it will detrimentally affect society. Back the examples up with facts, valid statistics, and/or well-reasoned logic.

And then explain to me why the current state of marriage deserves to be defended. Why we should approve of and defend Vegas weddings, loveless marriages, abusive marriages, political marriages, adulterous marriages, and all the other marriages that fall outside of the religious-conservative ideal?

I got hit with a stroke of inspiration on the drive home today... And after I quit swearing and wiped the blood out of my eyes, I decided "what the hell... give it a try".

I recently acquired the soundtrack to Grosse Pointe Blank, and one of the songs is "We Care A Lot" by Faith No More. The stroke of inspiration was this: I think it would make a great political video--especially since there's this "election" thing happening next Tuesday.

So.... I'm sending out a call for help. There's 2 things I need; one simple, one more complicated.

1) Pictures. What I'm thinking of for the video is just a series of still images relating to the lyrics of the song. For example: "We care a lot about disasters, fires, floods and killer bees" There would be pictures of (perhaps) Hurricane Katrina, firefighters battling a wildfire, the tsunami in Indonesia, and... well... killer bees [1]. During the chorus (especially the "it's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it" part) would be pictures of Democratic or Independent/3rd-party candidates (or incumbents who aren't running).

2) Someone who can slap all this together by this weekend. I'd be willing to do it myself--and if I'd thought of this a couple weeks ago, I would do it myself, but I really don't have the skills or the tools. I'm hoping that someone out there reading this has both the skills and the tools to put it all together in an evening (it's not like it has to be a really professional job, it just has to get the point across.)

For reference, I have both the lyrics and the mp3 posted on my site.

If you're willing to help out in either (and especially #2!) let me know. I know it's a longshot, but like I said up above, "What the hell, give it a try".

I can be contacted at webmaster@ ... and the part after that is dragonflydreams.org (how's that for a munge?).

[1] Either the real ones or John Belushi and Dan Akroyd from the classic SNL skits.

I am here, at the invitation of Congress and by requirement of the Constitution to present to you the state of the Union.

The Union, my friends, is desperate and decaying.

Our soldiers are dying on the streets of Bahgdad. Our children are dying on the streets of Baltimore.

The freedoms our fathers--fought for on the plains of Europe and the islands of the Pacific, the freedoms they died to preserve--are given away with a smile and a thank you.

Coffers, only scant years ago brimming with suruplus, are now filled with debts and half-hearted promises.

The Union has ceased to be united, but is, instead, divided to the extremes. Hatred, zealotry, and fanaticism are the only voices we hear; and the voice of reason is drowned out by the din.

While those past have stood before you to present their vision of what the Union should be and what they envisioned it to become, I stand before you to present the Union as it is. There will be no grand proclamations. There will be do arrogance or righteousness. There will be no partisan propaganda. There will be no illusions.

I stand before you today--before Congress, and before the American people--to do what no other President has had the courage to do: tell the truth.

We, the elected, have made this country our playground. We pull the strings of power influence and revel in the trappings of power. We line our pockets with your money and twist the laws to our own ends. We place our party above our people. We act like leaders instead of elected representatives. We pander to the extremes and alienate the vastness of common ground. We create enemies in order to rally the people around our banner.

Before you start cheering, rememeber what Matthew says: "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?"

Those of us who sit in this hall are here becuase you have put us here. It is by your will--your voice--that we hold this power. You rail and whine about the evils we do, yet when we stand before you and ask to retain this power, you hand it to us with exhuberance and glee. You accept the lies we tell you... you desire them.

When the honest man stands before you and asks for the authority to defy these lies, you cringe before his truth and cast your lot with the man who gives you pleasing lies. You give lip-service to honesty and justice, but you cast your voice and your coin to the lie which best strokes your ego. You wish to paint us as evil, but what you see in us is nothing more than a lens of what you are yourselves.

The Union, my fellow citizens, is a fetid and festering corpse; a shallow shadow of what it was. It isn't a country, but a collection of selfish individuals bent on imposing their personal agendas on the rest of the world. It has forgotten that rights come with responsibilities. It has forgotten that justice requires sacrifice. It has replaced society with self.

The Union, my countrymen, is desparate and decaying.

And it will not change until you do.

In response to the school shooting in Cazenovia this month, word has come down from on-high that all staff members are to visibly wear their employee ID at all times. In a school setting, this makes some sense--especially in the really large schools where staff may not know everyone.

I don't work in a school. I work in an office in the central warehouse. There are about 2 dozen people that work here, and we all know each other. In addition, this is a public building. Non-staff are coming and going constantly; truck drivers, parents, salesmen, and community members. They aren't required to sign in in any way (nor, really, should they be). There are no guards at the doors checking IDs. So, at best, wearing staff IDs is entirely pointless.

At worst, it's actually dangerous. It implies that anyone with an ID is okay. However, nobody looks at the ID itself, they just notice that the person is wearing one. In a building where everyone doesn't know everyone else, anyone could walk in with a stolen ID clipped to my belt, and nobody would look twice at them. Unless you're willing to set up "Checkpoint Charlie" in the hallways, it's an exercise in futility.

And I really dispise that kind of exercise.

I've started by own team at Folding@Home.

Folding@Home is a distributed computing project run by Stanford University. The program installs on your computer and runs in the background, using whatever processor power you aren't using. So... if you're working hard, it sits and waits. If you're just poking around online or doing basic word-processing, it kicks in and works behind the scenes. And when you walk away and leave your computer running, it takes that opportunity to kick into high gear and really get some work done.

What it's doing is "folding" proteins. Incorrectly-folded proteins are the cause of such diseases as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and some types of cancers. Standford is asking you to let them use your computer's free time to help them work out the solutions as to why these diseases happen, and to find ways to cure and prevent them.

Just think... you could be curing cancer while you're surfing the web.

Grab the program, install it, and when the little box pops up asking what team you want to join, type in 52596. That's the Dragonfly Dreams team.

Zero effort, curing cancer... You can't find a better deal than that!

(Oh... for all you Catholics out there: this has got to be worth a bunch of Purgatory Points.)

This is the first of what, I hope, will be a series of fictional speeches designed to point out perspectives and ideas that I feel are missing from the current political arena. Our notion of politics and the 2-party system has become so incredibly polarized, that calling someone a "moderate" has become a serious insult. We've become too obsessed with the "sides" and forgotten the "goals". I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican. I find good and bad in both sides, and far more of worth somewhere in the middle. What I hope will come out of this little exercise is an opening of people's eyes to the bigger picture. I don't suggest that everything I say in these speeches is right. I won't even say that I fully believe in any of the particulars. But I will say that these perspectives need to be looked at. Because... if we continue down the path we're on, any chance of actually helping this nation will be killed in the crossfire.

The Republicans say that they're the party of "family values", that this is something in which they believe very strongly.

Let's talk about the values of your family--not just those related by blood, but the family that is your community, your town, your church, your neighbors.

When your neighbor's crops are destroyed in a flood, you pass the plate and help them out. We all know that hard times can hit any of us, and if you can get past the worst of it, you can survive until the next crop is ready to plant.

When little Susie falls for the wrong guy and gets herself "in a family way" and the boy skips out on her, you don't toss her out on the street. You take her in, you find her work, you help her get started, and you see to it that she can provide for that baby. Because we've all been young, we've all been in love, and we've all made mistakes. And we understand that it's not just about Susie, it's about that baby, and he deserves as good a life as the rest of us.

When Grandma gets too old to take care of the house herself, you don't ship her off to some facility to live with strangers. You bring her home and let her live her last years surrounded by family, helping where she can, teaching the young ones the lessons she's learned, and telling stories of what the world was like, and how far we've come. Because she's family, and family takes care of its own.

When your brother loses his arm to a combine, you don't toss him in a nursing home and forget about him. You bring him back to the farm, rig up the controls on that combine to work one-handed, and hand him the keys. Because you know that a man is more than an arm, and a man takes pride in doing his share and doing it well. Without that pride, a man is nothing more than a shell.

When cousin has a boy that's... "a little slow", you don't ship him off to some hospital and let him be raised by a bunch of doctors. You raise him at home where he belongs. You teach him to feed the cattle, stack hay, fix the engine on that old John Deere that's been working on this farm longer than half the family. You watch over him, you help him out where he needs it, you show him what life is about, and you understand that he takes just as much pride in his work as you do. Because he's family. And because we all understand that every one of God's children has something to give.

Are those good southern values? Are those good family values? Are those good Christian values?

Those are also the values of the Democratic Party. Our "town" is America. Our "neighborhood" is this state. And our "family" is every person who lives here. And those values I was just talking about? Those are Welfare, Medicare and Medicade, and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

It's all about helping out the family.

Now... are there problems with the system? Absolutely. Are there people abusing the system? There certainly are. Is there waste and stupidity in how it's applied? It would be a blantant lie to deny it. But that doesn't make it wrong to do what's right. It just means we need to get back to the basics. We need to get back to the roots--back to the ideals--and change what's there; fix what's there.

We need to stop giving handouts, and get back to giving a helping hand. We need to stop giving their payments, and start giving people back there pride. We need to get rid of the fraud, and bring back the family.

This is what a good Democrat works for. This is what we can do. But we need to understand that we can't do this for you... we have to do it with you.

I'm asking you to help me do what's right. I'm asking you to help our family stand on its own feet. I'm asking you to let us take care of our own--not in hospitals and nursing homes--but in our homes, in our jobs, and in our communities.

I'm asking you to teach this country what it means to be a family. I'm asking you to show us that there's no shame in being who you are, there's no shame in working to the best of your ability--no matter how limited that ability may be--and there's no shame in giving a hand to those who need it so that they'll be able to give something back.

Moving quickly to implement the bill signed by President Bush this week that authorizes military trials of enemy combatants, the administration has formally notified the U.S. District Court here that it no longer has jurisdiction to consider hundreds of habeas corpus petitions filed by inmates at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.
-- Washington Post (online)

The Dictatorship[1] has now begun.

The Executive Branch has officially defined what the Judicial branch may and may not do--in direct defiance of the Powers as laid out Article III of the Constitution of the United States.

[1] Main Entry: dic·ta·tor·ship
Pronunciation: dik-'tA-t&r-"ship, 'dik-"
Function: noun
1 : the office of dictator
2 : autocratic rule, control, or leadership
3 a : a form of government in which absolute power is concentrated in a dictator or a small clique b : a government organization or group in which absolute power is so concentrated c : a despotic state

--Mirriam Webster Online

I printed off the letter part of the Letter to Congress this morning. I should have the Constitution part waiting in my mailbox (a very big thanks to Tony for printing it for me).

It should be in the mail by the end of the week. It looks like the donations will just about cover the costs (it depends on how much PayPal keeps for itself), but either way it'll be within a few dollars.

Thank you to all who signed the letter (15 people) and all those who donated to the cause (several of whom were from outside the US).

...and a subsequent trip to the emergency room.

I won't go into any details, because... well... there really aren't any details to go into. Somewhere over the course of last night the vision in my right eye became twice as good as it was yesterday morning (my perscription went from 3.5 to 1.75). That's the miracle. The only way for this to happen is for the shape of my cornea and lens to have changed. That prompted the trip to the emergency room.

Neither the ER doctor nor the lovely new optometrist could find anything "wrong" with the eye. There's no explanation for how or why it happened. There's no "treatment" because, once again, there's really nothing "wrong". It's fun to hear a doctor say "That's weird! I've never heard of that happening!" Though it goes well with me saying "Yeah... I'm coming to the doctor to complain that my eyesight suddenly got better."

So... it's been an unusual day.