Smooth Criminal - Redux
Ralph Nader at the White House
On the 23rd of this month, Ralph Nader gave a press conference in front of the White House calling for the resignation of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Here is as much of it as I could piece together. ...
And Here is a link to the CSpan Real Media feed:
rtsp://video1.c-span.org/archive/c08/c08_052308_nader.rm
Smooth Criminal
I've always liked the song Smooth Criminal. I thought it was great when Alien Ant Farm covered it. I remember the original video well enough. This mashup however is really great. By the way, I am sorry for using the words 'mashup' and 'great' in the same sentence. ...
I'm not a Libertarian
This past weekend was the Libertarian Party's National Convention where they chose who their candidate for President and Vice President would be. On Saturday evening I was lucky enough to be changing channels and I caught the Libertarian Presidential Candidate debate. I was able to watch it from the beginning to the end. All in all I was impressed, but I'm also very clear that I am not a Libertarian. ...
I love the basic premise of the Libertarian Party.
Libertarians believe in, and pursue, personal freedom while maintaining personal responsibility.
On that basic premise I can agree with Libertarians. Because of that premise, I love to listen to Libertarians as it is often adds to my knowledge of an issue.
The debate itself was a breath of fresh air. Many different topics were discussed that are not talked about by the major party candidates. Also the selection of candidates was diverse enough that you could tell the difference between each of them. For the most part I liked each and every one of them.
I have already mentioned my support of Mike Gravel, but there are others that I really liked as well. Most notable was Michael Jingozian and Steve Kubby. Really though, I felt good about almost all the candidates. I went to bed that evening thinking I would likely vote Libertarian if the Green Party or Ralph Nader were not on my ballot here in North Carolina. When I saw the results, I realized that I would much rather vote for a major party Democrat over the Libertarian candidates that the party selected.
The Libertarian Party Candidate for President is Bob Barr and the Vice Presidential Candidate is Wayne Allyn Root. I really did not like what I saw from Bob Barr in that one debate( but I will agree that it was just one debate ). Mostly because he had either sponsored or cosponsored some of the most non-libertarian bills before Congress while he was there as a Republican, namely The Patriot Act and The Real ID act. I'm all for giving people second chances and realize that people change their minds but his responses to questions regarding these bills didn't quite go far enough for me. As for Wayne Allyn Root, my main issue with him seemed to be his personality. Perhaps it is a real issue or maybe he just reminds me too much of Biff Tannen. By himself he would be worth voting for against a major party but I feel he doesn't do a good job of balancing the ticket against Bob Barr( though that would be very difficult in my mind ).
All this is a non-issue though. I am not a Libertarian and obviously the candidate selection process does not have to reflect me in any way shape or form. It is as if I expect the Democrats or Republicans to have candidates that reflect my values. It could happen, but if it does it is only chance. I am member of the Green Party, even if it isn't recognized by my state and I support all of their presidential candidates. I have my favorites( ranked choice and all ) but I would vote for any of them over most of the other presidential candidates I am aware of at this point. Of course, the independent in me loves Ralph Nader.
So by November will I be voting for Ralph Nader or for the Green Candidate( most likely Cynthia McKinney ) or will the Libertarians some how change my mind? I don't know. I'm leaving myself open, yet opinionated :)
Matt Gonzalez Campaigning in San Francisco
[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/1009059 w=400&h=300]
Matt Gonzalez Campaigns From the Heart of San Francisco from Polidoc on Vimeo.
Reducing voter rights
Beware, voter right are getting reduced. Of course, in many states, voters rights are limited because laws work to keep minor parties off the ballots thus taking away voter choice. And while that is a valid issue, that is not what I will be writing about today. It seems that Missouri is looking to make a (state) constitutional amendment to require proof of citizenship when someone registers to vote. On the surface this makes sense, but look deeper and it has further reaching problems without much cause. ...
The article from the New York Times is a pretty good news story. It shows both sides of the story. On one side it talks about the numbers of non-citizens who may have registered to vote. That number is 624. It also gives the numbers from October 2002 to September 2005 of people indicted by the justice department for registration fraud or illegal voting. Those numbers 40, with only 21 being non-citizens. Those seem like pretty small numbers to me. What will be the financial cost to the taxpayer to ensure this level of registration checking. Most likely it is small, but you will be paying for it with your tax dollars.
How else will you be paying for it? What if you are poor, elderly or for any other reason you have difficulty providing adequate proof of citizenship. In that case you will pay for it with your right to vote. That's correct, your rights as an American get revoked so that Missouri can keep a possible 624 non-citizens from voting. How many people will that actually affect though? More numbers from the article are 38,000 and 70. 38,000 is the number of voter registration applications that have thrown out since Arizona adopted its proof of citizenship requirement in 2004. 70 is the percent of people who stated under oath that they were born in the United States. I'm understand people lie, even under oath, so let's say only half told the truth. By my calculations that is 13,300 people whose voices aren't heard so that we can stop what could be 624 people who are not citizens from voting. Of course, that is just an assumption that half of the 26,600 people were telling the truth. Maybe only a quarter told the truth( 6650 ), at least then only about 10 times as many Americans as illegal aliens are having their voices silenced through a new loophole around the 15th Amendment. Perhaps we can possibly find ways around the 19th amendment as well. Moving backwards is fun.[END Sarcasm]
If you live in Missouri, please take a stand against this amendment. Write to your state senators and congressman. If you are in another state that is thinking about this law ( Florida, Kansas, Oklahoma and South Carolina ) then please do the same. You will be fighting the propaganda machine against these bills but please keep in mind what these bills actually accomplish. Sure, they keep illegal immigrants off the ballots however a much greater number of honest Americans who have difficulty proving their citizenship will be affected. Those affected will be the poor, the elderly and I'm guessing a majority of those people will of groups we label as minorities.
It's our turn to fight for our rights.
Parkour/David Belle at New Yorker Festival 2007
The New Yorker has always seemed a bit uppity for me. That cover they always show in their ads just makes me think that. In other words, there is no basis in fact. So it came as a suprise to me to find a parkour video available at the New Yorker's website. It's great video that includes a good interview as well as audience question session with David Belle. ...
What I like about this is how much it shows the patience one must have while practicing parkour. In parkour videos it looks so easy, but it rarely shows the months and years of practice that go into those gravity defying moves. David Belle even talks about having vertigo when he first started training and how many of the people starting out, that we see in the video, are better than he was whe he began his journey. To top it all off, not all the parkour in the video is fluid. In fact, most of it is a bit more realistic as to what a person should expect of themselves in the beginning.
This video and links to other New Yorker parkour links can be found athttp://www.newyorker.com/online/video/festival/2007/Parkour
Debating the Role of Minor Parties
I have always considered myself an independent. When it comes to my party affiliations it wasn't until relatively recently that I decided to choose a team to play with. After my one visit to a Democratic party meeting in my area it was clear I didn't want to be known as a democrat. After some research I chose the Green Party. But what use is it? Here's a short video made by the same people who created "An Unreasonable Man"( In fact it is from that DVDs extras ) talking about the role Minor parties play in the USA. ...
Parkour Day
It seems today is parkour day over at you tube. All the featured videos are parkour related. As I had fallen out of practice of parkour this is nice. It reinspires me at a time when I am just re-beginning. I have recently been focusing on the psychological aspects of parkour while I get myself in shape for accomplishing more in the physical realm of parkour.
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While this next video is obviously not aimed at me, I'm not a shoe guy :D, I like what it is trying to do.
Parkour is definately a community that is open to and can use more women.