Boy I haven't posted anything in a while. I am hoping to get into a regular mode now that things have calmed down a bit for me.

I am working on a long-term project (i.e. I am in no rush) to create an easily searchable online version of the Federal Budget. It's odd that there isn't something like that out there already or at least I haven't found anything. To find almost any useful stats from the Federal Budget is quite a chore. It made me wonder if members of the media actually check on budget numbers that politicians give out or they just trust them. That is why I want to start the website so that more people would have access to the budget. Ideally I would like for the site to be a commercial site but if it doesn't work out that way I would still be happy to keep it going.

Right now I am working on the web skills required to run the site. I know that what I can do technically won't take me very far but right now it is all I can afford. If it grows then I can hire someone else to handle the technical stuff.

Right now I don't even have a name for the site. Once it is up and running I will post the link.

The Real Patriot Act

I have to agree with the main point of this article to increase the gas tax. Given that it would be phased in incrementally and slowly with an equal overall decrease in income taxes spread across the board for both personal and corporate tax. While people complain about the taxes on gasoline they are currently not high enough to even pay for the support of the road system not to mention the offset of pollution created by gas vehicles. Right now America is essentially sending out a little welfare check every time someone fills up the tank in two ways. First by funding roads from income taxes and second from allowing those who want to pollute more than the average to pollute without expense. Why should the majority pay for the minority?

I must disagree that exceptions should be given to any individuals or industries. Why should they get any exemption if they use a resource (roads or fresh air) they should pay like everyone else? All taxes are eventually paid for by the end consumer and if a person wants their fresh produce trucked in from California they should pay for all the costs associated with that produce. Why should one industry be subsidized over another, let the market decide what it wants to pay.

Another bonus of the decrease of America’s gas consumption, that he fails to mention, is that a shift upwards in pre-taxed gas prices would have less of an overall effect on the economy because gas will become a smaller component of the economy.

ESPN.com: GEN - Limbaugh resigns from ESPN

The worst part about this is that Rush is going to go on and on about how he was victimized by the liberal media. He probably quit because he wanted this to die down before his legal problems surfaced.

No one under the age of 50 goes by the name of Dick. Well there is one exception. I met a guy at a wedding in Myrtle Beach about five years ago whose name was Dick and he was only 25 years old and a nice guy at that. But other than him there is no one under 50 that goes by the name of Dick. And the thing about it is that about 50% of the time when you have a guy named Dick his last name is something like Long, Short or Wood something or other. I have met not one but two guys named Dick Seaman. What were their parents thinking? I am guessing that before about 50 years dick was just a name and then some guy named Dick, who must have been, well, a real prick, had a body part named after him.

This “Brights” movement is a great idea. The bullying of atheists, agnostics, etc. by those of religion on moral grounds is ridiculous. Almost all religions are grounded in the belief of personal gain in the afterlife and any morality, which the religion espouses, is secondary to this goal. So if the root reason to believe in a religion is based solely in the attainment of a good after-life it is really a personal choice not a moral choice. Like taking one job over another because it pays better. While moral choices by definition must involve other people personal choices are, well, personal and involve only the individual.

Wired 11.10: VIEW

Telling kids to say 'no' to war | csmonitor.com

This article from the Christian Science Monitor tells the tale of "Veterans for Peace" a group of war vets that go from school to school telling kids not to enlist in the armed services, a kind of counter balance to military recruiters. Their point being that war is hell and that is something that the recruiters and Army commercials don't talk about. Some of the group is off the mark, feeling that war should be avoided at all costs which would of course leave the country open to any and all that wish to invade. But overall their idea of letting kids know what war is really like helps them get a view they would probably get nowhere else.

It is important that someone is bringing this message to kids and it should be a particularly important lesson that parents should teach their own children. This is really a matter outside of how a person feels about war in general. America is at its very core a mercenary country. Perhaps more than any other nation in the world America has adopted Adam Smith's ideas of individual self-interest in order to advance society as a whole. If there is one idea that makes up whom we are as Americans and what we have accomplished as a country, this is it. Yet in times of greatest need we abandon this system and send the young to die by telling them it is their patriotic duty or by force when there is a draft.

The reason that we have achieved such far and away global dominance is not that we are able to throw more troops in the battlefield but because we are an economic powerhouse. Money is the primary winner of wars. I don't mean to take anything away from the soldiers who fought and died for this country and are currently fighting and dying for this country, in fact I feel that we owe them an enormous debt. The country is able to get soldiers at a very cheap cost by basically telling naive kids that it is their duty to do so. Militaries that win wars don't just show up when they are needed but are built up over time with tax dollars. So many people make large amounts of money in the creation of this military and then we ask those that give the most to do it because it is their duty?

There is not currently a draft and no one is forced to fight but a great deal of soldiers are there because society, friends and family have told them it is the right thing to do. While it is a patriotic thing for them to do and it benefits all Americans a great deal their friends and family should not push them into the military but should tell them they should not fight for country but that they should fight if paid accordingly.

The general thought is that computers will make for a more a more accurate voting process. At least with punch cards everyone knows what they look like and clear-cut rules about what is and what isn't a vote can be defined. With software only a handful of technical people know where errors are in the program. This article concerns itself primarily with voting results that are sent out prematurely and the ability for campaign groups to hack into these results for adjusting their campaign midstream. But the greater potential for harm would be if someone hacks into the results and changes them or if any of the developers involved in writing the code would place code in the program that adds or deletes votes. The more complex the code gets the greater the potential for unintentional bugs to enter they system and wreak havoc.

States that use computer voting would be best off if they printed out the results for each voter and have them review the ballot before placing it in a box the old fashioned way. This would allow for a double check in case of a close election and would probably eliminate a lot of the ambiguity that comes from a punch card.

CNN.com - Gaffe casts doubts on electronic voting - Sep. 15, 2003

Texas has voted to cap lawsuit awards for medical malpractice.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/15/national/15TEXA.html

I would like to get that deal, no matter what I do I could only be sued for $750,000. They should do that for criminal offenses. Make the maximum time served, say, three years. "Forgery get three years, rob a bank get three years, kill a family of four get three years".

The buzz is all around that the Pixies are reforming. Like others I have mixed emotions on the matter. I love the Pixies but I think it would be a shame if they came back and tried to do a sound similar to what they did before. The music world has changed and they are older. I hate to use the tired teenage cliche but if they are true to what they want to write/sing/play then they will end up sounding a lot better.

Here in Pittsburgh they just re-filed involuntary manslaughter charges against Henry Krawczyk. He is the priest accused of giving alcohol to the Pitt football player who later died when he fell through the church ceiling.

He was the assistant priest for my parish when I was a teenager. Fr. Hank used to hang out with the altar boys on Friday and Saturday nights driving around in his car and drinking beer. One of the altar boys told me that someone had left a house in their will to Fr. Hank and he used to take them there to drink beer and smoke weed. A few years after I graduated from high school a good friend told me that he was once out drinking with Fr. Hank and he turned around to see Fr. Hank hand him a hard-core gay porn magazine. My friend was really freaked out by this and told his dad, who in turn told the head parish priest. I am taking a guess at this but I believe it was at this point that he was transferred from our parish to another. This was a long time ago, in the mid 80's, which means Fr. Hank has been bouncing around from church to church for over 15 years.

I am trying to figure out where to take this. I like reading personal Blogs of others, they seem much more telling then the unending commentary on political situations which we get plenty of in the big media. But I can't see myself actually writing up what I had for lunch every day nor do I see others caring to read about my personal life.

My first Blog post ever.