Category: Personal

I would be very happy to see Kerry take the presidency after all, because I believe that a Bush presidency will mean significantly more war, torture, killing, exploitation of the poor for the sake of the rich, and assault on civil rights than a Kerry presidency. Not to mention the scary Supreme Court possibilities under Bush.

But that said… America has spoken, and it has spoken with a voice of fear and hate. Bush has the popular vote, even if Kerry pulls Ohio out of his ass by some miracle. The Rethuglicans have a stranglehold on Congress. 11 states passed proposals in favor of discrimination against homosexuals.

In the big picture, the illiberals have won and decency and civility has lost, whichever way Kerry goes.

And while, again, I would be thrilled with a Kerry presidency for the reasons given above, it would be damage control, and it would set Kerry up as a scapegoat, framed to take the blame for the myriad economic and military fiascos of the Bush administration. And the Rethuglican congress would prevent him from doing anything worthwhile. I would not enjoy seeing that.

So either way, America and the world loses.

I’m trying to remember what things were like under Reagan and the first Bush, when it seemed like there would be Republicans forever, the country would be all about war and fear and hatred of anyone who was different.

Clinton gave us hope but we should have known from the Republican death-grip on Congress that it wouldn’t last.

I’ve got to stop caring about what state the country is in.

But it’s so much harder now. I have children whose future those bastards can ruin, it’s not just my own future anymore.

The “funnel all the cash to the rich” Republicans were in power for 12 years, running the economy into the ground with their deficit spending, their weapons and wars, and it took a Democrat to bring some fiscal responsibility to the nation, and that was not to last.

I’m trying to remember back to that bleak time when I managed to just not think about where the nation was going when I could help it, because it was clear that the trajectory was downward and we were riding in a handbasket. I didn’t used to care about politics like I do. I didn’t used to think about it. I used to just assume that everything was going to shit in a few years and I’d do my best to have as non-miserable a life as I could in the meantime.

But damn Clinton he gave us hope.

And it was a false hope. Things are going the same way they’ve been going since Carter went down in flames: right and farther right and farther and farther and farther right, a gigantic scam, a joke at the expense of all but a tiny rich and connected elite…

And now I’ve got a family, and it’s their future that’s damned, not just my own.

I’m trying to remember how I used to avoid thinking about it and avoid caring.

But it was a long time ago.

Damn you, America, for letting me believe in you for a while and then taking it away.

I should have known better.

I should have known better than to hope.

I wish I lived where I could vote for this guy. He’s challenging Pete Hoekstra, who according to people I know who know a lot about him is a complete and total jerkass. (He ousted the former Republican Representative in my home town of Holland, Guy Vander Jagt, by portraying him as too liberal…) (Oh, also, he vowed not to server more than 12 years when he first ran for congress, and he’s breaking that promise, running again this year…)

Mlive.com tells us:

Kimon Kotos, a first-time candidate for the U.S. House, has one of the more unusual resumes in this year’s congressional races.

From 1991 to 2001, he played drums in a California punk band called The Rotters. Kotos said Democratic officials have advised him to keep his punk background to himself as he runs in the conservative 2nd District, which has been represented by Republican Rep. Pete Hoekstra since 1992.

Kotos returned to Michigan two years ago after several decades in California, where he chaired the Democratic Party in the San Fernando Valley. He was a national field director for Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s presidential campaign from 2003 and 2004 and campaign manager for unsuccessful Michigan state Senate candidate Bob Schrauger.

Kucinich supporter and punk rocker. How can you beat that combo?

Doubt he has a chance against Pete though. Republican jerkasses are popular in these parts.

First thing this morning. Democrats everywhere I could. There was no candidate for prosecuting attorney except a republican so I left that blank. I was stymied to realize I had no idea what the relative merits of the various judges were so I sadly left those blank. Voted against proposals 1 and 2.

Go vote, please, if you haven’t. We need you.

So I’m at my favorite net-enabled coffee shop and the connection is just sucking wind. It gets this way from time to time. I fire up “ettercap” to see if I can figure out why. Huh. There’s a computer at 192.168.1.106 constantly firing off requests on port 445 to random IPs. I mean dozens and dozens per second. I look it up and find out that port 445 is a Windows service of some sort, a favorite of worms. So somebody here has a badly worm-infected computer that is hosing the connection for everybody. Thanks.

I wish I was l33t enough to know how off the top of my head to identify who it was and tell them they have a problem (and they are causing problems for everyone else), or else just knock them offline.

Anyone got suggestions?

UPDATE: via the ancient technique of “walking around and talking to people” I managed to find the person whose IP it was. He was grateful to find out his machine was infected.