Everything Else

Most people are surprised when they find out I am a registered Democrat. All through the 1960's, 70's, 80's and 90's on a national level the Democratic Party and I have been pretty much diametrically opposed with me being a traditional conservative with a major libertarian streak. But I am a registered Democrat because the Indiana county I grew up in was so heavily Democrat that the only way to have any say over who got elected locally was in the primary. The Republicans never stood a chance for local and county elections.

I had always intended to switch to the Republican Party if I moved somewhere else.

Well I moved, but so to has the Republican Party, philosophically, on a national and even on a state level here in Indiana. I used to think the liberal Democrats were a danger to individual liberties, balanced budgets and national defense, but then came George Bush and the neocon's who have taken over the National Republican Party. They have "spent money like drunken sailors", done major damage to fundamental individual American liberties, undermined Federalism when it got in their way and seem more than willing to just hand the keys to the country over to mega-corporations. In short all my fears about what would happen if Democrats had unchecked power were proved right except it is the Republicans who proved to be the threat to all those things and more. George Bush and the neocon Republicans are the worst of Big Government, Big Brother, Big Spending (and IMO small competency) personified.

I cannot tell you how much it shocks me to say that.

So as long as the religious fundamentalists, the neocons and Bushistas have control of the GOP I want nothing to do with them.

Patriot Act: The Home Version is a free game you can download and print out for your personal use. A variation on Monopoly, except instead of paying money for landing on a property you surrender a civil liberty. The person with that most a civil liberty left wins.

I've mentioned before that I feel the need to consolidate. Here is one of the reasons: every time I want to post something I have to _think_ about were I want to post it: at one of the two forums I moderate at, or one of my several topic specific blogs or here. I have to weigh things like, do I want/need a response, how long will the post be, does it fit the forum or blog theme and audience? Feh, too complicated. All that thinking about where to post gets in the way of actually writing the post.

For here at this blog I'm going to try to just post - even if they are just short observations or pointers to posts I have made at one of the other aforementioned places. I mean there aren't that many rules about blogging are there? The blog police won't kick my door in and arrest me for not making long formal posts will they?

Just testing to see what this looks like with a post.

Added:

More testing.



Today in History:
* $FreeBSD: src/usr.bin/calendar/calendars/calendar.birthday,v 1.19 2002/12/19 05:14:35 grog Exp $



Listening to ''White Christmas'', by Bing Crosby (Play Count: 18)



The delayed stock quote for AAPL is: 71.11