Bjorn Tipling

Time to ask for a refund?

Obama abstained from voting against cloture, not supporting a filibuster to strip telecom immunity from the FISA bill. Our last and best chance to stop infringement of our civil rights. The Politico gives a good account of how people like me are more than just disappointed. The feeling is best described as betrayal. I’m thinking of sending an email asking for a refund for the money I donated. No I am not wishing Clinton had won, she also abstained and I am thinking Obama and her are basically the same thing. Two people without the moral courage to do the right thing.

Update:

I sent this message using the Obama website’s contact form:

I have been a steadfast supporter of Barack Obama throughout the primary. I had a bumper sticker on my car with Obama’s name on it since the spring of 2007. I have donated hundreds of dollars and just recently I bought a couple of big signs to hang up. However, given the senators betrayal of our civil rights by not supporting the filibuster against telecom immunity I would like a refund of my donations. Is this possible?

I doubt I’ll get an answer. Given that Barack Obama is forgoing public financing, maybe if his base of small donors starts cutting off the purse strings, he’ll realize what’s really important.

Why don’t you ask for your money back too.

Update #2:
A commentator was helpful enough to provide the following email address to send this request to: ddozier@barackobama.com. Thank you Katherine! I am sending my email right now.

Isn’t there some kind of saying about how cynics are doomed to be right? I can not remember it at this moment. After this week I feel pretty stupid about my primary election naivety. Obama’s cave-in on FISA, and the double speak used to defend it grate on me so badly.

Given the grave threats that we face, our national security agencies must have the capability to gather intelligence and track down terrorists before they strike, while respecting the rule of law and the privacy and civil liberties of the American people. . . .
After months of negotiation, the House today passed a compromise that, while far from perfect, is a marked improvement over last year’s Protect America Act. . . It does, however, grant retroactive immunity, and I will work in the Senate to remove this provision so that we can seek full accountability for past offenses.
It is not all that I would want. But given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as President, I will carefully monitor the program, review the report by the Inspectors General, and work with the Congress to take any additional steps I deem necessary to protect the lives -– and the liberty –- of the American people.

And then the the campaign finance choice didn’t bother me, but the spin on it, oh what insincere tripe. The 527’s are troublesome, but to take the high road on it when it is such an obvious political choice. Well I don’t plan on sending any money any more. I think I will probably never send money to a presidential candidate again. I feel like such an idiot. I think I am just done with politics. I think I will once and for all join the ranks of people who do not assume good faith in politicians, no matter what they say or how they say it. These people would sell our children if it kept them in power.

This is an about face for me, but I think the way forward, politically, is more power to states. Let’s carve up our country in conservative and liberal pieces, and we all move to the place that represents our views and then we live our lives in peace. I plan on getting more involved in local politics, and caring less about the national kind.

Senator Clinton’s speech today, where she ended her bid and pledged to support Barack Obama, was poignant. I have been critical of her campaign, and even of her, but today during her speech the full weight of her candidacy really hit me.

A part of me is happy now, that she stuck it out until the end, and a part of me is sad to see her lose. I am still 100% for Obama, and he is making history also. However many of my objections about Hillary Clinton, such as me being adverse to a Clinton Dynasty, her air of the inevitable with which she ran her campaign, and other grievances seem like shallow annoyances when compared with the significance of her, a woman, running for the highest office in the country.

Prior to today I never felt Hillary Clinton wore that position well, that another woman was out there more deserving and appropriate than her. But after watching her entire speech, I have changed my mind. If she had carried herself through out the campaign as she was today when she made that comment about the 18 million cracks in that highest of glass ceilings, I might never have been so annoyed with her. I still think she ran a terrible campaign and had a problem with honesty. However, I believe that Senator Clinton is a great woman, who has done a lot for other women in this country, and that the devotion many have shown her has been well placed.

I have to thank Hillary Clinton for what she has done for my daughter. Julia’s life will be better because of Hillary Clinton. if she were to be on the ticket with Obama I would welcome that, if she were to run for president again I may support her next time.

Thank you Hillary Clinton.

Is it thieving when you download copyrighted music and video? Depends on your definition of stealing. If that definition emphasizes the taking from others, the act of having deprived from someone what was taken, then no. Yet if it the definition hangs onto the act of taking of what is not yours, then yes, copying copyrighted content is theft. A broader view would encompass the theft of control: the taking of creators control over her or his creation.

Forget the silly debate about definitions of stealing. The widespread downloads of copyrighted content is wrong without regard to subtle interpretations of words. It is obvious. The issue is not the deprivation of the victims, the content owners; it is the careless and selfish greed, the heinous motivation running unchecked, that is wrong.

It is not about big companies versus little people. It is not about freedom of speech and ideas. It is about you gratifying your desire to be entertained at your terms, come hell or high water. Careless disregard for the social contract, not thinking beyond what ‘I want when I want it, I’m going to download whatever I want because I can’.

That attitude isn’t just only wrong, it is destructive, careless, and ugly. I am not going to torrent copyrighted shows I want to watch. Those that would lack a degree of selflessness and various other valuable virtues we can never have enough of.

Huffington Post had some comments about how Al Gore was right to cede the 2000 election impasse to Republicans, because the GOP, proud Americans that they are, would have destroyed the nation from within to go after Gore. But instead:

the Republicans got to take charge, and they promptly screwed up in every conceivable way, and so their maliciousness and absolute incompetence was revealed for all but the most obtuse of our citizenry to see.

Too bad that the “obtuse of our citizenry” is a big enough group to maintain a plurality.

Recently Ted Kennedy, a democratic Senator from Massachusetts and brother of John F Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. What did the ultra-conservative Michelle Malkin, founder of conservative blog site Hot Air have to say?

She said this:

Put aside your political differences and join me in keeping Sen. Ted Kennedy and his family in your prayers as they grapple with the news of his malignant brain tumor diagnosis.

And most of the comments, with a few exceptions, were pretty decent also.

A tragic situation, but I think it is wonderful that the gap between red and blue is sometimes not so large after all.

Say, got a minute? Before half of you go vote for McCain in November, can you guys in that half do me a favor? Can you go to the post office or DMV or wherever it is you go to register in your state, and re-register, only this time, check that little box that has a big R on it. We don’t want your kind in our party. Those of you that said race was a factor, why don’t you double time. Go on, shoo. Thanks. Don’t let the door hit you on your way out.

Hillary Clinton made this promise to potential voters:

“There are a lot of people who wanted to end this election before you had a chance to vote,” she said, with her husband at her side. “I’m ready to go to bat for you if you’ll come out and vote for me.”

What a disingenuous sentence. This is one of many reasons that explain why I support Obama over Hillary Clinton. That sentence right there. It has nothing to do with gender or race. What in the hell is she promising? Let’s examine it.

A) People want to disenfranchise your vote.
B) Vote for me.
C) I will then make sure your vote counts.

She might as well just say “Your vote only counts if you vote for me”. It is the message she has conveyed this entire election when after courting Iowa and Wisconsin, and the people that walked in ice cold weather to vote for her, she didn’t even thank them. It is the message she conveyed when she argued that caucus states do not matter. If things went her way the only states that should be counted, are the states that voted for her.

I wasn’t lying when I said I would begin to respond to the stupid arguments made on political blogs. Red state may close its comments to think-a-likes, but I can respond right here.

In a post named “Barack Obama is Either Stupid or Willfully Ignorant“, Redstate author “Erick” makes the following argument:

Barack Obama is either stupid or willfully ignorant because he thinks that Iran doesn’t pose the same threat the Soviet Union once raised.

Erick then points out a loose connection between Iran and Hezbollah’s 1983 attack on US Marines in Lebanon.

The bombing by Hezbollah resulted in a tragic loss of US servicemen lives. However the use of an inexpensive carbomb by an organization that probably has less trained men than the Rhode Island National Guard hardly qualifies it to be a threat comparable to the level of an international superpower with tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, millions of professional soldiers, advanced military technology and winner of the space race. It certainly does not warrant the use of qualifiers like ’stupid’ and ‘willfully ignorant’ which are a product of the authors irrational anger and not a consequence of critical logic.

You sir, Mr. ‘Erick’, fail. You fail on so many levels that your keyboard license ought to be revoked.

That is all.

For a while now, I have been following political blogs. I am left of center ideologically but I like to read different points of view. I am especially interested in conservative blogs. I find that I already agree with many of the things that are said in liberal blogs, and it feels a little too much like everyone agreeing with one another without considering alternative opinions. Sometimes conservative blogs have a point. Lately though, more often than not their arguments make little sense. While I am no Cicero, I think you do not have to be very smart to see that many of the arguments on conservative blogs lack fundamental logical structure. Liberal blogs probably also have this problem, and if I see it I will call it out. Some of worst blogs are Hot Air, Michelle Malkin, and Red State. The unfair and untruthful attacks made on politicians I prefer upsets me. The manner in which my ideology is attacked upsets me.

Why do I care? I have noticed an interesting phenomenon on news meme trackers such as memeorandum and blogrunner. Meme trackers follow popular topics and their discussion across blogs and news sites. What I have noticed is that there is little overlap among ideologically differentiated blogs in discussions. For example, a news topic that causes an uproar on the right and is discussed to the point that it makes it to the top of a memetracker is often only discussed by conservative blogs. The same occurs for popular topics on the left. Conservative and liberal blogs don’t seem to acknowledge each others existence. Sometimes when a popular issue is discussed by both conservative and liberal blogs, there is no cross reference. The ideological gap is never crossed, and these sites never debate each other. Points are never refuted, arguments are never examined.

I think this is a bad thing. These blogs only respond to arguments made by politicians and TV pundits and old media, such as newspapers and television networks. One consequence of this is that blogs, looking to gain influence in politics and achieving some success at it, are implicitly acknowledging that their own medium is not significant enough to respond to. The other consequence is that, much like on conservative radio shows, arguments are made without any controls for validity, accuracy, logic. Unlike conservative radio shows, however, the arguments are in print. Because they are in print, these arguments can be examined and rebutted.

I may choose to participate in taking in an in-depth look at what I think are terrible arguments. In the past I have made some political posts in favor of Obama. There will probably be more political posts in the future. Some of the current audience for this blog may not want to read what I will write in the future. I may also begin to increase the amount of posts I publish. Some of the places where my blog is being tracked, such as code4lib and netlamers, might want to look at whether or not they want to continue to follow me. It wont hurt my feelings if anyone unsubscribes. I feel that in the past I have limited what I have been willing to say because of concerns for those that read my blog.

I am not going to ‘hold back’ anymore. I have a lot I want to say and respond to.