Ok … so I know I haven’t posted in a while … because … well I have a different kind of life right now … its called “work crazy hours to buy groceries because the dollar is collapsing and payroll taxes are excruciating (seriously its about 5 grand a year out of my little tiny check what else is that besides excruciating?)” … ok so maybe its not causal .. but its at least contributory … anyways some times there is news too interesting to pass up …

Now, you can look back at this blog … about a year ago (which isn’t off the front page yet because I don’t post that often anymore) I made a rant about the TEA Party Crashers and basically challenged the opponents of the TEA Party to make a counter movement rather than waste their time in laughable childish pursuits such as “crashing” … here is the most relevant portion of said rant:

“You know what would be really “fun” if you happen to disagree with the TEA Party movement? …. go out and start your own counter-movement …. come on people … this is America … that’s what happens here … seriously … when you don’t like something you go out and protest it … you don’t sneak around doing stupid pointless shit on the down low … no … you make a stand for what you believe in …. and if you happen to not like what the TEA Party (or the Taxed Enough Already) movement stands for go out and start your own counter-movement ….. You could call yourselves the Tax Me More Already movement …. and rally at TEA Party protests protesting the TEA Party and spreading your Gospel of bigger government and less economic and personal freedom …. because people are essentially evil … and should be MADE to do what is “Right” and what is “Right” should be determined by Big Brother Government who only has your best interests at heart  ” – Me, May 2010

Guess what! HERE IT IS … nice to see people on the Left-side of the political spectrum doing something the old-fashioned American way .. you know not using violence or bullying to get their voices heard …

Of course, they’re not calling what I would … yeah don’t think that the Tax Me More Already Movement (because everything that comes out of the Left side of the political spectrum is only a “movement” or a “revolution”) would be catchy enough to attract anyone … so its the “Dream Movement” dedicated to “Rebuilding the American Dream” … and its pretty much exactly what I figured (last year) a counter-movement to the TEA Party would be about …

This naturally is planned to be a grass-roots movement that mirrors the TEA Party …

However, if you compare the homepage of The Dream Movement and The TEA Party … there are a ton of sponsors listed on the bottom of the Dream Movement’s page … namely MoveOn.org, AFL-CIO etc … which aren’t exactly grassroots themselves … and the TEA Party’s page … well I couldn’t really find any specific sponsors … there was an add for a book … if that counts … and banners for TEA Party projects …

So who is really grass-roots and who is AstroTurf?

Well time will tell … can’t wait to see the “Contract for the American Dream” …

On a slightly different note … I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again … people complain about rich folk who live off of trust fund money and have never worked for honest pay … and then elect them to government office … which creates career politicians who make fat salaries and only care about re-election so they don’t have to take a pay cut and get a real job … make the salary for any elected office comparable to that of a non-profit salary … say the HIGH end of non-profit … 30 grand a year … no special government benefits package and you retire on SS-D and Medicare just like everyone else …. that weeds out all the corruptible career politicians and gets a bunch of people in there who actually CARE and due to the non-profit salary … actually understand what it is like to live paycheck to paycheck and make tough choices … (like whether to buy heat or groceries … not whether to send the kids to piano or ballet because *gasp* oh no we can’t afford both ...)

I say get the Mr. Smiths back in Washington and we wouldn’t have none of these troubles to begin with …

Recent studies show that walking at least 5 minutes a day in a green environment promotes emotional wellness … so have you walked around your block today? … have you walked to your local park today? …. have you walked at all?

As someone who used to be an avid hiker / camper / canoeist before she got bogged down with the world of underemployed work (that is work in which you work 40 hours but only get paid as if you’ve worked 20 hours), I find this statement to be some what of a “Duh”. Its so infrequent that I am able to get back out into the woods nowadays, but when I do, I am … for lack of a better descriptor … a “happy camper”.

Face it folks, we are animals and being outside is a part of our nature …. hiding in an artificial environment and finding artificial ways to promote happiness can only achieve results for so long. Seriously, go take a walk.

On a completely different note, I logged into Xanga today to find that there have been major changes to the Weblog Editor …. it is now too complicated … what I really liked about Xanga was its simple editor … I didn’t have to use all the bells and whistles if I didn’t want to … and seriously, I never do want to … I always end up typing my entries in simple HTML ...

Then, when poking around on the home page, I came across this and it made me remember that yes, indeed, Xanga used to primarily be a place to review books, movies, and music …. it had moved to weblogs by the time I started here, but the reviews were still a big part of Xanga … there was a separate forum on your site, heck there was even a different editor that you would use so you could choose ratings and reference the books …. now reviews are pretty much missing and its all about the weblog … which is kinda a shame because I used to love the reviews ...

This made me a bit nostalgic, I think I am going to bring reviews back … and start reviewing things … as soon as I have time to read, watch, or listen to something worth reviewing and also this would entail me being able to post more than once a month … I’ll get there though …

Another thing I noticed while browsing through some of the home page stories is that every post now seems to end with a question. Is this some kind of new official weblog style?

Sorry folks, I refuse to end my entries with a question … if you can’t come up with a decent comment without me dragging it out of you with an open-ended question … I really don’t want to read it …

… oh and just another quick style note … I have now decided that color, pic and quote changes will be based on the number of entries made since the last change … not on the month … the number will be set at 7 posts because I like being random and arbitrary

 ** Color, Pic & Quote Change **

I figured this month I would pay tribute to the Second Amendment … the one that ensures all the others …. but sadly is not favored in Pop Politics today …

So, as it is already a bit late at night for me, I will write no rant, only a few simple statements that should help snap you out of the clutches of Pop Political Brainwashing:

Nowadays, the majority of people can be relatively easily convinced that a statement of Truth is a message of Hate …

The First Amendment protects the speech of not only those with whom you agree but those with whom you disagree as well …

Words should not be feared ….

Your Government can be wrong … no human institution can be free from error … and it is the ones that try to convince you they are that you should look out for ….

Good people own guns too (thankfully)….

Close-mindedly embracing a viewpoint popularly categorized as “open-minded” does not make you an open-minded person ….

To see how prejudiced you really are, think of someone who is the polar opposite of you … do not stop at race or gender …. think of education level, socio-economic status etc (so a white collar worker would be thinking of a blue-collar worker and vice versa) .. even think of height and hair color … and see how few positive thoughts and attitudes you have towards this person …

Different (in any sense) is not Dangerous ….

The allowed existence of Satan shows that not even G-d can afford to be surrounded by “yes-men” …. have you had an honest debate today? have you had your views challenged today? or have you simply surrounded yourself in the hollow seeming safety of conversing with / paying attention to only those who agree with your views?

Okay so maybe this are more mini-rants than statments …. and this is not meant to say that I am awesome at looking at the world with no bias … that would be hypocritical and impossible to actually do … I always get caught up the biases that have been engraved in me since childhood … we all do … it just makes things easier … but easier is not always better … so here are some bias-challenging statements to some commonly held biases …. ** Note: You will see my bias in the biases that I chose to call “commonly held” … but I never claimed to be without them

Finally … some good news … though a bit dated (this ruling happened back in January … I don’t follow the courts that closely anymore) ….. in their ruling on Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission the Supreme Court ruled contrary to the standing law of the McCain Feingold legislation of 2002 (aka – the biggest attack on Free Speech to date)….. …

… so in a nutshell …. Citizens United is a small non-profit that wanted to distribute a political documentary around the time of the primaries that would have painted Hillary in a non-favorable light … which …. of course … is automatically sexist because she is a woman (and not Sarah Palin) …… anyways … the FEC has an issue and takes Citizens United through the courts up to the Supreme Court where the Justices are soured to the FEC’s position because it was brought to light that should the ruling go in favor of the FEC that would set a precedent that the federal government could censor any type of political speech, whether it be a documentary film or a book … when the lawyer arguing for the FEC could do nothing but say that Fed had never banned a book …. yet …. the ruling went in favor of Citizens United …. and the First Amendment ….

Here’s an excerpt from the majority opinion by Justice Kennedy:

“When the government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought. This is unlawful. The First Amendment confirms the freedom to think for ourselves.”

… sadly … the freedom to think for ourselves is a freedom so seldom used …. and the desire to seek out quality information regarding both sides of an issue is so seldom pursued that most folks wait to hear the talking head on the news tell you what your opinion of an issue should be …. and political correctness has so impoverished our speech that one could argue our thought is already restricted through government (or at least social forces) …

… this ruling does not seem to be shocking to me … it seems simple … straightforward … and constitutionally sound …. what is shocking to me is how much this ruling seems to have irritated the President … causing frequent rebukes of the court, including a rebuke in the State of the Union Address, and prompting him to nominate the lawyer who argued for the FEC to the vacant Supreme Court position …. the President has stated his apparent outrage at the Court is because this ruling would allow powerful interests to drown out the voices of ordinary citizens …. First Amendment be damned …

…. well … Citizens United isn’t exactly a powerful interest …. its a bunch of “ordinary citizens” (I totally do not like that term … it creates a ruling class dichotomy … which is besides the point so I won’t pursue that rant at this time) who decided to band together to amplify their voices and release a documentary that presented facts supporting an opinion that others may agree with or disagree with… I doubt there was anything in the video forcing those who watched it to agree with the opinion presented ….. I doubt the narrator came on and said “Agree with us or we’ll kill a puppy” …. the documentary in question was probably along the lines of all the other political documentaries which people could watch and say “Hey this guy’s on to something” or “What a spin job, I totally disagree.”

… the beauty of this country is that when there is something going on that you don’t like … be it social or political …. and you think your individual voice is being drowned out … you can get together with like-minded individuals form a non profit and be LOUDER over a plethora of mediums …. books, documentaries, tv spots, talk show appearances (if you’re loud enough), protests, leaflets, fund raisers …. so on and so forth …. and laws based on McCain Feingold have too often gone after these groups … who embody the essence of free speech in this country …. while ignoring the real problem of bribes in the form of campaign donations to corrupt politicians …..campaign reform should be restricted to campaigns only ….. to preserve free political speech as it is meant to be INDEPENDENT political broadcasts must be left alone …

So not too long ago an anti- TEA Party reactionary website came out … Crash The Tea Party … (the original website seems to be down so this is a link to their facebook page) …. basically its whole premise is to make the TEA Party movement look bad by going to events or posting on TEA Party online forums and acting like a racist fool. What I found interesting is that after looking through some of the comments most of the folks who do this promote it as being “fun” because they could say something really stupid or racist and get a couple dozen people to agree with them ….. oooook …. sure … that seems like “fun” …. but how do you know that the people responding to you are actual TEA Partiers or your own fellow Crashers … the fact that you may be getting a the response you are obviously seeking from another Crasher really doesn’t make this anything close to “fun” …. maybe more along the lines of “pointless” … and I hesitate to call anything “childish” … but maybe that is a fitting adjective in this case.

You know what would be really “fun” if you happen to disagree with the TEA Party movement? …. go out and start your own counter-movement …. come on people … this is America … that’s what happens here … seriously … when you don’t like something you go out and protest it … you don’t sneak around doing stupid pointless shit on the down low … no … you make a stand for what you believe in …. and if you happen to not like what the TEA Party (or the Taxed Enough Already) movement stands for go out and start your own counter-movement ….. You could call yourselves the Tax Me More Already movement  …. and rally at TEA Party protests protesting the TEA Party and spreading your Gospel of bigger government and less economic and personal freedom …. because people are essentially evil … and should be MADE to do what is “Right” and what is “Right” should be determined by Big Brother Government who only has your best interests at heart … honestly ……

I happen to think that the TEA Party is one of the most positive things to happen to this country in awhile …. and I agree with approximately 90% of what they stand for (which is probably a record for me supporting anything) … Americans have accepted an excessively oppressive tax rate for too long …. a tax rate that is looking to increase to 45% of your income with the legislation recently passed by President Obama … you know what that means? it means that you are 45% less free than you should be … it means you are a SLAVE to the government 45% of the tax year … what most people don’t understand is that the more money the government usurps from you the more control they now have over you …. the more they can determine what causes are “worthy” enough for funding …. the more they can determine what is “right” and pass legislation to ensure that you all behave and follow what is “right” …. and what if you happen to disagree? what if you happen to think that cause “worthy” but the government does not? what if you happen to believe something is “right” but the government does not? …. trust me … the government does not have your best interest at heart … the only interests a government has at heart is usurping more money and more power to gain greater control … the TEA Party movement seems to be the first movement in a while to acknowledge this fact.

So what makes me only agree with the TEA Party movement only 90%? Well its simply the fact their listed core values state that Traditional Family Values are Encouraged …. I happen to think that the encouragement of certain values over others has no place in politics … and the only values that should be encouraged are those that are part of the Constitution …. you remember … the values that hold above all you should have the personal liberty to decide for yourself what you and your family will value whether it be “traditional” or not ….

If you think this is a trifling minor disagreement … I call your attention to President Obama’s State of the Union Address and the remarks towards the end of the speech that sent a cold shiver down my spine and motivated me to actually look up the text of the speech in a “He did not just say that” moment:

if you abide by the law you should be protected by it; if you adhere to our common values you should be treated no different than anyone else.

Seems so innocent, right? well it always starts that way. Here are the issues with this statement:

1) Who defines “our common values”? If the answer is anything but the Constitution or the People then there is a problem …..

2) The law protects EVERYONE … those who abide by it and those who break it alike … the law protects those who break it by guaranteeing a fair trial to make sure they actually broke the law beyond a reasonable doubt and allows legal review of the law to make sure that the law was in fact a just law that does not infringe on any Constitutional rights … in fact the only way to challenge an unconstitutional law is to break it … should you then be denied a fair trial and legal review of the law?

3) If you do not adhere to “our common values” what should you be treated like? The real promise “enshrined in the Constitution” is aside from the truths held to be self-evident …. you are promised to be free to choose what you value and free to live your life as you would like …. as soon as the government begins deciding what “common values” are then all is lost … and we are no longer a free people …

If this doesn’t seem sinister enough to you … just remember … in Nazi Germany, protection of the law and equal treatment was given only to those who adhered to the “common values” of the State … and we all know where that went …

*** ps … I do know that I usually change the pic and colors and quote every month …. but I only got one post out of April’s colors …. so they’re staying on for May as well ….

So this is my first Xanga entry in about six months and I am still stuck in terms of the thesis

… so far I have spent three years trying to get this Masters and one year of that has been devoted entirely to this thesis … and right now … given that May is just around the corner … it looks that I’ll be spending another frustrating year try to get this Masters …. that’s four years to get a Masters … I could have gotten an entirely new Bachelors degree … I would be one year short of a Ph.D ….

… when it looked like I wouldn’t finish the thesis within the two years of the degree I kept going …. I figured I had put too much work in to give up on the thesis and I would just need an extra semester  …. well that turned into two extra semesters and may turn into three …. all because the professors are just not motivated to work with students on a Masters Thesis …. I just recently turned in what *might* be my final draft to my adviser a week ago … from prior experience I know not to expect drafts back for about two weeks and then after I make whatever changes are needed it will probably be about four weeks until I can get the committee together for the defense … but … unfortunately the semester will be over by then … so no matter what it looks like the defense isn’t getting done until next September …

I should have taken the Comps

… sure I got great research experience … I created this study from the ground up … ran it myself … collected and analyzed my own data … presented at the Eastern Psychological Association Conference … but … in the mean time, I have been working full time at a Bachelors degree level salary to pay for a Masters degree worth of debt …

… I’ve never been this delayed on anything academic … and right now this thesis is looking like I’m just going to fail miserably at completing it in a reasonable amount of time …. and be stuck looking for a last minute way of sealing the deal on this Masters ….

… if this were preliminary research on a dissertation … or even an entire dissertation …. I would have been done three months ago … seriously … Is it because I’m in the Masters program that my time is somewhat less valuable and OK to waste?

…. at some point I’m going to have to say enough is enough and take the Comps … which is going to be terrible because it in essence means that I failed at this thesis ....

Now that I am a stones throw away from FINALLY completing the thesis I seem to be hitting the worst roadblocks … namely being forced into completely relying on other people (which I don’t like doing on a normal day) …

So my adviser won’t give me a complete explanation on how to input data into SPSS … I mean I have input data before … but on a much smaller scale … and given the incomplete explanation that I got from my adviser … I am pretty sure that the vague and sketchy idea I have about how to input this data is correct … unfortunately, I have to wait for this doctoral student to show me the proper format … and from what she told me … she has to wait until another doctoral student shows her the proper format ….

… all I want to know is why is everyone being so cloak and dagger about SPSS? Why not just give me a complete explanation on how to input my data?

Not to sound cocky … but SPSS is just Microsoft Excel on steroids … once you know Excel, its not that difficult to extrapolate to SPSS … and I’m starting to get under the impression that the only reason that SPSS is so difficult is because everyone says it is and treats it like it is  ….

… and to put the cherry on top of a wonderful week is that I can’t get into a computer lab until the end of this week because the President is coming to campaign for Corzine and is using FDU’s Rothman Center so the whole campus is closed down …. figures ...

… well since I only made one September entry I’m just going to leave the colors and pic and quote the way they are …. busy busy busy …. sampling for the thesis is about done so now all I have to do is organize the data and make a results and conclusions section out of it ….

… while I’m on here I’d just like to share a realization that I came to the first time I took a political science course … American political identity can be defined based one only one individual belief … whether the individual puts their trust primarily in people or in institutions … everything else is based on that …

Those who mistrust people to come to do the right thing put their trust in institutions, government, and allows institutions to force people to do what that institution deems as right …. a large “benevolent” government with its hands in every aspect of every individual’s private life carefully determining the “right” thing to do and distributing individual’s income to “worthy” causes leaving relativity very little for the individual to personally distribute to causes he or she finds deserving. People who freely choose to do stupid things should be made to not do those things through the force of “nanny laws” …. sure the government is big …. sure your freedoms are limited …. sure you income is limited …. but the government gives you things for “free” … and takes care of you …. and always stands up for the the “right” and the “good” even though it is made up of money and power grubbing individuals who, despite what they say in campaign ads, are all about themselves and their own good ….

… for a country with a bleak out look on lawyers we sure do elect a lot of them to positions of governmental power … and the federal government is all about power … not once has the federal government ever given back power it has usurped … not from the state governments and definitely not from citizens ….

Those who mistrust institutions believe that people will do the right thing on their own … they believe in personal responsibility and charity to fellow human beings …. but they are often disappointed in how easily people turn a blind eye to their fellows in need or how fast people can give up personal responsibility to despair …

Personally, I distrust both people and the institutions they form …. however, I happen to believe that people are easier to change than institutions …. it is easier to persuade a person to join a worthy cause than it is to persuade an institution …. you need not look far into history to find instances where individuals have spent years fighting a large and powerful government who has gone terribly astray from the needs and ideals of its citizens … changing an institution requires a tremendous struggle spanning a large amount of time …. government should be small and ever-cognizant that its survival is completely dependent on the will of its governed …. such a government can do as little damage as possible … freedoms can be preserved …

Those of us living in the People’s Republic of New Jersey are often shocked to hear that we are the second to least free state in the United States …. when you tell someone this they are staggered and say “But we have a progressive governor, how can we be loosing freedoms?” Well our progressive governor has progressed the size and scope of the state government …. our progressive governor has progressed government regulation into many aspects of private life …. and has progressed our taxes to pay for said size and scope of government to boot leaving us with very limited incomes for personal use ….. the amount of jobs in the public sector has progressed while the number of jobs in the private sector … the ones who actually pay for the public sector jobs  …. has fallen dramatically ….. the amount of people on public assistance has progressed while the amount of people paying for this public assistance but not eligible to benefit from any of it has decreased due to a mass-exodus of the middle class from New Jersey …..

… I’m just interested to see what will happen when there will be more people depending on public assistance than there are to pay for it …. an ugly situation to be sure … all because of blind trust in an institution …

*** Much Late Color, Pic & Quote Change ****

Ok so it seems I went without Xanga for a whole month …. wow …..

… anyways this quote is a personal favorite of mine …. and seems very applicable to current times, I think ….

WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THAT WONDERFUL ANTI-BIG BROTHER SENTIMENT ???

Seriously people? During the last administration everyone was AWAKE and TUNED in (or at least seemingly so), every abuse of executive power got trounced on, even if it was making a mountain of a molehill. I had really thought that a lot of people had embraced a healthy distrust of government and love of freedom and the personal responsibility that came with it. But, alas, it was nothing more than a mirage. Congratulations, you all now have proven yourselves to be nothing more POSERS attacking a person using the ideal of distrust of big government as a veil. Shame on You. Real lovers of Liberty would not have fallen so silent just because there was a change in administration. Sure this administration promised change, but really … its been a lot of business as usual. The deficit continues to grow, the government continues to interfere in PRIVATE business, and personal freedom continues to be under attack. The BLOB that is our federal government continues to grow and usurp power from the people it is SUPPOSED to serve. ARE YOU NOT STILL PAYING ATTENTION?

YOUR GOVERNMENT WATCHES YOU …. SHOULDN’T YOU BE WATCHING YOUR GOVERNMENT?I’ll have a longer rant about this later …. it seems I can’t stay away from Xanga …

So, according to Webster’s dictionary, “frenemy” and “webisode” are now officially words. Article Here

… so are we all to talk like thirteen year old girls? … has “web speak” so taken over our lives that we now resort to the same linguistical shortcuts even when we are not “plugged in”?

… when I first saw this article I must admit … I thought it was the signal of the downturn of American society … but now after some consideration, I believe that will be once Webster adds a “txt-speak” appendix  ….

… so how does the disintegration of language directly translate into a disintegration of society? … well language is the foundation of thought … the quality of language directly effects the quality of thought … when language is limited or impoverished so is thought ….