Prediction #1 In Post Democracy America

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Their mothers died
Their daughters learned the arts and sciences on their own
so they did not have to rely on men
so that the back room could be under their control
fuck the law
we do not live in a confuscianist society

Burn It Down and Dont Ever Tell Me to Vote

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We did vote.  We won.  But thats not the way it works in a right wing dictatorship.

"Burn it Down" in Harpers Bazaar

Before You Predict The Future, A Few Notes on Technique

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So once upon a time, in sixteenth century France, a third generation converted Jew took a pen name, Nostradamus, and made a living writing popular non-fiction, that attempted to predict the future.  If we look more closely at his body of work and at why he has maintained the interest of many people over the years, there are some lessons to learn.

His most important non-fiction, from the point of view of making a living as an author, was, I think, his Almanacs.  If you think about it, an Almanac is  a collection of knowledge about the past intended to be of use to those whose livelihood is based upon events in the near future.  Anyone in the classic business of agriculture would fall into this category. What is the best day for planting? When do the rains come?  When is the Summer Solstice?

But of course his notoriety comes from his more obscure, long term predictions that have been used to predict the end of the world, etc.  There are some lessons from his work that I think are of interest to anyone who might want to predict the future.

First, some basic "facts", if anything about this work is factual.  They were written as entertainment. They were written as 4 line poems, quattrains.  They were not written in the French of the time, although many people do not realize this.  They were written in an obtuse language that seemed like French but was actually a well known esoteric language known to alchemists and others. This was a useful way to avoid getting burned at the stake, by the way. And finally they were intended to not be usable to predict an event before it happened (which would be sorcery,  perhaps) but to be sufficiently detailed that when an event happened, you might believe that he had indeed predicted it.

This is a tricky business and not all that easy to do.  But here is an example made up on the spot.  Suppose I wrote a poem that said "The king will be killed.  The assassins bullet will strike home, who knew a library could be so evil?, the people mourn".  From this, you could not predict JFK was the subject.  But after the fact, you would say, "How did he know about the book depository?"

So going forward, as you predict things, keep that in mind.  Be specific, but in an obscure way.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostradamus

The Best Way to Avoid Being Accused of ManSplaining

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Was just accused of mansplaining again. OK, fine. No more of that. The best way to avoid it is to not be in a position where I have to explain anything to insecure and unknowledgable women. Too fucking bad, I just wanted to help.

I guess I get what I deserve, or maybe not.

Do Vaccines Cause Alzheimers

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You have got to be fucking kidding me.

1. They dont know what causes Alzheimers.

2. So when you get some notice that taking a flu vaccine causes Alzheimers, you know right there that it is bullshit.

3. Where does this shit come from?

4. Why does anyone believe it?

Because people are stupid.

OK America, Make Me Proud

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Since the minority right wing will put their nutty boy on the Supreme Court today, there is no rule of law in this country.  So there is no law against killing politicians.

I checked with one of my favorite lawyers. It is absolutely within my rights of freedom of speech (if there were any law at all to matter) to say that I hope some patriot will kill some of these right wing senators.

Or maybe just kill their children.  After all, they dont care about our children, now do they. They are stupid but they do not know how stupid they are.

Too bad, it was a nice country once.

Letter to Sheila who Lives in London

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Dear Sheila.

1. America has always been a hypocritical and weird state, and completely unaware of it. Sadly, this has accellerated until now it is undeniably going to rip itself apart. The best scenarios are not good, and the worst are on deck right now. 2. As for a failed state, I think so, although few Americans might agree with us. The self denial is astonishing and worthy of many PhD thesis. 3. The failure however comes from many things, that is what would make it so interesting if I had even the slightest patience of desire to look at it objectively, I now want to discuss the concept of train wreck. 4. Train wrecks can be really great, all that momentum, the concept of going off the rails, the tragedy of all those dead people both on the train and merely nearby, the cars flying off in all directions to whack people hundreds of yards away. 5. Will we take others down with us. Already have, and more to come. Yes, the post WW2 order was going to end anyway, but the Russians and Trump have accelerated it by an order of magnitude, 6. As for global wahrman, let me say that controlling it was a long shot anyway, what I was hoping for was may yet be achieved: which is global disaster in my lifetime. Fuck all those people to come, I want to see Miami under water, I want to see the Potomac wash over its banks. Sure a few extra hundred million people will die but that is a small price to pay to shut those fucking global wahrman deniers up. 7. As for blaming me personally. Let me tell you, I have been crying like a prophet of old and no one has listened. I went to protest in Nov 2000 where were my friends. 8. But best of all is worst of all. They think they have won. They have no idea what the fuck they are doing. If I may give an example from American history, you might look up a famous date (famous to some of us): Dec 20, 1860. Those who voted on that day had no fucking clue how bad it was going to be and how many people would die because of their stupidity. 8. And that is the word I want to leave you with. Stupid, but they dont know they are stupid.

How are the kids?  When will you visit me?

MW

To My Friend Who Has Ghosted Me

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On the occassion of the right wing coup d'etat that is completed as of tomorrow, and since I dont feel I can in good conscience hold onto money you lent me, I plan to donate it to the political opponents of our new Republican masters.

Not sure who that will be, but probably whoever it is that is running against that fucking fascist Nunes and the nightmare from Maine, Collins.

I dont think you will mind if I do that although I might get a little extra pleasure if you did.

(Three donations: the opponent to Ted Cruz, Nunes and Collins).

The Metaphor of Pie, Slices of

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From a discussion with MK Haley in which she presented her metaphor that each of us was given slices of a pie, some larger than others, some smaller etc.  My response was.

I feel like I came late to the diner and all the pie was gone. When will you have another pie, I asked. She just shook her head. No more pie for you.

Now that McConnell has Destroyed The Justice System

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Republicans do not seem to understand that what is about to happen tomorrow is as significant as when secession from the Union happened. 

McConnell is using a bug in the constitution that says that he can say that he can put someone on the Supreme Court with a majority, but only 2/3rds can impeach a justice.  And they know that is nearly impossible.

Well, thats just not going to do for me.

So now what?

Well, we dont have a working justice system, so we need to look at ways that may technically be against the law, but in fact, are ethically well within our rights as citizens.

Too bad, huh.  I guess they fucked it up.

I Will Always Be Treated Badly

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Recent events have convinced me that, with one or two very important exceptions, people will always treat me badly.  Without these exceptions, I would be homeless or dead, so I am very grateful, believe me.

But everyone wants to be liked. Everyone wants to think that they are seen as valuable.  No one wants to be an impoverished outcast. 

It seems it does not matter how much I help, how nice I am, what I have contributed, what I might contribute, nothing.  People will treat me like shit.

I will try to help people understand things they clearly do not understand, and be as honest and as well meaning as I can be.  No doubt this will earn me another kick in the head.

If not for one or two people I would be homeless today.  I do not deserve being treated this way.

What It Means When People Treat You Like Garbage

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There is nothing like being in a position where people think that you can not help them, or that they do not have to be nice to you because they might want something from you.  Because under those circumstances you may find out what people actually think of you, or maybe you will learn something even more nasty: that many of your friends were shallow scum who get off on abusing people when they think they can get away with it.

And there is something about the last six months that has really brought out some of the most outrageous behavior.  But I think you will be OK.  I doubt I will ever get back into a position of success such that you might regret your actions.

But I am sorry to have to learn how arrogant and how self-entitled so many people I know turn out to be.  Yes, I am a little trusting but this is beyond that.  This is really an indication of how fucked up our society is.

This makes me sad.

Good luck to you guys and gals.

Windows 10 and Why I Hate Microsoft

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I am trying to install Windows 10 Home Edition on a USB drive.  I am installing from a USB flash drive.

The install program claims it will not install on a USB drive.  This is just fucking bug nuts by the way.  Linux has been able to install to a USB drive since soon after USB was invented.  I mean, what the fuck?

I called MS Support and "chatted" with two very nice people of the Indian subcontinent who really did try to help.  But the situation was way too far outside their comfort zone so no progress was made. MS Support thinks that if I partition the USB drive that it might work.  I cant imagine why and I have no particular way to do that here that would give me any confidence that I would do what it is that they need.

So my questions are:

1. Is there a way to install Windows 10 Home Edition on an unformatted USB drive.  2. Would another edition of Windows 10 be able to do this?  3. If I install Windows 10 on this drive as a SATA drive, take it out and put it in a USB enclosure, will Windows 10 be able to boot successfully from it?  (BTW, this has nothing to do with the BIOS/UEFI so far as I know).

I am going to try a few experiments tomorrow and then I am going to give up on it, because I really dont need to run stupid software.

The Unitarian Resistance Movement

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As mentioned below, when my local Congressman's office had no idea why I would be concerned about the collapse of democracy in America, or why I would bother them, my elected representative with the issue, they sent me off to the Unitarians.  Go to the Unitarians, they said, maybe they can help you.

Well, it turns out that I live two blocks away from the Unitarian Church in town and they had a nice office with someone working and she thought the story was funny.  Well, she said, we do have a mailing list of people who are interested in doing things politically, and I can put you on that list if you like.

For those who like their history American, the Unitarians have pretty much always been a hotbed of progressive political activity in this country.

Natron: The Open Source Compositor

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I asked around for an open source compositor and no one knew of anything.  So much for my friends in the motion picture industry.

I looked on the Internet and found one.  It is called Natron.

Now the good news and the bad news:

1. Good news is that it seems to be very complete.

2. Good news is that it is easy to install on Centos.

3. Bad news is that the documentation sucks.  My guess is that there is a forum somewhere you are supposed to use, good luck finding it and using it.

4. My feeling, before much use, is that this is a very annoying but interesting tool and we are lucky to have it.  I recommend you download the source and keep it around because god only knows how long it will be around and "supported".

5. I am not going to add a link here because it will probably be out of date within nanoseconds.  Look it up yourself and good luck.

My Local Congressman

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Just for fun, I go to my local Congressman's office. As you can see, the notice on the door indicates that the door is locked at all times. So I knock and talk to a very confused woman who did not understand why I would be bothering them about this supreme court thing. We have nothing to do with that, she explained, as if to an idiot. I said I was concerned, she said, so? I wondered if they were organizing any protests. Now I could tell she was really worried. For all she knew, I would become violent at any moment. She redirected me to local Unitarian church, I guess her attitude was that it was stupid to approach one's congressman. I guess they were just too busy to worry about what a constituent thought about their government.

Gainful Employment, Society is At Fault

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Fragment of a larger essay.

I had the misfortune of working at RAND as a college drop out and being part of the early ARPA community, and that set expectations for the workplace which have not been met. Symbolics (an MIT AI Lab spinoff was part of this enlightened conspiracy, so was the MIT Media Lab in its earlier Architecture Machine form). I blame society because I was treated so well to begin with.

No Single Cause of the Disaster

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Every month or so since November 2016 I have read an analysis of why Trump (did not) win the election and each time someone says that "this is the true and only reason".  But it is almost certainly the case that no one reason can be identified for the simple reasons that (a) Trump won on a technical having lost the popular vote by a lot and (b) there were so many anomalies.

I maintain that nothing is clear, there was no single cause of this disaster. A failed constitution, right-wing voter fraud, independent and democratic voter indifference, a condidate who utterly failed to connect to an important part of the democratic base, the destructive influence of social media, russian intelligence disruption of the civic discourse, and of course collusion between the criminal right wing candidate with the foreign intelligence services all conspired to create a situation where a flawed constitution could be used to install a right wing thug as president. It was not one thing.

Gainful Employment, The Backstory

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Several friends have expressed concern about my lack of traditonal employment (or non-traditional employment) and have offered to help.  I appreciate their offer very much.  Its just that the situation is complicated and there are many things, boring things, that they do not or may not know.

But I want to thank everyone for thinking of me.  Yes, its important.  Yes, pretty much all my friends and certainly those who have volunteered to give me advice have probably done better than I in so many ways.

So lets go over some of these issues.

1. I made choices that resulted in taking risks.  Those risks did not pan out, and combined with unexpected health related issues, means that there are non-traditional gaps on my resume. The generic job opening can not accomodate this without special pleading.  Applying over the internet in some anonymous fashion will not work.

2. In fact, applying for a random job over the internet has never worked.

3. I generally have to think about a job before I apply for it.  Its important to me to feel as though, were I to get the job, that I would do well at it. But this approach does not match the "internet clusterfuck apply in quantity and pray" strategy.  That is right, it doesn't.

4. For better or worse, there are health considerations and not every job can accomodate these things.

5. Money has never been important.  What has been important has been the people I work with and the organization I work for.  Think RAND Corporation, Symbolics (MIT AI spinoff), MASS ILLUSION or the American Museum of Natural History. It can be hard to predict these things I admit.  I had a wonderful time consulting to Viacom in various guises, but that had to do with special circumstances and special people.

6. Its hard to be quanititative about this, but quite a few of my work experiences have involved being abused by management or my fellow workers.  But that would never happen in an elite place like RAND.  So it behooves me to work in such a place and avoid places where management does not protect its people.

7. You can learn technology all you want on your own, but being employable in a field means full time dedication and resources to learn and keep up with that specific field.  So you are not just going to be a web developer, you are going to dedicate your life to web development if you want a job in it. I dont want a job in it.

8. Regarding entrepreneurial activity.  I decided I did not want to try that again with out money.  Now that I have learned that getting a job is impossible, I may as well have abused myself through stupid attempts to be entrepreneurial without money.  It would have been more fun.  Live and learn, I guess.

I could go on, but there is no point.  If you want to help, the best way to do so is to introduce me to someone who might have some project or position where there might be a fit.  A few friends have tried this and it has almost worked, or worked for short periods.  But sadly it has not worked in the long run.

I appreciate your time very much.

Further Thoughts on the Google / DOD / AI Controversy

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On further reflection, I am taking back my criticism about the whole Google/US Military kerflop (if thats a word).  I thought it was odd for employees of Google to refuse to do an AI military project given the role of the US Military (aka DARPA) in inventing and supporting AI and in particular computer science at Stanford.  But now I think they have a very reasonable point to make, or might be making, since after all, I dont really know what people at Google think, since what I know comes from the news media and has not gone into much depth.

Several people who know at least as much as I do about the history of AI and post war computer science dispute my assertion(s) about the role of the military elite in the creation of those fields, and the fact is that all I have are my impressions, not the result of serious research into the details of what I think I know on the subject.  So often in the past my impressions have been entertaining but by no means the whole story.

But even if I have a minor point to make about the history of science and technology, other considerations far outweigh this.

These considerations include (a) Our military has been voluntary since Vietnam, so it should certainly be the case that wherever original funding may have come from, people should be able to choose whether or not they work on a military project.  (b) When they chose Google there was absolutely no reason to think that they would be involved in such a project (directly at least, indirectly is another kettle of fish), (c) Google is an international company and their reputation and success may depend on not being perceived as being directly involved with the military, any military, given the bad reputation such militaries have, (d) Other companies that work for the federal government directly (e.g. by taking contracts with the IRS or the DOD) generally set up a separate company or division to deal with such things.  Thus their employees can make the conscious choice to work with such a company or division or not.  I am sure that not all such choices may be entirely voluntary (e.g. we have a project for you over here, you can take the project or be unemployed) but even so, it gives people fair warning about what is up.  And last, but not least, (e) As much as I respect our military, it is the tool  of our political elite, and our elite has been involved in questionable military adventure after adventure in my lifetime.  However much I may respect various aspects of our military, which is iteslef a long discussion, there can be no argument that they are often put to the most appalling use and it is completely reasonable to try and live ones' life without out being involved in such things, at least as much as is possible given that we must all swim in the same ocean.

Finally, and last but not least, to the best of my knowlege, Google has been very open about their work and research, and there is nothing preventing another company from doing this sort of work.  In fact, since working with the US Government is such a complicated thing to do, it is likely that this other company (whether new or existing) might do more of what the DOD really needs.

In other words, even if I maintain (provisionally) my point about the history of technology, there are plenty of other reasons for Google to abstain from this work if their employees so request.

This post is just a work in progress and its very clear to me I dont know the whole story.

Droll or Not I Plan to Continue

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Whether or not I am droll, or mean spirited, or whatever I am being called these days, I am sorry to have to report that I plan to keep on expressing myself.  Yes, I knew it was a danger that people would actually get to know what I am like, but that was known going in and so here we are.

I seem to attract people who want to abuse me because of my good nature.  And yes I have been damaged by such people.  But I will keep speaking out, anyway.  Why not?

I definitely get treated badly.

The Horror of Counter Intelligence Under Trump II

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Can you imagine the horror of being in American Counter Intelligence and realizing that the people you work for, the President and the Congress, are made up of traitors who are working with a hostile foreign power to destroy your country?

Scarlett.Magnolia

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Names are very important to me, as are concepts and symbols.

I have named my new server for machine learning Scarlett, after Scarlett Johannson.  The local domain is named Magnolia, for the complex I am living in here in Santa Barbara.

Scarlett.Magnolia.

The Horror of Counter Intelligence Under Trump I

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The role of counter-intelligence is to prevent the work of foreign intelligence agencies to gather information or take hostile action against our country.  For example, when Russian manipulated and threw the 2016 election to that traitor Trump, this was a failure of our counter-intelligence.

And they know it.

But they also know that they work for Congress, and that Congress is run by Republicans and Republicans in Congress are well known to be traitors who want to destroy this country and throw elections to the people the Russians want.

This is the nightmare of any intelligence agency.  What if their bosses are traitors working for the enemy.  If you did not know this, read Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John LeCarre.

So we are fucked, and they know we are fucked, because of the Republicans.

The Driver Safety and the GRE

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For those who care about my progress, we have two updates.  The first is that the DMV Driver Safety office reports that they have received my "doctor evaluation" but there are no notes yet.  It takes two to three weeks of business days to reply and they received the notes on August 15.  The second is that I registered for the GREs and discovered (a) Santa Barbara does not give these tests, but that they can be found in Ventura and Santa Maria and (b) Ventura is nearly sold out for the month of September, so I am likely to go to Santa Maria (which is an hour away).

What I Learned From My Trip Where I did Not Enter Canada or Attend Siggraph

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This post will be added to over the next few days as I assembled my notes.

1. Only those who are working or have a sponsor can attend Siggraph.

2. Canada has some very reasonable rules for those who would cross their borders.  Sadly I did not know those rules.

3. The US Border Patrol was also unhelpful and much more rude.  (Canada was very polite while they were f*cking me).

4. The rules for crossing into Canada used to be having a passport and a good attitude. Today those rules include but are not limited to having a whole bunch of money on you (I use ATMs), having a clear plan for when you are returning and having that plan on paper (I was not sure when I was returning), having a clear plan for where you were staying (I planned to find the least expensive hotel at the last minute, like everyoene else).  Etc.

5. So they fucked me, and the implications of that go on and on.  Shame on me for trying to attend my professional conference.

Maybe Write A Letter / Email to Grassley

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Perhaps today or tomorrow would be good time to write a letter to Sen Grassley (R-Hell) and remind him that since the Republicans lost the popular vote, they dont really have a mandate to turn the Supreme Court into their private retro-fascist 1930s America. And that he should think long and hard about what is good for America and not just what is good for his rich friends. 

Because when Kavanaugh goes on the court there is some possibility that this whole house of cards comes down. Keep it up Republicans, you are sowing the wind and you will reap an impressive harvest.

Notes on Samsung Tab E

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I bought a Samsung Tab E 9.6 inches with 16 GBs of internal memory and 128 GBs of external storage.  These are random notes on setting up and learning how to use the device.

1. The battery charges amazingly fast and lasts a long time.

2. Setting up WiFi is easy.

3. The thing has a desire to set up every application with the most lenient privacy, guaranteeing that you will be exposing yourself to the world.

4. The desktop is filled with applications I do not want, do not use, and can not get rid of.

5. I try to increase the volume of the Amazon Music player and someone (the app? the OS?) tells me that it could damage my ears.  Jesus.

6. After a day of using I am impressed with the hardware but think that Samsung or whoever made the software for this thing needs to choke back their greed and let the user choose the software they want.

The New Flag of the Republicans

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I understand that the Republicans are considering running their candidates in November under the flag of Imperial Russia.  The double headed eagle is the heraldic symbol for power and empire, two of the most important guiding principles of our Republicans.

Double Headed Eagle on Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-headed_eagle

This is the Fate of All Traitors

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I want to be one of the first, if not the first, to regret that we still have the death penalty on the books in America in the context of the manifest treason in Washington.

Yes, its true in America, at least, we generally only apply the death penalty to the poor, the people of color, the disenfranchised, to punish them for being poor, or Black or Latino, etc.

How ironic, then, that the classic legal punishment for treason that results in the death of an American is the death penalty. Will Trump and Pence go to the chair? How about Nunes, Ryan, McConnell, Grassley?

"This is the fate of all traitors."

OH! If only they had not betrayed their country! If only we did not still have the death penalty on the books! Its too late now, whats done is done. Justice must take its course.

SAD!

The LeBron James Incident

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The latest Trump abomination has helped me to understand one of the great mysteries of our country: how such an incompetent, racist buffoon can keep his supporters.  So many supporters, what do they see.

The LeBron James incident should have been enough to get Trump impeached.  To recap, Trump attacked Mr. James and called him a "stupid n*gger".  Just about, not quite, but just about.  LeBron James is not only a self-made person, he has personally put 1,100 people through college.  Paid their tuition.  What has Trump done?  Inherited wealth, working with the deVoes criminal to destroy education for all but the rich.

Here is the theory.  The Trump supporters are those people who were angry that they did not go to college, and are resentful of the smarter people who did better than they.  And they racist as hell.  And Trump delivers for them, every day.  Every goddamn day.  Trump is a racist moron, just like them.

And they like it.

Getting Our Spineless Representatives To Grow a Backbone

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Its fun to read about our spineless Democratic representatives terrified of speaking up for what they believe in, unless of course they dont believe in anything.

What we need is elected representatives who are willing to stand up to the right and demand freedom and sanity for us, their constituents.

Should we all be learning to use assault weapons and to make IEDs?  I go back and forth on this one. Since the supreme court has said that black people's votes do not count, what difference does it make if we vote?