Geek Habitat

But it sure felt good to vote for Obama/Biden and the dream of a stronger, more positive and more united United States of America again.

Remember that annoying “Whassup?” beer ad that caught on after running, I think, during a Super Bowl? Here it is repurposed for our times. Enjoy!

The following comes to you by way of a Calvin & Hobbes-ish roundabout path: Twitter.com -> @ScottMonty’s profile page ->
Scott Monty’s website -> C.C. Chapman’s website (specifically this post.)

Realize not everyone has the same agendas as I do but thought I’d share these since they’re among some of the resources available to see where candidates stand on various issues.

• League of Conservation Voters - grades serving politicians by how they vote regarding environmental issues/energy issues/etc:
  http://www.lcv.org/scorecard/
  (Search by state; not surprisingly, most everyone running in Texas has a very LOW environmental score, but some are good)
• Wikipedia section on Future election candidates – will have to search page for names from our ballot but useful for high level overview of each candidate
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Future_election_candidates
• League of Women Voters – grades serving politicians on a BROAD range of issues (not just women’s health issues, equal pay, etc. ALL issues incl. immigration, energy, etc.)
  http://www.lwv.org/Election2008/index.html
• Sportsmen & Animal Owner’s Voting Alliance (SAOVA) – Their site design sucks so you will have to scroll to below their left nav to see any of their content. Anyway, I look at who these people support not to see who I will vote for but who these folks are just in love with. The organization feels it necessary to oppose animal rights issues across the board, calling it the “AR Threat” and lumping the ASPCA and Humane Society of the USA with PETA (whom I loathe, just in case this isn’t clear) as the same type of “animal rightist group”.
  Not surprisingly, they endorse McCain/Palin (surprise — her type of hunting includes “hunting” wolves by helicopter. Not my type of sportsmanlike behavior. Shiver in a blind like a real hunter, or learn to track animals.)
  http://saova.org/2008endorse.html — you can see where TX elections fall as well. Remember, to them, “animal rightist” means you even support the ASPCA and Humane Society.
• NRA traditionally always supports Republican candidates and this year’s no different. It’s Texas. We all love our guns. Seriously don’t think we’ve EVER had a candidate in U.S. Presidency that wants to ban all guns. We should figure out what’s up with all the school shootings, though, no? Or do teenagers have gun rights, too?
  http://www.nraila.org/
• T. Boone Pickens?
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._Boone_Pickens
  He was a huge supporter of G.W. Bush & the Republican party so I pay special attention when he talks because if he’s swung away from Bush & Co. I find that notable. Unfortunately, he’s opted out of endorsing anyone this election cycle and is instead calling on WHOMEVER wins to get their a** in gear regarding U.S. energy dependence/usage/supply. I wish he at least had a PAC that endorsed candidates as it would be telling, given he’s actually putting his money where their mouths are — “We need to harness ALL types of energy, not just oil, and do so now.” It’s what even the staunchest Republicans are saying (hence, “drill, baby, drill” in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, etc.) but I suspect he’d disagree with many. For one thing, he thinks as I do, that we cannot “drill our way out” of our dependence on foreign oil.

One last thing — depending on your position on the $700 billion bailout/rescue bill (remember, they went through two rounds on it so there were 2 votes) — you might also want to do a Google search to see who voted for and against the bill(s). I haven’t gotten around to that yet and I’m on the fence on what that would really tell me. We should have left the voting on that up to the astronauts & cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station because it seems like one needs *that* high level of a view of our economy to really determine what good, or ill, that bill will actually have. Obviously, short-term, it seems better than worse but it’s a hell of a lot of money at a time when a lot of other things (our infrastructure, healthcare, Social Security, the military and, not the least of which, the American people) need a hell of a lot of money, too.

And don’t get all wing-nutty on me and say, “Of course, he’s black.” Listen to his explanation, and understand he served in a Republican administration and also donated to McCain’s campaign.

Colin Powell surfaces every single thing that has solidified my choice in Barack Obama and Joe Biden as the next President and Vice President of the United States of America:
Colin Powell endorses Barack Obama & Joe Biden

PS: Read Rolling Stone Magazine’s article on McCain yet? Wowza!  It’s a long article, but worth a look for a different take on McCain. Numerous sources, in military and gov’t.  Just food for thought. Truth is somewhere in the middle (here’s one partial rebuttal, for instance, though it’s a half-hearted rebuttal… almost more telling in that respect than no rebuttal at all!)

Guy Kawasaki. Cool guy, if you don’t know of him you’re not hanging out on Twitter and the Net in the right places!

Anyway, he just posted a wonderful blog entry about his 26 hours aboard USS Stennis, a nuclear aircraft carrier. Yes, he even got to arrive via a carrier-arrested landing. *jealous*  Enjoy his post with 130+ photos, 5+ videos, and lots of terrific factoids celebrating our US Navy & Marine Corps and the technology that supports them. Kinda buried in his post is an interesting external link about how to land on an aircraft carrier.

Minor knock: Guy says he didn’t post them to Flickr because “he can’t figure out Flickr.” Guy’s too smart not to be able to figure out Flickr. Methinks the pageviews to his ads and such are killer ($$+) on that post. Just sayin’ … If he truly wanted the widest dissemination on the photos, he’d upload them to Flickr and license them via Creative Commons so others could use and share them.

I urge everyone to watch at least a couple of the U.S. Presidential (and the only Vice Presidential) debates leading up to the election. CSPAN’s Debate Hub and CSPAN’s YouTube channel are terrific sources.

CSPAN’s Debate Hub is especially handy, providing videos broken out by question and full information on the dates and locations of each debate as well as carrying the debates LIVE as they occur. The next and final U.S. Presidential Debate for this election is at 9 PM ET on October 15, 2008, in Hempstead, New York, and you can watch it live on CSPAN’s Debate Hub at this URL (bookmark it for viewing on debate night): http://debatehub.c-span.org/index.php/debate-4/