Every Man a King, but No One Wears a Crown

It appears that we are losing the most significant populist candidate since Huey Long. John Edwards is expected to announce that he is dropping out of the race this afternoon while helping build houses for Habitat for Humanity.

As you know, I have been supporting Barak Obama, but I regret to see Edwards leave this race. His populist support for issues affecting those members of our society typically ignored added valuable contrast to the Republican platform. His steadfast insistence that we can not allow corporations to continue to take advantage of the less fortunate is a stance that needed to be heard.

Early reports indicate that he is not going to throw his support and delegates towards either Obama or Clinton. With that being said, I would love to see Obama offer Edwards the position of Attorney General. Edwards could turn the office of the Attorney General into a powerful advocate of the people, fighting against the parasitic influences of corporate greed.

Thank you John Edwards.

Not Florida AGAIN!!!

In honor of the Democratic Primary in the State of Florida, you are going to be honored with a bonus comic.

You Have A Choice

I have followed politics for almost my entire life. Over the course of my thirty years, some elections have left more of an impact than others. In 1988, I was in fifth grade and I remember very clearly standing in front of my class passionately appealing to my fellow students to try and convince their parents to vote for George Bush. (Don’t ask. For the life of me I can’t remember why I was so misinformed.) I remember the debates in 1992. Particularly the charts of Ross Perot and his description of the “Giant Sucking Sound” he believed would be the negative effect of NAFTA to jobs in America. (I supported Bill Clinton in that election, but Perot was essentially correct in his analysis of the negative impact of NAFTA when it comes to American manufacturing jobs.) The election of 2000 affected me in ways that I still don’t fully comprehend. In short, 2000 was the year that my innocence and optimism of the electoral process died. Anna still loves to tell the story about how I was so upset by the decision of the Supreme Court in Gore v Bush that I called Chief Justice Rehnquist’s office to express my displeasure despite it being after midnight. (And of course ignoring the fact that I am a nobody and now probably have a file with the FBI.) 2004 was the year I became a cynic and fell into the trap of believing that what works is right. That being pragmatic is more important than being an idealist.

The past thirty years have taught me to be cynical, pragmatic, overly concerned with just winning and generally a byproduct of everything that is wrong with our political system. So here I find myself in the year 2008 and another election is at hand. In my entire life, I have never been given a candidate that speaks truly of hope. That passionately asks us to set aside our partisan differences for the greater good. A candidate that inspires us to be greater than the sum of our parts. A candidate that simply asks us to believe. Today we have been given that candidate in Barak Obama.

But it is hard to shake off the shackles of the past thirty years. Despite the fact that here is a candidate that spoke of peace when the rest of the nation was beating the drums of war. A candidate that spent his early years as an activist trying to show the people their strength while others played the lobbyist trying to manipulate the halls of power.

I say no more. I refuse to allow the system to corrupt me any longer. Today I am going to stand up and say that what is right will work and no longer be deluded into thinking that what will work is right. My support for Obama is more than just an endorsement of the man, but a rejection of the way politics have been played my entire life. I am ready for a change. The nation is ready for a change and together we can make it happen.

I know from looking at the statistics to my blog that I have readers from Kansas, Connecticut, New York, Alabama, Oklahoma, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, California, Minnesota, Tennessee, Illinois and Massachusetts, all which vote a week from today in Super Duper Tuesday. I am personally asking each of you to vote for hope. Over the last seven years we have been manipulated by fear and dishonesty. It is past time to reject these things. On Tuesday you will have a choice.

Sen. Ted Kennedy is far more eloquent than I, so I am going to post his speech of why he is supporting Barak Obama. I am sure that many of you have seen the thirty second clips that they aired in the media, but they do not do justice to his stirring oratory. Please take a few minutes and listen to the entirety of his speech. It recalls a time when politics did not automatically make one pessimistic, as the past thirty years have done to me. Together we can shape our future into something we can be proud when we look back thirty year hence.

Wouldn't Put Anything Past Them.

Still Without A Name Comic 2

Yeah, yeah. I know this is actually being posted on Thursday, but I am old and can't wait until midnight and tomorrow is going to be a busy day at work, so you are getting it a couple of hours early.

Wow. Another No Talent Hacks Wades In.

Inspired by Shamus Young and the DMing of the Rings, I have decided to start my very own webcomic, despite the fact that I have far less talent or skill. My initial plan is to try and post a new comic most Mondays and Fridays. I initially started creating these because I thought it might give you a chuckle, but I had so much fun creating it, I don't really care if you find it funny or not. Well without further ado.

Oh yeah, if you are having trouble reading it, you can click on the comic to get a larger size.

I'll Be Back!

Do you remember that little 1984 art house film by James Cameron that made the Governator famous? The touching story about a man and woman whose love must overcome the obstacle of an unstoppable cyborg assassin who has been sent back from the year 2029 by a race of artificially intelligent computer-controlled machines bent on the extermination of mankind.

Yes, I am talking about The Terminator. Well apparently the film never seemed to have made it into Israel. If you recall the whole extermination of the human race nonsense started when humans created a “Global Digital Defense Network” and gave it command over all computerized military hardware and systems. The theory behind Skynet’s creation was to remove the possibility of human error and slowness of reaction time to guarantee fast, efficient response to enemy attack. As you can imagine, this had “unimaginable” consequences when the computer become sentient and decides that all humans are the enemy.

Now jump back into “reality” and you find this little article about how the Israeli’s plan to create a new, robotic defense system, armed with enough artificial intelligence that it "could take over completely" from flesh-and-blood operators. "It will be designed for... autonomous operations,' Brig. Gen. Daniel Milo, commander of Israel's air defense forces, tells Defense News' Barbara Opall-Rome. And in the event of a "doomsday" strike, Opall-Rome notes, the system could handle "attacks that exceed physiological limits of human command."

It is events like these that remind of the quote by Ray Bradbury about why he writes science fiction.

“People ask me to predict the future, when all I want to do is prevent it. Better yet, build it. Predicting the future is much too easy, anyway. You look at the people around you, the street you stand on, the visible air you breathe, and predict more of the same. To hell with more. I want better.”