Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Clinton's LiveJournal:

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Tuesday, October 28th, 2008
10:31 am	Quadrennial Message In one week, it's Election Day. The candidates of choice this time around are Senator Barack Hussein Obama II (D-IL) and Senator John Sidney McCain III (R-AZ). For all practical purposes, there's no-one else of importance running. So it's come to this. I have just one thing to say on the matter. There are a lot of things that are troubling me right now with the state of the United States, but the two that stand out are the lousy economy and the erosion of personal freedoms. The erosion of personal liberty has been going on for a while now. The first time I remember noticing was in college where I'd heard the term "hate crime" for the first time. With such strange notions as special crimes against someone's civil rights, you can almost hear the Founders turning in their graves. Fast forward 20 years and the USA PATRIOT Act makes the Alien and Sedition Acts look tame by comparison -- at least those had political opponents in Congress and later the White House. There is no refuge from the Department of Homeland Security. With the combined resources of domestic and foreign intelligence they can pretty much do whatever they like under the banner of "National Security." With the ease and speed at which information spreads, no government agency should be trusted to keep my secrets. I think this will be the Bush Administration's legacy. Not Iraq, a recession, nor anything else will last as long as those rights being given away. I am actually more worried about what Obama's about to do to freedom than Bush. Incredible? That Sen. Obama has socialist leanings should not surprise anyone. The fact that it took an unscripted question from some schlub from Ohio to get him say it outright worrisome. It's a damming statement against every journalist he's ever spoken to in the past 3 years. In the midst of an economic recession, the public is going to be very receptive to the message of a mothering Federal government. The government will take care of you in your old age, the government will provide your health care, and the government will make sure that every family has a house, a car, and a television set. At its core, socialism is all about equality. Everyone should have the luxuries of life regardless of their natural talents, looks, status, intelligence, attitude, health or work ethic. Want to argue the point? Then ask a socialist whether a poor, untalented, ugly, dim, lazy and unhealthy person should have their own house, free health care, and a little spending money to go with it. "Of course they should. Everyone has a right to be happy." But those things don't come cheap. There are two fundamental costs. The first is, you must tax those that are using what they've got in life to give to those that don't. "Tax the rich, give to the poor!" might sound good but "Tax the well off middle class to give to the poor!" begins to loose its luster. And if you're young, middle-of-the-middle class, and on your way into the "well off middle class" it's troubling. And you've gotten the Federal government into the business of drawing lines between what it means to be rich and what it means to be not-so-rich. $250k/year? $100k/year? What's the right number? The other more insidious cost is your freedom. With the willing and active participation of the mob, your right to earn a dollar's pay for a dollar's work will evaporate before your eyes. A dollar's pay for a dollar's work if you're under $30k/year. But only $0.75 pay for a dollar's work if you're under $100k/year. And a mere $0.62 pay for a dollar's work if you're under $250k/year. (Someone dig up a real feminist from the 1960's to tell you what bullshit this is.) So the rich loose a bit of their money, big deal. Yes. It's a very big deal. If you ever want to become one of them it is. If you're earning $31k/year, can you make yourself 20% smarter? Prettier? More talented? Annually? You will have to, just to keep up with the rising taxes as you earn more and more. And the already wealthy (a notch above the rich) are exceedingly good at hiding their money. Force them into a socialist economy, and you'll see just how fast they can lock it up and send it overseas. They're not getting taxed, but you will be. It's not just my income I'm worried about. Socialists as a rule have a big stake in keeping tabs on my habits and my personal life. If society is to be adequately regulated, it must be adequately monitored to provide feedback to the controlling body. Bush installed cameras everywhere to make sure I don't bring toothpaste onto an airplane. Obama will install cameras everywhere to make sure my kid's lemonade stand pays its full share of taxes, is eco-friendly, offers lemon-free and sugar-free lemonade, submits to FDA inspection, while being handicapped accessible, and busing in a more diverse clientele at his expense. McCain? I'm not thrilled with him at all. But what other choice do I have?
Tuesday, March 25th, 2008
9:36 am	Detroit, I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so. Dumbasses. From my posting of 11/11/2005: Open letter to the voters of Detroit. Dear Detroit Voters, Congratulations on re-electing a racist, isolationist, party boy as mayor. "Diamond" Kwame Kilpatrick should serve you well into your continued decline, while stuffing the pockets of his family and friends. You don't need good relationships with the suburbs. Detroit can squeeze money from its own populace to fix its streets and pay for its police. Stand on your platform and call us white trash drug addicts. Continue to accuse us of intentionally hurting Detroit. Say that we're not patronizing Detroit because we're a bunch of racist control-freaks that want to run the City of Detroit from Oakland County -- the tail wagging the dog. Believe the garbage spewing from that lying hate monger. But we'll only remember that you, the residents, re-elected him. Don't come crying to us when you want money to have Cobo Hall renovated. Don't even think of asking for additional taxes and fees to pay for a downtown "rejuvination". If my beloved Red Wings weren't in Joe Louis Arena, I'd never have any reason to go to Detroit again. Sincerely, A suburban Detroit southeast Michigan resident.
Monday, December 31st, 2007
10:21 am	The NHL Media Office is run by the Marx Brothers (as sent earlier) Dear NHL Media, I'm from the Detroit area, 38, and have been a hockey fan as long as I can remember. Whether NHL teams (early 1980's with the Red Wings) and AHL/CHL teams (late 1970's with the Flint Generals). My wife is from the Buffalo area, 37, and a longtime fan of local teams and the Buffalo Sabres since she was a little girl. I've gotta tell you, you've really screwed us over for following hockey. First, you cut a television deal with Versus -- a no-name network with extraordinarily lousy coverage. Where it's available, we get to suffer through play-by-play from amateurs, and camera work/direction from guys that must be used to covering soccer. Maybe the NHL isn't big enough to warrant a deal with ESPN or another real network? This year my cable provider fails to pick up NHL Center Ice because, it seems, the NHL has insisted that they pick up the "Hockey Channel" as a prerequisite. Let's face it: you don't have that kind of clout, NHL. And as a result, my wife can't follow her Sabres who are not carried on any local station (we live in Detroit). I find out this year also that the NHL isn't being carried on Sirius. That's one of the reasons we BOUGHT Sirius last year -- hockey while on the road. And now, it's gone. We don't want to watch hockey on the Internet. Ever. I'm a computer programmer, my wife is a project manager for an internet video company. Every room in our house is completely wired for broadband. We should be the perfect audience for NHL coverage online. Watching online ties us to a laptop, the house (our WiFi range), and hockey can't be enjoyed while staring at the tiny, tiny screens and small speakers. And who wants to sit in the office to watch hockey? That's what my big comfy chair, couch and 53" TV are for. On the eve of your big media day (the Ice Bowl is tomorrow), please, write back and tell me how you're going to fix all of this. How NHL Media isn't going to be the butt of jokes and the subject of derision in our household.
Thursday, December 6th, 2007
10:15 pm	Long time, no see. I've been too busy with Calvin and Kay to really post anything in here. Most of my non-programming stuff, I hash out with her. My programming stuff? Booooring. Consider this a keep-alive posting.
Tuesday, June 26th, 2007
9:12 am	Parents How do people live with their parents? Mine are nice enough and all, but having parents around is such a mood killer. Ugh. Back to the software mines...
Wednesday, June 20th, 2007
10:13 am	I owe a few more sentences! Mom and dad are in town. No, wait, they're not, they've gone to my grandparents house till Friday. So the house is clean and we have it all to ourselves. On the downside, the old house hasn't sold yet. It looks like we'll have to drop the price a bit, repaint the upstairs, and replace doors up there to make it look nicer. Work has been kick-ass busy and unrelenting. It'd be nice to sit on my ass for a few weeks.
Wednesday, June 13th, 2007
4:15 pm	Tonight's plans! Busy Busy Busy! I've got the balusters on one part of the deck, but they're not evenly spaced, so I'll have to do it again. Then, I'm cleaning out the flower beds surrounding the house. If I have any energy left, I'll pull the grass out of the flower beds along the fence.
Tuesday, June 12th, 2007
9:40 pm	Science, Carpentry, and yardwork. With the imminent arrival of my parents next week, Kay and I are scrambling to get things ready....well I am, Kay's on a company road trip for a couple of days. Weeding and construction till 8:30 each night is really exhausting. And RIP Mr. Wizard, you were always entertaining and your science was spot on.
Monday, June 11th, 2007
11:30 am	Weekend in Haiku Form Fisher Price People,, In laws, Arts and Crafts with a Kazoo Serenade
Friday, June 8th, 2007
9:28 am	Sarah, Travel, and Bush Of course all of the conservative pundits and politicos are abandoning Bush: in 2004 they couldn't nominate anyone else, and in 2006 they had to look unified for the election; now that there are other possibilities on the horizon (than Kerry and Gore) of course they're jumping ship. Kay mentioned Sarah Silverman's dissing of Paris Hilton; this could be another nail in the coffin of my theory that there are no funny female stand up comics. This weekend we're going to Buffalo to meet Kay's brother's fiance so there won't be any updates until Monday or so.
Wednesday, June 6th, 2007
11:59 pm	Wii, Deck, and Work Work's still going like crazy: when I get home every night, I'm pretty much exhausted from a whole day of being dragged off in separate directions. The deck railing made some progress today as Calvin and I managed to put up the posts. And tonight we break out Mario Party 8 and see if Nintendo actually managed to make a decent (non-sports) multiplayer game for the Wii.
Tuesday, June 5th, 2007
8:47 pm	Porches, Rails, and Rolls. The second floor deck was replaced last week and so I'm building a railing around it (note to self, send the builder a check). Calvin received an Honor Roll certificate in today's award ceremony; I didn't attend because he didn't know he was getting anything and it didn't seem like a big parent thing. The new storage bench I built for the front porch -- that Kay painted and cushioned -- is a big hit and we expect the parental units to spend a lot of time out there this summer.
Monday, June 4th, 2007
9:33 am	Three Per Day Living with Kay, setting up a new household, etc... I really haven't had time or inclination to write. So I'm going to try an experiment to get myself back on track. I'm going to write three sentences per day here for the rest of the month. (Well not today, of course, since this is kind of a meta-posting about posting.) At the end of the month, I'll see where I wind up.
Wednesday, May 16th, 2007
9:19 pm	Godwin's Law and XML Today in #perl some n00b was hounding the channel for programming advice. Finally, he started spewing XML solutions at us. Disclaimer: XML is great for stuff. XML works for a lot of things. I use it every day. XML is the Godwin's Law of programming discussions. Once you bring it up, you have lost our attention and any future points you bring up are wasted. The conversation is at an end, and it can only go downhill from there. The Real Programmers amongst you know exactly what I mean.
Tuesday, May 15th, 2007
9:15 am	Public Service Announcement. I sent this to the various e-mail lists I'm on for volleyball announcements. About twice a week I get another Urban Legend in my e-mail box, and it's getting a bit tiresome. Reprinted here for your education: Keep in mind, Internet warnings are almost always hoaxes. Whether it's: "Perfume abductions", "Glade Plug-In fires" or my personal favorite "Mr. Rogers was a Navy Seal sniper in Vietnam" 99.44% of what's on the Internet is pure, slick, high-octane crap. A scary e-mail can usually be debunked with a quick search at Snopes.com, who've been doing this thing online since the early 1990's. Perfume Abductions? (Search "perfume") http://www.snopes.com/crime/warnings/perfume.asp Glade Plug-In fires? (Search "Glade") http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/household/glade.asp Mr. Rogers, a bloodthirsty killer? (Search "Mister Rogers") http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/mrrogers.asp Urban legends are a cruel, cruel thing. ---- This has been a Public Service announcement from someone who's been reading this stuff online since before your kids were born.
Sunday, May 13th, 2007
11:55 am	Hockey on Versus I humbly beseech the gods of hockey to smite Versus. No replays. Controversial call? Forget it. You'll never see it. The inane jargon is enough to drive any fan batty. Since when have those clear things around the rink been called "windows"? As the game goes into overtime, it's commented that "Buffalo and Ottawa have played close games all season. This one might be decided by a single goal! Well no shit.
Monday, May 7th, 2007
4:31 pm	Using Robocopy to sync files between systems. This has been asked in a few places, not adaquately answered. As long as you're only doing the changes on one side or the other at any one time this seems to work just fine: robocopy c:\myLaptopDevArea t:\theServerDevArea *.js /XO /NJH /NJS /V robocopy t:\theServerDevArea c:\myLaptopDevArea *.js /XO /NJH /NJS /V So if I'm working on Javascript stuff at work, and want to take it home, I just run this. Bingo, bango, my laptop's all up to date. I get back to work, sync up again just fine. Of course, this is also possible with xcopy, but not with as many cool switches or gizmos.
8:26 am	Opus Reviews Spider-Man 3 Bad acting, Bad effects. Bad everything. This bad film simply oozed rottenness from every bad scene. Simply bad beyond all infinite dimensions of possible badness. Well, maybe not that bad, but Lord, it wasn't good. Every movie franchise has a film that's unwatchably bad. For Trek fans, it's Star Trek V: The Final Fontier; for Indiana Jones fans that'd be the Temple of Doom; and for Police Academy fans, numbers 2-6. The Spider-Man series now has that film.
Thursday, May 3rd, 2007
9:57 am	Not posting I know I haven't been posting here lately. I've just been too busy, with spring coming up and all. I have lots of honey-do projects to do around the house: * Build a porch * Build a storage bench * Keep up with two houses worth of yardwork Work's been going like gangbustes lately. I've got side-projects, and those side-projects have side projects of their own. The regular work is piled up all over the place. And those free few minutes here and there? Spent with Calvin and Kay. On top of that, staying up to watch as much of the Red Wings as I can is going to take it's toll eventually. I'm pooped.
Monday, April 23rd, 2007
9:45 am	Brownian Motion On Sunday, Calvin and I awoke to the smell of fresh brownies cooling downstairs. Mmm... Yummy. Kay had gotten up early and baked some. Later over dinner a discussion arose as to why that smell traveled so far, how smell works, and wended it's way all the way upstairs so quickly. We talked about the molecules of scent and how they travel in air. And that even in still air they travel because of the random push of atoms in moving air. At absolute zero, nothing moves. At higher temperatures atoms move faster and faster. Larger molecules (scent) trapped in surroundings of smaller ones (air) get bumped around in a seemingly random walk around 3 dimensional space. There's a name for this motion: Brownian Motion. Thus ended the science lesson. Tip your waitress, and try the veal. Thank you.