i thunk so

Ron Paul is not going to play the class envy games, and that pisses “under-advantaged” people off. The irony is that the dismantling of the federal government’s bureaucracy behemoth would be the best thing for those less fortunate people. I don’t know too many poor or lower-class people who employ hundreds of people. You know…jobs? The things that allow people to take paychecks home? And if Ron Paul had the blessing of America’s voters, those lower-class people would stand to gain the most.

A fixed-percentage consumption tax would grade the tax scale against the wealthy by the natural order of things. Rich people spend more. The lower-to-middle-class working Joes would get to keep their paychecks and put away more of THEIR OWN MONEY for things like cars and houses — things they can’t even dream of affording today.

By de-centralizing the federal government’s power seat, you systematically force them to ease their grip on your day-to-day life. Everyone pretends to be so paranoid about Big Brother, but they will pout and kick and scream the moment they don’t get what they want from the Feds — national health care is a good example of how people are swallowing the dogma of the nanny state whole.

Weak and ignorant people look for the path of least resistance. Life is hard.

Sending power back to the States was the purpose of the Constitution. The Constitution was supposed to outline the LIMITED POWER of the federal government.

I heard a great quote the other day about freedom that I don’t remember exactly, but it was something like: “The dirty little secret about freedom — and also the absolute beauty of it — is that you’re on your own.” The moment you throw yourself at the mercy of the government, you become a slave to it.

I don’t know about the rest of this country, but I’m looking to get rid of my chains.

Filed by JP at 3:50 am under Rants, Government, Democracy
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This is a question that plagues many web designers and developers who’ve had automatic Windows updates forced on them, either by scary network admins or by simply forgetting to disable automatic updates.

If you have IE7 installed, you DON’T have IE6 installed natively (because Microsoft won’t let you have both at the same time). That makes cross-browser testing a really annoying prospect. Now there’s a way to have both without having to use one of the buggy, hacked IE6 stand-alone versions out there.

I came across a Microsoft-distributed VHD (virtual hard disk for use with VirtualPC) with IE6 and some developer tools already pre-loaded. Follow this simple walk-through to get it working:

1. Go to the VirtualPC website and get the latest distribution of the free VirtualPC and install it.
2. Download the IE6-loaded Virtual Hard Disk for VirtualPC here.
3. Run the IE6_VPC executable and expand it to somewhere on your PC. You will point to it in the next step, so remember where you put it.
4. When you start up VirtualPC, just use the wizard to point to the VHD you just decompressed. Select Windows XP from the OS list. Name your instance of VirtualPC something (I named mine IE6 TestBox).
5. Once it boots up, adjust your VirtualPC Networking settings and point Adapter 1 to “Shared Networking.” This tells the VirtualPC to piggyback off your existing connecting rather than try to grab its own IP address from DHCP.

This has made my life a lot easier. Let me know if it helps you. If you think screen shots would be beneficial, let me know and I’ll take some extra time to make this tutoral worthwhile.

NOTE: Keep in mind that VirtualPC licensing may be time-limited. It’s possible you will need to download a new distribution in the future. Also, be sure not to set the RAM for your VirtualPC instance too high.

UPDATE: Arcane Code has a great walk-through for installing VirtualPC.

Filed by JP at 2:10 pm under Technology, Tutorial, Web Design, Development
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People everywhere have problems. Someone somewhere is living on the street and doesn’t know how they will feed their kids. Someone just lost their job and will probably have their home repossessed by the bank. Some farmer lost all of his crops to a drought and will probably have to declare bankruptcy. Someone just found out they have cancer and doesn’t know how they will pay the medical bills.

These are all sad stories, and if you know someone who is in a situation like this, I hope you will do what you can to make their life a little easier. That’s where positive change begins — with people. Individuals who care.

When the government tries to fix things, it NEVER works. I challenge anyone to point out a government program that meets the following criteria:

1. This program had/has a clearly defined goal with an easily quantifiable measure for success.
2. This program had/has a clearly defined budget with no allowance for corruption or financial mismanagement, and has accountability stop-gaps built in.
3. This program was/is not simply the result of badgering by special interest or political posturing during an election year.
4. This program had/has a provision that allows for its dissolution if it did/does not meet the clearly defined and quantifiable goals, thus guaranteeing that money spent on the program will not be wasted.
5. This program didn’t/doesn’t hold any possibility of eroding personal privacy rights.
6. This program could not be avoided simply by letting a private enterprise do it better and more cheaply.

When I think about nationalizing health care, I can’t help but see it through to it’s natural end in my mind’s eye.

Once the government is the vendor, it is up to the government who they will and won’t service. If they are the ones with that role, can they not also decide the criteria for that decision?

What if you’re a parent who spanks their kids? When your kid goes in for their government-mandated checkup (and they *will* mandate your preventive care, which is another right you will lose — the right to *not* go to the doctor), what types of questions will the doctor be required to ask them? Will you be allowed to be in the same room during the checkup? Will their checkup also include a mandatory psychiatric evaluation (after all, we need to stop those school shootings before they happen, right)?

When there just aren’t enough doctors to go around (mostly because they will no longer have a financial incentive to become doctors) and the rationing begins, how much of a say do you think you’ll have? Maybe your kid was born with Downs Syndrome. Since they don’t have much of a chance at a normal life anyway, why not put them at the back of the line? We’ve already been so desensitized by abortion anyway, I doubt government-mandated euthanasia will phase us that much. Let’s just have a cut-off, shall we? Who do you know that’s really much use to society past the age of, oh say……75?

Maybe when there aren’t enough doctors, the government will decide it’s time for them to get into the business of deciding who will become doctors. Maybe we just won’t have the luxury of letting people choose a career for themselves anymore.

People will read this and say I’m being extreme. It’s not. This is already beginning to happen in some parts of the world. Why? Because it’s the natural progression when a heartless, bureaucratic entity takes charge of anything. Their ultimate goal is taking your money, shutting you up, and staying in office. The government does not care about individuals. The next time one of the Presidential candidates talks about “government with a heart” or some such nonsense, they should be immediately tossed from the race.

Government is not supposed to *feel*. Government is supposed to facilitate peace and opportunity. Government does not belong in the business of handing out favors, playing favorites, or finding new ways to spend our money. Lately, this is all they’ve been doing.

Does your government speak for you, or do you speak for your government? You are supposed to be the voice. You are the one who got first mention in the U.S. Constitution — not THEM.

Look at what our federal government has become? Look at their track record.

WE ARE THE COUNTRY. We are in charge. THEY don’t get to have power over us unless we cede it to them. Don’t give them another shred of power over you.

Virtually every state and local service is now tied to federal funding. This makes every municipality beholden to the desires of the federal government for fear of losing funding. You don’t think the exact same thing will happen with health care?

Think this through and play it out to its natural end. I hope you will see it for what it is: another brick in the wall of government oppression — albeit disguised as a safety net for everyone — that will ultimately separate us completely from our personal freedoms. I feel safer already.

Filed by JP at 4:43 pm under Opinions, Government, Democracy
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We already knew Harry Potter was a ruse to “sillify” witchcraft for children and make spells and incantations seem somehow harmless — something even a child could master.

The Harry Potter evolution is a perfect picture of evil at work.

The first book (and subsequent screenplay) in the series introduced young readers to a whimsical world of children at play — children just beginning to explore the wonders of the magical realm. It was like something kids might experience in their dreams at night — flying, quidditch, giants and other “wondrous” creatures from the imagination of J.K. Rowling.

It began innocently enough, but with each book the characters all began to take on increasingly dark personalities. It became obvious that the more Harry came to understand the powers of “magic,” the more the power at his disposal began to present a moral dillemma for him.

I’m not writing anything earth-shattering here. I’m sure all of this was intentional on the author’s part…and that’s my point. The series attracted throngs of young readers and quickly became wildly popular. It soon became a literary standard for kids everywhere — if you weren’t reading Harry Potter, you were just a bit uncool. Now the youthful fans were addicted, and it become much easier to begin to indoctrinate them and scare them. But of course, they simply had to find out what would happen to Harry in the next book.

Evil is something that is regularly disguised as harmless fun. It is a two-faced predator. If it shows its true colors at the very first, potential victims will run away screaming. Evil must soothe its prey into believing that no threat of harm or ill intent exists. It is a wolf in sheep’s clothing — a Venus fly trap.

The Harry Potter saga was a devolution into a world of evil and death — a slow, downward spiral into the pit of hell. “But Harry wins in the end!” you say. Good triumphs over evil? Really? At what expense? How did it really end?

J.K. Rowling, much like the hero of her now-concluded Harry Potter series of novels, was allowed to toy with the minds of millions of children. Parents all over the world willfully exposed their children to witchcraft for the first time — many of those same parents would never dream of bringing a Ouija board into their home, let alone having their kids play with it. Millions of children are now having nightmares which may as well be ripped from the pages of Rowling’s works.

Innocence is a frail thing. Many parents who pride themselves as pro-family conservatives were among those who delighted in the new excitement and fervor for reading that their children seemed to have discovered. They eagerly rushed out to buy every single Harry Potter novel — after all, wasn’t it amazing how little Johnny and Susie seemed to be able to sail right through a 500-page novel? All the while your kids were being stuffed into an abyss of fear and darkness.

Then, even after the series had concluded, Rowling had to make headlines one more time by sticking it to all the parents who might have begun to realize that they had squandered their childrens’ innocence on a worthless heap of paper and ink. She announced that Dumbledore was, in fact, a gay man. She described his inner torment and repressed love for another male character referenced in the series.

Was there a reason to make this declaration? I say of course there was a reason. Dumbledore was one of the series’ most beloved characters. He was a grandfatherly figure who was always both the watchful father figure as well as the junkyard dog when the situation required it. Readers quickly came to see him as the protector of Harry Potter.

Now, with the series finished, Rowling decided it would be nice if she proclaimed Dumbledore’s homosexuality — not because it was essential to his character development or the plot (the series is finished, remember?). She couldn’t resist one final twist of the knife that is already embedded in the imagination of your kids’ minds forever.

Are your kids any better for having read the Harry Potter series? Are you that unimaginative that you couldn’t find anything wholesome and well-written for your kids to read? Witchcraft is evil. Those who seek to further it are evil. Those who would abuse the minds of children and seek to indoctrinate them in the ways of evil are the lowest form of life in existence — I consider Rowling to be in that category.

Filed by JP at 9:30 am under Rants, Opinions
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Politicians, take notice. The American people actually do care about freedom. The more you scoff and snicker at grass-roots movements in support of candidates who favor limited government and individual rights and liberties, the more you cause those people who didn’t care to take an interest.

So keep mocking Ron Paul. Keep belittling the middle class. Keep up your classless, ignorant, high-and-mighty antics. You are waking a sleeping dragon. Above all, we Americans value our Constitution. Every move you’ve made recently has been to undermine our rights and individual freedoms. You thought you had us right where you wanted us. You thought you could just buy us off with your bloated government programs, handouts and entitlement programs. You thought you were done with us. Well, we are done with you.

A peaceful revolution is taking hold across America. You’d better make other plans for your future because your days of aristocracy are over. The voters are beginning to remember who really holds the power in this country, and we are taking our Republic back.

We are tired of party-manufactured dogma, absence of intelligent debate, and utter disregard for the financial burden that the middle class of this country is being forced to bear. We are noticing how you are voting and how you are behaving. As you smugly dictate your agenda to us, we are fully aware and we will remember when it comes time to pull the lever.

Your earmarks disgust us. Your waste is repugnant. Your willfully indignant attitude toward our feedback and opinions is utterly reprehensible.

Don’t forget, you work for us. You will be getting your pink slip any day now.

Filed by JP at 11:24 am under Rants, Opinions, Government, Democracy
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Is it possible to tell YouTube that you don’t want to see any soccer or F-1 racing clips? If not, it should be. This would filter over 50% of the ridiculousness.

Filed by JP at 11:21 am under Questions
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I like to think that I am unaffected by these ridiculously early campaign stump speeches and straw polls, but sometimes I just can’t help but watch. Train wrecks and all that…

Over the Labor Day weekend, Hillary was wooing the union labor vote.

I find the liberal stance on border control (they want open borders) and illegal immigration (they want to ignore it) to be quite at odds with what union laborers generally want. Now, of course union laborers also want handouts from anywhere they can get them, but how does letting millions of illegals pour across the border help the typical blue-collar union laborer? Answer: it clearly does not. Millions of illegals taking jobs from lower middle class Americans undercuts the blue collar wages. Illegals also tend to be non-union workers. Unorganized labor doesn’t contribute dues to the labor unions.

I can’t say that I care about the survival of labor unions anyway. Unions are not about equality. Maybe they were at one time, but now they’re about selfishness and consumer exploitation. In a way, union labor is a microcosm of what’s happening with our federal government: power to the aristocracy and screws to you. Unions pay their dues like lemmings while policy is dictated to them from on high. The upper crust has little concern for the everyday plight of the middle class, or they would give unions the tough love they need to survive.

I just find it ironic that unions will back liberal candidates in elections, yet liberals have an agenda of empowering government — the most anti-union agenda one could have.

Filed by JP at 10:15 am under Rants, Opinions, Democracy
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I’ve listened to Jim Cramer on the radio quite a bit. He’s usually on his game. Yeah, he’s a little annoying to listen to, but he’s very knowledgeable. That’s why this video kind of shocked me.

Liveleak: CNBC’s Cramer goes Crazy over Stock Market

Filed by JP at 4:02 pm under Rants, Business
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Some things are just hard to fathom. Others you can wrap your mind around without any trouble. Still others fall into the category of easy to imagine, yet full of holes. Anti-gravity falls into the latter of those categories for me, and is my new obsession.
(more…)

Filed by JP at 2:21 pm under Ideas, Technology
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I think he’s smart to actually put a platform out early on rather than sit around waiting for opinion polls to shape his platform. He is appealing to the base that Bush forgot. I’m not saying that I’m considering rejoining the ranks of the Republican party or anything, but as a social conservative it is important to me that someone is willing to stand for something.

See Rudy’s 12 Commitments .

Filed by JP at 4:28 pm under Ideas, Opinions, Government, Democracy
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