I was out riding my bike (been a long time since I've done that, but it feels good) a few miles and got to thinking about stuff...lots of stuff - like how I never blog much any more. Not that I've ever been religious about it, but it would do me good to exercise the language neurons every now and again.
This whole election just has me pissed off. I've heard things that make me want to vote for Obama, like trusting that he'll put the right people in the right jobs (perhaps he'll put someone in charge of FEMA who has, you know, experience with disaster planning) [based on what I've heard about the appointments he made at Harvard Law Review]. He is probably not the type of guy to put yes-men into his cabinet slots. HOWEVER, I've also read some disturbing information about his tax credits and how some of them are geared to become a form of social welfare. While I believe in NO taxation on the poor and barely getting by, I certainly don't believe in negative taxes. You shouldn't be getting a check from the government. In fact, I've been ashamed to receive rebate checks from our Republican administration.
Taxation belongs in one place - the only fair place - on spending. You shouldn't tax people who scrimp and save. You should tax people who can afford luxury. My feelings on taxation have for a long time been very simply that you should pay a flat tax on anything that isn't a staple (food, healthcare, the roof over your head, utilities). However, I'm also not a believer in welfare. Welfare is something best left to the community, and shouldn't be the job of the federal government. Churches, civic organizations and local communities should decide what's needed and the best way to provide it for their people. Taking my money and giving it to others is a bad idea, even if it is for the greater good. I get enough phone calls and letters in the mail asking me for money, thank you very much.
But, the Republican party let me down. They picked a hot-headed, not-very-bright guy based on popularity and hero-status, and then tried to dress him up with a pretty girl with an accent. Two people of sometimes differing mind sets, but apparently not much of a clue between the two of them. Ok, perhaps I give McCain too much of a short-shrift on intellect when I really only dislike his lack of an actual platform he's willing to stick to, his gung-ho, damn-the-torpedoes attitude and his apparent lack of deep thought [Just think - if he had given DEEP consideration in picking a running mate, is Sarah Palin the best he could do?!?] Spur of the moment decisions based on popular opinion [Women for McCain - that's why he chose her] are not the way to run a candidacy nor a presidency.
Sigh - enough of politics.
I started practicing my piano pieces again - just to tinker. I love the melancholy sounds of the sax and the feel of the keys under my fingers...sometimes even miss my baby grand...just no room for it. Also started playing chess again - not as fervently(word choice?) as before, but something to enjoy. I also picked up a book on 6502 assembly language programming and am perusing it but haven't really bit into it yet.
I found a program to rip my DVD's down to 3GP format for my mobile phone. In a day, there's about 1:30 of my time spent at lunch or commuting to work (no I'm not driving and watching). I've been able to watch some stuff I've got lying around. Just today I watched 3 Burns and Allen TV shows I have on DVD. I love some old stuff, Jack Benny, George Burns. It's hard to find this stuff, but when I do, I snatch it up. I have some Red Skelton, Little Rascals and Three Stooges as well. But I did start out with T3 (Terminator 3) and the ever-fun UHF (w/Al Yankovic). I finally settled on Xilisoft DVD to 3GP Converter because it was easy, did what I needed and saved me time mucking with all the other software.
Ok, enough writing - on to other stuff....random as always, Rich
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