Enough.

I wrote a letter to the President today, here it is.

Cowards.
Your administration, and yourself Mr. President, are cowards who lack the courage of any convictions. Cowards and betrayers. Because you and your administration's actions and leadership, or lack of either, have effectively thrown the vast majority of Americans to the wolves. We face an income disparity the likes of which is typically found only in third world banana republics and you, your administration, and your party will do nothing about it. It has been shown that you handed money out like candy to the people most responsible for our current disaster and now you will appease them by making sure their taxes don't go up. Meanwhile, two million people will not have the money to buy food this month because our overlords deign us unworthy of any help dealing with the disaster of their making. You have said everyone must have health insurance but have allowed one of the nation’s largest companies to continue offering mini-med coverage to the vast majority of its employees while offering full coverage, for less, to its executives.
We have become a banana republic in fact if not name and you and yours will do nothing to change it. The middle and lower class of this country have few options and even fewer reasons for hope. It is glaringly obvious that we are being told to accept our lot in life and hope our betters will feel generous and perhaps allow us to work as their bootlickers. That we should meekly accept the rotten scraps from the tables of our lords and masters, after the dogs have their pick.

You have said you would prefer being a 1 term president who achieved rather than a 2 term president who played it safe. You will be neither. If this continues you will be a one term president because you abdicated the responsibility of leadership, your espoused principles, and defending the interests of the vast majority of America. You will be a 1 term president because a coward deserves nothing but contempt and removal from leadership.

I still think you were a better choice than John McCain. I no longer think you were a great choice. If you chose to stand, and fight for the betterment of the lower and middle class you would have been great. But you have shown that you will not stand, you will not fight, that a collective shout of “No!” will set you scurrying for compromise with those who seek none. You have shown you will not lead.

Coward and betrayer.

There will be another post in the next couple days with statistics, studies, and links to back up what I said.

That is all.

Goodbye Zorro

As a puppy, I brought him into my life on my lap.

Saturday I held him in my lap as he passed away.

Somewhere inside the rational part of me is calmly saying that it is better this way. He had an injury that can't really be treated. He was crippled and this way he didn't suffer.

The rational voice is small and hard to discern. The comfort offered by the rational voice is cold indeed.

I want to rage. I want to rampage. I want to destroy and destroy and destroy until my hands are broken and bleeding. Until my chest is heaving like a blacksmith's bellows. I want to break things until the physical pain is worse than the emotional.

I want the world to be fair and I want my dog back.

I don't want to have paid for the privilege of killing my dog.

But I can't break every object in my path and the world isn't fair and I do have to pay for the privilege and I can't have my dog back.

So I will keep it inside and simply weep.

I love you Zorro. I love you and I miss you and I'm sorry you didn't get to be my daughter's dog too.

Goodbye.

An open letter to cowards

To all and sundry Democratic Senators and Representatives,

Man up.
Apologies to the female members.

You don't have to play nice anymore. For the past 12 months you have allowed the Republicans to spread fear and dissension. You have allowed the Republicans to stand in the way of needed progress. You have allowed the Republicans to halt your agenda with the threat of saying no.

Enough is enough.

Like Jon Stewart said, "You have a bigger majority than Bush when he did whatever the fuck he wanted." Use it. You have tried to play nice. You have tried to involve the other party. It isn't working. They have nothing but fear and the word NO to fall back on. Use your majority. Make them filibuster. Or vote the filibuster out.

Do what is right, not what is safe. If you use the whip hand, some of you will pay the price in November. Not many, you have the lowest turnover job in the country. But some. I understand the decision to take what is the right path for the future is hard when faced with the realization of the present that some will lose their positions of power and authority by taking that right path.

But you were elected to serve. Sometimes service requires sacrifice. Please, for the future of our nation, make that sacrifice.

The Universe

A thought occurred yesterday. I know, shocking.

Hubble has observed the death of stars more than 13 billion lightyears distant. How many directions has it observed these stars in? Is it in every direction? Is the light redshifted in every direction? If it is does that mean every non-local point is expanding away from every other point? Or is it just expanding away from our point? If the universe is expanding from every non-local point does this change how we view relativity?

More is different.

Been gone a long time, so something off topic

I haven't posted in a long time. The title even says so.

Baseball and steroids.

Yesterday Mark McGwire finally admitted to what most of us with functioning brain cells already knew. He used steroids.

I don't care.

Sportswriters are calling for his head, or forgiveness, or something in between.

I don't care.

I am tired of hearing about how these player sullied they game, how they ruined its pristine image.

This is the same sport that put a man who beat another man to death in its hall of fame.

Mark MaGwire and all the other 'roided out players made baseball popular again. They entertained us and made a lot of money doing it. Good on them. I'm glad they did. Now I'm glad everything is coming to light.

Just don't be angry at them for giving us exactly what we wanted.

Look! A post!

Nanowrimo went.

Some family issues arose and I did not meet my goals.

I have noticed a furor in the blogosphere. It has to do with publishers delaying ebook releases.

Much of what I have read states that publishers need to wake up and smell the coffee. Ebooks are the way of the future and ebook customers deserve to get their books at the same time.

I'm going out on a limb and saying this isn't because publishers can't see what's on the horizon. I think it's because ebook reader owners aren't a significant market share yet.

Amazon hasn't released any solid figures on Kindle sales. It's estimated that they sold about 500000 last year. With the lower price point and more people being aware of its existence I suspect Amazon will sell that many or up to 700000 this year. That's 1.2 million. Add Nook and Sony readers to the mix and if you are VERY generous that total might reach 2 million. 2 million is less than 1% of the population.

If every person who owns and e-reader buys every new ebook release it makes sense to cater to their whims. Everyone knows that is not the case.

I'm getting a Nook. I won't have it until February at least but I am getting a Nook. It will not become the only way I purchase books. I will still continue to purchase some books in hardcover. I will still buy most of my books in paperback. I will add e-books to that list. I suspect that most people probably fall into the same category that I do.


Ebooks are not the apocalypse. They are also not the alpha and omega of book distribution. They are one more channel of distribution. One I hope is used correctly. Correctly, however, does not necessarily mean primary.

Feverish the wrong way

I'm running about 101 degrees at the moment. I'm 5000 words behind where I want to be at this time. I'm sweating in a 68 degree room. I hate disease. But it's started. The greysoul is starting his trip into the dark. Should be fun.

That is all.