More from the Swift vets

Our actions have consequences, things we say and do in the past can often come back to haunt us. John Kerry is learning this lesson the hard way again. The Swiftboat Vets are releasing a new add and are using Kerry's own words to condemn him. On several occasions Kerry said in interviews he threw away his medals he received from Vietnam. Later he said he only threw away the service ribbons and not the medals themselves.

This is old news and normally wouldn't be a very effective add. However, one block of votes Kerry is targeting is the veteran's vote. In the early 1970s, it wasn't popular to be a veteran and many vets did protest the war once they got back. However, Kerry is trying to run as a war hero and they don't throw away something as precious as their medals. Now the focus of the adds is not whether Kerry threw away his ribbons or medals.

To the vets, if he threw away EITHER, he said what those metals represented was not worth anything. The question of should we have been in Vietnam is still open, but the actions of those who served honorably there is not open. They were asked by their country to go and they went and served to the best of their abilities. Their sacrifices were not in vain and their metals were and are honorable. By replaying Kerry's audio clip where he proudly claimed to throw away his medals, the Swift Vets are reminding Vietnam vets what Kerry thought of their own service back then. Again this normally would not be a big issue. After all, President Clinton didn't go to Vietnam at all. But Kerry is running as a war hero and hero's don't throw away their medals.

Free speech for me but not for thee

That seems to be attitude of some, or rather many, of the protestors in NY to those attending the Republican convention. The protestors demand the right to assemble, march and speak. Rights that are guaranteed by the US Constitution. However, they do not seem to want to allow others who hold views different from themselves to be able to utilize the same rights. At least without massive police protection.

Some of the delegates personal information has been posted on the web and the post urges "protesters should use the information "in whatever way they see fit.""

NY Daily News reporter spent time with some of the protestors before the convention started and all said that today 31 August will be a "big day" of direct action. Expect more confrontations with the police.

And finally, where are the Democrats? Where is the ACLU? Why are they not denouncing the protestors who are trying to prevent the Republicans from peaceably assemble and use their constitutional rights of free expression? Hillary Clinton, who is in charge of the Democratic Truth squad and is representing New York in the Senate hasn't said anything yet about the policeman who was attacked by the protestors, not because of his politics (which is unknown at this time), not because he was attacking the protestors (he wasn't), but because he was there. His crime was breathing and living and doing his job watching folks on the street. Shouldn't Hillary be denouncing those who attack the first responders?

It will be an interesting week.

Not So Loyal Opposition

Just hooligans and anarchists.

When marchers approached the Garden, a police officer was kicked repeatedly in the head by at least one male demonstrator and was listed in serious condition at an unidentified hospital, the police said. There was no immediate word of an arrest in the assault, the police said. As of 9 p.m., the police said there had been eight protest-related arrests.

Apparently, some think that intimidation is an acceptable form of dissent:

. . .delegates to the Republican National Convention were swarmed by protesters dressed in black and swearing at them. Blocks away, delegates engaged in shoving matches with protesters seeking to spoil their night at the theater. And outside "The Lion King" on 42nd Street, a delegate was punched by a protester who ran by.

What a bunch of #$&(@. I suspect that such behavior, odious as it is, will do Sen. Kerry's bid for President no favors.

Like This Ever Works

Sen. Kerry is offering a deal so that Iran will stop making nuclear weapons. Wait a moment, is this the same deal that Clinton offered North Korea? The same North Korea that is building ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons? The same North Korea that is also threatening to export nuclear weapons if the U.S. doesn't negotiate with it?

Four words to Sen. Kerry: Ain't. Going. To. Work.

Iraq Update

Well, OpinionJournal.com has another installment of the good news in Iraq that the news media may have overlooked in the last two weeks. Check it out and remember that the media likes to print the bad news and the blood and guts because it will sell papers and commercials. There is good news as well and while Iraq has lots of problems we should remember things are not as bad as the press would like us to think it is.

How much storage space do you want???

I have a 20 gig hard drive on my 2 year old computer and its still mostly empty.

May 2004 Forbs :

"In a keynote speech to the [recent World Wide Web conference in New York],
Microsoft's head of research Rick Rashid described what consumers might do
with a terabyte of data storage that costs around $1,000, and is capable of
holding more than 1 trillion bytes of computer data.

What's fascinating to note is that we can, just three months later, ALREADY purchase Rashid's terabyte of storage for LESS than his "$1,000." As we recently found out www.theharrowgroup.com/articles/20040510/20040510.htm#_Toc71429047),
a terabyte of storage can already be yours for $840 or less!

So now instead of not filling up much of a 20 gig drive, I'll be able to have 1,000 gigs (terabyte) with the same data or here is what we may be able to expect in 5 years.

Because if patents owned by the president of Colossal Storage Corporation,
Michael E. Thomas, pan out, we may have not one, but 100 terabytes (that's 100
TERAbytes!, or ten-thousand gigabytes!) on a $45 removable 3.5-inch disk! The
drive will cost about $650. In five years.

Ok, who is saying were likely to have so much storage space that even Bill Clinton will finish his speech before he can fill the hard drive (see the 1988 Democratic Convention where Clinton almost sunk his chance to be President before the race even started)? Well Jeff Harrow at the Harrow Report is one. His news letter has been a pretty good heads up on storage and computer power at least for non-science folks. He takes some pretty cutting edge technology stuff and writes it in a way that even for folks with out a hard science degree (like me) can understand what's going on in the lab.

I'm not sure what I would do with all the storage space that is likely to becoming down the pipeline, but with the explosion of phone camera's, PDA camera's and likely camera's in car and everywhere else, we are going to be a very watched world. I can just see it now, we will have cameras recording where we are going, as well as looking out the sides and rear so in an accident, there will be a video recording of what was happening and who is at fault.

The "silly" season or week has started

Well its Monday and now its a contest between the protestors and the Republican Convention to see who will get their message across.

One question though. If the anti-Bush protestors value the 1st Amendment (well the free speech part anyway), why are they so determined to prevent the Republicans from meeting and speaking? I don't seem to remember lots of conservatives protesting the Democratic Convention last month, maybe I missed it.

Shawn Macomber at The American Spectator has a nice write up on the protests from a first person viewpoint (his) and a question.

The catch phrase of the day was, "Dissent is Patriotic." I saw not a hint
of irony on the faces of the mob as they demanded, for hours on end,
"Republicans go home!" and "GOP scum, leave our city!

"Let's think about this for a moment: There are 5,000 Republican delegates in town for the convention. Protest organizers predict the final count will be somewhere around 250,000 and I've no reason to doubt the figure. So protesters will outnumber delegates 50 to one.

At what point exactly, I asked several members of the Question Authority
Brigade, is one group far enough in the minority that they become, well,
dissenters? Sputtering, uncomprehending rage was all I got in response.

Its going to be an interesting week.