Archive - Aug 2008

I finished my 10k and I am not dead! This is good news since I was concerned that I might not have been up to it physically nor mentally when it came to the daunting hills in Austin. The route was entertaining . . . the little that I could remember. Honestly, the whole time I was thinking, "Damn, when is the Sea of Red Shirts going to spread out." That never did happen. It was a cluster f*ck of people running side by side. There were over 10,000 runners I heard but who knows.

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At 6:30 CDT I will be participating in the Nike+ Human Race 10k in Austin, Texas. I have been training for 6 weeks to run this 10k and although I am no where near the shape I was in April of 2007, I am ecstatic about running. Friends will come out to support me like they did on my first run.

This time though, Marco is joining me on the ride. I know how tough it will be but Marco does not realize that hills are deceiving. He has not been training as aggressively as I have but he is also in much better shape than me. He actively swims and plays tennis so that counts. I have prepared mentally for the challenge and am ready to take the hills head on.  Read More »

So I woke up this morning with what seemed to be the worst hang over . . . I don't recall why I ever started drinking last night but one thing is for sure . . . I had the worst nightmare. Imagine this:

I had a nightmare about McCain selecting his Vice President. It was a she . . . and before I go on, I almost crapped my pants because I thought it was that b!tch from my home state of Texas. She goes by the name Kay Bailey Hutchinson and she is as conservative as they come. I crossed my fingers and held my breath but it wasn't KB. WTF?

Who the hell is Sarah Palin? This is when my dream transcended into nightmare.  McCain had selected an inexperienced Governor from Alaska that had less than 2 years of experience. My stomach fell ill and my head started hurting. So I began drinking because as I became more inebriated it seemed that it was not reality.  Read More »

Less than 24 hours after Barack Obama gave a historic speech accepting the Democratic nomination that was viewed by over 38 million people, McCain announced to the world that his Vice President would be Sarah Palin. Who, you may ask? Palin is a social/economic conservative that is the current governor of Alaska.

If you think you feel that you have never heard of her . . . you are not alone. She is considered a political noob with less than 2 years in office as Alaska’s governor. U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX), who at one point was considered a potential VP prospect for McCain, claims, “I don't know too much about her." Even some in her party do not know much about her and who can blame them?  Read More »

In what may be a paramount case and a precedent that may haunt the RIAA and MPAA for years to come, a U.S. judge concluded that transcoding is not a crime. Transcoding is the automatic process that most websites like YouTube employ to convert any user submitted video file into the flash format.

Judge Howard Lloyd of the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California dismissed a 2006 copyright infringement case against Veoh. The issue at hand was whether Veoh should be held liable for the actions of a user who submitted content from the adult entertainment company IO Group. Veoh was compliant with IO Group’s to remove the content but nonetheless ended up in court over the matter.  Read More »

Hillary Clinton did what she had to do. I can’t imagine how hard it must have been to be on that stage but under different circumstances. She united a party that media tried to imply was divided. There were some that speculated that the party would split and there would be a Democratic Party with Barack Obama as their nominee and a Third Party with Clinton as their nominee.

That of course did not happen. Clinton’s message was clear. As Ezra Kelin notes, “Her candidacy was about something, not someone. She is a Democrat, not a Hillaryite.” Those that supported Clinton believed in an effort to expand health care, shift our economic policy so it benefits the middle class and rectify the damage that Bush has done to our foreign image and policy.  Read More »

Now that is official and Barack Obama has asked Joe Biden to join on him on the Democratic ticket, what is Biden’s position when it comes to the Hispanic issues? Biden has been in office since 1970 and has been the Senator for Delaware since 1972. Other than being a Roman Catholic, what else does Biden share in common with the Hispanic vote?

When it comes to the controversial topic of Abortion, Biden believes that the government’s role is to remain neutral. He does not believe that the U.S. should repeal Roe v. Wade. Negating women the option of undergoing the procedure is a position. He does not believe in using public funds for abortions. He accepts the Catholic Church view that life begins at conception. The majority of Hispanics with roots in the Catholic Church do not find abortions permissible. His position of allowing them to be performed but publicly against the surgery may not hurt his political view with this constituency.  Read More »

Somehow about 50 years ago, a smart political adviser from the GOP came up with the idea of associating Democrats and tax increases as a if it were a combo meal at your local restaurant. This myth still haunts Democrats and John McCain is trying to deceive people into thinking that Barack Obama will increase taxes.

After having two different conversations, with different people on different days about taxes and Obama, I decided I needed to refresh my knowledge on the subject. This is when I came to the startling discovery that 80% of taxpayers benefit from an Obama tax plan. The other 20% should be voting for McCain if taxes were the sole issue to those voters. It seems that the rich benefit from a McCain presidency and everyone else benefits from an Obama administration.  Read More »

I still remember the feelings I had when I was a minor consuming alcohol. It was this uneasy feeling of wanting to participate in social activity with my peers but regretting having to break the law in order to do it. When I went to college, I had to wait 3 years before I could legally but more importantly . . . feel comfortable with alcohol in my possession.

23 years after there was a national push to mandate a Federal Law that recognized 21 as the legal drinking age, there is a similar push for the opposite. As a 23 year old that began drinking at 18, I still believe that the drinking age should be changed to 18.  Read More »