I realized that while I have a firm set of beliefs, I can’t always say why I believe them or what proof I have for them. For some issues, I don’t even have a firm stance. To rectify this, I’ve decided to make a list of the important issues of our world, and write an essay on  my stance on it. I think it will be illuminating to me personally, and hopefully serve as a useful tool or guide to others, if I decide to publish any of them. The topics will range from partisan political issues to economic issues to spiritual issues. I don’t know how long it will take to do, but I will try to write one a week. As I said, if I like what I come up with, I may post them.

Here’s a list of things I might decide to write about: Clickity

I guess not anymore.

Jimmy Carter makes me sick. He’s appointed himself peacemaker in the middle east. Anyone remember what happened last time he tried to meddle in the region? Hostage crisis, anyone? He’s taken it upon himself to visit Hamas (a terrorist organization) and “talk” to them, with the stated intent of being an intermediary between Hamas and the United States. I’m sorry, Mr. Carter, did anyone ask you to do that? Moreover, did anyone want you to? On the contrary, the governments of the United States and Israel both explicitly asked Mr. Carter to NOT visit Hamas, to NOT give a terrorist group who’s stated purpose is destroying Israel legitimacy. But of course Mr. Carter, the worst president of the last 50 years (probably more) knows best.

To add insult to injury, Mr. Carter saw fit to visit the grave of Yasser Arafat, the dead leader of the PLO and a terrorist in his own right, and lay a wreath of roses.

Jimmy Carter is a disgrace.

From Ed Koch on RealClearPolitics:

When he ran for reelection, he asked me to campaign for him in 1980 - I was by then Mayor of New York City — and I said that I would vote for him, but not campaign for him because he was then engaging in hostile acts towards Israel. I was popular with the Jewish community and when I would not campaign for him unless he changed his position, he called me to his hotel in New York when attending a fundraiser and said, “You have done me more damage than any man in America.” I felt proud then, and even more today, since we now know what a miserable president he was then and the miserable human being he is now as he prepares to meet with Hamas.

Jeremiah Wright

I don’t know about you, but I’ve gone to the same church for about 12 years. In those 12 years, I’ve gotten some idea of what my pastor is like. He’s kind, friendly, always ready to help. Those are somewhat superficial traits, to be sure, but they illustrate my point. You can’t associate with someone for a single year, let alone twenty, without gaining some inkling of his or her political or social beliefs and traits. To say that Barack Obama sat in Jeremiah Wright’s church for 20 years and at no point had any inkling of his pastor’s radical anti-American beliefs is absurd. Obama’s camp can dodge all they like, claim he wasn’t in church on a particular sunday when a particular comment was made, but could he truly have missed half a lifetime of anti-American sermons in a church he attended regularly?

So, now that we have established that he was almost certainly aware of his pastor’s views, we have to discuss why he stayed in the church. In my view, there are 3 possibilities. 1, he didn’t think it was a big deal. 2, He saw a political motivation for staying in the largest black church in Chicago. 3, he agreed with Wright.

I’m going to go with three as the most likely solution. Being a member of a large, black church certainly helped gain influence with black voters. This claim is further supported by his bolting as soon as his membership and Wright’s comments became controversial.

Why isn’t his wife proud of America?

Michelle Malkin says it better than I ever could.

He has ties to corrupt businessmen and domestic terrorists

Barack Obama has ties to corrupt businessman Tony Rezko and Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers.

Rezko contributed money to Barack Obama’s political campaigns. Obama worked for a law firm representing Rezko’s company after turning down a job offer to work for Rezko directly. Since 2003, Rezko has been on Obama’s U.S. Senate campaign finance committee, which raised more than $14 million. Obama purchased a house in Chicago for $300k below value on the same day Rezko’s wife purchased the adjacent lot for the asking price, raising allegations of unethical coordination of offers. Obama later purchased a ten foot strip of land adjoining the two properties from Mrs. Rezko for $100,000 . Rezko has since been indicted and is on trial for corruption.

Barack Obama and Bill Ayers.

I don’t agree with him on a single issue.

I think this speaks for itself.

He’s an elitist masquerading as a populist

Obama said, because of the economic downturn (which has evidently been plaguing us as long as guns and religion have been with us) middle-class Americans “get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

So in other words, we’re bitter because we don’t have jobs, so we turn to religion and guns and hating immigrants. Real inspiring words from “one of us.”

He has no solutions, only platitudes.

Hope is useless. Hope does nothing. Hope makes you feel better about a situation over which you have no control. When something bad happens, you hope for the best, but you can’t do anything to change it. Hope typifies Obama’s campaign. He hopes for a better America. He hopes we can come together across racial, social, political boundaries. How inspiring. How useless.

Obama’s solution for Iraq? Leave. His answer to al Qaeda taking over Iraq? Go back in.

I’ll probably add more later.

I’ve been working at Kroger for about 5 months. It’s a bad job. I’ve been trying to get a different position there other than bagging, but business sucks and they’ve been cutting hours. So I’m stuck doing a crappy job for less and less hours every week. Which is less than ideal.

I’ve also been working at the Onyx Ice Arena as a scorekeeper since I turned 18 in October. That’s a good job, great money, but not many hours. I talked to Tom, my boss, and he said that if I got Ice Skates I could be a skate guard or lobby attendant and get about 15 hours a week. It’s not a great job, but it pays more than what I make now and at this point I’d be happy with anything. I’ve been applying at different places, but nobody’s hiring, as anyone in Michigan knows.  So if everything works out, I’ll hopefully be able to put in notice at Kroger next week.

School’s been crazy. I took some classes thinking they would be easy, but they’re turning out not to be. It’s kind of annoying, but I guess it’s a good thing in the long run. It’s been pretty hectic, a lot of studying that I’ve been slacking off on and so forth. I got into Oakland University, so I guess I’m going there in the fall. woot.

In general, I’ve just been working, going to school, going to a few sweet concerts and hanging out with friends. It’s been good times, but busy. And it doesn’t look like anything’s gonna slow down.

If I have anything to blog about, I certainly might.

But for now, I’ll just say I’m busy with school, work and life. I fit time in for my online responsibilities when I can. I’m looking for a new job, so if anyone has ideas, I’m all ears.

-Dennis

The work mostly sucks, but at this point, I’m glad to take anything I can get.

On top of that, I’m working for one of my dad’s friends fixing printers, tearing apart old stuff for scrap, etc. It’s pretty good work, and the money is nice.

Needless to say, I’m pretty excited. NWL is probably my favorite artist ever. From the two songs on myspace, I think that the new CD will be really good. ‘Always’ sounds especially good. Judging from the samples so far, it sounds like the next CD will be more fast-paced, if not upbeat.

In addition, I’m really excited for the new Iron and Wine CD, the Postal Service CD (If it ever comes!), David Bazan, and Radiohead. Too bad a couple of those are a year away.

I’ve got a few classes this semester.

• Intermediate Algebra
• Political Science 101
• American Literature 1920-Present
• Introduction to Unix (1/2 Semester)
• Unix Administration (1/2 Semester)

My Algebra class is the only one I’ll have real trouble with. I think I’ll do fine, but it will take a ton of work. My Political Science teacher is annoying. He rambles about nothing for most of two hours and at the end of class, I don’t think I remembered anything that actually pertained to Political Science. My literature teacher is ok.. her voice grates on my ears though. And she said that before the 1920’s, women weren’t allowed to cut their hair. At all. I laughed.

As to my UNIX classes, those are both online. I don’t really like Online Classes, but since they were only available online, I decided to deal with it. It’s pretty easy. I already know a little about shell, and I have a good Linux background, so I have a good foundation.

Overall, the jury is still out on this semester. It could be fun, or it could suck. Maybe I’ll follow this up in a couple months.

Since it’s really old, you can get it for free from a few places, including Wikipedia. So, I downloaded it, and I was listening to it, and I was amazed. It’s such a beautiful song. I felt really relaxed and soothed. It was nice.

Anyways, long story short I abandoned the project when it was not quite complete. You can still see and download what there is on Sourceforge. I had a request to finish it, but never had the time to actually work on it. The other day, I picked it up again and went back to work. I’ve got some screenshots to share with you guys.

The Guestbook Home Page.

Sign Guestbook

Admin Home

Manage Posts

Manage Users

The Options and Themes pages aren’t finished yet, but it does have a fully funtioning Theme Changer.

More to come soon.