t bob, My thoughts & more

RE: Politics, spin, much, much more and far beyond...

Hello America,

I firmly believe that if our American Democracy is ever defeated it will be done by forces inside our country not by external forces. This has been and is occuring ever since the US Supreme Court gave the presidency to George Bush. That event marks the beginning of the end of Democracy in America. Despite what Bush says about defending and protecting Democracy in America and around the world he and Cheney backed by the domination of the Republican party in the three branches of government are the forces destroying America from within. Our Democratic plurality and our Democratic system of checks and balances no longer exists.

Cognitive dissonance, spin, outright lies and manipulation are the tools they use to achieve their goals which are not the goals of most Americans. They are spreading chaos and fear within our American society. They use nazi, colonialist, fascist and imperialist tactics both within America and throughout the rest of the world to spread their ideas, values and endeavors. It is no wonder that America is disliked, hated and/or feared by most of the people of the world.

Due entirely to Bush-Cheney militarism America is regarded by most of the people of the world as a 'rogue state'. Even the wonderful people of Great Britain, our closest allies and friends in the world, are against the actions of our government. I don't think the British are against the American people rather they are against the actions of the Bush-Cheney Government. Due entirely to Bush-Cheney militarism the small flame of bin Laden jihadism has had gasoline poured on it and has become a fire which is spreading everywhere. That is exactly what the Bush-Cheney government wanted, an enemy, so they could go to war.

Bush-Cheney want to force American Democracy down the throats of those Arabs in the Middle East who have lived for much more than five thousand years in a tribal society. By comparison America has been around for only a few hundred years. Who are Bush and Cheney that they can decide our American form of Democracy is the way Arabs must live. Moreover, Bush-Cheney are slowly but surely destroying our American Democracy. Yes it's true Saddam was a terrible leader but Bush-Cheney have substituted Saddam's control over the good people of Iraq for Bush-Cheney control over the good people of Iraq. May God watch over and bless those people for they have suffered greatly and continue to do so. They have no water, food, electricity or jobs nor is there any prospect that they will have these things in the forseeable future.

How long will it be before we get out of Iraq and return the country to the people of Iraq, it's rightful owners. If Bush-Cheney succeed in installing a Democratic form of government in Iraq there is absolutely no reason to believe that it will remain that way since it flies in the face of over five thousand years of the Arab tribal form of government. America put Saddam in control of Iraq and created a horrible situation, a mess. America supported the Persian government of the Shah of Iran and Iran has become a bad situation, almost a mess. When will America stop meddling in the internal affairs of so many other countries in the world. America meddled in the internal affairs of Korea and now it is a divided country with a terrible dictator in control of North Korea. Does anyone see a pattern here, I certainly do and it's a pattern I want stopped.

America due to this policy of intervention in the affairs of other governments pays a huge price, that of many, many dead, physically/emotionally maimed troops, the long suffering military families and enormous unending costs to the American taxpayer. These cost severly restrict the economic growth of our citizens, our economy and most American corporations. Again, some few American corporations benefit by war but in the short run and most especially in the long run most American corporations suffer greatly.

America has long been involved in toppling South American governments and now we watch as the situation in South America becomes increasing leftist. How long will it be before the Bush-Cheney government decides to invade South American countries, I can see it coming. Our government involves itself in the internal affairs of South American countries and as a result the people suffer. They remain in poverty and economic slavery to American companies especially American oil companies and others such as United Fruit, US lumber interests, US coffee companies and US companies seeking other natural resources such as minerals.

It has been reported that for ten billion dollars a year we Americans could feed, clothe, provide health care and educate every poor starving child in the world. If we want to encourage Democracy in other countries rather than force it down their throats via war and domination might we win their hearts and minds by providing care for their children. This would cost the American taxpayer far, far less than the terrible costs of war which in Iraq and Afghaniston are now at the nearly three hundred billion dollar level and will very possibly be in the 600 hundred billion dollar level and could go to the one trillion dollar level before it's all over and we pull out all or most of troops in ten or fifteen years. Remember, America is still in Korea after 55 years. Why is the Bush-Cheney government building four new large American military bases in Iraq, despite their claim that their government will withdraw all American troops by 2007, conditions permitting. Will conditions ever permit complete withdrawal of all American troops?

We Americans are ultimately to blame for our terrible apathy which allows the Bush, Cheney, Rove, Republicans complete and unchecked control over every aspect of our American freedoms and values. These people spy on innocent Americans for exercising our constitutional rights to put forth our opinions via individual and group comment, and sometimes even our right of lawful assemblage. The Bush administration has taken many surreptitious steps toward co-opting many of our governmental agencies. The lastest being the misuse of the NSA to spy on Americans without congressional oversight. How many other other activities have Bush, Cheney, John Bolton and others in this government used against Americans, American politicians and other governments, even friendly governments, are in use that 'we the people' and the congress know nothing about. Spying on a group as benign as the Quakers would normally be beyond the approval of the average American citizen, but Bush and Cheney are doing it.

America, lets be sure we do not blame the NSA, CIA, FBI, US military and other intelligence agencies for spying on Americans as they are simply doing the things that Cheney and Bush order them to do. Lets make sure that Cheney, Bush and the Republican Party lose their dominant control over American politics by voting them out of power. Americans I am doing my part, are you?

I was a non-political person until tricky Dick Nixon did all those things that brought presidential behavior to a new filthy, slimy, low point. Aided by the nazi tactics of Haldeman, Erlichman, Rumsfeld, Cheney and others, Nixon, a person of little character, brought great shame to the office of the American presidency. It was not until our most moral president, Jimmy Carter, came to office that some dignity was restored to that office. Now we have Bush, also a person of little character and no patriotism toward America, American Democracy or the vast majority of the American people. Bush, Cheney and the Republican Party's only allegiance is to themselves and the narrow agenda of certain special interest groups.

Since the time of Nixon I have been a conservative and an independant swing voter. I ask that all Americans declare themselves independant swing voters. This will scare the hell out of all politicians and push them, at least to some extent, to work harder at keeping themselves 'in tune' with the wishes of the American people. King George and chickenhawk Cheney should not be allowed to form their own secret government within a government with the help of the lock step Republican Party. These people have their own agenda which is badly out of touch with me and I believe with most Americans. We now have tricky Dick Cheney and guilty, gullible George Bush doing the dirty deeds of corrupting American government, governmental agencies, American democracy and the lives of the American people. American politics and American government are badly out of any semblance of balance. Our Democratic system of checks and balances no longer exists. 'We the people' no longer control our government.

We all have noticed, in the last month or so, that the usually lock step Republican congressman are sounding a bit more conciliatory and sympathetic to the viewpoints of others and not always following the desires and wishes of King George. Even King George is sounding a bit more conciliatory and understanding of the views of others. The only reason for that 'seeming' change in attitude/behavior is because they are facing an election in 2006. Once that election has occured these Republican congressman will revert to their typical lock step marching to the orders of der fuehrer, Bush. They will once again become a government within a government just as Reagan, another Republican, did with Ollie North and the Iran-Contra affair. This affair was in turn further covered up by Bush Sr, another Republican, especially when he became president.

These Republicans, after the 2006 elections, will return to their nazi like tactics of vilifying others in America and in the world. They will return to politicizing everything, vilifying certain groups in America (gays, abortionists, women inquiring about abortions, Planned Parenthood members, all civil rights groups, eco-enivronmentalists, anti war groups etc. etc. etc.) the list seems to be almost endless. They will continue to use divisive techniques to divide our American society and make us fearful of each other, they will continue to pit Americans against each other, vilifying scientists and science that doesn't support their agenda, as in the denial of science that tells us about global warming.

Their use of distorted and twisted science is a favorite technique of these nazi like thinkers. For example, creationism is not science it is a religious belief for which their is no proof. The belief that there is a God who created the world must be accepted as a matter of faith. I, personally, believe that God did create the world and yet my great love of 'true' science is not in any conflict with my belief in God and his creations. I am not a nazi like thinker because I keep my religious beliefs quietly to myself and do not force them on any other American citizens, our American Democracy or any American institutions such as our public school system. As I recall, there is an admonition in Islam, that I like very much, and which says something about earning favor in the eyes of God when we go about worshipping Him and doing good works in a quiet way. There is another admonition-like phrase that says 'he/thou dost protesteth too much.

Our government wants to keep track of every book we read; just how long will it be before they are burning and banning books. Bombing and burning of abortion clinics and shooting and murder of clinic employees has already been done many times, this strikes me as a form of terrorism and nazism. We have pharmacists who refuse to fill certain prescriptions, soon these prescriptions will be banned, more nazism. Kristallnacht is here, now and has been for some time. I think it began with Ronald Reagan and his use of the concept of the 'axis of evil'.

Bush uses this very concept but he never seems to draw the line and instead extends it to every one who disagrees with him, including any/all Americans. I am not convinced that other countries/peoples who are concerned about Bush's militarism around the world can simply be thought of as being part of the 'axis of evil' just as we Americans who voice any dissent may someday be considered as being part of 'the axis of evil'. It seems that anyone or any country who disagrees with the Bush/ Cheney/ Republican agenda/bias is part of the 'axis of evil'.

What can we Americans do about these horrible infringements on and erosion of our rights as citizens? First of all American citizens must view these infringements as horrible and totally unacceptable to us and our Democracy. Then we must convince our congress of that fact through our out spoken voices and our votes. There is much we can do for we are the ones who really have all the power to control the misuse and imbalance of power in America and in American politics. As long as we have an educated citizenry (we are losing that) and as long as we have a one man/one vote system of voting (we are losing that in two ways) we still have the power. When education and the one man/one vote voting system are lost, our Democratic form of government completely ceases to exist. There is still 'some' time left but but we are approaching the tipping point, the danger point of 'no return'.

The citizens of America must do all of the following and more. Electronic voting machines must be banned because they are easily tampered with and changed which allows those in power to change our vote without our knowledge. We the people can expect no protection or oversight from the Republican controlled congress or the Republican controlled and Catholic dominated Supreme Court. Remember, I am a lifelong Catholic but the Church's involvement with the merging of 'church and state' in American politics leaves all of us citizens vulnerable to their influence. Also, remember the other group involved with the merging of 'church and state in American politics and government are the other radical right wing religious fundamentalists, most notably the white southern Baptist evangelical fundamentalists.

BTW, for the voting machine threat we can thank Diebold Corp. in Canton, Ohio and the other two makers of electronic voting machines which are controlled by people who are staunch Republicans and supporters of the Bush-Cheney government. I have long been aware of Diebold Corp. since I live not far from Canton, Ohio and dated a relative of the Diebold family over thirty five years ago. Because of this awareness of Diebold I was extremely disappointed to learn of their involvement with Bush, Bush's Rangers and the Republican Party.

We the people have to watch seditious groups, such as the radical religious right, some US corporations, and the Republican Party who due to their own private and personal agendas' are among those involved in the erosion of our civil rights and 'the destruction of America from within'.

There are other things we as citizens must do to protect our Democracy. We must do away with the 'Electoral College' all Americans must be able to vote directly for the president. No longer must we maintain this system of 'indirect' voting whereby a presidential candidate can win the through the electoral vote while losing the popular vote. That system may have been okay when the members of the electoral college had to travel great distances by horseback, stagecoach and train to carry the wishes of the voters of their states to Washington. No longer is there any 'undue delay' to the voting process since our voting process is expeditious even without the dangerous electronic voting machines. I remember as a grade school student in civics class feeling outraged that the voters did not vote directly for the president. There was nothing else during my Catholic grade school days that actually outraged me. My thanks to the wonderful nuns who taught me Civics.

As I previously mentioned we Americans must shed our apathy and make ourselves vigilant, aware and knowledgeable about the politics taking place in America. How-evverrrr, the Bush administration's withdrawal of funds from American educational systems dangerously reduces the ability of our citizenry and our children from being vigilant, knowledgeable and aware of the things that are taking place in our political systems and our government. How can we citizens be aware if we don't know, cannot read and don't understand what is happening in America. How can we citizens be vigilant if we do not have knowledgeable educated reporters, who are empowered by their knowledge ( truly, knowledge is power) and know enough to ask the right questions of our politicians and government officials. A poorly educated person has little knowledge and no power.

The possesion of computers and knowledgeable use of the internet gives much power to 'every man' which is each and every one of us citizens, 'we the people' must have the knowledge if 'we the people' are to retain control of our American Democracy. Knowledge is the only way 'we the people' can retain control of our government against those who have their own private and personal agendas'. Slavery comes from lack of education and knowledge. 'We the people' end up working blindly for others instead of for ourselves. 'No child left behind' is a wonderful idea but is only a misleading phrase if there is no money put into education. 'No child left behind' focuses largely on teachers as if they are pointed to as the reason that our children are poorly educated. This is another Bush/Republican/Karl Rove subterfuge to mislead the American people and vilify someone else, the teachers, for the poor education of our children. Again the nazi strategy of vilifying someone else as being the cause for the undesirable circumstances in our country.

Do you the American people know that the wealthy spend about $80,000.00 dollars a year to support the education of their children while the poor have only about $11,000.00 dollars a year to support their children's education. Don't be mislead by that oft repeated statement that we don't need to 'throw money at/into education' when we most certainly do need to 'invest money' in the education of our children. Do you notice the difference in linguistics/semantics between those two phrases, as if 'throwing money at/into education' is the same as throwing money away or wasting money. Wow, the correct phrase IS 'investing money in the education of our children'.
It's a good thing I took some linguistics in college and read Noam Chompsky, probably the greatest political linguist in the World and certainly the most well known. I read his writings via the Kaleej Times a newspaper that is headquarted in Dubai, one of the United Arab Emirates.


Our children are America's future work force and future voters. Their education is absolutely essential and vital to the future of America. The education of our adults right now is absolutely essential and vital to the survival of America, right now. Money put into the education of adults enhances their work skills and the use of their voter rights to retain control of our American Democratic institutions. Truly, 'knowledge is power' and education is knowledge.

The middle class and poor in America are greatly diminished by lack of affordable access to a good education. The wealthy have easy access to a high quality education, do the rest of us deserve any less? The tax dollars spent on education do not belong to or come from our government, rather our tax dollars are just that, they are OUR tax dollars.

The government takes our tax dollars from us to support American government and American institutions. But our government is 'supposed', SUPPOSED to be a government "by, for and of the people". Do 'we the people' have that kind of government, I think not. Our tax dollars are supposed to support our government and our American institutions, not for the wealthy and powerful and some American corporations, all of whom want to become even more wealthy. Almost all Americans live a day to day, paycheck to paycheck existence with insufficient education and almost no health care. The Bushies want to take our minimal life style away from us to further their own 'private and personal wants', not needs but 'wants'. WAKE UP, AMERICA!!!!!!!!!

I am all for defending America but who do we need to defend it from. America is no longer a democracy, it is a Totalitarian Republican Theocracy. Come on America, lets take back our Democracy from those who would use us, be they outside of America or within, to further their own personal and private agendas. Our courageous troops are giving up their lives, health and the lives of family to safeguard our Democracy dare we do less?

WAKE UP, AMERICA!!!!!!!!!!

Re: My computer,

I have a Dell Dimension 8100, P4 1.5GHz, 768Meg memory which has had continuous problems since the day I received it in April, 2001. Dell has never been able to stop the problem of it crashing every 2-6 weeks. Dell did a good job of honoring my extended warranty, but never was able to solve the constant crashing of the OS, Windows ME. The advice they offered during countless calls to the customer support were useless. I had the usual customer support problems of having to wait for unblievably long periods of time, usually 1-2hrs. When I got the customer support agent I usually had difficulty understanding them when they outsourced. Although the agents were difficult to understand they were very polite and tried their best to be helpful.

Before Dell outsourced customer support the american support was equally unable to solve the problem so outsourced support was really not the problem. I finally figured out what the problems were.

The problems were due to Dell's poor case design, it could not get rid of heat. The multiple, strange, seemingly unrelated problems were all due to heat and a bad hard drive. The heat problem may even have caused the hard drive problem, although I think the hard drive was defective from the beginning. After I had the computer for two weeks the hard drive began to make intermittent rattling noises, probably marginally bad bearings or warped platters.

For the first 4 and 1/2 years I thought the problem was due to my Microsoft OS being windows ME. So I bought a lot of software probably spending $1000.00 on a great variety of cleaning and repair software. When none of that worked I purchased Windows 2000Pro for $300.00 but it crashed just as often as ME.

When none of the software programs solved my problems I finally started reading up on hardware related computer problems, which eventually led me to the solution. My hardware modifications were as follows:

1. I installed a Seagate Barracuda 80gig hard drive which has fluid dynamic bearings and what a difference. All the intermittent rattling noises stopped and the computer became more stable and consistent in it's performance. The wonderful Seagate drive is extremely quiet and I will be a Seagate customer forever. As a result of the HD change the computer though being more stable and much more consistent in it's operations would still crash, but far less often. So, I decided to try to give my disastrous Dell more hardware modifications.

2. I installed a 220.00 dollar video card with more memory on it since I had read that computers could crash due to insufficient memory. I added an additional 400.00 dollars worth of very expensive memory and that 'seemed' to help a bit. I added a program called "Memory Boost Pro" from Tenebril and that seemed to help. This program does a better job of memory management than Windows 2000Pro.

3. Next I installed a 220.00 dollar CD/DVD drive made by TDK and though it did more things than the straight CD drive that came with the computer my computer did not work any better.

4. Finally, I made improvements in the cooling of the computer and it has run non-stop for 6 and 1/2 months. I think the new Seagate HD might have helped because having fluid dynamic 'bearings' it probably generates less heat. The lousy Dell case design allows for only one 80mm. fan for the case cooling and it's noisy. I have cleaned it, and the power supply fan once a year but this did no good and I did not think it would do any good since these fans were never really dirty. But having worked in the electronics world for 17 years I cleaned the fans just as a preventive measure. Being an amateur radio operator for most of my life I have always followed this fan cleaning procedure with my radio equipment. With the older tube radios that I owned in my earlier years as an amateur radio operator I always ran an extra fan on my transmitter and on my amplifier.

However since the Dell case design does not permit running extra fans without modifications I decided to do mods. only as a last resort. My only other alternative fan strategy would have been to run a larger fan, 90 or even better a 120mm. fan would have been ideal. A 120mm fan would have provided both greater cooling and a much quieter computer, this alternative would have been ideal. Unfortunately the Dell case design would not permit this modification. Damn Dell and their idiot cost cutting and corner cutting ways of doing things. I was once again boxed into a corner by Dell's computer design.

This brought me to another strategy, I removed all the flat cables and installed round cables. This strategy definitely helped and was fairly inexpensive. Thank goodness I had the technical and electronics skills to do these mods. I had built a previous computer myself and as a result learned quite a bit. I am sure I would not have attempted this had I not been involved in electronics since the age of seven, had been an amateur radio operator beginning at the age of 16 and had the help of some friends who were more knowledgeable about computers than myself. Thanks Pete W. John S. and Tom F.

Thanks to Dell's stupid computer design and choice of some components I can not install
heatsink coolers on the the cpu or the chipset or the memory without modifications which I do not care to do. Butchering what I paid $2500.00 dollars for is not my idea of the proper way things should be designed by the computer manufacturer. The last modification I did was not very elegant and makes my overpriced Dell nightmare computer look ugly but it helped.
The Dell 8100 has an extra external drive bay so I have removed the cover allowing more air flow which is directed at the cpu and chipset. This will probably cause more dust to enter the computer but I really do not have a choice.

The Dell power supply is only 330 watts and may be running at it's upper limits which would cause it to generate more heat. Also it is the typical inefficient computer power supply piece of junk so I finally found a replacement from a company that makes an excellent power supply which I had used in a previous computer. 'PC Power and Cooling' is a company that makes really excellent computer power supplies. They are far more efficient so they run cooler and produce more power as well. My computer has never run better, in fact as I said previously it has not crashed in 6 and 1/2 months so I think the problem is solved.

My Dell has been a 4 and 1/2 year nightmare. I will never buy another Dell computer. I bought the Dell because it had a good reputation and I stupidly thought that Dell was a premium computer that would give me premium service. I was so wrong.

For my next computer I will go back to building my own as they never failed me in any way. I always used a full tower case and ran three case fans, which sounds like overkill but then I never had any problems. I have never been a 'gamer' or 'overclocker' so my Dell has not seen that kind of usage yet due to it's very poor design, component arrangement and component selection I suffered through all those years and all that huge expense to correct problems that should have never occured in the first place.

I hope all of this information helps some Dell owners who are having multiple and/or seemingly unsolveable problems. Hopefully other Dell owners will not have to go through the terrible anxiety and frustration that I endured for so long. Hopefully other Dell owners will not have to go through the huge expenses that I incurred in order to solve my problems. If just one Dell owner is spared what I went through then I will have done some good.

Michael Dell is an extraordinarly rich man, I am sure, but he has acquired his wealth at the expense of his customers. I can guarantee to all who read this he has lost me as a customer and all of my friends who know of my terrible experiences with Dell computers.

For years I could not even find out what components were in this computer because there was nothing on the bill/invoice I received with the computer. Eventually I discovered two free programs that told me about most of the components in my computer but was unable to discover that my computer has a Planar motherboard in it until a year ago. This particular motherboard seems to be largely unknown in the computer world possibly another poor component choice by Dell.

The two free programs that were so helpful were from Lavaly's and Belarc. These programs work very well, I recommend them. These companies are to be applauded for their service to the computer community and they both make programs for commercial computer users as well as the free programs for the home pc user. They both deserve the recognition I have just given them.

Through my on going struggle I found other extraordinarily helpful sources. Kim Komando is a source I have been using for five years and still get her four very helpful e-mail newsletters every day. Kim is a resource that any computer user can trust, whether a home user or a commercial user such as a small business that does not have it's own IT department. She explains things in a very down to earth and understandable way. I have known Kim to make only one mistake in the last five years and she corrected it the next day because I and probably hundreds of her 4 million readers let her know about it. So if Kim says it, you can believe it, as she is totally trustworthy and honest. Her website does not put any spyware or malware on your computer and her privacy policy is the best. She offers information about how parents can protect their children while they are on-line.

Another great resource for the home or commercial computer users is Fred Langa of Langalist fame. I have been receiving his free e-mail newsletter for three years and now subscribe to his very inexpensive newsletter. I subscribe to his non-free but very inexpensive newsletter because it helps Fred pay for some of his costs as his site carries no advertising. Fred's website puts no spyware or malware on your computer and his privacy policy is the best.

Additionally, Fred uses the money he receives for his not-free newsletter to support 13 children in the poorest nations of the world. Buying Fred's not-free newsletter helps straving, sick, and otherwise uneducated children. Fred is a good christian but does not brag or talk about it.
Skip one stop at a fast food restaurant, save your health, subscribe to Fred's newsletter for great computer advice and help starving children all at the same time. What more could a computer user ask for? Fred also uses the money he gets from his subscription newsletter to cover his expenses when he goes to someones home to help them with a computer problem. In this crazy world it just doesn't get any better than that. Start with Fred's free newsletter and as soon as you see how good it is just subscribe to his other newsletter.

t bob