EckerNet.Com

This has been an interesting election cycle already, and it started at the very beginning.

When Minnesota’s Precinct Caucuses took place, even the most optimistic planner wouldn’t have guessed at the turnout.  It was massive, it was young and it was filled with first-timers.  Political virginity became an endangered species overnight.  And the energy level was off the chart.

Political veterans, including myself, were overjoyed, if somewhat overwhelmed, at the turnout.  New people are always welcome in politics, especially the young and energetic.  But many of us were also realistic enough to understand the reason for the turnout.  The first truly contested presidential race on both side of the aisle.  Most of us figured the enthusiasm would die quickly once candidates solidified.  Although it was still nice because if even 10% stuck around, it’s a huge bump in participation.

So BPOU conventions rolled around, and once again we had very high turnout.  But then we had contested nominations in our district, and despite our turnout repeated all over the state, I assumed that participation would start dropping soon.

Well, this weekend CD2 held their convention, and participation was still going strong.  A full delegation packed the house, with more alternates waiting in the wings.  Lots of new people continued to fill the ranks, even at a level at which it’s often the same faces over and over.

But that didn’t even tell the full story.  The reality become obvious to me later in the day.  The future of the party is very bright indeed.

One of the tasks for CD2 was to pick three delegates to send to the National Convention to be held in St. Paul, Minnesota.  Now, understandably there was great interest.  Initially roughly 90 people were vying for the three slots.  Eventually once financial and time obligations were made clear many dropped but still 68 wanted to try.  To aid the process each had to give a short speech to the convention outlining their qualifications.

Oh sure, we had a lot of old faces up there, some quite literally.  However, there were also lots of new people and almost without exception, all of them were very well spoken and solid in their beliefs and convictions.

I was particularly impressed with two youngsters, who not yet 18, were participating in their first election ever.  Not only were they already solid conservatives at this tender age, but were very well spoken and eloquent, leaving an impression fair beyond their years.  I think those two, who I didn’t get a chance to talk with afterwards, made a larger mark upon me than anyone else that day.  It’s easy to get cynical about politics, but it’s also nice when that flame is rekindled, and it certainly was by these two.  If they ever read this I’d like to say thanks.

And I’ve often heard predictions that 2008 is going to be another tough year for conservatives, and I certainly understand the reasoning for such predictions.  But I got the distinct impression that either nobody at CD2 has heard their predictions, or they almost universally regard them as utter nonsense.  It’s nice to see and makes it a little easier to work the trenches when victory is not considered a lost cause.

Suddenly the outlook and path to this November, and many Novembers beyond, looks a whole lot brighter.  I can’t wait.

I feel a great disturbance in the Vista. As if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.

Yes SP1 has been released….

And true to my nature as the ultimate procrastinator, I never got around to upgrading my Vista machine to SP. Instead, since I have three other PCs (including a new XP laptop) I’ve made do with one of them for any computer needs. Most of my procrastination was due to the fact that Vista is a stubborn bitch, and it was basically gonna damn near require a new harddrive if I wanted to upgrade to XP. So it never got upgraded….

And now SP1 has been released with little fanfare, universal contempt and not a small amount of contempt. So what the hell, I’ll give it a shot. Let’s see how this goes….

Prep Work

As any user of Microsoft products knows prep work is absolutely essential for any sort of upgrade, new installation or even if you plan on walking away from your computer for more than 1.7 seconds. Oh it doesn’t really make anything easier, but at least it makes you feel that none of it is your fault, you did your part, and Microsoft did theirs by bending you over and having their sodomastic way with you.

So read up on all the guides, reviews and FAQs I could find on SP1. Basically there are two schools of thought on SP1. The first, coming mostly from Microsoft, is that SP1 revolutionizes computing, cures male pattern baldness and injects puppies into every orifice of the planet. The other school of thought comes from….well everyone else, and basically holds that SP1 is going to make your computer crash, require 27385 resets to install, sends all your credit information to Bill Gates, and then has sex with your grandmother’s dog.

My grandmother doesn’t have a dog, so I figured I was safe. I briefly considered getting drunk enough to make this experience less painful, before concluding the world just didn’t have that amount of alcohol. Looks like I’m flying sober for this one….

Installation

The download was deceptively simple. Clearly it was awaiting it’s perfect opportunity to strike.

The installation was amazing in it’s contradictions.

It first requested to restart my PC, which I granted the required 23 times, and then upon restarting claimed complete ignorance of having restarted. This gives the installation an cute annoyance that utterly failed to be endearing.

Then the SP1 update to Vista took longer to install that Vista itself. This amazed me and I was quite sure something was wrong, until it occurred to me that the update itself was running on Vista, hence explaining it’s poor performance.

Finally, having no doubt filled my harddrive with landmines and Hello Kitty porn, the installation process finished.

Dare I dream???

Results

No I shouldn’t….

Despite it’s impressive list of “fixes“, near as I can tell SP1 made approximately one change to my system. It added a little piece of text to the system setup area indicating it’s running Service Pack 1. That’s about it. Which I have to admit is a rather breathtaking string of text. The contrast with the background is just right. And the text is just the right thickness to stand out but not be ostentatious. Still not sure why it took several years to accomplish it though.

Yeah, Vista still sucks.

Watch it now, before lots of a-hole Islamic extremists blow up the YouTube servers and burns down their entire country in protest of a movie telling the truth about religious extremism.

Yesterday Michelle Malkin wrote a rather exhaustively sourced article on some of Hillary Clinton’s more recent laws, and then went on to recall a bunch of the past ones. At the time I read it my head was spinning with the effort it took to keep them all straight in my head. I actually linked bookmarked it as a reference piece for later referral because damn, keeping track of all the mis-speaking Clinton has been doing is becoming an academic exercise.

So it was with no small relief when RealClearPolitics today put together a probably not quite comprehensive list of all her lies, so hopefully it should be a little easier to keep them straight.

Admitted Lies

• Chelsea was jogging around the Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. (She was in bed watching it on TV.)
• Hillary was named after Sir Edmund Hillary. (She admitted she was wrong. He climbed Mt. Everest five years after her birth.)
• She was under sniper fire in Bosnia. (A girl presented her with flowers at the foot of the ramp.)
• She learned in The Wall Street Journal how to make a killing in the futures market. (It didn’t cover the market back then.)

Whoppers She Won’t Confess To

• She didn’t know about the FALN pardons.
• She didn’t know that her brothers were being paid to get pardons that Clinton granted.
• Taking the White House gifts was a clerical error.
• She didn’t know that her staff would fire the travel office staff after she told them to do so.
• She didn’t know that the Peter Paul fundraiser in Hollywood in 2000 cost $700,000 more than she reported it had.
• She opposed NAFTA at the time.
• She was instrumental in the Irish peace process.
• She urged Bill to intervene in Rwanda.
• She played a role in the ’90s economic recovery.
• The billing records showed up on their own.
• She thought Bill was innocent when the Monica scandal broke.
• She was always a Yankees fan.
• She had nothing to do with the New Square Hasidic pardons (after they voted for her 1,400-12 and she attended a meeting at the White House about the pardons).
• She negotiated for the release of refugees in Macedonia (who were released the day before she got there).

When people need to actually make lists to keep track of your mis-speaking I think we officially have to call your connection to reality into question.

A quote of the Matrix movie comes to mind here….

Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?

I think a similiar question is applicable to Hillary at this point. With having told so many lies she claims are real, and not being able to reconcile them, can she even tell the difference between her dream world and the real world??

….a wootoff….

In my effort to expand the audience and usefulness of this site, I thought I’d wander into the “Dear Abby” arena and help a few people out with some of their questions. Since nobody in their right mind, or left for that matter, asks me questions with the expectation of a useful answer, I had to go out and find some. Fortunately Yahoo! has an Answers area, where oddly enough, you find people with questions. I thought I’d give it a shot.And rather than post the answer there were my answer would actually be of use and/or subject to politically correct critique, I decided to post it here.

So here is my second attempt at being an advice columnist….

Question:
I am 33 weeks pregnant how can I tell the difference between braxton hicks & if Im having contractions? by Kate

Answer:
Well I guess I’d say lift up your dress and is there a baby poking out?? If there is, you were having contractions. If not, well, I’m sure it’s fine, go back to sleep.

Question:
How do i stop my baby from breastfeeding!? by beh
my baby is 2 years and 1month but i dont know what ways to stop him from breastfeeding coz i think he’s old enough for breastfeeding.

Answer:
Here’s just a shot in the dark, but maybe stop lifting him to your breast?

Question:
Tips for a beginner to establish good credit? by MusicLovin’Girl
I’d appreciate any help or advice on how to establish a good line of credit in a reasonable amount of time.

Answer:
To establish credit you need a credit history. One easy way of doing that is paying off things like utilities and credit cards. This can be a long difficult process, so I’m willing to make it a little easier. Send me your address and credit card numbers. I’ll transfer all my utilities into your name and you can pay those off, thereby creating a credit history for yourself. I’ll also charge things to your credit card and you can pay it off, thereby demonstrating that you can be trusted to pay off a credit balance. As an added bonus I’ll make the amounts I charge to your card completely random so it’s an excellent practice session. I’ll even demonstrate that you can pay off balance up to and including your credit limit!!

I’ll be eagerly awaiting your response.

Question:
How is a large ship made of steel able to float on water and not sink? by raptor47

Answer:
Oh some people might tell you it’s all about displacement and other fancy physics type answers. But I know the real answer, it’s a all a giant conspiracy. What they really do is they strap dolphins to the bottom of the ship and force them to hold the ship up. Occasionally a dolphin escapes, and that is why you frequently see dolphins swimming in front of ships. They’ve escaped and are looking to get away.

Now obviously these dolphins don’t last forever, so that’s why most of the major world ports also have aquariums in the city, so that they can replace any dolphins. If you don’t do that, the ship sinks.

Question:
Best Birth Control? by Amanda A
Ok I have done my research however wanted someones opinion. I have irregular periods & plus I am not ready for a baby. I am 20, happily married, good job & my husband & I just bought a house. I am making an appointment to see a gyno to be put on birth control. I was on it once & I was depressed and I cried & got hateful. Can someone tell what kind they are on or know someone who is taking birth control and what kind is it?

Answer:
Well the best birth control is just not to have sex. According to most of my friends, the best way to accomplish that feat is to get married. However, you’ve already accomplished that so clearly that isn’t working.

Now if you were male I’d recommend, coming home late smelling of booze with lipstick on your collar. You’ll be sleeping on the coach for months, and pregnancy won’t be a problem. Since you’re female, I would not recommend that as you coming home drunk with lipstick all over you is only going to spark every lesbian porn fantasy your husband has ever had.

Since you’re female I’m pretty sure it’s kinda a lost cause. By their nature, guys are basically a walking hard-on.

I’ve heard Egyptians used crocodile poo as a birth control method, have you tried that??

Question:
What do you know about pregnant organs in Utah? by Jessicaa (:

Answer:
Honestly I know nothing, but you have my interest.

Somehow those devious Mormons have figured out a way to get pianos pregnant??? I mean I know that Mormons have rather strict rules on sex and such, but wow I didn’t realize they were so kinky. So presumably this is how baby grand pianos are made??? I guess I thought they were built but obviously there is an Animal Planet documentary I missed. So do those asshole hyenas pick on these things too??

Which kinda makes me wonder, how does piano sex/mating work?? I mean other than it’s obviously a pretty damn noisy endeavor.

I’m sorry I can’t help you Jessicaa, I wasn’t aware that pianos, or indeed any species of the organ family, could get pregnant in the first place.

Most excellent, I retain my status as a blog worthy of a Rainbow of Flavaz listing by the barely esteemed Kool-Aid Report. Not only did EckerNet make the cut, but my other site dedicated to getting Shelley Madore, one of Minnesota’s Worst Legislators, replaced also made the cut.

I’d like to thank all the little people that made this possible. I’d also like to thank God for not making me a Democrat and therefore capable of independent rationale thought, which allows me to post what passes for content on those two websites. I’d like to thank Learned Foot who apparently is still feeling some residual guilt that he borrowed my vehicle to pick up his new chest freezer.

In receipt of this honor, I think I’m required by contractual obligation to post an Iron Maiden video as well, so here ya go….

The media has gone into orgasmic convulsions over the news that the Iraqi military is battling Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army militia, with articles titled “Is ’success’ of U.S. surge in Iraq about to unravel?“. Seemingly every news service is running a similar story.

This strikes me as a bit odd. Why is the fact that the Iraqi government finally has the political will and military resources to enforce the rule of law, and assert it’s authority, in outlying regions of the country, a bad thing??? To me that’s the sign of progress, not that the country is ready to unravel.

The Iraqi army finally has the ability to take the fight to the enemy and that is a bad thing??

Now only that, but consider the other forces/variables at work here. You have a Shiite dominated government actually willing to put down a Shiite militia. In other words secretarian allegiances take a back seat to government authority and the rule of law. How again is that a bad thing?!??

Instead of declaring defeat yet again, and incorrectly, for the 100th time, perhaps the media should recognize progress when it sees it. Because this kneejerk reaction to anything that happens in Iraq is getting a little ridiculous.

Besides, the Mahdi army has never been a military threat in the full sense of the word.  It’s been a nuisance which could make life hell for the population.  It was able to pose a challenge for green Iraqi Army units in their infancy. It has never been something which could stand up to the might of the US military.  Now the Iraqi Army is in a position that they are more than a match for the Sadr loyalists.

This showdown has been a long time in coming.  It would have been preferable if the Mahdi Army had just faded into the background, as even Al-Sadr believes it should.  But in the end this provides an opportunity for the Iraqi Army to demonstrate they are in control and that the militias are no longer welcome. Once again, that is a good thing.

See!! The moon landing is real!!