This is an awesome video of an innocent-until-proven-guilty U.S. citizen being harassed by an overstepping-their-bounds U.S. government entity. This leads us to conclude that the two most important questions in the U.S. citizen's arsenal of freedom is, "Am I being detained," and, "Am I free to go?"

Addendum: This Flash presentation supports what I've been saying.

Imagine what America's legacy will look like in a history book some 500 years hence. I can easily see some golden opening chapters where the dream of a democratic Republic - straight from Greco-Roman ideals - is realized. The nation which began bold and bright - breaking away from the tyranny of the British crown, rising to global dominance, and becoming a leader the rest of the world looked to, then comes to the 21st century:

Click here for the rest.

Okay, comments are working. The articles list is also active. Basically, I made them blog entries, so now you can comment on them! :) Uh oh.

There is a bird sanctuary close to our house where we like to take the dogs on a Sabbath afternoon. Here's some pics of our last visit with God's nature. Includes video!

I'm upgrading BBCMF, my home brew content management framework, so this site is getting some cosmetic surgery. Some of the site is broken right now (for instance, the Articles links aren't working), but everything with the blog should be working, including searching and commenting. Give it a try and let me know if you experience any hiccups.

If you want to see the old site, click here.

I have imagined having something like this for a long time now. I'm glad somebody has finally done it! I'd argue that Twine.com could be considered an organization expert system, that takes all your links and bookmarks and organizes them for you, then spits out recommendations based on what it finds. I haven't used it, yet, so I really can't comment on the implementation. But I'm on the waiting list to get the invite to participate in the beta.

Yes, please.

Derek - A Musical Savant Rex - A Musical Savant

Challenge Day. This is an awesome program! Watch the video and don't cry, sissy.

Please review these documents and discuss: The List of Liberty and The Grand Social Contract

Evolution gets spanked again.

Just got back from Santa Fe, New Mexico, where the kids and I did some snow skiing for a few days. Stay tuned! Plenty of pics and video coming up, as well as some commentary from yours truly! :)

PICTURES FROM SKI SANTA FE

How do you explain that the people in the lead for being our next President are all stamped from the same mold as the ones that got us in our current condition? Of the primary democratic and republican candidates, none of them offer any change. It will be the same-ol’ same-ol’. And what is the same ol’? This:

A financial crisis and a travesty. But, America doesn’t give a damn. America thinks the "Boogeyman" (terrorists) is gonna GET US if we don’t sacrifice our next generation in a war that is really about securing oil for our consumer/entitlement society.

You’re going to get what you deserve, America.

Seems science is all about opinion these days. How lame.

Anyway, global warming is no longer in vogue, apparently. Welcome to the new ice age.

Ron Paul knows his economics. He knows economics far better than John McCain. Read what he had to say yesterday to Forbes Magazine. In part, "America became the greatest, most prosperous nation in history through low taxes, constitutionally limited government, personal freedom and a belief in sound money. I decided to run for president because I am deeply concerned that the conservative movement has drifted away from these principles that we once so fiercely defended. Deficits have exploded, entitlements are out of control and our personal liberties are threatened like never before." If you are Republican and vote for John McCain, can you please explain why?

Had lots of fun at my district's Republican caucus. I left work early today to avoid the crowds for voting in the primary, then later attended the caucus where we voted on resolutions and discussed the state of America. It was a good time had by all (11 people). I met some really cool people who know their politics. I'll be going to the district thingie on the 29th of this month, then maybe down to Houston in September for the state dealio. I hope you're involved in your part of the world. It's a privilege we as Americans should take complete advantage of! :)

When it said it was backing files up, it certainly was. There was a hidden folder called USERDATA that contains every file I was fearing I had lost. I'm in the process of backing those files up to TWO locations: a FreeBSD server (that sits right next to my Windows XP PC), and a USB mass storage drive. There are some permissions conflicts I'm having to deal with and it's making the transfer process laborious, but I'm just glad all my files are there. I'm going to have to reinstall a lot of applications (including Quicken, my checkbook organizer), so it will still be a few days until I'm fully recovered. *whew*

My HP PC stopped booting to Windows, so I wanted to restore it. It went through a hardware check and was then supposed to reboot. However, it said it was backing up my files and then it started restoring Windows XP and Applications. Now I can’t find anything. It seems I have lost everything. I’ve lost years and years worth of pictures of my kids. I’ve lost uncountable years worth of writing, both creative and technical. I’m going to try a file recovery service, but if that doesn’t work, I don’t know what I’ll do. Everything is gone.

Follow-up: to reiterate, i was updating mozilla thunderbird and something glitched on my PC and i inadvertently did a system recovery (the path was ambiguous, even confusing) that said it was backing up my data files (never [again] trust a PC to do what it says; do it yourself and verify)... turns out it didn’t restore the data files, and i couldn’t find them anywhere. i feared i had lost everything (because i had). years and years worth of digital pics of the kids and family events, years and years worth of documents i’ve created (including my most recent real estate investment business plan and the real estate book i wrote)... anything creative or technical or whatever is gone, baby, gone, and that ain’t no award winning movie i can tell you. why so flippant? because there’s a small glimmer of hope. after much snooping i’ve found what might be the hidden folder that contains all that data. i hope and pray to god that it’s there. if not, i will commit seppuku (hari kari for the layman). okay, maybe not that, but i will go on a killing spree. well, maybe not that, either, but i will go ballistic and forsake all i know and love and worship. not really. but i really do feel like punching something. last night it was the wall and the mattress. today, it might just be an HP technical support dumbass who told me "everything’s gone, there’s nothing you can do." I hope that *%&#$(*% gets fired.

NO MORE WAR.

VOTE FOR PEACE AND PROSPERITY.

WASHINGTON STATE GETS THE IDEA - Ron Paul wins with 45%?! (Updated: Apparently, just Spokane...)

If you vote for an ignorant war-monger, there’s no help for you (or America). (Update: John McCain is the liberal who would be President.)

I've created a little organizer system called the "Sticky Note Organizer." It was just something I've been using for a while and I had always wanted to get it down on paper. So, now it's on the web! Go to Sticky NoteOrganizer.com and get organized!