iDude.org

This is just one issue I STRONGLY disagree with Bush on. This is probably the biggest, most obvious mistake his administration has made. If this would’ve happened before the elections, I would not have voted for him again.

Sort-of a long article, but it just made me angry when I heard about it.

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The New Republic
Post date: 11.17.05
Issue date: 11.28.05

David Gunn, who lost his job as CEO of Amtrak last week, kept on his desk a photograph of an old farmhouse on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. It was the place to which Gunn had retired after a successful career running mass-transit systems in Philadelphia, New York, Washington, and Toronto–and from which he had been lured three years ago to save Amtrak from the brink of bankruptcy. The photo was both a reminder to Gunn and a warning to his critics: If they didn’t like the job he was doing, well, he could just pack his bags and go back to Cape Breton. Now, the Bush appointees who control Amtrak’s board of directors have told Gunn to do exactly that–and we are worse off for it.

Gunn had done much to put Amtrak back on the right track–he increased ridership, overhauled Amtrak’s rickety financial controls, upgraded its aging railcars and locomotives, refurbished its ancient signaling technology, and started reforming its sclerotic management. And, yet, David Laney, the chairman of Amtrak’s board, claimed Gunn was fired because his “enthusiasm and commitment seems to have drained away” and because he was too slow to outsource the railroad’s maintenance and food-service operations.

The real problem was almost certainly that Gunn stood in the way of the Bush administration’s ideologically motivated desire to liquidate the railroad. The board took a first step toward this goal in September when, over Gunn’s vehement objections, it voted to split Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor–the train service between Boston and Washington, D.C.–into a separate subsidiary, a move many saw as a prelude to selling it off.

Amtrak has long been a thorn in the side of conservatives, who can’t stand the idea of government-subsidized rail service. “Amtrak was created to be a for-profit private corporation, but it instead went into the red by running unprofitable long-distance trains while stinting on service and maintenance for the Northeast Corridor, the route that makes the most economic sense,” wrote New York Times columnist John Tierney, hailing Gunn’s firing.

But only one-quarter of Amtrak’s federal subsidy supports long-haul lines. And what Tierney and other Amtrak foes fail to note is that Amtrak maintains these routes, such as the famously unprofitable Sunset Limited from Florida to California, because Congress insists on it–the trains pass through many lawmakers’ districts. As for Amtrak’s underinvestment in the Northeast Corridor, again the fault lies with Congress. The legislators always appropriated Amtrak just enough money to eke by–and then complained bitterly when its belated attempt at high-speed service, Acela, failed to match the kind of bullet trains found in Europe and Japan, both of which spent tens of billions in public funds on their rail systems.

Conservatives love to decry the $29 billion that Congress has fed the company since its inception in 1971–when commercial railroads got out of the passenger business because, it should be remembered, they couldn’t make money on it. But Amtrak’s critics are strangely silent about the hundreds of billions in subsidies pumped into highway and air travel each year. In fact, after September 11, the airlines received a $15 billion federal bailout–and a number of carriers still filed for bankruptcy. Now the government is assuming responsibility for billions more to cover their pension costs. Most important, passenger rail has significant social benefits–cleaner air, less congested roads, and fewer productive hours wasted waiting in traffic or in airports–that aren’t captured by these numbers.

The conservative critique of Amtrak relies on the same faulty economic logic as its attacks on Medicaid and public education. In each case, there is an essential public good–like health care for the poor, an educated workforce, or clean air–which cannot be fully expressed in dollars and cents and the provision of which makes for lousy business. Even the Northeast Corridor, Amtrak’s busiest route, is not profitable when one considers the expense of maintaining the tracks and signals on which it relies. Great Britain’s experience with railroad privatization should serve as a cautionary tale: After privatization in 1996, costs increased while on-time performance declined.

It’s time for the Bush administration and its allies on Capitol Hill to acknowledge what a national railway really is–a public utility–and stop complaining about subsidizing it. David Gunn knew this, and his sensible reforms were increasing congressional support for Amtrak funding. Which is exactly why the administration decided to hand him a one-way ticket back to Cape Breton.

I was sitting here listening to some music from an external USB2 drive and was trying to hookup my scanner at the same time (don’t think that caused it) and the music got a little choppy, so I shut down Media Player (Haven’t installed anything better on my last XP box) until I got the scanner installed.

So the scanner works fine and I plug the USB drive back in… Nothing… The computer in the past has been a bit flaky with the USB ports, but lately they seemed to have been working fine since I put XP back on it. So I rebooted.

Still nothing….

I opened up the Disk Management Console and saw that the drive was recognized, but it said it was “Unallocated”!

Nooooo!!!

Every MP3, Digital Picture I’ve taken since 1999, All my Linux Distros ISOs and Software Backup ISOs, past work, web projects, etc, etc. were gone in an instant. No error, no warning, the partition had just vanished!

I called around to my brother (eDoug.com) and Mattbob (MattBlog.net) to get their advice. I knew there were tools out there and I know Mattbob has had drive problems in the past.

Here are a few of the programs used to scan for the lost partition.

O&O Disk Recovery
Took 7.5 hours to just scan for the files that it could recover, file names were off and not the original. Too many of some file types and not enough of others. All filenames were FI######.(whatever extension)

Stellar Phoenix NTFS
I didn’t let this one run for 7.5 hours, but it looked like it was a bit faster than O&O DR… I don’t know if it would’ve gotten the original file names or not…

Best one so far was:

QueTek File Scavenger Version 3.0
Believe it or not, this program only took about 30 secs to scan the entire 189gb drive, discovering all the original filenames and recovery was about as fast as just copying the files from the original corrupted drive to a new one… Total time was only about 4-5 hours for the entire recovery!

And of ALL the files, mostly images and MP3s that were recovered, are 100% intact, there have been no CRC errors, data integrity issues or anything else in the pictures or audio at all.

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND QueTek File Scavenger Version 3.0!!

This is an incredibly rhetorical letter from Cindy Sheehan (The stupid bitch who can’t get over the noble death of her son who was in Iraq trying to free an entire people from a tyrannical dictator (Accomplished) and insurgents (who killed him))

My comments are in red.

Open Letter to George’s Mama

…a message from Cindy Sheehan

Dear Barbara,

On April 04, 2004, your oldest child killed my oldest child, Casey Austin Sheehan. (Bullshit… As she states later, it was an insurgents bullet to his head.)

Unlike your oldest child, my son was a marvelous person who joined the military to serve his country and to try and make the world a better place (And that is what he did!). Casey didn’t want to go to Iraq (Then he really didn’t want to make the world a better place did he?), but he knew his duty. Your son went AWOL from a glamour unit (Again, more bullshit). George couldn’t even handle the Alabama Air National Guard. Casey joined the Army before your son became commander in chief. We all know that your son was thinking of invading Iraq as early as 1999. Casey was a dead man before George even became president and before he even joined the Army in May of 2000.

I raised Casey and my other children to use their words to solve problems and conflicts (Then why the HELL did he join the military and not become a lawyer or politician or something?). I told my four children from the time that they were small that it is ALWAYS wrong to kick, bite, hit, scratch, pull hair, etc. If the smaller children couldn’t find the words to solve their conflicts without violence (That’s what the military faces, is violence… What planet are you on?), I always encouraged them to find a mediator like a parent, older sibling, or teacher to help them find the words.

Did you teach George to use his words and not his violence to solve problems? It doesn’t appear so. Did you teach him that killing other people for profits and oil (unfounded accusations) is ALWAYS wrong? Obviously you did not. I also used to wash my children’s mouth out with soap on the rare occasion that they lied… did you do that to George? Can you do it now? He has lied and he is still lying. Saddam did not have WMDs (YES HE DID, we sold them to him before he was our enemy! We just didn’t find as much as we had hoped because he either used them already or sold them to other countries) or ties with al-Qaeda (Who is Abu Musab Al-Zaqawi then?) and the Downing Street Memos prove that your son knew this before he invaded Iraq.

On August 3rd, 2005, your son said that he killed my son (No, he said he “died for a noble cause” not that he “killed him”) and the other brave and honorable Americans for a “noble cause.” Well, Barbara, mother to mother, that angered me. I don’t consider invading and occupying another country that was proven not to be a threat to the USA is a noble cause. (What about freeing MILLIONS of people from a dictator, Saddam Hussein, and bringing democracy to them!?! Is that not noble?) I don’t think invading a country, killing its innocent citizens (Inevitable part of war), and ruining the infrastructure (Also Inevitable, you have to bring them down before rebuilding them) to make your family and your family-friendly war profiteers rich is a noble cause.

So I went down to Crawford in August to ask your son what noble cause did he kill my son for. He wouldn’t speak with me. (Because you are enormously disrespectful!) I think that showed incredibly bad manners. Do you think a president, even if it is your son, should be so inaccessible to his employers? (No, just you and others like you.) Especially one of his bosses whose life George has devastated so completely?

I have been to the White House several times since August to try and meet with George and I am going back to Crawford next week. Do you think you can call him and ask him to do the right thing and bring the troops home from this illegal and immoral war in Iraq that he carelessly started? (All you libs are so bleeding heart, we need to help people, free people from tyranny, feed the poor, etc, etc… But when someone actually does it and they’re not a Liberal then you are against it!) I hear you are one of the few people he still talks to. He won’t speak to his father, who knew the difficulties and impossibilities of going into Iraq and that’s why he didn’t go there in the 1st Gulf War. If you won’t tell him to bring the troops home, can you at least urge him to meet with me?

You said this in 2003, a little over a year before my dear, sweet Casey was killed by your son’s policies:

“Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? Oh, I mean, it’s not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?” (Good Morning America, March 18, 2003)

Now I have something to tell you, Barbara. I didn’t want to hear about deaths or body bags either. On April 04, 2004, three Army officers came to my house to tell me that Casey was killed in Iraq. I fell on the floor screaming and begging the cruel Angel of Death to take me too. (Too bad he didn’t come for you… Would’ve made the world a better place) But the Angel of Death that took my son is your son.

Casey came home in a flag draped coffin on April 10th. I used to have a beautiful mind too. Now my mind is filled with images of seeing his beautiful body in his casket and memories of burying my brave and honest boy before his life really began. Casey’s beautiful mind was ended by an insurgent’s bullet to his brain, but your son might as well have pulled the trigger.

Besides encouraging your son to have some honesty and courage and to finally do the right thing, don’t you think you owe me and every other Gold Star parent an apology for that cruel and careless remark you made? (Nope)

Your son’s amazingly ignorant, arrogant, and reckless policies in Iraq are responsible for so much sorrow and trouble in this world. (hahaha… 90-95% of the Iraqi’s don’t think so! And the other 5-10% are insurgents or just don’t care.)

Can you make him stop? Do it before more mothers’ lives are needlessly and cruelly harmed. There have been too many worldwide already. (Then talk your kids out of joining the military, tell them they may get killed, and if they don’t listen, don’t blame anyone but your kid and yourself, not the Commander-in-Chief, who is fighting a noble war)

Sincerely, (My Ass!)

Cindy Sheehan
Mother of Casey Sheehan (Died fighting for a Noble Cause and is probably rolling over in his grave for what you are doing!)
Founder and President of Gold Star Families for Peace
Founder of Camp Casey Peace Foundation

Saw this one another website… Here is just first part…

Since the left seems to be judging George W. by War and the number of deaths in those wars, check out these guys.

• He shut down newspapers, imprisoned editors, and forced reporters to toe the official US government line long before the PATRIOT Act. Then he attacked US cities and burned them to the ground. Who was he?
• He lied to US voters, sided with one European imperial state against another, and plunged neutralist America into a disastrous war that cost 320,000 American casualties. Who was he?
• He promised voters the dawning of a new age in America . Instead he secretly dealt with a pair of dictators, providing weapons to both sides (while lying to Americans) and encouraged a murderous war between the two nations that cost nearly a million casualties. He also funded and encouraged repressive Central American regimes that killed thousands, murdering American citizens along the way. He spent trillions of taxpayer dollars on new weapons for enemies that no longer existed. Who was he?

If you answered Lincoln, Wilson and Reagan among the most “respected” presidents in high school history books– you know your American history well.

Lincoln, the “Great Emancipator.” Wilson, the “Peacemaker,” the vocal proponent of the League of Nations . Reagan, “The Great Communicator,” the mythical fighter of World Communism. At least that is how US history books portray them, among the Best Presidents Of All Time.

But how would they fare on any list of Worst Presidents Ever? Would embattled George Bush or disgraced Bill Clinton fare worse (or better) than Lincoln, Reagan or Wilson, and why?

Wouldn’t it be safe to say that once in power, ALL American presidents embrace a cruel conceit, to some degree, that whatever dictatorial power they wield is right? George Bush is thus no worse than Woodrow Wilson, certainly no worse than Nixon, Reagan, Clinton or LBJ.

The left should be going ape-shit over how these past presidents are honored! Where is the outrage?!

Click here for the rest of the article.

PARIS — Police officers, exhausted and dispirited after 11 nights of street battles, say their mainly young African and Arab adversaries have access to sophisticated weapons including grenades and could soon begin using them.

A dozen officers were injured, two of them seriously, after being shot with hunting rifles fitted with lead pellets during rioting last night in the suburb of Grigny, south of Paris, police said.

More >>

These idiots need to be crushed with overwhelming military force. Any rioter or looter caught in the street burning or stealing stuff needs to be shot on sight. Some may say violence will only cause more violence, and that is true, but if the police and military mobilize and crush the movement, it will stop.

Once it’s over, France needs to ethnically purge itself and deport these “mainly young African and Arab adversaries” back to their proper country as punishment, even if they themselves were not born there. And their parents too for not raising children to respect the country that took them in. Although poor, they still have a better life than in Africa or Arab countries. They are all taking it for granted.

Found this on this page: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9936978/site/newsweek/

Jennifer Aniston says:
The state of the world. How about that indictment?! And why did it take so long to respond to the crisis in New Orleans? Everything is imploding. It all seems to lead back to our dear president.

Shut up you stupid, mindless Hollywood whore. All I see in the magazines are how devasted you are over Brad Pitt and the breakup. The world is sick of that. And you have the gall to say an indictment is neccessary, but are not aiming it in the right direction. The first responders are the local and state officials. They are the ones that should be hung up for the lack of response. They let down their people, those leftist democratic officials failed. And now, as usual, they blame the President and the others on the right who support him. The President has nothing to do with first response to hurricane regions.

Geesh. Just SHUT YOUR YAPPER.

Sorry, I’m just tired of the comments that the idiots in the detached world of Hollywood are spewing.

If your eyes follow the movement of the rotating pink dot, you will only see one color, pink. If you stare at the black + in the center, the moving dot turns to green. Now, concentrate on the black + in the center of the picture. After a short period of time, all the pink dots will slowly disappear, and you will only see a green dot rotating if you’re lucky! It’s amazing how our brain works. There really is no green dot, and the pink ones really don’t disappear. This should be proof enough, we don’t always see what we think we see.