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Finally doing the right thing, Dan Rather is stepping down as the network news anchor for CBS.

He lost all credibility when he reported as true documents alleging that President Bush’s service in the air national guard was less than exemplary. The documents on which the story was based later proved false.

Here’s some interesting spots from around the web.

? [[Roger Ebert]] = Movie reviews and essays from the man himself
? [[Ain’t It Cool News]] = Rumors and news from the movie industry
? [[Lurker’s Guide to Babylon 5]] = The complete guide to everything [[B5]]
? [[MacSlash.com]] = Up to date news and discussion of all things Macintosh
? [[Slashdot]] = News and discussion about just about everything
? [[Scripting.com]] = The original blogger Dave Winer ponders life, the universe, and everything.

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I actually thought that this election would go the other way.

I’m definitely a little stunned with this result (not that it mattered to me much anyway, see [[I Won’t Vote for either candidate this year]] for why).

But, I guess congratulations are in order for [[George W. Bush]].

George, please, now that you don’t have to worry about re-election, take care of business in Iraq and stop all the nonsense about [[gay marriage]] and [[stem cell research]].

Neither candidate has earned my vote.

##Prologue

I hate it when people tell me that if I don’t vote for one of the candidates from the two major parties, I’m throwing my vote away. Do they value their vote so little as to give it freely to someone that clearly is not worthy of that vote only because that person is somehow more well known that others?

These people deserve the government they get. If they are not willing to change the way they decide who they are going to vote for (the *lesser of two evils* view), they will continue to get an inept government that only exists to keep itself in power.

You don’t believe me? Read on.

##George W. Bush

President Bush came into office with the promise of changing the tone in Washington. He failed miserably. The climate is far worse now than it ever was.

The main achievment of his Presidency was the handling of the aftermath of 9/11. He did a spectacular job as far as he went.

However, this does not excuse all the rest of the problems of his Presidency:

###Support of the entitlement state

The medicare bill that the President signed was the largest addition to the entitlement state since the days of Lyndon B. Johnson’s ***’Great Society’***. This is not the action of a fiscal conservative, and does nothing to address the real problems facing our seniors with respect to their soaring medical costs.

This is clearly pandering to the senior vote, and not the way to fix the problem if you are a fiscal conservative.

###Support of instutitional racism

By supporting the Supreme Court’s decision in favor of the Michigan Law School’s admission policy that held that being black was more important that academic achievement, he supported the idea that policies based on racial preferences are a good thing.

Again, clearly pandering to minorities, trying to get them to see that he’s not all that bad a guy.

###Support of Illegal Immigration

He might need some votes from the hispanic community, so let’s start ***’rewarding criminal behavior’*** by giving sanctuary to those who broke our laws and came into our country without our permission.

I have no problem with ***’legal immigration’***, but those who do not respect our country’s right to enforce our borders need to be deported, not embraced.

###Poor handling of the Iraq war

My greatest fears have come to pass with this war. You can debate now whether or not it was the right thing to do to invade Iraq (I happen to believe that Iraq supported terrorism and that they hated us. Putting the two together gives me enough justification for the invasion, but I digress).

However, it is indisputable that the handling of that war has been disastrous. If we were going to go to war, we needed to do so with a total committment to see it through to the end, no matter the cost. We needed to consider this to be our chance to redefine what the middle east should be by investing there the way we did after World War II with the Marshal Plan. We completely rebuilt Europe in order to make sure we would always have allies there. This was the only approach that had a chance of working in Iraq.

By not securing the borders, and not wiping out all resistence, and not being far more aggressive in the rebuilding effort, and not committing to a multi-decade presence of that region (we still have troops in Japan and Germany), we are going to leave that region in more chaos than when we got there, and we will have more virulent enemies to deal with.

###A soaring deficit

A deficit is not necessarily a bad thing (read some of the writings of Alexander Hamilton to understand why), but creating the deficit by:

* Increasing military spending
* Increasing social spending
* Increasing government beurocracy

While at the same time
* Lowering taxes

Is just plain stupid.

##John F. Kerry

The biggest problem I have with Kerry is that he seems to just say the things that his audience wants to hear in order to get their vote.

You want health care? You got it. How about more money on education. No problem. And we’ll spend billions to clean up the environment also.

How is he going to pay for it?

With a middle class tax cut! And he’s going to roll back the tax cut that the **rich** got under bush, and use that to fund these programs… except that he’s not going to pull the troups out of IRAQ and needs money for that… or is he going to pull out of Iraq?

Yet another election in which the quality of candidate that the two chief parties put on the ballot disgust me.

How can you affect change when the imcumbant parties control the election? They control the ballots, the form of the election, the debates, the money.

Oh well.

What bothers me most, I guess, is the sheer arrogance of these candidates specifically, and the parties in general, in their assumption that they have a right to my vote.

Well, they’re wrong. Here’s why [[I won’t vote for either candidate this year]] .

The 2004 season went out with a bang as Boston finally ended the curse.

To paraphrase [[The Bard]]:

…proclaim it, Bellhorn, through my host,

That he which hath no stomach to this fight,

Let him depart; his passport shall be made,

And crowns for convoy put into his purse;

We would not die in that man’s company

That fears his fellowship to die with us.

This day is call’d the feast of Schilling.

He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,

Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam’d,

And rouse him at the name of Schilling.

He that shall live this day, and see old age,

Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,

And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Schilling.’

Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,

And say ‘These wounds I had on Schillings’s day.’

Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,

But he’ll remember, with advantages,

What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,

Familiar in his mouth as household words-

Manny the King, Ortiz and Martinez,

Millar and Cabrerra, Mueller and Damon-

Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb’red.

This story shall the good man teach his son;

And this day shall ne’er go by,

From this day to the ending of the world,

But we in it shall be remembered-

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

For he to-day that sheds his blood with me

Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,

This day shall gentle his condition;

And gentlemen in New England now-a-bed

Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

That fought with us upon Saint Schilling’s day.

[[2004 World Series YES|show_thumbnail=no]]

Here are a few things that should never be forgotten about the year the [[Red Sox]] finally broke through and ended the curse.

* The incredible comeback after being down 3-0 to the vaunted [[Yankees]], winning 4 straight to take the [[2004 League Championship Series]].
* The timely home runs from [[David Ortiz]] during the [[2004 League Division Series]] against the [[Angels]] to close out that series, during the [[2004 League Championship Series]] to keep the team’s hopes alive, and during the series itself
* The home runs of [[David Bellhorn]] agains the [[Yankees]] during that series to win games
* The home runs of [[Johnny Damon]] during the final game of the [[2004 League Championship Series]] to put the last game out of the reach of the [[Yankees]]
* [[Manny Ramirez]] hitting in 17 straight post season games, tieing the all-time record.
* [[Manny Ramirez]] hitting more RBIs that there were games in the series
** The mythic guts of [[Curt Shilling]], allowing doctors to perform an experimental surgical procedure to sew a tendon in his right ankle in a dislocated position *”*twice*** to pitch the team to victory in game 6 of the [[2004 League Championship Series]] and game 2 of the [[2004 World Series]].
* The stolen base of [[Dave Roberts]] during game 4 of the [[2004 League Championship Series]] against the [[Yankees]] in the 9th inning with 2 outs to put himself in scoring position, and eventually scoring the tieing run to keep the series going
* The pitching of [[Derek Lowe]]. Fans had written him off as a head case, but he ends up winning the clinching games in the [[2004 League Division Series]], the [[2004 League Championship Series]], and the [[2004 World Series]], something that has never been done before
* The unbelievable performance of [[Keith Foulke]] in pitching 18 innings with only one earned run to shutdown anything that came his way

The [[Red Sox]] have finally ended an 86 year drought and won the world series by sweeping the [[Cardinals]] in 4.

Well, it’s over.

Could it have been any more symbolic? A curse being lifted under a blood-red total lunar eclipse?

The [[2004 World Series]] went gently into that good night as [[Boston]] finally winning in four straight games.

It seems so obvious now. the [[Red Sox]] won the first world series in 1903, and now have won the 100th edition of the fall classic (there was no world series in 1904 due to a dispute between the [[National League]] and the [[American League]].

The [[Red Sox]] have completed the greatest comeback in baseball history.

The [[Red Sox]] defeated the [[Yankees]] 10 to 3 in nine innings to earn their way to the [[2004 World Series]].

Congratulations boys. It was spectacular!!!