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Supposedly, over 100 million votes were placed last night for American Idol. That’s ridiculous.

Why?

That’s almost as many votes that were cast in the 2004 US presidential election. According to Wikipedia, 122,267,553 votes were cast for president.

On another note, it’s now obvious who the judges and producers want to win this year. Archuleta sang well last night for the most part. But so did Cook.

I feel the judges were very unfair in their assessments of David Cook. For example, all along the judges have stressed being original, making songs their own, and essentially “thinking outside the box”.  Apparently this doesn’t apply to the crappy winner’s song. His performance of I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For was amazing, but I would tend to agree that he should have chose a different song than The World I Know. He performed it well, but I would have rather seen something bigger and better. I loved his little dig against Archuleta though about performing something new.

David Archuleta did exactly what he has been doing all season — he sang slow, sappy ballads. He has shown absolutely no originality, improvement, or versatility. Is that not the point of having theme weeks?

David Archuleta, if crowned the winner, will falter just like all of the other male American Idol winners. David Cook will excel and follow in Chris Daughtry’s footsteps.

Maybe Idol producers will fix the show in time for season eight.

Category : Music, Politics, Rants, Television

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I just received an eBay spoof email requesting I verify my user information by clicking on the link. Being the geek that I am, I proceed to view the email’s headers to see where it came from. I perform a whois lookup on the IP address..

OrgName: DoD Network Information Center
OrgID: DNIC
Address: 3990 E. Broad Street
City: Columbus
StateProv: OH
PostalCode: 43218
Country: US

NetRange: 33.0.0.0 - 33.255.255.255
CIDR: 33.0.0.0/8
NetName: NIPR-CONUS
NetHandle: NET-33-0-0-0-1
Parent:
NetType: Direct Allocation
NameServer: CON1R.NIPR.MIL
NameServer: CON2R.NIPR.MIL
NameServer: EUR1R.NIPR.MIL
NameServer: EUR2R.NIPR.MIL
NameServer: PAC1R.NIPR.MIL
NameServer: PAC2R.NIPR.MIL

So what does that mean you ask? That means one of two options:

• The US Department of Defense has a spammer working from within their network.
• More likely, there’s a US Department of Defense workstation that has malware and/or viruses on it that’s allowing the real spammers access to their computer to exploit.

I’m not one to really get involved in bashing politics and the military, but it isn’t very comforting know that the US Department of Defense cannot protect its network yet is charged with protecting the United States and everything for which we stand.

Category : Politics, Rants, Technology

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Most of you will recall that on July 8, 1947, witnesses claim an unidentified flying object with five aliens aboard crashed on a sheep and cattle ranch just outside Roswell, New Mexico. This is a well-known incident that precipitated the investigation by the U.S. Government and was called “Project Blue Book”. Many believe the true facts have long been covered up by the US Air Force and the federal government.

You may NOT know, however, that in the month of March 1948 the following people were ALL born:

Albert Arnold Gore, Jr.
Hillary Rodham
John F. Kerry
William Jefferson Clinton
Howard Dean
Nancy Pelosi
Charles E. Schumer
Barbara Boxer

This is exactly nine months after the UFO landings in Roswell.

Coincidence? I think not.

Category : Humor, Politics

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I’m not a huge fan of forwards, but I received this one today and is quite interesting.

Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions during election years.Our Senators and Congresswomen do not pay into Social Security and, of course, they do not collect from it.

You see, Social Security benefits were not suitable for persons of their rare elevation in society . They felt they should have a special plan for themselves. So, many years ago they voted in their own benefit plan.

In more recent years, no congressperson has felt the need to change it. After all, it is a great plan.

For all practical purposes their plan works like this:

When they retire, they continue to draw the same pay until they die.

Except it may increase from time to time for cost of living adjustments..

For example, Senator Byrd and Congressman White and their wives may expect to draw $7,800,000.00 (that’s Seven Million, Eight-Hundred Thousand Dollars), with their wives drawing $275,000.00 during the last years of their lives.

This is calculated on an average life span for each of those two Dignitaries.

Younger Dignitaries who retire at an early age, will receive much more during the rest of their lives.

Their cost for this excellent plan is $0.00. NADA..! ..ZILCH…

This little perk they voted for themselves is free to them. You and I pick up the tab for this plan . The funds for this fine retirement plan come directly from the General Funds;

“OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK”!

From our own Social Security Plan, which you and I pay (or have paid) into, every payday until we retire (which amount is matched by our employer). we can expect to get an average of $1,000 per month after retirement.

Or, in other words, we would have to collect our average of $1,000 monthly benefits for 68 years and one (1) month to equal Senator! Bill Bradley’s benefits!

Social Security could be very good if only one small change were made.

That change would be to:

Jerk the Golden Fleece Retirement Plan from under the Senators and Congressmen. Put them into the Social Security plan with the rest of us.

Then sit back and see how fast they would fix it.

Category : Politics, Rants

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I don’t try to force my political opinions on anyone. But hell - this is my blog and I’ll say what I damn well please!

I got this email today. I’ve been sold on Strayhorn for a while now.

Early voting starts today. When I announced my candidacy, I said it is time to set aside partisan politics and do what’s right for Texas. Texans have an opportunity to send that message to Austin by shaking up the two-party system with their vote on November 7th. I am asking for the vote of all Texans who believe it is time to change things in Austin. The momentum is with us. All across our great State, Texans come up to me with their prayers and words of encouragement. People are sick and tired of partisan politics that is beholden to special interests.

It’s time to put Texans first, not special interests. That is why I outlined my Texas First Agenda to make our schools great, to secure our borders and critical infrastructure, and to bring about responsible government that listens to the people.

I encourage each of you to reach out to as many friends and family members as possible. Let them know about our campaign to shake things up and bring about positive change for a better Texas. Urge them to go to the polls. We want as many Texans as possible voting. Victory is within reach.

Now is the time to for all Texans who want change to unite together and send a powerful message to the two-party establishment. Together, we will put an end to the status quo in Austin. Thank you for your support, and God bless our great State of Texas.

Carole Keeton Strayhorn
www.CaroleStrayhorn.com

Category : Politics

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