The Senate voted today on bill S 2248 - whether to strike telecom immunity for warentless wiretaps. I find it very interesting that Senator Obama took time to vote while Senator Clinton couldn’t be bothered bother to vote.

Worse, she was in town for the primaries today - so she could have very easily stopped by the Hill to cast her vote.

Why do we let our congress-critters get away with not doing their job? And the fact she’s running for President just doesn’t hold water since somehow Barack was able to cast his vote.

Comon’ America - let’s start demanding our elected officials actually DO the job we pay them for!

Apparently MSNBC anchor David Shuster has earned a place on Hillary’s shit-list with his comments about Chelsea:

In a conference call with reporters, Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson Friday excoriated MSNBC’s David Shuster for suggesting the Clinton campaign had “pimped out” 27-year old Chelsea by having her place phone calls to Democratic Party superdelegates on her mother’s behalf. Wolfson called the comment “beneath contempt” and disgusting.

Clinton’s communications director followed with:

“I, at this point, can’t envision a scenario where we would continue to engage in debates on that network,” he added.

However Clinton has been pushing hard for debate-after-debate with Obama. So, wouldn’t the network hold the cards here? Apparently not in the mind of a la-la-liberal!

Why do we have to apologize for every opinion we have these days? Oh - that’s right - we only have to apologize for opinions that offend la-la-liberals!

Wolfson pointed to what he called a pattern of tasteless comments by MSNBC anchors about the Clinton campaign. Weeks ago, “Hardball” host Chris Matthews apologized to the former first lady after suggesting her political career had been made possible her husband’s philandering.

You know what? I don’t think it’s unreasonable to questions how the Clintons have amassed a personal net worth of approximately $41 million on public-servant salaries. And maybe the $5 “loan” the Clintons made to Hillary’s campaign is because Bill is…a philanderer - payback for Monica and all that?

At any rate, we now know how much it costs to clean a blue dress; $5,000,000.

Regardless - the mock outrage on part of the offended and the required apology on the part of the offender these days pisses me off to no end. And we’re talking about really mild opinions here!

La-la-liberals need to learn to ignore the opinions of those with which they do not agree. The world isn’t a perfect place in happy harmony, and not everyone has to have (or should) have the same opinion. If I offend you - I don’t care - and I won’t offer a phony apology.

Learn to deal with it liberal, touchy-feely America!

Like everyone else, I’m completely unqualified to write this, so I’m going to ramble on mindlessly about how I see the president race shaping up for 2008. Here’s my prediction:

1) Mitt Romney stepped out of the race because he made his own back-room deal with McCain. He’ll get the veep nod and the official GOP ticket will be McCain/Romney.

2) It should have been Paul/Huckabee

3) Obama will win the DNC nomination - just barely - and he’ll name Edwards as his running mate despite the fact that Edwards said he wouldn’t be a running mate a second time

4) Once the McCain/Romney machine has a comfortable lead in polls, or they’re losing - you know…whichever - Bush will Invade Iran

5) No American would dare elect a namby-pamby democrat as president while the nation was embroiled in two wars in the middle-east. McCain/Romney will win in November.

6) McCain will die 2 years into his first term - he’s old as hell after all - and Romney will be president anyway.

And, like always, Americans will do what we do best…piss and moan about the sorry state of our political system instead of going out and voting for someone who might actually shake things up in Washington.

Happy birthday to…me! Cazz.org is three years old today!

An article in USA Today broke the news that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth.

USA Today reports: “It’s the largest database ever assembled in the world,” said one person, who, like the others who agreed to talk about the NSA’s activities, declined to be identified by name or affiliation. The agency’s goal is “to create a database of every call ever made” within the nation’s borders, this person added.

As a technologist I cannot begin to imagine what kind of computing and human resources it would take to collect the data required to fulfill such a mission. I find it fascinating from a “how-to-do-it” standpoint, but I find it loathsome from a “invading-my-privacy” standpoint.

And I find it all the more distasteful that it’s coming from an “executive order” and not at the ruling and direction of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court which was specifically established to provide rules, processes, and guidelines on how, when, and why wiretaps should be allowed.

It seems that President Bush is doing all he can to grind his poll numbers into the ground. He’s presently at a new low with a 45% job approval rating. I’ve even begun hearing whispers of possible impeachment trials if the democrats win back the house this November.

The last thing I want to see is a liberal president in charge (and God help us all if Hillary every wins a bid at the White House), but I believe that Bush has had a chance to change things and he keep pushing us towards an Orwellian future! He’s also never met a spending bill he didn’t want to sign. I thought that the republicans were supposed to be the party of fiscal responsibility?

All I know is that it’s likely only a matter of time before Qwest bows to the government’s wishes and turns over their calling records too.

Calling America “the land of the free” used to mean something. Now it’s just one hell of a good propaganda slogan!

Happy birthday to…me! Cazz.org is two years old today!

If you use technology at work, chances are high you will hear something quite often from your IT staff. Something that sounds vaguely like, “…make sure you backup your important work…”

IT people - of which I am one - like to say things like this. It’s because it indemnifies us when we have to tell you that it’s not normal for your computer’s hard drive to sound like it’s grinding coffee beans. It’s not normal at all! It’s likely the sound of your data being scrubbed into oblivion by the spinning electronic bits inside.

We like to lecture, “If you had backed up your data this would be no big deal.” And we cluck our tongues at the idea that backing up is “just too difficult” to do on a regular basis. “That’s no excuse,” we retort, “It’s a necessary responsibility of using technology!”

And the dirty, dirty secret that almost 99.6% of all IT people have is this; they seldom backup their own important files. And by seldom I mean never.

And do you know why? Because backing up files is difficult, boring and generally - to borrow a non technical term - not “sexy”. Who wants to stay home and make sure their backup runs successfully? No one, that’s who!

And that brings me to the point of this message. After an almost three months long hiatus - caused by a hard drive failure and no recent backup - my web site is once again functional. I’m finally back on-line and can once again write about what’s on my mind. I’m hoping my audience (of perhaps 7 people) will at this point rejoice.

I can say with some experience now; if you don’t backup your data on a regular basis you’re just begging for trouble. I wasn’t and trouble certainly had no problem finding my server.

So please make sure you actually heed your local IT professional’s advice to “backup often” and you have my permission to feel smug and superior on the inside with the knowledge that he probably doesn’t follow his own advice!

Happy birthday to…me! Cazz.org is one year old today! I can honestly say that I never thought a year would fly by so quickly.