One web site that I found particularly useful was California Choices. I had gotten started making a spreadsheet of various organizations’ endorsements when I came across it. I used it to narrow down groups that I like (and also groups that I specifically dislike) to see where they stand, and then I could click the links to read their arguments. If I see all the groups I like go one way and all the groups I dislike go another, then that makes it pretty easy. It’s when the groups I like disagree that I spend most of my time investigating, so to speak.

Groups that I like are the ACLU (only the Northern California one is listed on the site, and interestingly, they don’t agree 100% with the other two CA chapters), League of Conservation Voters, Sierra Club, League of Women Voters, National Organization of Women, Courage Campaign, Equality California, NAACP, and AARP. And of course, I don’t weight them all equally. As a quick aside, if the EFF was endorsing anything, I’d care a lot about their opinions too, but as far as I could see, they don’t.

Newspaper endorsements that I look at include the Union Tribune, SF Gate (not listed on the comparison site), Los Angeles Times, SF Bay Guardian, SF Chronicle, and San Jose Mercury News. I like to see what they say and hear their brief explanations, but I don’t “award points” for the endorsements.

I also look at what all the political party endorsements are. Of course I do this because I can see what people of various ideological platforms go for, but also, getting to see how the smaller parties feel about matters of redistricting is a unique perspective, I feel. In that sense, I am counting on them to each be selfish.

Also, another site to help you pick some candidates that have similar beliefs to you is Project Vote Smart’s VoteEasy. It only covers senate and house candidates, but I thought it was both fun and useful.

2. My Candidate Endorsements

Governor: Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown
Lieutenant Governor: Gavin Newsom
Secretary of State: Debra Bowen
Controller: John Chiang
Treasurer: Bill Lockyer
Attorney General: Kamala D. Harris
Insurance Commissioner: Dave Jones
United States Senator: Susan A. Davis
53rd District Representative: Susan A Davis
State Senator 40th District: Juan Vargas
Member of the State Assembly 79th District: Ben Hueso
State Superintendent of Public Instruction: Tom Torlakson

3. My Proposition Endorsements

The first paper is “Ethically Insufficient.” It’s an evaluative argument that highlights some moral problems with the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam).

The second paper will be uploaded next week.

Remember that you can change the text-viewing options at the top of the page to make it easier to read.

I love hearing your thoughts, so please leave a comment after reading.

Anybody else remember when the recording industry embarrassed itself by getting Swedish police to raid all of the servers owned by The Pirate Bay and their host, only to (surprise!) not find anything illegal?

When the site was back up two days later, they got a surge of new users, and their little intellectual property reform think tank (Piratbyrån) and political party (Piratpartiet) became wildly popular as symbols of privacy and liberty in the digital age enough that they’ve qualified for more than $100,000 for a youth political program and are expected by many to get multiple seats in their parliament. So it was basically the Streisand Effect times a million.

Well, here we go again!

On January 31, 2008, Swedish prosecutors filed charges against four of the individuals behind The Pirate Bay, a torrent tracking website, for “promoting other people’s infringements of copyright laws”.

This is being done by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (which should be confused with the International Federation of Pirate Interests). And maybe not surprisingly, the trial doesn’t seem to be off to a good start for those guys. The trial has been unofficially named “Spectrial,” a combination of “trial” and “spectacle.” Seems like a fitting name so far! With the whole world watching by following twitter posts and the like, the Pirate Bay’s defense has been making a mockery of the prosecution.

Day 1: “File-sharing services can be used both legally and illegally,” said defense lawyer Per Samuelsson. He also said, “It is legal to offer a service that can be used in both a legal and illegal way, according to Swedish law” and that The Pirate Bay’s services “can be compared to making cars that can be driven faster than the speed limit.”

Day 2: Half of the charges against The Pirate Bay were dropped.

Anybody else giggling? Yes. Everybody on the internet. That’s who.

The third day in court came and went as well, and it saw the prosecution claim damages. More excitingly and amusingly, it saw the birth of the King Kong defense. And that’s where we are now.

So anyway, things are looking good as ever for the Pirate Bay. If you want to see more delightful things that the Pirate Bay has done, go here to check out their priceless responses to the legal threats they get emailed.

Viva la internet.

But then again, he’s just come out and basically said, “I think the media should be banned from reporting on wars.” Hear it from his own lips for yourself at about 1:18 in the video, and when he explains, see if you can spot the flaws.

Here’s the transcript in case you can’t believe your ears, along with the obvious problems I have with his explanation.

I’ll be honest with you. I don’t think journalists should be anywhere allowed war.

Then what are you doing covering the conflict in the Gaza Strip? Why did you stop plumbing to do this?

I mean, you guys report where our troops are at.

The man who you just talked to was showing you rocket fragments, not troop movements, so your criticism isn’t really relevant to your topic at all. But for the record, when the media talks about troop movements, if you could use one word to describe it, then it would surely have to be “vague.” The graphics they show might as well be weather maps for the whole continent. They’re pretty careful, probably because the war correspondents are moving with the troops.

You report what’s happening day to day.

That’s the point, Joe.

You make a big deal out of it.

It does a fine job making itself a big deal without anybody’s help actually. It’s war.

I think it’s asinine.

You’re an asshole. What are you doing if you really feel this way about war and the people who report on it?

You know, I liked back in World War I and World War II when you’d go to the theater and you’d see your troops on, you know, the screen and everyone would be real excited and happy for’em. Now everyone’s got an opinion and wants to downer–and down soldiers. You know, American soldiers or Israeli soldiers.

First off, you weren’t around for either of the World Wars. Second, I know that you know that people who are against the war in Iraq are still supportive of the troops, which is why their arguments always seem to end with a plead to bring them home. Third, there’s a difference between proper journalism (which seeks purely to be informative) and propaganda (which has the additional objective of distilling positive or negative opinions).

I think media should be abolished from, uh, you know, reporting.

Just what would you have them do then?

You know, war is hell. And if you’re gonna sit there and say, “Well look at this atrocity,” well you don’t know the whole story behind it half the time, so I think the media should have no business in it.

You’re right about people not knowing the whole story, Joe. I’m just not quite sure that your proposal to abolish the media from reporting will help solve that problem.

As for the youth voter turnout, I was a little sad to hear that it only went from 17% to 18%, but I think I know why. I believe that it’s still very confusing for college students, who are very often away from their counties and thus unable to vote on election day unless they re-registered, got absentee ballots in time, or knew to ask for a provisional ballot (which still might not even be enough to let them vote). I was an absentee voter myself, but I still got to see a lot of my peers realize on election day that they couldn’t vote. So I think it’s a lack of knowledge and fundamental convenience, not an abundance of apathy or laziness.

Anyway, like I said over on Facebook already, I offer my congratulations to the winners, my condolences to the losers, and my respect to everybody willing to be civil and work together.

Anybody who knows me knows that I love technology though. I think that the current electronic systems are terrible (enough that I voted early as a permanent mail ballot voter), but I also think that they offer the potential of having elections that are more fair and verifiable than old fashioned hand-counting. Here are my ideas for how to do it.

1. Do not have any external ports (like USB, firewire, and memory card slots) on the machine, and make sure that all internal ports and necessary cables are physicially soldered to prevent any tampering. Just to be safe, also do not allow people to bring memory cards of any kind into the voting booth.
2. Give voters a paper card with the source code for the voting software printed on it. Then, when users approach the voting machine, have the computer display the source code for the program it is running. Voters will be able to hold the card up next to the machine and compare to make sure it’s the same, even though most people won’t know what the programming means.
3. Also, put a unique, randomly generated identification number on the card. After voting is done, allow them to log on to a web site, enter that number, and see whether or not their vote was counted and what it was recorded as.
4. Do not have the machines connect to any other machines outside the building they are in. As an added level of safety, incorporate modern, strong encryption into the machines.
5. Print a paper ballot receipt, just like ATM’s do, and have poll stations collect these printed ballots. Let the computers count the votes for the first tally. Then, if a candidate challenges the results, use the printed ballots that you collected.
6. Do not store votes on the voting machine itself, even temporarily. Have the voting machines connected to multiple tabulation machines, which will each store redundant copies of data.
7. Immediately prior to voting and again the very minute voting ends, allow people from the major parties as well as some independent non-partisan watchdog groups to examine some of the voting machines and some of the tabulation machines. Allow people to watch (from behind a line or something, sort of like how people are allowed to come and watch court rooms), and also film it and make the footage available.

Does anybody else have any ideas to make it harder to corrupt electronic voting?

For the propositions, I used the Voter Information Pamphlet and Ballotpedia together to make my decisions.

President and Vice President

• Choice: Barack Obama/Joe Biden
• Biggest Reasons: The biggest issues for me include the Iraq War and foreign policy, universal healthcare, fair trade and corporate regulations, education policy (particularly regarding community colleges), tax policy, copyright and patent reform, and net neutrality. I very much prefer Obama’s stances to McCain’s on all of these issues.
• Nagging Doubts: Abortion policy (birth control including the morning after pill is all fine by me, and I can accept abortions in cases of rape or real medical danger to the mother, but I do feel that unborn babies do deserve some kind of legal acknowledgment at some point during the pregnancy in most cases).

United States Representative 53rd District

• Choice: Susan A. Davis
• Biggest Reasons: Although I’m a nonpartisan, I find today’s Republican Party to be particularly corrupt, ruthless, self-serving, pro-corporate interests at expense of individual liberty and general welfare, and right-wing to the point of being backward or obsolete. Thus, even though I disagree with the Democrats enough to prevent me from joining their party, I would certainly much rather see them get enough seats to control the Congress and Senate to undo what the Republicans have done and bring about more progressive legislation to carry the country forward. She’s an incumbent, but maintaining her seat would obviously be a part of this.
• Nagging Doubts: I find her unremarkable, to be frank. Even though she’s not GOP, I sort of associate her with the status-quo. Smells more like “any politician” than “bold idealist” to me.

Member of the State Assembly 79th District

• Choice: Mary Salas
• Biggest Reasons: Same general idea as with Susan A. Davis (but obviously not talking about Washington politics this time).
• Nagging Doubts: Again, same idea as with Susan A. Davis, times a million when it comes to being unremarkable.

All The School Council and Community College Governing Board Stuff

• Choice: Undecided
• Biggest Reasons: All of the candidates seem to say pretty much the same thing. I’m not expecting them to be the most exciting things on the ballot, but it would be nice if they actually tried to persuade me with more than “I’m a lovely person who will be responsible and put education first!” There is a chance that I’ll abstain, not because I don’t care, but because if I can’t tell the difference between the options and thus don’t have an opinion, then I don’t feel like I should. Gasp.
• Nagging Doubts: I personally don’t like the idea of not voting whenever I have the chance to vote, so it’s just kind of uncomfortable for me to outright abstain. It’s funny though because rationally, I recognize that sometimes abstaining is the appropriate option for a voter to take. Am I making sense?

City of Coronado Mayor

• Choice: Casey Tanaka
• Biggest Reasons: He was my AP US History teacher in high school, and was on my top three list of teachers from my whole life well before this election. He can keep the old people happy, but as a teacher, also understands issues that concern the youth, which Coronado has historically ignored to its own detriment (very few children stay in Coronado when they grow up, and that’s not exactly healthy for the city). He’s been on the city council as well, so having dealt with the senior citizens, parents, and youth means that he has a pretty good understanding of what’s important for Coronado’s future.
• Nagging Doubts: I want to see him very specifically and clearly say what he’ll do about our theater. Anybody who knows me knows that when it comes to Coronado, the issue that bothers me personally the most is definitely how they let the theater owners just get away with neglecting it. They’ve said it would re-open more than five years ago. Hold them to it, and if they aren’t willing to do anything with the property, then penalize them until they do. As a recognized historical site, they are obligated to maintain it, and they clearly aren’t. Did I mention that my inner child is still crying from when the theater closed?

Prop 1A – Safe, Reliable High-Speed Passenger Train Bond Act for the 21st Century

• Choice: Yes
• Biggest Reasons: I would love to see trains appear throughout our nation more, and this act helps us do that. The prevalance of trains and resulting ease and affordability of travel in Europe and Japan has done all kinds of good things for them, such as improve their markets, help the environment, and make their people happier.
• Nagging Doubts: Although they have the payments spread out over a long period of time, the sum is still rather expensive. California kind of sucks with that whole “we’re so bad at spending money that we embarassingly haven’t been able to come together to approve a budget in a long time now” thing, so even if you think it will effectively pay for itself after it’s done, you can’t really deny that this would be a new spenditure in a time when we’re trying to cut spending. I haven’t forgotten that.

Prop 2 – Standards for Confining Farm Animals

• Choice: Yes
• Biggest Reasons: I have a conscience. Seriously. I’m just surprised we don’t already have this, to be honest. “Requires that certain farm animals be allowed, for the majority of every day, to fully extend their limbs or wings, lie down, stand up, and turn around.” Yeah. This will win by a landslide, hopefully.
• Nagging Doubts: None.

Prop 3 – Children’s Hospital Bond Act

• Choice: Yes
• Biggest Reasons: Our hospitals kinda do need upgrades and stuff in general, not just the children’s hospitals. Go sit in the lobby of an emergency room and tell me if you’re all that content with what you see. Also, my own experiences with having big medical problems has made it very clear that the “expensive equipment” is still super rare and inaccessible, and a lot of the machines they use are far from “the best of modern technology.” This isn’t about turning hospitals into luxury experiences.
• Nagging Doubts: Again, it’s that whole “our state budget sucks” thing. However, I definitely feel that no matter how aggressive you want to be with cutting spending, hospitals are one of the most basic and obvious things that need to be maintained to the highest standards, so this doesn’t really make me doubt my current position very much.

Prop 4 – Abortion Waiting Period and Parental Notification Initiative

• Choice: Yes
• Biggest Reasons: If I were a parent, I’d want the doctor to tell me before any kind of medical prodedure, diagnosis, or whatever was performed on my children. This definitely includes abortions. I don’t think that’s even remotely unreasonable.
• Nagging Doubts: None, really. If there is concern about the child being abused, then the doctor is
  obligated to contact child protective services anyway, and that’s how
  it should be.

Prop 5 – Nonviolent Offender Rehabilitation Act

• Choice: Yes
• Biggest Reasons: I’ve always felt that lengthy prison sentences for non-violent drug offenses were ridiculous. Frankly, I feel that the illegality of merely using drugs is questionable as it is (which isn’t to say I think they should all necessarily be legal in public or anything), but regardless of how you feel about the legal status different drugs, the fact of the matter is that our jails are overflowing, and too many of these people really aren’t dangers to society. Providing rehabilitation would be much more beneficial to the individual as well as to society, and cheaper too no doubt.

Prop 6 – Safe Neighborhoods Act or The Runner Initiative

• Choice: No
• Biggest Reasons: I can’t get behind a bill that would deem youths 14 and older convicted of gang-related felonies as being unfit for juvenile court to be prosecuted as adults. They’re minors. They’re exactly what juvenile court is for. If you don’t feel like the penalties are harsh enough for juveniles, then that’s what you should be seeking to amend. Additionally, the bill proposes to allow hearsay statements — yes, that’s the actual name for what they are talking about — as evidence when they can’t get actual witnesses, and I don’t think I’m okay with that.
• Nagging Doubts: I don’t like voting against funding for police. Who does, really? I’m sort of angry that they decided to try to put their funding proposal in the same bill. In fact, I think the proponents of the bill deliberately designed it that way.

Prop 7 – Renewable Energy Generation Initiative Statue

• Choice: No
• Biggest Reasons: Apparently it’s so poorly written that nobody likes it. Seriously. If environmental legislation is written so poorly that the Sierra Club and the Green Party are on the list of opponents, that should be a pretty big red flag. Check out the endless list of opponents for yourself and empty list of proponents for yourself. Nagging Doubts: Even if it’s trash because it’s such poor legislation, the general concepts sound decent. Public utilities should be held at least to the same standards as private electrical companies. And aside from the whole matter of just basic fairness, there is that whole “scientists are saying we’re entering a man-made global environmental catastrophy” thing that makes me feel like we do need to do something (but again, if the Sierra Club and Green party aren’t even on board with this, then it must be really, really bad).

Prop 8 – Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry Act

• Choice: No
• Biggest Reasons: I believe that the point of democracy is for society to come together to agree upon laws to protect the idea of “Your rights stop where my rights start.” I do not believe that any religious instition (whether it be coalitions of Christian churches, Hindu mandirs, Buddhist stuppas, or any religion) should be entitled to cross that line and have their beliefs made into legislation. Every cultural group is allowed to have its own definition of marriage. If you don’t want to acknowledge somebody else’s marriage, that’s fine. However, when it comes to legal recognition, the state must remain completely secular and indifferent to purely religious arguments. The only argument left that is being made about gay marriage is that it would be a threat to children, which I think is an unfounded, bigoted, and logically weak claim.
• Nagging Doubts: None. I really would love to hear more from the other side on this issue, but I really have only been able to find people who insist that marriage was created by and belongs to the Christian god so far, and since I do not buy for one second the argument that our nation was intended to be theocratic in any way, that’s kind of moot.

Prop 9 – Victims’ Rights and Protection Act of 2008 or Marsy’s Law or Nicholas’s Law

• Choice: Yes
• Biggest Reasons: I think it’s very reasonable to notify victims of the different phases of the criminal justice process like bail, pleases, sentencing, and parole. I also think it’s very reasonable to establish victim safety as one of the things judges can cosnider for bail and parole.
• Nagging Doubts: None.

Prop 10 – California Alternative Fuels Initiative

• Choice: Yes
• Biggest Reasons: I trust our scienfitic community. If they say that we’re heading toward man-made global environemtal disaster, I believe them. Thus, it’s definitely in the public’s interest to fund research for cleaner vehicle fuels and promote their usage. Doing nothing will cost us far more. Also, forgetting the environment and the long-term monetary costs of doing nothing, it would be nice to not be at the mercy of certain opressive nations in the middle east (I’m looking at you, Saudi Arabia).
• Nagging Doubts: I’d actually like to see more aggressive regulations regarding this issue. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to hold car companies to at least the same standards that Europe and Japan already do.

Prop 11 – Voters First Act

• Choice: Yes
• Biggest Reasons: Letting legislators draw their own district lines was a bad idea in the first place, and has resulted in 99% of incumbents being re-elected. The way districting is done throughout the whole nation is an embarassment to our democracy, quite frankly. This would at least improve it in California. Also, I specifically like that the ACLU supports this.
• Nagging Doubts: It’s true that there isn’t really much accountability to taxpayers if the commission doesn’t have spending limits or anything, and it would be nice if we could vote to approve or disapprove what the commission proposes.

Prop 12 – Veterans’ Bond Act of 2008

• Choice: Yes
• Biggest Reasons: Veterans who risked their lives in places like Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan will be eligible to join the more than 420,000 others who have bought a home with a CalVet loan, and the loans are repaid at no expense to the taxpayers. Supposedly, it’ll also help reinrofrce the housing market in California, too.
• Nagging Doubts: Especially with the lending crisis going on right now, the idea of using taxpayer money to grant loans is a little scary. Simple as that.

The Department of Homeland Security has expressed great interest in making everyone that wants to get on an airplane wear a special bracelet that can be used to shock you so badly that you won’t be able to move for several minutes per shocking. It also features a built in GPS, so they can monitor you and shock you from anywhere. It will have all your personal information stored in it, and can be used for “interrogation purposes” as well.

Expressing interest isn’t the same as seeking implementation, but with stuff like this combined with President Bush pardoning himself against potential war crimes, I’d almost bet that you thought about George Orwell before I even mentioned him in this sentence.

We need January. Immediately.

To make a long story short, the store refused to let a five-year-old girl who was having a bathroom emergency use their restroom. Needless to say, the little girl defecated all over herself and her parent, at which point they finally ran to a movie theater that let them clean themselves up.

If the store manager hadn’t mocked the humiliated family afterward, there might not have been a story. But the manager did decide that it would be a wonderful idea to further agitate them, and so now it’s been picked up by The Consumerist, which has additionally pointed out that as a matter of fact, there’s a rule in California called the Uniform Plumbing Code that requires a “toilet facility for customers, patrons, and visitors of all mercantile and business establishments.”

And with this embarrassingly heartless breach of both California regulations and just the simple Golden Rule itself making it onto the front page of Digg as well… Rut-roh for the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory!

Score one for the karma police.

Update: I can’t stand people that counter legal citations with, “Well, you’re not a lawyer, so you should just shut up!” Well, I found somebody that did that, and then went on to insinuate that anybody sympathizing with the little girl is just an anti-business radical. Here is what they said.

Is any one hear a lawyer in California who specializes in these type of cases? Does anyone know exactly what this establishment was zoned as, or what it technically is operating as? I think the the answer is no. Quit trying to act smart by pulling laws and facts out of our ass when you are neither fully briefed nor fully trained to handle the situation. Get off your soap box and stop wasting our time.

As for the whole “human compassion” argument, what if that girl shit herself in the food prep area, in it contaminated the food? What then? Or what if she had some sort of virus that got on the food and made people sick? Is that mother going to cover the store for their losses? No, she isn’t. This is a complex situation which can’t be simplified because you think big bad corporate America is wrong.

Brilliant in countless ways, no? Anyway, I couldn’t help but respond. Admittedly I was a little bit snarky, but that’s just my sense of humor for you. And it’s a Digg comment anyway, not a grand treatise. Just enjoy it.

Heaven forbid regular people be able to use the internet to look up laws and make sure that corporations are not ignoring them! How pretentious! Who do these people think they are, living in a democratic nation with a “by the people, for the people” attitude toward government? Stupid empowered citizens and their anti-American penchant for citing things like laws!

But seriously, if lawyers were the only ones meant to be able to understand the rules we all have to live by, then we’d be in a pretty bad situation, don’t you think? “You have to have a restroom for people to use” is a particularly easy to grasp regulation in my opinion.

If they want to do business in California, they have to play by California’s rules, and they clearly did not comply with the Uniform Plumbing Act, which quite plainly states that they need to provide restrooms to customers, patrons, and visitors. The opus is on them to make sure that they are complying with all applicable business regulations. Oops.

Now, of course I agree that it would be a bad idea to just let people wander around where the food is prepared, but that’s why you don’t put the restroom that you are obligated to provide for people in the middle of the kitchen.

This is not a complex issue at all. This is a case where an entire store did not go by the golden rule of treating others as they’d wish to be treated, resulting in some pretty gross humiliation of a little girl, which in turn is resulting in the company being exposed for not being in compliance with the law.

Sorry, but I seem to still somehow find myself feeling much more sympathetic toward the little girl that was pointlessly humiliated than I do toward the heartless, law-breaking corporate entity that humiliated her.

Dear Collin,

I used to be unsure of Ron Paul completely, then I thought he was a decent choice, but he never made it to the point where I thought he’d be the best choice. For a while now, my opinion of him has been steadily declining, though I do still have a lot of respect for him and still think that he has more merits than the other Republicans.

My first concern with Ron Paul has always been about economics. I certainly don’t think he’s corrupt, but I sure don’t think that his position of releasing corporations from as many standards and regulations as possible is in the interests of the people. Laissez fair economics do not work, and when we tried to implement it in the past, lead to the rise of kingly tycoons and oppressive monopolies at the direct expense of all honest American workers (read: pretty much all but 1% of the nation got burnt, and badly).

It’s easy to sell the vision of “Lower taxes and unleash the corporations!” But please, we’ve tried that more than once, so can we try to actually look at the numbers and admit that progressive economies are doing really well?

I’ve also come to question him more and more on his stances on civil rights. He says a lot of wonderful things about how he’ll stand up for us and give us our rights back, but then he completely nullifies himself by always ending with, “…so I’ll leave it up to the states.” If he thinks that the federal government doing something would be oppressive, then why does he turn around and basically say that it’d be okay if the state governments did it to me? The answer is simple. With his hands off approach to everything, he is making himself and our democratic system less capable of guaranteeing our rights or enforcing pretty much anything, leaving us defenseless against the greedy, powerful groups that just want to exploit everything and everyone they can. His lack of support for net neutrality is a prime example of where his “hands off” answer to everything means allowing our rights to be trampled and our media controlled by internet service providers. Freedom in the digital age is only going to get more important, so I’m very sad to see him do nothing to protect my rights aside from “letting the states deal with it.”

I think that you should think about Barack Obama more. Now, here’s a guy who has already done a lot of really obvious things that needed to be done, like introduce the bills that make it so we now can see more clearly who is bought and paid for in congress. He’s trying to make our nation more open and transparent. In government, he’s advocating using open systems and machine-readable information standards that would actually allow citizens groups to dig their noses into every little nook and cranny of bills. As far as the lives of the people go, he’s committed himself to supporting things like network neutrality to guard our rights to access whatever information we want to see from whatever sources we want it free from coercion and control by internet service providers and the connected phone companies and other monopolies. Strengthening standards and regulations instead of “letting other people decide,” promoting transparency instead of “trusting things will handle themselves,” and actually getting up and protecting my rights instead of saying “it’s up to the states, not me” is good by me.

Ron Paul has his merits, but his policies leave a lot of room for doubt for me. Maybe I’m just being overly skeptical, but then again, now seems like a pretty good time to be skeptical. And the fact that every time I’ve gone and talked about my doubts to Ron Paul supporters (who have all been very polite) and only gotten “I’ll have to think more about that” as answers doesn’t help sooth my doubts either.

Barack Obama is a breath of fresh air this nation has been holding its breath for, and he’s got a real chance of winning the democratic nomination and the White House. I don’t see you denouncing Ron Paul, but in the event that he no longer seems like he has a chance of winning in your eyes, I hope Barack Obama can have your vote.

Your friend,
James