If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. That's what all the cool kids do. Thanks for visiting!

This is my weekly column from the local newspaper.

Free speech means a lot to me. I’ve often wondered what it would have been like to be raised in another country. Even though I love lots of other places - Europe, Canada, I even lived in England for a few years - I always come back to the fact that I love being an American. The free speech thing is just too important.

But where does free speech end and abuse begin? There’s the often-used example of screaming, “FIRE ” in a crowded movie theater. Can’t do that. And what about spam? All those e-mails about how woefully anatomically inadequate I am, or how I need a male “enhancement,” or how Demetria is really trying to get me to be her friend on Myspace.

Yeah, spammers deserve to die. If you don’t get spam, I’d venture to say you don’t use a computer. When I first started using the Net around 13 or 14 years ago, I’d get the occasional bit of spam. It annoyed me so much that I spent many hours tracking down spammers’ I.P. addresses. Then I’d contact their Internet Service Provider (ISP) and get their accounts shut down.

But now? I can’t be bothered. There are simply too many spammers out there, and I get more than my fair share. I’ve had the same e-mail address at Yahoo Mail for nearly as long as I’ve been using the Internet. So I get tons of spam. And what do I do about it? Not a darn thing. I let it all slide, like oil off a duck’s back…or something.

Yes, I use e-mail filters and Yahoo Mail does catch quite a lot of the spam. I don’t get a lot of those stray Viagra e-mails into my inbox. But I still get tons of spam stuck in those spam folders, both on Yahoo Mail and Google Mail (which I also use routinely). So when I see spammers get nailed with anti-spam laws, I do a little dance because, really, aren’t spammers all destined for the fourth or fifth circle of hell in Dante’s Inferno?

That’s why I’m a little gleeful at the news that the Virginia Supreme Court just decided that anti-spam laws are NOT a violation of America’s free speech. Back in 2003, Jeremy Jaynes of Raleigh, North Carolina, was arrested and sentenced to nine years in prison for spamming. He was, in fact, one of the top 10 spammers in the world at the time. Well, I have news for you, Jeremy old pal - if you’re using aliases and fake e-mail addresses, that’s not free speech. That’s criminal.

The Virginia court decision says that “misleading commercial speech is not First Amendment material.” Darn straight it isn’t. I’d love it if “chain letters” were added to the anti-spam movement. I still receive lots of chain letters, promising me luck if I only pass on the lovely sunshiney poems to every person I’ve ever met, or if I pass along the darling photos of babies with cute expressions on their faces. I NEVER pass on chain letters, even if they’re in the form of a lovely petition to knock down gas prices, or a touching montage of photos of our beloved soldiers in Iraq.

Basically, any time an e-mail tells me to forward it on to other people, I delete it. Thanks, but I’ll be the one to decide what I forward on to my friends and family. And chain letters never, ever make the grade. Spammers beware

Filed under Column, Web/Tech | Comments (2)

This is my weekly column from the local newspaper.

Hard to believe, but we’ve been putting up with the presidential campaign shenanigans for 14 months already, and we still have at least another 7 months to go. This has got to be the longest campaign in United States history. It also has to be one of the closest ever races, with Obama and Hillary pretty much neck and neck. So it’s pretty amazing, I think, that we haven’t gotten down to the nitpicky namecalling until just recently.

The clincher was a few days ago, when Hillary came out spitting and clawing after some mailings went out from Barack. Hillary isn’t at all happy about what Barack wrote about her views and plans for health care. She says the pamphlets are wildly inaccurate. Barack says they’re completely on the money and everything can be verified. Ah, there we go. Finally, we’re down to the “He Said, She Said” portion of our election. Just when we thought the Democrats might be running a different sort of race, too.

Last week, during one of the Democratic debates sponsored by CNN, Hillary went so far as to bring up Barack’s supposed plagiarism, where he made a speech that was incredibly similar to another senator. Hillary is spitting mad, desperately clawing at everything and anything that might knock Obama from his winning streak of late. So she said that Obama’s speeches were basically “Xeroxed.” And what happened? She got booed by the audience. Not a good sign.

Yes, we have big primaries still to come. Texas and Ohio, for starters. But Barack Obama has won the last nine or ten contests in a row. Every time Hillary makes a slam on Barack, it backfires on her. She needs to just concentrate on her own campaign. Better yet, what she really needs to do is drop out of the race. It’s pretty obvious that Barack is going to be the Democratic candidate, and Clinton isn’t helping matters any by the hair-pulling and face-scratching. If she was any kind of decent, she’d pack it in now and endorse Barack so he can get down to the business of the general election.

Same with Mike Huckabee. Drop out, Mike. There’s not a snowball’s chance in Hades that you’re going to win. In fact, your situation is even worse than Hillary Clinton’s because at least it’s possible for her to win. Mathematically, it is IMPOSSIBLE for Huckabee to win. Even if he wins every remaining delegate in the Republican warehouse, he still won’t possess enough delegates to gain the Republican nomination. While it may be fun to watch candidates pick each other apart within the two parties, it’s really counterproductive to the general election.

There’s only so much money to go around, after all. I’m sure McCain and Obama would much rather spend their campaign dollars on each other, rather than on candidates within their own party. Every moment that McCain fights Huckabee and Obama fights Clinton is basically a wasted opportunity…an opportunity to fight their opponent in the opposite party.

But wait, there’s more. As of yesterday, Ralph Nader, campaign spoiler extraordinnaire, has announced that HE’LL be running for the Oval Office. Yes, I find it strange that the United States only has two political parties - I compare it to having only two brands of cereal to choose from in the supermarket. But that’s the way it is here…a third party candidate is basically a waste of ink on the ballots.

I say we print up the ballots now…Obama vs. McCain. Oh, and Nader. But hey, nobody asked me my opinion.

Filed under Column, Politics | Comments (8)

This is my weekly column from the local newspaper.

The writers strike is nearly over, according to reports that say a tentative deal has been reached with producers. This is great news and it looks as if my writers strike beard may be gone by the time next week’s column is conceived and written. My face couldn’t be happier. Right now I resemble a cross between a mountain man and the Unabomber.

I’m watching CNN’s weather as I write this and I have no idea what people in Minnesota are thinking right now. The temperature there is down to minus 40. MINUS 40. Perhaps it’s just me, but as I sit here with the front door open in my polo shirt and cargo shorts, I can’t help but think minus 40 is way too freaking cold. Honestly, how do you deal with weather that cold? There simply aren’t enough earmuffs and mittens for that sort of thing.

Onto the latest from the presidential circuit. Mitt Romney surprised everyone a few days ago by “suspending” his presidential campaign. This is the first I’ve heard of a campaign “suspension.” It means that Romney gets to keep a hold on the delegates he’s earned thus far. Eventually, those delegates will be released to vote elsewhere…that is, if Romney stays out of the race. I don’t know why he just didn’t quit and allow the delegates to go their own way. For what it’s worth, I’d be pretty ticked off if I voted for Romney on Super Tuesday and then he dropped out of the race two days later.

Obama won a few states this weekend, and so did Mike Huckabee. At this rate, we may not know who is going to be on the November ticket for months to come. Myself, I’m laying odds that Huckabee will drop out within the next two weeks. It’s an impossible shot for him now. He’d have to win nearly every single remaining race in order to gain the delegates he needs. But no, I’m sure Huckabee will waste a few more million dollars before he cries “Uncle ” Speaking of wasting millions of dollars, it turns out that Mitt Romney spent $87 million of his own money campaigning for President. Yeah, I’m sure there’s nothing better that could have been done with that money.

My lawn wants me dead. It’s usually not an issue since there’s the sidewalk that goes all the way from the front door to the driveway. Sometimes I’ll hear the grass mocking me as I walk alongside it. “Put one foot on me, mister, and you’re dead.” And now the lawn may get its wish.

It seems it’s high time to have the sidewalk and driveway pressure-washed, painted, and sealed. Don’t ask me why, they both work perfectly fine. They’re not especially stained. I compare the notion to washing ashtrays…pointless. But it’s not my call. And now, what would have been a two-day affair at most, is going to take a full week.

Our next door neighbor has the nicest driveway you can imagine. It’s all prettyfied with fancy designs and lines and inlaid stencil-work. I think there’s marble filigree or some such thing. Again, a very fancy ashtray.

Trouble with my lawn is it’s too cushy and thick. Every step is a potential killer. It’s like walking on heels…without the stability. For the next few days, we can’t park in the driveway, so my car is parked on the edge of the lawn. But wow, is the driveway ever pretty. You know, until we park on it again.

Filed under Column | Comment (0)