Kristen, it's not my fault that these blogs all died from lack of commitment from their owners. They just don't care enough about you to tell you what's going on with them. :)

Mmm... cookies...

As for my sister (who apparently has a very hard time collecting her thoughts into one post within 8 minutes but instead splits them into four instead of simply editing her previous post)... you can feel free to use my scanner if you can figure out how to get it working again. We haven't been using it at home (unless our mother and father have begun scanning your baby pictures and plastering them all over the internet again), maybe you should ask dad if you can take it to your house while I'm not there.

No problem with the format change... I know it was a simple thing, but I take joy in being able to figure such things out when I know so little about HyperText Markup Language... I might have a friend tutor me in programming, and then I'm sure I'll get all sorts of computer languages mixed up! Ich habe < a href="IFTHEN" > tu madre. < /a >

Blogger Death Toll:
Carrie n Becky
Jeff (?)
Amanda
Kairsie

And the funeral march plays on... who is next? Could it be.... YOU?

I don't see much scanning and burning in your future, Amanda. Sorry. Unless you ask really nicely. And you can tell your timid, grammatically challenged friend that he or she is welcome to post here, we only mock those we love and care about.

Or maybe Jonnyboy will scan and burn them for me at ACTV, since he never does any work anyway? Just kidding, Jon. About the not working part, not the scan/burning part.

Dude. I desperately need some new pics on my site...but alas, I haven't a scanner and the pics I want aren't digital. And my bro is far, far away in the land of Michigonia....perhaps he will let me use his anyway and burn the pics onto a cd?

But seriously, I know for a fact that there are people who would like to contribute to this blog but don't for fear of being made fun of for grammar or spelling mistakes. Besides....did you completely miss the point of Bec's entry (As for spelling, I've hared taht you can mix up the ltetres in a wrod and as lnog as the fsrit and lsat lertets are the smae, you can sltil raed it)?

Jon: I knew you wouldn't be able to resist.

Yay... now it's easier to read. Thanks Jesse.

And Amanda, isn't it much more fun when we do point out misspellings (with two “S”’s) and grammatical errors?

Jon....
RE: And why didn't more people disagree with my Treatise on the History and Policies of Major American Political Parties? I guess we need to wait until Jamie comes back from benchwarming.

Why? Because I'm too exhausted to read it. You make me tired sometimes. :)

Okay, kids. Let's start a new blogging trend. Let's NOT attack each other for typos and mispellings. I'll start. Right now I'm officially not bringing attention to a typo I just saw. See, it's that easy.

Jesse: not fish, rice......

sa·ke
Variant(s): or sa·ki /'sä-kE/
Function: noun
Etymology: Japanese sake
Date: 1687
: a Japanese alcoholic beverage of fermented rice usually served hot

That's really funny, Bec. But clearly, clearly, Ralph Nader was correct in his position.

Kaiser Wilhelm Jesse IV, do you think you could go to the trouble of modifying the template so that the name of who is posting appears at the TOP of the post? That way you don't need to scroll down, read who posted it, and then scroll back up again.

And why didn't more people disagree with my Treatise on the History and Policies of Major American Political Parties? I guess we need to wait until Jamie comes back from benchwarming.

When I have a kid, I'm gonna make up a name (like mine) and tell everyone the meaning of the name is "God's little raver" or "God's little punk rocker" or something like that

Bec, correct me if I'm putting words in your mouth.

I believe what she was referring to, Jesse, is the fact that a registered independent disenfranchises his or herself in the primary. Some people really like to vote in primaries, and opening them up as a free-for-all would not work at all because you'd have a bunch of Republicans going out and voting for Al Sharpton in the primary just to watch him get trashed by Bush in '04. It's actually the independently minded thinkers that determine who wins most elections. Nationwide, our country is has a fairly equal percentage of people who vote straight party ticket for both Republicans and Democrats. These votes effectively cancel each other out. That means that those who aren't entrenched in party politics are determining the elections. But a registered independent still doesn't get to vote in the primaries.

Way to go with busting out the political philosophers around at the start of the Revolution. Most impressive.

I think Rousseau was full of crap, though, believing that personal property is the root of all social evils. Man's intrinsic sinfulness is the root of all social evils. You can take away my ability to own anything, and I will still be a sinful man acting in sinful ways. Christian's, I believe, should move towards the direction of forsaking all material claims (not that I have already achieved this, because I haven't...). But the entire world can't, and even if we did, we wouldn't solve anything.

The concept of ownership and dominion comes from God.

GE 1:28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."

GE 1:29 Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. [30] And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground--everything that has the breath of life in it--I give every green plant for food." And it was so.

And it was so. And then we owned stuff.

I wonder how many girls pretend to like sports just to spend "quality" time with their boyfriends?

I hate how blogger and google and somehow easily confusable in my mind, resulting in mistyped URLs when going to either.

If you can't tell, i'm in a very bloggery mood tonight. This is caused by one thing, which I will number for the sake of absurdity (sake is also a Japanese alcohol made from fish):

5. I'm avoiding the commencement of writing my history paper.

I'm going to bed now. After I do pushups. And talk to my sister. And put on music.

Quoting Rebecca:

"3. If being an independent wasn't so useless and limiting, I think I would be one."

Maybe a correct revision of this statement would read as follows:

"If independents in America weren't so insecure and cowardly, they might have power."

How many other people feel exactly the same way you do, Bec? How many other people would vote independently and break out of the supposedly inescapable bipartisan system if they knew they were supported by a multitude (plethora, menagerie- Just for Kelly so she still reads the RG) of like-minded people? It was said about slavery, ecological conservation, and SpongeBob Squarepants that it begins with one person, one voice, one small viral cell among millions of white t-cells. What has this theory brought to our country? Slavery is now abolished, though it was said that it could never be done (and some believe that our capitalist society is just as bad, but we'll put that aside for now.). Ecological conservation, though not having been fully acheived, is now a common topic of discussion and American thought. (I just realized I hate the word American. I also realized that I may be ruining my point with all these parenthetical sidenotes) And SpongeBob? Well, SpongeBob is SpongeBob, and he lives in a pineapple under the sea. So why can't it be possible to breakfree of the mindset that an independent vote is flushed down the drain?


Also, you guys talk about the belief of minimalist government like the republicans or democrats are the first to present this idea. I think you need to consult the ideas of the French philosophe Jean-Jacques Rouseau and the English theorist John Locke. Both believed that, when it comes to government, "less is more."

Rouseau also proposed the idea that "personal property is the root of all social evils." I find this statement highly intriguing and somewhat appealing. Could it be that if there were no property, "social evils" would be abolished? Thinking about such a thing would require quite a stretch of the imagination, ya? Now this may seem communist, but I think if you can think about it the way I'm thinking about it, it's not. No personal property, not even belonging to the government (which Rouseau proposes would be unnecessary.). A possible qualm with this theory, though, is that we, as humans, somehow have an innate need for ownership. We feel that it is our right to own something. But this could easily be chalked up to a cultural theme, something bestowed upon us by our parents and society. Nature vs. Nurture if you will.

Go RED SOX!!!! Yankees STINK!!!

A Treatise on the History and Policies of Major American Political Parties.

Jeff, I must correct you. Not in a effort to get you to change your voting habits, but simply because you and many others are misinformed. You said "[S]maller less intrusive government is better government - thats a clearly republican idea - and sort of the reason that America was invented." That is actually notclearly a Republican idea. In today's political climate, most Republicans present themselves as supporters of small government and big business. Looking at our country’s history paints a different picture. According to Encarta, “Democrats argued that the national government should do nothing the states could do for themselves, and the states nothing that localities could do.
The party’s supporters in this period included groups as diverse as southern plantation owners and immigrant workers in northern cities. They all had in common a dislike of government intervention in their lives. The Democrats’ opponents, the Whigs, on the other hand, believed in using governmental power to promote, regulate, correct, and reform.” That’s a Democratic idea. States’ rights were actually one of the major causes of the Civil War. Democrats argued (against the Republican party of Abraham Lincoln) that each state should be given the choice of whether or not slavery should be legal in their jurisdiction, in addition to a myriad other things states should maintain authority over. Less government intrusion in everyday life. One can debate for an eternity who was right in this case, it’s irrelevant. What matters in our discussion is which party was arguing for what.

Since the ear of the New Deal, however, the party has been hijacked into a purveyor of big government and high taxes. You can see that the stance of a party changes over time, so party allegiance is somewhat handicapping to an individual, because what that party stands for will change over time.

All this is simply a history lesson, though, and it could be argued that this has little to do with the current state of affairs. So let’s talk about today.

Modern Republicans have successfully presented themselves as fiscally conservative politicians who are “only there to serve” and want to make the government smaller and give more rights to people. This spin doesn’t match up with reality. Who sponsored the PATRIOT Act, parts I and II? Republicans. Do these acts encroach on civil liberties? Clearly. Which party has taken the stance that “dissent is terror”? Republicans. No Child Left Behind? Interesting idea, but it’s big government interfering in the affairs of a state, and it’s put forth by a Republican president. Which party is supporting wire-taps on American citizens without the need for a court order? You get the picture. Republicans currently aren’t giving me or my state any more rights, they are making a larger, more intrusive government.

And let’s look at taxes. People love to tout Bush’s tax cuts, “He’s giving our money back to us.” But that’s not really true. What he’s doing is giving your children’s money to you. When President Bush came into office, the government had done something unimaginable. It had turned a profit. President Clinton, for all of his many shortcomings and failures, had managed to put the budget in such a shape that we had a $230 billion surplus. President Bush managed to turn that into a $500 billion deficit in just a few short years. How? By cutting your taxes. “Well, that’s a good thing, right?” Not really. That $500 billion isn’t going to just appear out of thin air. Someone is going to have to pay it. Democrats take money out of our pockets. Republicans take money out of our children’s pockets. That check you got in the mail from the IRS, Jeff? Maria will have to pay it back. With compounded interest. Because President Bush didn’t cut spending. If he would do that, I would cheer. But he’s increased the Pentagon’s budget (why?). And he’s spending $167 billion (on top of the deficit!) to fight a war that most of this country and most of the world opposes. Is that a smaller, less intrusive government that leaves more money in the hands of its citizens? No.

Democrats used to leave my money alone. Now they take my money and do (arguably) good things with it, social programs, etc.

Republicans used to take my money. Now they take my children’s money and use it to kill people.

Bec, do you see any polite company around here? I mean, c'mon....

Maybe you meant ascetic, Amanda? Is Rep. Rohrer an ascetic? That would be interesting.

Ok guys, seriously, do you realize how offensive the term "nazi" is? I realize ya'll are doing it in a joking manner but it's really one of the harshest terms around (yes I realize that's an opinion) But go see Shindlers' list or American History X and see if you can bare call someone a nazi.

oops...i meant aestetically pleasing.

Yeah, Rep. Rohrer's site isn't all that aestetic. Perhaps Jamie D. should design a new site? :)

Would it be rude if I said Sam's website was ugly? Just checking...

Shauna- Yes, Boston misses us. I'm sure of it. The Sox even won their game yesterday in an effort to persuade us to come back. :)

What version of IE (Internet Explorer) are you running, Bec? Blogger's current version is designed to run on IE 6 or higher. If you are running that, you should be able to look at the "Post & Publish" button, look to the left a few buttons, you'll see an I, a B, and then the globe with a link. That's the hyperlink button.

(Soon to come - A Treatise on Party Politics in America. Stay tuned!)

hehe very good Jesse, i hoped someone was gonna point it out, be the grammar Nazi :)

Actually, the great city of Boston is in morning right NOW, because it's 7:01 AM. It may have been in mourning yesterday at 7:39 PM though, but it certainly wasn't morning.

I can't write much now b/c I got up early to get grading done, but.....

Here's something that gave me a bit of an early morning snicker:

"Amanda, could you at least wait for me to debase and mock you before calling me dumb? I mean, honestly. Who says I was going to "attack [your] character or political affiliations"? You know what happens when you ass-u-me."

Okay, kids. So who agrees (Jamie?) that it's somewhat laughable that JON'S telling ME not to ass-u-me?! :)

Anyway, Jon...I'm glad we discussed the you being dumb comment. Just remember that I was in a pretty silly mood when I blogged that and it was in no way intended as an actual observation of your intelligence..... :) I'm a nice blogger.

disposition, personality? either of those Rachel?

the great city of Boston Massachusetts is in morning today because five of it's favorite ladies are gone. we are sorry Boston, we love you too, we shall return soon!!

www.samrohrer.org

just highlight the text and click on that cute little globe icon up and to the right... the one with a chainLINK.

peace

Disposition.