Aloha Dump

I enjoy reading The Huffington Post (HP) online and I am fully aware of their left leaning agenda. To be fair, and not present myself as a hard core conservative who will not listen to the viewpoints of others, there are some very good writers for HP who shed perspective on issues I may have already have an entrenched viewpoint who will cause me to step back and rethink my position. The reader comments, however, do not.  I have never read more vitriol and hate from some of the most ignorant and reason depraved people than I have on the HP online- from both sides of center. I wanted to share an example of discourse from a recent Huffington Post headline  Obama Birth Certificate Released  where I decided to use reason, civility and facts instead of my usual posts consisting of snide, irreverent and sarcastic comments. I have tried former strategy in the past on similar message boards but was met with a barrage of name calling, ad hominem attacks and unhing...

Whenever I see a new site that attempts to define my political philosophy by asking 10 questions I just have to take the quiz. They all end the same- lumping me into the Republican category. Regardless of how "in-depth" the quizzes claim to be, however, they all suck. They suck because they do not take into account the people who do not have a yes or no position. I think many people do not really care one way or the other about a great many things. I do not care if gay marriage becomes legalized or not and there is not a political party for that. The quizzes strong-arm the quiz taker into a yes or no position with no grey area to spare. I find the same narrowing viewpoint with questions about US military action- if you support the military then you are auto-lumped into the group that thinks we are supposed to be International Meter Maids preemptively taking out any crazed dictator who claims to hate the United States. Smaller entities who ...

I was in the military when the first shutdown of my lifetime happened in November of 1995. The shutdown happened the day before payday and many civilians struggled for a week while both sides bickered about which items they would negotiate with as little backlash for future votes as possible.  The second shutdown happened in December of that same year and lasted almost a month. Needless to say, a lot of people suffered- but not the military! We were paid although I really wanted to see if the loudmouths in my division were really going to refuse to show up to work if we were not going to receive pay. I tried to remind them that we are not an autonomous organization and if we were asked to work without pay while pulling weeds naked with jockstraps on our heads then that is what we would have to do.  Clinton was President and the GOP controlled both the House and the Senate, which is probably why the military continued...