Rusted Sky

I figure it's time to let folks know some of my policies..

If you start a comment with "I'm sure you're going to delete this..." you're 90% of the way to getting it sent to the ol' bit bucket in the sky. If you can't be bothered to use proper capitalization, that doesn't help your case - it indicates to me a lack of the most elementary self-disicpline that will most likely show in your thought processes in your comments. It's not an automatic killer, but it doesn't help your cause. And, by the way, neither does going off on four or five different tangents in the same comment, and if you recycle talking points that've already been debunked along with the rest of the things I've listed, you can be pretty sure your comment will never see the light of day.

BTW, comments on how Bush was AWOL aren't going to cut it. He wasn't. I did 13 years as a Personnel Specialist in the AF Reserve, I've looked over what's been published and haven't seen any holes in his attendance that didn't get accounted for later. (I'll refer you to the posts where I went through things step by step if you like, but really - the man's in office, he's not going to run again, he's not going to get booted out of office no matter how much you wet-dream about it, so deal with it. Come up with someone other than a Kerry or Gore clone and you might have a chance in 2008, IF the Democrats get serious about the WoT - which they've shown no signs of at all.) Bush isn't going to run again, you're not going to convince me he was AWOL, it's all irrelevant at this point. So, save yourself the effort on that, okay?

Same thing with Bush 'stealing' the elections. The NYTimes, among others, spent a lot of time going over the Florida ballots in 2001. In the end, Gore wouldn't have won. Or Kerry. And we'll not talk about the vast majority of absentee military ballots that got invalidated by squads of Democratic lawyers who were looking for every possible reason to disqualify them, okay?

Now, this might look like I'm trying to stifle dissent here. Oddly, I've got no problems with disagreement - but it needs to be fact-based and verifiable, not knee-jerk opinion. Reasoned RATIONAL disagreement, to the point and concise, I love to see. I might learn something from you, you might learn something from me, a conversation could well be enjoyable for both of us. SCREAMING AT ME THROUGHOUT HALF YOUR POST is right out. If you can't be bothered to unlock your caps, I'll admire your passion while dumping your comment. Also, being polite is perhaps not heard of in your circle of friends - but I'd appreciate it here.

By the way, there's two things that will put your comment into the 'junk' section, from which I'll very likely salvage it if it has merit. That's putting the word 'info', and/or three periods in a row into your post. The spam filters catch those, and I've got to dig them out of the p0rn, p0ker, cheap 0ffice s0ftware and enhancements spam - which for some reason is LOADED with crap like that. So if you post and it gets routed to the hold bin, be patient - I poke through and empty things out at least daily.

Finally, don't assume I'm stupid because I don't agree with your take on something. I've watched politics unfold for 30 years, and paid at least SOME attention to what's been going on. I examine my attitudes and opinions pretty frequently, and I try to examine ALL sides of an issue. I'm usually not a single-issue voter, and am liberal on some things and conservative on others. There's quite a bit I don't care about. I am also not interested arguing about binary moral equivalency - for an example if you point out to me that we sold weapons to Iraq in the '80s, I'll point you to this chart and ask if, by any chance, you think that Russia, China and France bear the same responsibility for Saddam, more responsibility or less. Sayng we're MORE responsible won't cut it - because the only person, country, or agency responsible for the actions of Saddam for the last 25 years is Saddam himself. All others aided and abetted him - and in this case it sure looks like China, France and Russia were doing a hell of a lot of aiding and abetting. Plus - if we did create Saddam - doesn't it fall to the US to clean him up? What's been done is history now, and arguing about whether we should have or shouldn't have done this or done that is a waste of your time and mine.

Re the wiretaps - I've got no problems with them doing large-scale data mining. There's been legislative oversight of it, and it's consitutional, from what I've seen from a lot of legal opinion on the web. If you're in your senior year of high school and your civics teacher disagrees, and thus YOU disagree - well, yay for you and your teacher. I'll trust the opinion of folks who have a lot more experience and knowledge of this stuff than I do over yours, and over the NYTimes or LA Times.

Re the leaking of classified, secret, top secret, or compartmentalized information to the press by the CIA - the leaks need to be stopped, and stopped in NO uncertain or tentative fashion. There was considerable outrage about the 'outing' of Valerie Plame - when apparently her husband had outed her years ago. Yet there's little to no outrage about outing classified programs. Which hurt the country more? Find the leak, publiclize the leaker, and charge the leaker and the reporter with espionage. Give them the Ames and Pollard treatment.

Lastly, consider this blog private property - I'm under no obligation to let you spew whatever you want if you're looking for a place to exercise your evil twin that you normally keep hidden. If you intentionally break the rules, your post will not be kept. If you can't disagree politely, or agree politely, you can take it elsewhere.

And that's about it. Let's run things down again.

0. NEVER preface your comment with "You'll probably delete this, but..." You'll probably be right.
1. Write so I can read it. It's for my good and yours.
2. DON'T SHOUT!
3. Don't recycle debunked talking points.
4. Disagreement's fine. I like disagreement. Stay focused, factual, reasoned, and polite.
5. Keep 'info' and '...' out of your comments, or be prepared to wait a bit to get them approved.
6. Don't be a jerk when you post.

That should do it. I'm going to hit the sack. Goodnight, all!

J.