I Might Not Be Voting For Obama

It’s not as bad as you think. I wont be voting for Romney under any circumstances.

I’ve been thinking about one thing in particular that bothers me. No, it frightens me. And disgusts me. The killing of US citizens without due process. This president has decided that he has the authority to order drone strikes against US citizens who are deemed to be an enemy of the state. But no one gets to question that designation before or after the fact.

I’m not going to try to convince anyone about whether it’s good or bad, but I do want to lay out why it has me troubled. Primarily it’s this: there is nothing keeping this or future presidents from doing this same thing on US soil.  People can scoff at the idea, but what’s to stop it?  The public wont object because the first time it happens the US citizen targeted will be a clearly evil bad guy with absolute proof of his involvement in plans to attack US targets. And after that, it’s just how “The War On Terror” is fought.

So yeah, I know it sounds like I’m falling into boogieman conspiracy land here. But isn’t the whole point of the Second Amendment to the Constitution to make sure we have the means to fight back if the government turns against us? And I’m not so egotistical to think that we could never elect a madman to office. It happens in other countries all the time. So, if that happens, how do we fight back against silent long range targeted drone strikes? The President has given himself, and those who come after him, the right to use military force on US citizens. We can’t fight that.

So I’m thinking I can’t vote for Obama. But I sure as hell don’t want Mitt Romney to be my president either. So, one election day if I think NJ will go for Obama (as it likely will) then I’m going to vote for the green party candidate, Jill Stein. No, she has no chance, but at least my conscience will be clear. and if NJ looks to be up for grabs? Then I don’t know what I’ll do.

As for Obama, he’s not been a bad President. Other than this one thing, I’m pretty satisfied. I’ve even donated to his campaign, and may do so again. I’m aware of the realities, I want to make sure Mitt Romney doesn’t win, despite my misgivings about Obama.
Also, I think this will be my last post on the subject of politics. It depresses me.

I’m back

So. I moved this back here because that was more work than I’m willing to do. Mind you, it was a fractionally small amount of work. But that’s more than I want to do. Also, I believe I lost the domain, the hosting, and basically everything else. So I’m back here sort of by default.

It’s likely to be some whines at first. I have a few built up.

Moved

I’ve movedCatch 19 to a hosted site.

The new site is catch19.com

All ravenous fans can find me there. So… start ravening.

Weigh In: 270 Lbs.

Just 8 days since I achieved 275, and now I have achieved 270. I am very happy about this. It’s clear to me now that I need to do an hour of cardio every day, even if I go to the gym. Otherwise, things are just going along the same, whatever I’m doing seem to be working.

Weigh In: 275 lbs.

This has been a good two weeks. The weight has dropped steadily. Though I did not get to the gym once, I did get on the bike every day. I realize now that on those days I do go to the gym, I still need to do an hour of cardio. The extra cardio this week made a clear difference.

It Pains Me

There is no excuse for the pain in my neck. I went to sleep feeling fine. I woke up barely able to move my head. In between those two things I did nothing but sleep. And it was your garden variety sleep, too. It wasn’t Extreme! Sleep! where I perch myself on a 2 inch ledge in 120 degree weather and stand on my hands while trying to attain 8 hours of REM sleep. I was even in a bed, a nice one, with clean sheets. Just sleep. And the result is a seriously tweaked neck. There can be only one conclusion:

Reality is broken.

One Customer Retained

Last week Mia had a small fender bender. No injuries, but the rear passenger side lights are wrecked ans there’s some damage to the fender and quarter panel. Not really a terribly big deal. Never the less, I was in a cold sweat anticipating what was to come.

Insurance companies and their evil minions.

And so, I undertook the treacherous journey. I called the insurance company to start a claim. My hands shook with trepidation and my voice nearly cracked with sheer horror when I reached a human being to talk to. Then something–miraculous–happened.

I found myself dealing with real people who tried to do their best to help me and were all competent and through and efficient! YES! OH GOD YES! YES YES YES YESYESYESYESYES YEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSssssssss..

Wha-? Oh, um blog post, right. Sorry.

Yeah, so I was completely shocked that not just my adjuster, but the rep in the call center that I initially called were both really excellent. They took my info, had the info I needed on hand, anticipated most of my questions and had useful answers, and got answers for those questions they didn’t already know. It was really ready to be stuck in insurance hell for at least 2 weeks. but by the end the day I knew pretty much everything that was going to happen. And as it happened, I was kept updated by my adjuster.

Less than a week later I had checks in hand for the entire amount of damage. And that included getting a check cut from my insurance co. even though Mia was 100% not at fault (as shown in the police report). There is some statute in NJ that limits liability of municipal vehicles, which is what hit Mia. So their ins. only had to pay the amount of the deductible and my ins. payed the rest.

The point is that they did so without dragging me through 80 miles of shit to get it. And I thanks them for that.

I have the name of my adjuster and I’ve sent an email in asking for an adress I can send a letter of commendation. I’d really like to see that she gets recognition for a job well done.

In case anyone is interested, the company is First Trenton Indemnity, also called Travelers of New Jersey.