Bush Sandbag?

I hope that this article is correct in terms of tactics. Otherwise, I'm very dissapointed in the President.

Bush did so horribly during the first debate. I know he stayed on topic, but that assuming that the public wants you to. These votes that are undecided (and I don't understand how you can be undecided at this point), are the target market. Not I, not Michael Moore. We've got our minds made up.

For the President not to take the bait shows a lot of smarts, but makes him seem very cautious. I did not listen to media reports before I thought that Kerry had a better showing at the debate. And if I have my mind made up, and I'm generally moderate/conservative in my politics, what do the true moderates think about what transpired last Thursday?

It will be interesting to see what happens in the 2nd debate and in the next few weeks as the Bush team trys to take advantage of the holes Kerry has left open.

Kerry running this country would be a horrible victory for those that oppose freedom and American ideals. American ideals have always been for America first, and that means positioning ourselves for the global marketplace. Moving into the middle east opens that ground to become part of the global economy. Some see it as being just about oil. It's not about oil. It's about creating markets for western (and hopefully American) goods and services so that those countries can begin to develop their own.

If we stay the course in Iraq and Afghanistan, we will allow those people to develop into the next Japan and Korea. That movement creates freedom, which nullifys fundamentalist movements. Even now the "liberals" in Iran are rising up attempting to overthrow their corrupt theocrasy.

This is why Bush must continue the work he's started. This is much more than bin Laden. This is about changing the world for the better so that bin Ladens do not manifest themselves, or are at least a small problem (like the psychos we get about every 10 years here). So as some on the left are doing, I'm doing what I have to do to convince you to vote for Bush. Kerry's plans will cripple the US economy and will isolate us from the world. We need to take a stance in the world, rather than let countries manipulate us.

Edwards & Cheney - smelling my sweat

Tomorrow, the Vice Presidental debate takes place at Case in Cleveland.

In the past, these have been the most entertaining debates, and I certainly hope that trend continues, since the first presidental debate was boring. About the only thing that was entertaining was watching the two morons sweat. Kerry sounds like a robot, and Bush sounded irritatted to be there.

Regardless, the best part about the VP debate is it takes place in Emerson gym. What's really great about that is what that facility was used for when I attended Case 10 years ago. It was an intramural gym. I've played basketball, volleyball and all other sorts of games on that floor, especially during my freshman year when we had to take gym classes.

I am happy for Case that it gets the honor of holding the event. I am very dissapointed to learn that classes had to be impacted as much as they were. Classes were cancelled for Tuesday. The Quad closes on Monday at 11 pm. There are no classes on North Campus. Sounds like someone should be throwing a party tonight. The new Veale convocation center has been closed since September 8, so they can build a huge media center. The workout rooms have been closed and students have had to uses 1 to 1 Fitness center instead (gotta be great for the football team).

But all in all this is great for the school. MTV comes and provides promotion for the school and gives them another place to consider. Parents get to see the school and think about it as a place for their children to attend.

But hey, just remember what they use that gym for, when debates aren't there.

And enjoy the smell of sweat.

NetBeans 4 Still Rocks

NetBeans released the Beta 2 of their 4.0 product, and it's still looking great.

I'm now using it exclusively as my IDE in place of 3.6 and Eclipse. Once you "get" the UI, you'll never go back to 3.6, and probably won't see any need for Eclipse...at least until the WebTools version of Eclipse comes out.