Wanna learn about Copyrights and Fair Use?

Check out this video… I found it to be quite funny and impressive the amount of effort it took to create it.

If I were President… According to kids

Lauren and Thomas recently did an art project at school themed “If I were President…” — obviously right around the time of the 2008 Presidential Election.  You can see the results here…  PRICELESS!!

CNN “Hologram”

Did you see all the cool 3D graphics that CNN had on election night? They may not have been true holograms, but who cares?!? They were pretty flashy eye-candy. Kudos to the CNN engineers who put those together.

Here’s more and a video clip of the “hologram” effect…

or a look behind the scenes…

Open Letter to President-Elect Obama

Dear President-Elect Obama,

Congratulations on the victory, on winning a hard-fought campaign, and on winning the election for the highest office in the Land.  It is well deserved, and as a free-thinking independent, I look forward to the months and years ahead.  While I may disagree with many of your policies/plans, I do agree with some.  I think (as has been said many times today) it is simply a day to be proud as an American citizen.

Our democracy is clearly alive and well, and you’ve been able to accomplish a great deal using it. This is not a bad thing.

I applaud your victory speech, and am sure others found it as inspirational as I did… not as Democrats or Republicans, but as Americans. The country is trusting you to provide the leadership needed to take us forward from here. As I mentioned, I may not necessarily agree with where you want to take us, but look forward to the journey — For I believe it’s the journey that makes achieving the end goal worthwhile.

To you, I make but one simple request…  Earn this.

Respectfully,

–Kc

Questioning CNN Election Results

So it’s finally here, Election Day.  My kids got to vote on a class pet today – fish or frog. One voted fish, the other voted frog.  The Frog won.  I hope we don’t end up with a frog in the national election.

As my kids describe it, it’s “O-Rock Obama” against “John the Cane”…

I just visited CNN.com around 7:40pm ET to check out the Virginia election results.  Here’s a snippet of what I found, and I saw something a little strange…

So the polls in Virginia just closed at 7pm.  According to this chart, 4% (FOUR percent) of the precincts have reported in… and ALREADY they’ve declared Mark Warner the winner!  I’m no statistician, but that doesn’t seem right to me… how could they declare a winner with only 4% of the vote in?  Isn’t that more like a rounding error???

Glenn, I couldn’t agree more…

Personal responsibility for one’s actions is simply going away.  So I totally agree with Glenn Beck’s comments here…

But, I can’t help but look around at people my age, friends, family, etc… and maybe it’s just the people I hang around with – but none of us seem to have that problem.  Is it because I’m just lucky in who I hang around with, or is it because in my generation, Gen X , there’s an understanding that entitlement is not a foregone conclusion?

I hope it’s the latter.  The only proof point I can think of is that most people I know who are my age, have no illusions that a pension or retirement fund or even social security will exist when we’re ready to retire.

It could also be because the Baby Boomers are simply the loudest voice right now, and they’re the one’s behaving so badly…  Or are they?

Educate me please… since when is ____ offensive?

I consider myself to be fairly well educated.  I’m a minority myself (asian).  I am not a racist.  I am very open minded.  I am also pragmatic. I am for diversity, but not at the expense of success. I believe racism is not a myth, but is overblown and perpetuated by many of the organizations who would do away with it.  I would like to think I am sensitive enough to know when something is offensive and when it is not.  I believe – “to each, his own.”  I also believe that political correctness has gone WAY TOO FAR in most cases.

So, educate me please… since when is the word “monkey” offensive?

I first heard about it in a local news report — some high school kids got in trouble for using the word in a chant at a sports game.  I’ve NEVER heard that the word “monkey” is somehow offensive, but apparently it’s long been considered an offensive word.  I checked with some friends and my wife, but none of them heard of it either.  Just because someone at some point in history called an african american a “monkey” does not automatically make the word an offensive one.  I was once called “skinny” (long ago)… yet that word has not become offensive.

While I’m on the subject… Since when is “plantation” an offensive word??

Sully Plantation – a historical site near my home – has recently changed it’s name to Sully Historical Site.  Sorry, that’s just lame.  Eventually, we’ll be calling it something like… “Historical location #43234″  just so we don’t offend anyone who’s great, great, great grandparents were slaves or may have lived on a plantation — and we’ll strike the word “site” because it might offend the blind.  Sheesh!

I guess if it makes people happy, we’ll go along with it all – but you know what… I’m still going to teach my kids what a monkey says —that’s  “oooh, oooh, ahhh, ahhh” for those who were wondering.  I don’t care what the news reporters say!

Soccer fans in Iraq get car-bombed by terrorists

According to this CNN article, over 50 people were killed and many more were injured as two car bombers detonated their bombs amongst soccer fans who were celebrating the Iraqi national soccer team’s victory in the Asian Cup semi-finals. This is just rediculous!

Why would these jack-ass terrorists hurt these innocent people??  They’re retarded!!  They were celebrating a soccer victory, not holding a pro-US demonstration.  If the Iraqi government has any sense at all, they would use this event as a propaganda proof point that clearly these terrorists are out to just hurt innocent Iraqi citizens.  I wonder if any American’s were hurt or if any Iraqi government officials were hurt?  Clearly this one missed the mark and I can only hope it causes some people in Iraq to wake up to the realities of the situation… that these terrorists really don’t have their best interests at heart.

It’s strange though… I haven’t heard any political pundits here in the US commenting one little bit on it.  I wonder why?

28th Time’s the Charm!

Apparently you’re more dangerous after your 28th DWI (drunk driving) arrest…  The first 27 times were apparently warnings.  Clearly this is someone who has complete lack of CONSIDERATION (yes, consideration) for his fellow human beings. He clearly doesn’t care about the consequences of what might happen if he injures or kills someone with his car… and apparently the law doesn’t either.

Is the country ready for my vision of “single sanction” punishment yet?  I seriously doubt it, but this guy certainly is helping get us one step closer 

News Article 

Ok, this restitution for slavery thing is getting a little crazy…

Today, Queen Elizabeth II of the UK visited the US – on the start of a tour of the US, she stopped in Virginia to celebrate the 400th birthday of Jamestown settlement.  I think that’s pretty cool.

WTF, does this have to do with slavery?

Well, they were talking about the Queen’s visit on the CBS news (with Katie Couric), but they were focusing on the address that she gave to the audience that was there. She acknowledged that 3 cultures came together to help make Jamestown a success and ultimately start this great country…  Western European, Native American, and Africans.  [so far, no big deal]

But then the news article took a turn for the worst.  They started talking about how this was hardly an apology for slavery and that some people were hoping for more.

Let me just say at this point, that I am ANTI-SLAVERY.  It was a horrible thing that was done to the slaves, that they were kidnapped and brought here under in-human conditions and then treated like animals.  But that was 200-400 years ago!  No body still living is directly responsible.  No body still living is a directly affected victim.

I wonder, if the Queen had apologized for things her ancestors did – would this be the last we hear of it???  No.  It makes me wonder what it would take to finally stop complaining about this water that is not only “under the bridge” but has been for hundreds of years.  Come on, people (complainers of the topic, specifically) – give it a rest already!

Besides, you are aware that the Africans were not the ONLY slave throughout history, right??  England was NOT the only country to have slaves.  Why is it that we never hear of other people from other cultures who were enslaved and how they deserve apologies too???  Hmmm…. CRAZY!