Something I received from Wells Fargo regarding their Bill Pay system:

All payments issued through your Bill Pay service are made with guaranteed funds. Since the payment amount is deducted from your available balance when the payment is processed, the funds are guaranteed to be available when the payee cashes the check or applies the electronic payment. The proof of payment should be shown on the next bill you receive from the merchant.

Let me clarify the catch here: THERE IS NO WAY TO CHECK TO SEE IF THE CHECK HAS BEEN CASHED THROUGH WELLS FARGO BILL PAY. Specifically, if you issue a payment, and the check they issue is never cashed, the money just vanishes from your account and is never found elsewhere. To get the money back, you have to initiate an inquiry into check’s statement, which takes a couple of days and usually a phone call or three to a bank employee.

Popularity: 1% [?]

I don’t think so. Since people’s memories seen short, let me refresh.
Dean Goes After Republicans
Christian Coalition Calls for Apology
Cheney Insults Dean’s Mother
Dean Responds

Both parties are ridiculous right now.

Popularity: 1% [?]

National Security was a deciding issue in the 2004 election, and it’s still an important issue. Sure, most Americans don’t seem to be that worried about it anymore (cite), but it’s still certainly a threat and something that needs to get addressed (cite).

Suffice to say, the USA PATRIOT act is nonsense, and it hasn’t improved safety. Dell asking what you’re going to use the computer for is not going to make us safer: what are they expecting, the terrorists to go “Why, planning our evil and anti-American actions, of course!”? (cite) Anything that requires you to show or prove your identity is a joke: after all, one in five high school students is producing passable identity documents, so clearly our documentation is a failure, and even if we do prove identity, that doesn’t do anything to prove intent: the 9/11 terrorists got onto planes using their own identities. Identity-as-security is both highly invasive and fallacious, and it needs to stop being the default solution to our problems (cite). There are things that the USA PATRIOT Act helped with, but it was not thought through, never properly debated, and is already being dismantled by the courts. Can we please have an intellgent, debated, analyzed approach to our beauocratic problems instead of a hastilly-constructed and too-broad documentation?

Instead, if we really want to improve our national security, we need to first have the resources to do what needs to get done — we’re seeing substantial cutbacks in security across the nation because it’s simply not economically feasible in the current economic climate (e.g.): to improve our security, we first need to improve our economy. The major complaint and cause for economic pain and suffering is the price of fuel. As an aside, let’s do a quick pop quiz: why is the price of crude oil going up? It’s not because of dwindingling supply — it’s because of the weakening economic dollar. China has abandoned the dollar as their standard of currency, the Euro is pummeling the dollar for stability, and we haven’t been able to sell all the treasury bills we’ve wanted to. These are just some of the warning signs that we should be heeding, and we need to restore international faith in the dollar before it becomes a “was-standard” like the German Mark.

Furthermore, by improving our economy, we can rebuild our economic and technological hegemony. As the forerunners in technology, it is easier for us to do more both faster and cheaper than anyone else: anything that “they” can do, “we” can do better. If we were the first to have real dominance in space, we can control microwave transmitters and other potential danger out there. If we have better cryptanalysts and faster computers, terrorists need to do better and better encryption. If we have the best surveilance technologies, terrorists have to do better and better at hiding. The best advantage of technological hegemony: our world culture is addicted to the advance of technology, and it’s always better to be the dealer than the junkie. Incredible amounts of our business and money flow over to Japan because they have technological hegemony when it comes to most A/V equipment: the R&D money for your monitor almost certainly went to a Japenese lab, and there’s no reason that shouldn’t be an American one.

These two solutions have an important dovetail: energy independence. Right now, we need oil. If we were to truly piss off OPEC, they could shut down direct sales to the US or even just reduce world-wide production. The backlash from the rising gas prices would be swift and ugly: look at the exceedingly short-lived craze that happened when the Iraq War truly began, or the results of the 1970s oil embargo. We need to get off oil, and we need to get off of it now. The really sick part of all of this is that we could be shifting to a hydrogen basis now if someone in the government would step up and say that we were. American alternative energy sources are more than capable of producing sufficient hydrogen to power our entire country, and the national security advantage is so overwhelming that it’s ridiculous. Why is it that a presidential administration so concerned about our national security is leaving us to be dependent beggars to other countries?

The last important point to improving our national security (as opposed to doing more security theater) is a worldwide military presence. This could be done by invading countries and fighting to establish friendly governments there, but considering the difficulties we’re having in Iraq, there’s probably a better solution. The one I offer is to work through groups like the UN Peacekeepers and NATO, retaining our international bases whereever we have them, and utilizing military technologies that can respond to a threat across the globe.

Once we’ve gotten that far, we can take a look at securing our borders and doing other maneuvers, because we’ll have the diplomatic freedom of movement to actually do what needs to get done. Let’s just work at getting that far.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Well, this is great. Neocons are up in arms because it’s not sufficiently limiting to free speech (cite), so at least things have finally gotten bloody in the trenches. As much as Morissey and I might disagree regarding the nature of speech, he is right about one thing: this is not the way to address this issue. This Constitutional amendment is a sham, and the courts are going to eat away at it as much as they can. If the Neocons want to really do away with free speech as anything other than spoken or printed words, they need to be hitting the judges, not the symptoms of it. The problem is that people who want to be anti-American and burn flags will always find a new way to get around it — they already have (cite).

Admittedly, in a more benign setting, I might be persuaded to vote for a Constitutional amendment stating “The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States” (cite), but this amendment wasn’t put forward in order to keep people like Kid Rock from wearing US flags or stop parachuters dragging their flag parachute across the ground or punish suburbanites for flying their cloth flag after they let it be ripped to shreds in a hailstorm. This was put forward to reassert the frame that you either Obey or are a Traitor, and to show just how broken the spine of the Democratic party is. Since 10 have already agreed to defect (cite), I don’t exaclty have faith in the Doormatcrats as the Heroic Bastions of Freedom and Democracy, and I am really sad.

Popularity: 1% [?]

In something that’s more-or-less blindsided me, the House debated and passed a Constitutional amendment today to outlaw flag burning (cite). This is going to go onto the Senate, and it’s probably going to pass there. I am really opposed to this movement, even though I appreciate the sentiment.

Burning a flag boils my blood. As a Boy Scout and someone who has made repeated and very solemn oaths of loyalty to this company, the flag is a major issue for me. You don’t fly that thing in the dark, you don’t leave it to become battered, you don’t drag it on the floor, you don’t wear it on clothing. To burn it is the most fundamental statement of disdain for the ideals that America is based on.

This is precisely why it needs to be protected: flag-burning is anti-patriotic and unpopular speech, and that is precisely the kind of speech that needs to be protected. In burning a flag, no crime is really being committed, despite the horrible social statement being made, and so this amendment is needed to justify the thought crime. Let’s be honest: this amendment isn’t about burning a piece of cloth, but about expressing discontent with the American system. There’s no other way to make sense of it that validates its inclusion as a part of our Constitution. However, the proponents can’t come out and say that, because people would be horrified — but taking it out at the edges is just fine.

I’m disgusted with this amendment, and it will be a disgraceful part of our Constitution when it gets passed: I’m ashamed of my politicians again.

Popularity: 3% [?]