Greg Hartnett

Like most dissenters, I complain a lot. I am pretty disillusioned with the system, and from a fairly early age decided that I would always stand as a dissenting voice. My wife frequently accuses me (fairly) or arguing in favor of a belief or idea that I don’t even believe in. I have always felt that the “devil’s advocate” should always be heard from. Without somebody presenting a dissenting viewpoint, how could we truly reach an informed decision.

Over the last couple of years, my disillusionment has only grown. I have never been a fan of government, and stand in a state of distrust regarding any form of authority. However, the direction of the government over the last handful of years has truly brought my blood to a boil. The complete arrogance, and lack of accountability of the current administration, as well as the short-sightedness of their actions, have brought me to a point in life that I feel I can no longer idly sit by. No longer can I simply curse “the man”, and live my life the way I want. As a father and citizen of this planet, I feel that it is my obligation to do something. SOMETHING. I don’t have any grand illusions of changing the world, bringing about world peace, curing cancer, or solving world hunger. I just can’t stand the idea of doing nothing but complaining. That actually makes me worse doesn’t it? If I realize there is a problem, and know that there are things that could be done, and then choose to not act. Wouldn’t that make me almost equally culpable? At at a minimum, I should put up or shut up.

Today I decided to put up. I have decided that for the next year, 52 weeks in all, each week I will participate in at least one activism related activity. I will note each activity here, and let anybody who may be interested know of any way in which he/she could participate.

Tonight, I emailed my state representatives telling them that I was tired of the gun laws in this country. There is a new law being steamrolled through congress, S.397 I wrote my representatives telling them that if they vote in favor of the “Firearms Manufacturers Protection bill”, that they would lose my vote. I found out about the bill online, and discovered that the folks over at the Brady Campaign have made a standardized template that will automatically mail your letter to your Representative and Senators.

If you haven’t been squeezed too thin, you may want to consider donating some of your hard earned cash. Every bit helps.

now playing:
Big Cheese from the album “Bleach” by Nirvana

About a week ago, during a late night work session, I dropped what I believe was a little piece of rice onto my space bar. Instead of screwing around with it, I tried blowing it out. Instead of flying out, the damn thing flew right under. as I have become accustomed to a Dell laptop, I tried to just pop off the space bar, expecting it would come right off, and easily slip back into place. Instead, my tinkering only made matters worse.

I had to subsequently drop by my local Apple retailer, to see if they would have any luck with it. After one of the “genius bar” reps had a look, he told me they would have to replace the keyboard. Unfortunately, after trying to replace the keyboard, the system didn’t recognize it, and my beloved laptop had to be shipped back to the manufacturer. To lessen my pain, they sent me home with a cute little iBook G4. Not a bad starter model, but pales in comparison to what I have become accustomed to. Using my new .mac account, i was able to retrieve all the important information I needed, and aside from the slower response and diminished viewing area, the iBook gets a thumbs up (as does the Apple customer service team)

Counting down the days till the big dog comes home…

Now playing:
Only from the album “With Teeth” by Nine Inch Nails

I completed the first steps of transitioning this blog. After much investigating, a friend told me about Midphase - they seem to be blog friendly, and were offering a special discount for Wordpress users.

The setup process was pretty painless, though due to the overwhelming amount of online fraud, they make you jump through a couple of hoops to verify the account. As a merchant, I empathize. After DNS transferred, I was able to seamlessly add Wordpress their intuitive cPanel.

I have the account set up, the DNS set up, the latest version of Wordpress installed. Because of the time, I think I will wait until tomorrow night to begin the import. Need some food and sleep…

Oh yeah, the new site is Greg Hartnett - that’s me.

Now Playing:
Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain from the album “Red Headed Stranger” by Willie Nelson

After enduring the frustrations on hosting with Blogger, I have decided to host my blog on it’s own domain. It is not simply that I am dissatisfied with the limitations of the Blogger interface, I have additional needs that a simple third-party platform can’t provide. So, in the course of the next couple of weeks, I will go through the process of hosting, development, transfer, and import into a Wordpress interface.

I have read a few other people complaining lately about various Blogger related issues. Some notable reads:

Google: Kill Blogspot Already!!!
Google Goings On

Now Playing:
The Painter from the album “Prairie Wind” by Neil Young

In the year 1832, with American expansionism at its peak, North America was a dangerous place to be an Indian. Under president Jackson, and his successor Martin Van Buren, more than 70,000 Indians east of the Mississippi were forced westward. Most moved, some stayed, and some fought. When Chief Black Hawk of the Sauk and Fox Indians of Illinios was captured, he made the following speech in surrender:

I fought hard. But your guns were well aimed. The bullets flew like birds in the air, and whizzed by our ears like the wind through the trees in the winter. My warriors fell around me… The sun rose dim on us in the morning, and at night it sunk in a dark cloud, and looked like a ball of fire. That was the last sun that shone of Black Hawk… He is now a prisoner to the white men… He has done nothing for which an Indian ought to be ashamed. He has fought for his countrymen, the squaws and papooses, against white men, who came year after year, to cheat them and take away their lands. You know the cause of our making war. It is known to all white men. They ought to be ashamed of it. Indians are not deceitful. The white men speak bad of the Indian and look at him spitefully. But the Indian does not tell lies. Indians do not steal.

An Indian who is as bad as the white men could not live in our nation; he would be put to death, and eaten up by the wolves. The white men are bad schoolmasters; they carry false books, and deal in false actions; they smile in the face of the poor Indian to cheat him; they shake them by the hand to gain their confidence, to make them drunk, to deceive them, and ruin our wives. We told them to leave us alone, and keep away from us; they followed on, and beset our paths, and they coiled themselves among us, like the snake. They poisened us by their touch. We were not safe. We lived in danger. We were becoming like them, hypocrites and liars, adulterous lazy drones, all talkers and no workers…

The white men do not scalp the head; but they do worse - they poison the heart… Farewell, my nation!… Farewell to Black Hawk.

During his pursuit, after Chief Black Hawk had raised the white flag of surrender, the American soldiers fired upon him, killing women and children as well as warriors (a common practice for soldiers of the day). Black Hawk fled, and was captured by Sioux trackers, commissioned by the Army. He died in October, 1837.

More Reading:

Black Hawk War
Socialism and Liberation
Victims of Genocide?

Far be it for me to ever advocate the infringement of somebody’s rights. Additionally, it is very infrequent that I find myself on the same side of the church. However, the current situation at Kellenberg High School intrigues me.

However naive it may be to think that the “bacchanalian” activities are limited to this one night of the year, there does come a point when somebody has to say “enough is enough”. I commend Brother Kenneth M. Hoagland for taking a stand. As Kellenberg High sits directly across the street from my offices, I am all too familiar with the decadence that Brother Hoagland speaks of. The lifestyle of the average Long Island teen is far from average, and these kids will be poorly prepared for life outside of the nest.

I wonder what will stir up more of a controversy - his anti-sex stance, or his anti-consumerism message..

Now Playing:
Michelle from the album “Rubber Soul [UK]” by The Beatles

I had to go to my local Apple shop to replace a power supply that got fried via a surge through an outlet at home. I was terrified that I had screwed up something inside, but as it turns out, the power supply is equipped to handle the entire surge, and takes the damage to protect all internal circuitry. I was pleased as pie to learn that no damage had befallen my beloved laptop and even more so to hear that it was covered under the standard Apple warranty.

So while I was there, I took advantage of the off-hours crowd (or lack thereof) and spoke for awhile with a sales rep. I explained to the guy that as a lifelong PC user, it felt so foreign to me to be running without any virus protection. He told me that he had not heard of anybody over the last three years that became infected with a virus. Instead of worrying about a virus, he informed me, I should protect myself against future data loss. In order to protect myself from any catastrophic data loss, I purchased a copy of .Mac (for a recent Apple buyer discount). It has a really cool backup feature that lets you choose, and schedule, which files to backup to Apple servers. At the pre-selected time(s) my computer will now automatically copy selected files to a server hosted at Mac.com, where I could retrieve any important documents. Additionally, a .Mac subscription comes with calendar sync, address book sync, email, and a homepage. Nice add-ons…

Now Playing:
B.Y.O.B. from the album “Mezmerize” by System of a Down

Oct 14, 1964 Dr. Martin Luther King is selected to receive the the Nobel Prize, at the age of 35.

Astounding that he could have accomplished so much in such a short period. Oh, were Dr. King around today. One can only imagine the state of the civil rights movement; the strides that could have been made. The world could use a binding voice to bring together the masses.

The state of racism throughout the world is truly atrocious. As I read stories of white cops beating up old black men, South African class warfare, or scapegoat of the month, WIlliam Bennett, my heart is heavy with the constant reminder of the savagery of mankind, and the widespread intolerance of other’s lifestyles and customs. What a long road we have ahead of us…

Now Playing:
What If I Do? from the album “In Your Honor” by Foo Fighters

The blogging phenomenon has really only just begun. Most people on the fringes of the internet (users like my wife and mother, even users like my father) have no clue as to what a blog is. Mention RSS to them, and I may as well be talking Swahili.

For those that do know about blogging, they still see blogging as an online diary. Nothing more than the thoughts, rants, and sometimes insightful musings of some geek. And granted, there is a large portion of the blogging community that deservedly falls into that category (myself included). However, there is a growing number of business applications for blogging, and the corporations are catching on.

Blogging networks are being acquired, and new networks are popping up to replace them. There is an entire industry springing up around the medium, and opportunities abound. I have become a fan of ProBlogger - incorporating some of the tips into some of our blogs. I am interested to see what type of revenue stream we can generate with our little family of blogs. Hopefully enough to keep it rolling.

Thus far, my favorite of our blogs, The News Blog, has no revenue model in place. I am unsure as to how to make some money with this site - not even have it be a cash cow, just enough to keep it out of the red. At least the site is making some noise - nice to get a group of people together to discuss important ideas. It is nice that we live in an age where a dissenting voice can be broadcast to so many for so little.

Now Playing:

San Francisco Bay Blues
from the album “Unplugged” by Eric Clapton

Tonight I saw the light at the end of the tunnel.

I have known for years that Bush was completely incompetent. I have told anybody willing to listen how he is ruining the country, destroying the environment, and making the entire world a more dangerous place. In a time when the stakes are higher than at any point in human history, our nation finds itself at the mercy of what can only be described as a fascist.

During tonight’s episode of Bill Maher, right-wing mouthpiece Ann Coulter actually said that she was turning against President Bush. Throughout all his mistakes, lies, crimes, and misdeeds, the recent nomination of the underwhelming Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, was enough to send Coulter packing. When asked is she would turn against Bush on this issue, Coulter replied affirmatively.

Could this be the actual turning point to bring down the Bush Crime Family? The Republicans sure have a lot of fires to put out - the Karl Rove CIA fiasco, the Tom Delay indictments, the ineptitude of response to hurricane Katrina, the quagmire in Iraq, the spiraling deficit, the cronyism, yada, yada, yada…

Bush unequivocally gets my vote as the worst President ever.

In his never ending mission to embarrass all logical Americans, the BBC reports that President Bush said the God told him to invade Iraq and Afghanistan.

According to the report, Bush says:

‘God would tell me, ‘George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan’.
“And I did, and then God would tell me, ‘George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq…’ And I did.
“‘And now, again, I feel God’s words coming to me, ‘Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East.’ And by God I’m gonna do it’

Does anybody else see the irony in Bush fighting fundamentalist, right wing, extremists?

Now playing:
Yellow Ledbetter from the album “3/09/03: North America - #37 State College” by Pearl Jam

President Bush will use any excuse to flex his military might. During his press conference yesterday, Bush appealed to Congress to grant him additional military powers to deal with future pandemics through quarantine and martial law.

In lieu of martial law, and the unprecedented havoc it would create on the US, I propose either one of the following two options:

1. Have everybody in the country move to Arkansas
2. Appoint Gary the Retard the new bird flu czar

Now Playing:

Slither from the album “Contraband” by Velvet Revolver

With the current enactment of the “Shoot First” law in the state of Florida, Governor Jeb Bush solidifies his spot as the village idiot of the Bush Crime Family. A further step towards the right, but good old Jeb refuses to let those pesky Brady Campaigners ruin his plans.

Groups of volunteers have arrived at Miami International Airport handing out fliers to arriving tourists, warning them of the new law. Bush accuses the dissenters of participating in political games. Ha!

Related articles:

Vacation in Florida at Your Peril
Tourists to Florida Get a Warning as Greeting
Gun Enthusiasts Back New Florida Law

Now Playing:

Divertimento In D Major, K. 136 from the album “Serenades & Divertimenti” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

A few days ago I applied for an affiliate relationship at Apple’s iTunes. I figured since I am such an advocate of the service, and already incorporate them pretty well into my site, I may as well provide links to the songs directly instead of through some third party site.

So if you happen to see something here that strikes your fancy, feel free to pick it up, I don’t mind …

Now Playing:

Down With the Sickness from the album “The Sickness” by Disturbed