Another false charity has been discovered. Money given to the charity was being funneled out to other organizations. In this instance, a youth charity was a front for other devious means.

No, I’m not talking about a Saudi Arabian charty funneling money to Al Qaeda. I’m talking about the Republicans.

Just read about a new application that can connect groups of friends in mini-p2p networks that are private and secure. This sounds a lot like WASTE or other applications. The difference between these applications is that Grouper can only stream the mp3s for you to listen to. It can however transfer other types of files.

There’s more news about this here. It should be noted that this is similar in concept to the ideas behind Mercora and Three Degrees, but something about this seems different. We’ll see if any of these can differentiate themselves in the marketplace.

Also called, I didn’t have the energy to write a well-formed post.

Can the Democrats and Republicans work out some sort of trade, like in baseball. They can have Zell Miller and we’ll take John McCain. That way the Dem’s don’t have to act like they like Zell, and McCain can finally give Bush the finger. It’d make everyone happier.

When will the Dem’s figure out that the Republicans are better at campaigning? You have to hand it to the Repub’s, they learned when Clinton whooped Bush, Sr. and Dole. Kerry shrugged it off saying, “we don’t have what Clinton had in the 90s.” Well you can if you fire Mary Beth Cahill and hire Carville, you dolt. Mary Beth Cahill’s other campaign was Al Gore’s presidential bid. Enough said.

OK, we’ll trade Zell Miller AND Mary Beth Cahill for John McCain.

Can Tim Russert’s cheeks get any fatter?

Clinton had heart surgery. Which nurses do you think wanted that rotation?

Schumacher wins another F1 title. So, I predicted wrong at the start of the season. I like F1 but when I see a red car on the first row, I don’t even watch anymore. What they should do is swap the Schumacher brother’s qualifying positions. Put Ralf in whatever spot Michael qualifies in. Everyone can pass Ralf and that’d make Michael actually have to race someone. Can you imagine… actual passing in F1…

The Passion of the Christ, or should I say the Jesus Chainsaw Massacre, is now on DVD. Remember when Titanic came out and there were all those jokes about not needing to see it because you already know how it ends…?

A recent GlobalScan poll shows that nearly every single nation on Earth wants Kerry to win the election. The only countries that wanted Bush to win are the Philippines, Nigeria and Poland. Remember when Kerry said months ago that he had talked to several leaders in other countries and they said they hoped he’d win? Then the White House demanded that he name them but Kerry refused. I’ll name them: IT’S ALL OF THEM!

The Philippines, Nigeria and Poland. I now call them the Axis of Idiots.

I’m in an odd stage in my life. At 31, married, two kids, working like a dog and rigorously fighting against becoming what I thought adults were like when I was a kid.

But as I age, an unexpected angle has taken shape, one that I could not have predicted. Most of my friends, believers in this mobile society of ours, have spread out.

Alex lives in Georgia, James lives in Mansfield. A buddy that was in my wedding lives in San Diego. Travis, in Iowa. Me, I’m in Columbus.

It’s real easy to make friends in when you’re in college. You’re around people all the time that are in the same stage in life that you are. Plus most college folk often like good ale. Two commonalities.

But how to adults make friends? That’s what I’m asking myself. Where does a married guy go to meet some new people and, well, not feel gay about it? Does one walk into a coffee shop and say, “hey, any males in here want to be friends in a perfectly heterosexual, non-gay way?”

Part of the trouble is there seems to be less commonality between people as you grow up and your life gets more and more complicated.

I’m sure part of it has to do with the fact that many of my hobbies are solitary ones. Woodworking. Down in my basement shop, surrounded by power tools isn’t a great place to meet new people. Reading non-fiction books. Again, sitting on my couch with the latest book on String Theory isn’t introducing me to new people. Xbox. Yes, the trusty Xbox. Most people I bump into at EBGames are easily half my age.

It takes me back to an old Jerry Seinfeld joke: When you’re in your 30s, maybe you don’t need new friends, you need a good retirement plan.

Maybe my 401k is my best friend.

Has anyone else noticed that when George Bush says the word “power,” it sounds an awful lot like when some dillhole redneck says “power” when he’s saying “White Power?”

Since when did it become OK to talk on a cellphone during a school class?

I have a nice dress shirt, several in fact, and the last buttonhole is horizontal instead of vertical. Why?

Despite the gargantuan efforts of the Republican National Convention, I’m not all that frightened. At least, not of terrorist activity. Not because I feel protected by the government, but because when it’s my time, it’s my time. However, the GOP’s fear tactics made me wonder something: if I lived in a city with larger targets than the local mall and/or resided in a place that had already been hit, and were afraid, would I feel safer based on the current administration’s ostensibly resolute assault on terrorism?

While many contend the only way to reduce terrorism is to create social change and decrease the conditions that breed it – poverty and military attacks among them – the current administration has done neither. Though Bush and his neo-conservative buddies have begun their first foray into world democracy, which they believe is social change, this attempt, when done via military invasion, is in actuality no different to the individuals being forced into democracy than being forced to endure some other form of government in which they have little to no input.

Case in point: in May 2003, elections took place in Mosul. However, when members of the 18-member council were selected, they were chosen by a group of approximately 200 local leaders; not via the one person, one vote system indicative of democracy (no electoral college jokes, please). This is not democracy or ‘effective’ social change. Thus, it does nothing to eliminate the conditions that breed terrorism. In fact, many would argue the incursion into an Iraq that previously had no direct government connection to terrorist activity has done nothing more than create the greatest recruiting tool the terrorists ever had.

In regard to Homeland Security, many, if not all states, have yet to receive the funds promised to adequately secure our homeland, forcing the transfer of funds from social services and public safety to homeland security tasks. According to the Center for Defense Information, only about one-third of the 2003 Pentagon budget increase over pre-September 11 numbers funds programs and activities closely related to homeland security or counterterrorism operations. Plus, the Bush effort has underfunded the Coast Guard and Bureau of Customs and Border Protection – key in protecting our borders.

As far as I can tell, a few guys with connections here and there have been arrested, though Osama is still no where to be found. And three years after 9/11, the Bush administration may now be doing something substantial, though they had to be led kicking and screaming to even accept the creation of a 9/11 Commission. But it’s taken far too long, and it comes far too close to the election to seem like an honest effort. The least he could’ve done was to have someone fired, and Tenet’s resignation doesn’t count.

So, as we edge closer to 1,000 American soldiers killed in Iraq – one of whom I knew personally – I feel no safer, and no more confident that Bush will eliminate one of the world’s oldest professions. In fact, I feel more afraid that our inadequate and locally over-intrusive, yet ineffective (Patriot Act), efforts will sacrifice the very values America is seemingly trying to defend and spread to the rest of the globe. That’s what frightens me.