In the last Democratic debate Governor Bill Richardson said:

The first thing to swear to when you take the oath of office, is to defend the Constitution, and Defend the nation from threats, foreign and domestic. So obviously national security comes first.

Of course this is completely wrong. In nearly every way. The actual Oath of office of the President of the United States is:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

No place does it mention defending the country against any threats. So that idea is out. Counter point is that the Constitution contains a portion called the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights is the blueprint for what the world largely considers Human Rights.

So the Presidential Oath of Office is only to uphold human rights, not defend the nation.

For more ranting on the subject read Jane Smiley on The Huffington Post.

My work schedule is odd. They way Thanksgiving fell into to the schedule, gave me 6 days off with a work day in the middle. So in the last 6 days I have worked 1, and I still have tomorrow off. I have spent most of it here. Working on this site which has been kind of neglected. I'm sorry for that. The archive access is now much improved. There is a search now on every page, and a tag list on all but the home page. However during the last Habari upgrade the tags from all the old posts were lost. I will have to slowly rewrite them.

Apple Pie made by my Mom

But it has been a great, relaxing vacation. I think I'm going to do a bunch of Christmas shopping tomorrow. I never like to go out this last weekend, because everybody else in the country does. Waiting for Monday will avoid the heavy crowd, allowing me to shop in peace. I wish everyone easy holiday shopping this season!

So for the last few months I have a couple of my friends tell me You know when I leave a comment on your site nothing happens. Then I had to explain that for some reason comments broke. But now that I finally fixed the problem, I don't hear anything from anybody. I thought I would have 25,986,568,125 comment's by now.

This is forcing me to shun you all. I'm sorry but you all have left me no other options. If you ever were my friend, you are no longer. Unless you re-up for the privilege by posting a comment. I don't need anything fancy. Something as simple a Hey I'm still here, I love you, and pledge my undying loyalty to you! Please. Please! Don't stop being my greatest friend of this lifetime. I won't be able to bear the thought of existence without you're gloriousness. Something like that would be plenty to appease me.

I hope to hear from all 4 of you soon.

Good morning everybody! I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving!

As I hinted to yesterday, today we have a new HD Television in the house. Specifically the Samsung HL-T6187S. A 61", LED, DLP TV. That means it's a projection television, not a flat panel like LCD or Plasma. We chose that because it gives the best picture for the money. A full 1080p set for just under $2000. Very few LCD of Plasma can do native 1080p, and those are nearly 3 times the price.

This set is beautiful. We were able to watch a couple of HD shows, via the new cable box we picked up yesterday. It is a significant upgrade from or previous set up. I hate that I have to wait for this damned HD DVD vs. Blu-Ray debacle, to see native 1080p content. I do expect HD DVD to come out on top, but prudence (whoever she is) suggests that we wait longer. We probably won't.

Things aren't perfect roses yet. I didn't really expect them to be. I just hoped really hard. Figuring out all the aspect ratio quirks of the cable box and television, took some time. The new DVR has a different software package that has bugged out 3 times in the last couple of days. I'm also hoping really hard, they fix themselves soon.

I'm betting the Thanksgiving parade in Manhattan will look great tomorrow.