Rolling rally

I went to the Red Sox rolling rally yesterday! I was standing along Tremont St., near Boston Common, and I was in the second row of people. I arrived slightly after 11, and the parade didn't reach us until about 12:50. I didn't really mind the wait, though; there was plenty of excitement going on. Everyone was yelling, chanting, and throwing toilet paper from one side of the street to the other! There were a lot of cops, including a swat team, and I saw two people get arrested. The crowd started cheering whenever any vehicle went by, which was quite amusing. Whenever a police car or a cop on a bicycle went by, they would get covered in toilet paper, because it was all over the ground and was blowing around in the wind!

I was across the street from a Suffolk University dorm and an apartment building, and of course everyone who lived there watched from the windows. Some people threw toilet paper, and even candy, down to the crowd! One room in the dorm must have been inhabited by Yankee fans, because they put up a sign that read "World Series - Red Sox 7, Yankees 26."

I got a few pictures, and the best ones are below:

Congrats Sox!

Hooray! The Red Sox have won the World Series!! Congratulations to everyone on the team.

Hmm, I wonder when the Duck Tours parade is going to be...

Tancredo's baseball bet

Tom Tancredo just made a bet to Mitt Romney: If the Rockies win the World Series Mitt has to drop out of the presidential race, and if the Red Sox win Tom will drop out! Needless to say, Romney declined Tancredo's offer.

See the full story at Fox News, and go Sox!!!

World Series Game 1

Well, last time I blogged to wish the Red Sox good luck, it worked, so why not do it again? Go Sox! Beat the Rockies!

Bush's veto sustained

Wow! My third post in one day!

Well, I think it deserves mentioning that Congress failed to overturn President Bush's veto of the SCHIP bill! This is a victory for everyone who opposes socialized medicine and supports freedom from excessive government intervention. Congrats to all the representatives who stuck to their guns and voted against this bill.

Go to Reuters if you would like to read the full story.

Go Sox!

Brownback dropping out?

According to various news sources, Sam Brownback is planning to drop out of the 2008 presidential race. This is fairly disappointing, as he was among my favorite candidates. However, there are still Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo, and Duncan Hunter! I'm not sure who my favorite candidate is, but it's definitely one of those three. I'm leaning toward Paul right now, but only by a small margin.

Over at the New York Times, I saw this nifty article, a comparison of the candidates and their views on health insurance (which seems to be one of my favorite topics recently). I liked Paul and Hunter the best!

The TSA has gone too far

Remember when the TSA installed those machines at Phoenix airport that create images of people's naked bodies? Now they're trying to defend the machines, saying that "privacy is ensured through the anonymity of the image." So being seen naked doesn't violate your privacy at all, as long as the people who see you naked don't know who you are? The TSA is dead wrong. Now, I don't always agree with the ACLU, but this time I like what they had to say:

"First, this technology produces strikingly graphic images of passengers' bodies. Those images reveal not only our private body parts, but also intimate medical details like colostomy bags. That degree of examination amounts to a significant -- and for some people humiliating -- assault on the essential dignity of passengers that citizens in a free nation should not have to tolerate...They say that they are obscuring faces, but that is just a software fix that can be undone as easily as it is applied. And obscuring faces does not hide the fact that rest of the body will be vividly displayed."

Right on!

I must mention that these invasive scans are only done on passengers selected for secondary security checks. But still, everyone who can afford a plane ticket has a right to fly on a plane. Performing humiliating security procedures on innocent people is never justified.

Source: http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=202401630

P.S. I added a new link to the sidebar. It's the site of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a great organization dedicated to (among other things) fighting oppressive copyright laws. Check it out!

The Browns were tricked!

You probably heard this already, but in case you didn't, Court TV reported that Ed and Elaine Brown never voluntarily agreed to go along with the feds; they were tricked! The sneaky federal agents pretended to be supporters of the Browns, and the Browns let them into their compound. Before they knew who their guests were, Ed and Elaine were in custody. I must say, the feds were very clever, but it's still a shame that the Browns were arrested.

Bush vetoes SCHIP expansion

As expected, President Bush vetoed a bill that would pour large amounts of government money into providing health insurance for kids who have too much money to qualify for Medicaid and other government-sponsored programs. I completely agree with the president's veto. The only thing I would have done differently was publicize the decision more - Bush vetoed the bill behind closed doors without inviting any media representatives or encouraging fanfare. I wish Bush has showed more pride in his decision, as he did when he vetoed the stem cell research bill. At the moment, the Senate has enough votes to override the president's veto, but the House does not. I hope it stays that way and that socialized medicine in this country is not expanded.