Wow, a two year investigation into the Plame “leak” case has returned so far…indictments based on Libby not telling the truth during the investigation. What about the actual leak? Well, seems strange that nothing about that came out today. The case must be very, very shaky against anyone concerning the leak if we haven’t seen even an indictment against Libby concerning it.

I think Libby was probably shooting his mouth off to Judy Miller, and covered up. If he indeed lied, he should go to jail. If this is just hair splitting to get something after two years, well, then I’m plenty disappointed in Fitzgerald.

Either way, my ability to care is getting weaker and weaker.

Well, as I expected, Harriet Miers withdrew. I certainly break no new ground in saying I expected it to happen. I’m one of a thousand people who thought the same thing.

Ms. Miers is an accomplished lawyer, with a respected career and string of awards. However, after the Justice Roberts nomination, I don’t think anyone could have lived up to the standard he set. In some strange way, Miers was the “rebound” nomination. Much too soon after the hearings of one of the most impressive legal minds I have ever heard. Justice Roberts himself only had two years of being a judge, but his legal credentials, and vast knowledge of the law, made him a slam dunk.

Bush will make a really safe choice this time I’m sure. Whether it’s a good choice, well, we’ll have to see…

My finance caught this article from one of the atheist feeds she reads, and my, oh my, it’s hard not to shift around nervously in my seat knowing I live in in Kansas. See, one of Kansas senators, Senator Brownback, was a speaker there, because of his concern for families.

Why do social conservatives have this pathological fear that gays being able to marry will somehow ruin the universe? Look, personally, I don’t like it when anyone flaunts their sexuality. It’s just as uncomfortable for me to listen to some meathead brag about how many drunk or stupid women he’s conquered, as it is to see clips of a dancing penis from gay pride parade. And even if I am uncomfortable, that’s my problem, not anyone elses.

If Brownback wants to help save the family, he ought to get his ass out of Ohio, get it back to Washington, and bury it in legislation promoting less taxes and more freedom.

My fiance was nice enough to send me this link to a story in the New York Times. While the total amount spent here is not even a speck of dust compared to the size of the federal budget, it is an illustrative example of how inefficient our federal government is at spending money. As the article states, auditors will never be able to really determine how much waste there was, because there is no accountability, almost no paper trail, and no one who really cares.

Every federal program is like this. Huge amounts of waste and inefficiency because no one cares. They don’t care because it’s not their money. If they need more, the government just creates it, either through raising taxes or issuing bonds.

I’m having an ongoing discussion over at at my political blog, Politics From Home. The desire to spend first, and ask questions later is deeply ingrained in the left, while the right talks the talk, but is too afraid to actually walk the walk.

Sigh. We need libertarians in government more than ever.

This post will not be covering anything particularly new, but I wanted to post about why I use open source software.

I have been a Linux user for years now. For a while I slipped into an Windows only environment I admit, but that was during a time when I thought the application support for Linux wasn’t up to the task of fufilling my needs.

However, I then came across an article written by a gentleman who was afraid that if he remained married to the Windows platform, sometime in the future Microsoft would basically force him to pay to access his own data because the file formats were closed. A light bulb went off in my head. I was using Outlook for my mail, Office for my documents, and, ugh, Internet Explorer because Netscape 4.7 was horrid. I immediately started moving my work, my information, my stuff, over to linux. I stopped using Outlook and started using Evolution. I bought a copy of Staroffice to deal with documents and such. And I started using Netscape on linux again. All my data was moved over into formats I could be sure would be open years in the future.

Now, years later, my Windows box is relegated to being a mixer for all my computer’s sound output and hosting the occasional Civilization III game. I use Firefox for browsing, Thunderbird for email, Gaim for instant messaging, and OpenOffice.org for my documents and such. It all works beautifully, and I know I’m using safe formats. Since OpenOffice 2.0 came out, I’ve moved everything over to the OpenDocument format, which means my documents now conform to an emerging ISO standard.

My setup would also work perfectly fine on a Windows box too. All the applications I listed are available for Windows.

To me, this has been the power and value of Open Source. There is great, free, and open software out there for people to use, and there is no longer any need to use anything from Microsoft for 90% of computer tasks. Does any student in highschool really need a copy of Word or Works? What about the parents who do their budgeting on a spreadsheet? Wouldn’t OpenOffice.org Calc work just fine? Of course it would. Open Source software creates all sorts of oppurtunities for people to really put computers to work. I will always be a big fan of the value Open Source has brought us.