A perfect example of the corruption inherent in our election process became apparent today with the endorsement of Rudy Giuliani by Pat Robertson (television evangelist extraordinaire). Essentially, Robertson chose the candidate he believed was most likely to win — disregarding the man’s thoroughly non-christian voting record and personal life.

All people – not just those with religious agendae – should support the candidate they agree with the most. Don’t support Hillary when you agree with Obama because she is “more likely to win”; Support Obama if you agree with him. Likewise, do not support Giuliani when you agree more with Ron Paul — support the person YOU think will make the best candidate, and ignore the media, the statistics and others’ opinions. Look to the facts.

We need to support the right candidate, not the wealthiest, prettiest, youngest, or most popular.

When was the last time we had a president that did not have a priviledged upbringing?

I’m quite fed up with these commercials from cable companies making claims that “cable is way faster than DSL” and “cable bundles cost less than a phone line’s services”

Charter Communication and Comcast have made such claims, and they are bold faced lies.

Where I live, I can pay $50/month for 5-mbit cable internet, or $30/month for 6-mbit DSL. Hmm… which is a better deal? Which is faster??

Here’s another fact cable companies don’t want you to know: your bandwidth is oversold – cable providers sell more service than their infrastructure can support, assuming that most people will use a small fraction of their allowed bandwidth.
Yes, you can burts 10-mbit/sec, but if you sustain 10-mbit/sec for too long, they will probably place a bandwidth cap on your account.

Right along with this, you are sharing your bandwidth with everybody else in the neighborhood – if somebody decides to “abuse” their bandwidth, it will (after a point) reduce yours. The more people who have cable internet, the less you have to use.

DSL is largely immune to such shenanigans. Your connection is yours, and (as long as you live in the US) you can use all of without fear of repercussions. You can usually run servers if you feel like it (usually explicitly forbidden by cable internet providers). And most importantly, your neighbors and you are not sharing anything*.

The catch is that DSL is not as widely available as cable internet, and in some areas, DSL is slower than and more expensive than cable. But not most!

These advertisements are false, and I don’t understand why phone companies aren’t fighting back. Cable is not inherently faster than DSL – it all depends on what service level you purchase.