Mike Coffman – Birther, Liar, or Both?

Posted on May 17, 2012 by CDave

I saw this story on our local news last night.

I don’t know whether Barack Obama was born in the United States of America. I don’t know that

The quote is from Republican House of Representative member Mike Coffman at a fund raiser.  Of course 4 days later, when he’s called on it, he says he “misspoke”. Meanwhile, all the good Republicans who heard him, and applauded his comment, went into the night with his words in their heads.

Coffman isn’t a crazy forum poster, or some nut with a sign on the street.  He’s a member of the House of Representatives. This isn’t 2007-2008, it’s 2012.

Of course I don’t know, but I don’t think he “misspoke”. I just think his brain works the same as almost half the Republicans who actually believe what he said.

This isn’t a complicated, ideological subject like whether trickle down economics is beneficial to society, or whether the environmental and financial benefits of federal support of wind power make sense. This is a simple, verified, fact.  A fact that 45% of Republicans, including this Representative Coffman, refuse to believe.

Yet, pin them down, like Coffman was and he says he misspoke.  Really Mike?  Either he really believes what he says or isn’t cognitive enough to know what he’s saying when he says it.   Either way, how on earth do such people get elected?

He went on to say

But I do know this, that in his heart, he’s not an American. He’s just not an American.

Again, Really Mike?  It’s not good enough to say you disagree with Obama’s solutions to the problems facing our country, you need to double down on stupid and say “He’s just not an American”?  How should a person with a functioning brain react?  Why would anyone listen any further or believe anything else he says.

Actually, there is another option to why people like Mike Coffman say things like he did.  He’s pandering to the moron vote.  He doesn’t believe what he says, but thinks lying will help his cause.

Republicans like Coffman are poisoning the political process with their bullshit and many Americans are either complicit or too stupid know any better.  The election should be about who has the best ideas to lead this country.  When people like Coffman prey on the ignorance of voters, and/or pander to the crazies, one can’t help but wonder if it’s because they know they can’t win an intellectual battle of ideas.

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CenturyLink – Good Riddence

Posted on May 10, 2012 by CDave

 Looking to save some money, late last year I switched from Comcast (aka XFINITY) to CenturyLink.  I ended up with the 12Mb option, which actually gave me a consistent 11.4Mb, (download speeds).  I won’t go into the details, but when bundling my Verizon cell package, I was saving about $15/mo.  I also received a $100 prepaid Visa card which I used to purchase a combination DSL and wireless modem.

The price was good.

The service….not so much.

The speed was consistent and acceptable, the problem, the minor nit, were the drops.  I would go through days where the service would drop for short periods.  Many times only 10-15 seconds.  Others slightly longer.  This was an annoyance, but that’s it.

Then in March, there was an approximate 20 hour outage.  Turns out there was a hardware failure and equipment needed to be shipped over night.  Seriously?  Not a spare in the Denver area?

Having been in computer related support for most of my career, I understand stuff happens.  What you must plan for is how to react.  Having spares is a normal way of doing business. But not CenturyLink, at least in Colorado.

While not thrilled, I accepted that sometimes it’s a perfect storm of crap and the consumer is left without the service for which they pay.

Then on Tuesday afternoon (May 8), my service goes down again.  Once again, I find out it’s a hardware problem and once again, I’m waiting until the next morning for the service to return.  This time, the outage was 17 hours.

At this point, Curmudgeon Dave’s two strike rule was invoked and I set in motion the move back to Comcast.  I will talk about that process along with my recommendation regarding how to piss of a customer who’s already pissed off because of poor service in a later post.

Okay…Now it’s Thursday and I’m anxiously awaiting my package from Comcast (probably Monday or Tuesday), and my service goes down again.  This time, service is returned in record (HA) time.  I’m only down for 5.5 hours.   I’m posting this in the hour since service returned.

So let’s recap.  So far in 2012, my service has been down for 20 hours, 17 hours and 5.5 hours or a total of 42.5 hours or 2550 minutes.   Since January 1, there have been 188,500 minutes.

Here’s a hint of my next post.  While I waited on hold the many times I called for status during the 2550 minutes of outage, one number kept being repeated into my ear.

99.99% Network Availability.

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Watch This Space…

Posted on February 27, 2012 by CDave

It’s been months, many months, since I’ve last shared my thoughts, hopes, inspirations, dreams, drivel (often all in the same post and often indistinguishable from one another).

It’s time to fire up the random thought generation furnace, stoke it with the fires of logic and reason and feed the creativity engine with the hot coals of hyperbolic rhetoric.

It’s time to get back to work.  Watch This Space for updates on the following:

  • Pandigital Planet Tablet
  • Cutting the Cord – Cheap TV
  • Colorado Rapids 2012 Season
  • The 2012 Election
  • The Economy
  • Surprise Topics to be Announced…

 

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Justice Comes to the Women’s World Cup

Posted on July 10, 2011 by CDave

Anyone who follows soccer knows what a cruel sport it can be.  We’ve seen too many games where a team will dominate only to fall short due to an opportunistic or lucky goal, or perhaps a poor or bad no call.

I’m thrilled to have watched two games the past two days where justice truly was served.  Yesterday, France dominated England but it was England scoring, against the run of play and looked to come up winners,  A late goal and then a win in penalty kicks allowed France to prevail.

Now today, the U.S., who admittedly were a bit lucky to benefit from an own goal, found themselves down 2-1 after a controversial penalty call in the box, which included a red card.  In addition the U.S. keeper (Hope Solo) saved the PK but incredibly the ref demanded a rekick for what appeared to be no legitimate reason.  Brazil converted for a 1-1 tie.  Then Brazil scored the go ahead goal after a clear offside call was missed.

Abby Wambach tied the game in extra time added on to the second OT period and the U.S. prevailed in PK’s.  At that point the U.S. had been playing with just 10 players for almost an hour.

To a lessor extent, Japan’s win over host Germany was also deserved but also seemed unlikely.

It’s nice to see a tournament where good things are happening to good teams.

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SportyPal Goes Pro

Posted on March 14, 2011 by CDave

It’s been a while since I wrote about SportyPal.  However, March has come in like a lamb so I pumped up the tires, strapped on my helmet and started riding.

Since my last use of SportyPal, they have released a “pro” version which, unlike the non-pro version, costs money for some added features.  I downloaded the “pro” version and went for a ride.  Like the other version, it worked as designed.

I honestly don’t see a lot of differences, other then cosmetic ones.  I do like the integration with the audio player.  I’m not so sure of the value of the work outs using automobiles, planes, and paragliding????  but then again, I’m just a simple guy.

On the nit picky side, I find the method to select an On or Off setting a bit unusual. On and Off appear on what, to me, look 3D buttons.  But they don’t behave like tradition buttons i.e. the button “pushed” in, is in fact, off.   What makes it confusing is you don’t actually push “in” On or Off, as pushing either simply toggles the selection, so, for me, it wasn’t intuitive when an option was On or Off.I also don’t like that it doesn’t remember the type of workout I used previously.

The version I downloaded, 1.3, is supposed to implement automatic pausing.  I nice feature when you come to a stop sign or traffic light.   The blog states:

Added automatic pausing. If you enable the Autopause option in settings, your workouts will pause automatically if you drop below a certain speed, and then resume when you start moving faster.

“Certain speed”?  I suppose that makes sense to someone, but huh?  I didn’t see an option to designate the speed at which it pauses.  For me, who uses the cycling and walking options, the speed at which to pause would be ZERO, like when I’m stopped.  I suppose that option wouldn’t make much sense if you’re paragliding.

An additional option that might come in handy is the ability to keep the screen on.

It does integrate now with a bluetooth heart monitor, but doesn’t allow me to track calorie usage when riding my stationary bike.  There is a button labeled “Indoor” (which ironically uses a dumbell as an icon) which might apply, but it requires the paid version.

Since there is a free trial, I gave it a go.  What a mess.  First, it needs to connect to their server.  After a bit you see 4 options, (no graphic)  I pressed New Workout (no indication I pressed it).  I’m asked to enter a Name.  I press the field and normally an app will display the soft keyboard, nope.  So I open to type in the hard keyboard…it tries to connect to a servers again???…wait…wait…wait…bored…close keyboard and go back.

This time I press the dumb bell (the irony is getting personal) and then press Custom exercises.  I see a left arrow, a trash can and plus sign.  I press the plus sign and see a list of Reps, Weights, Distance and Time with teenie tiny check boxes. I check (I think) Distance and press an icon which looks like a piece of paper with a an arrow across it. Nothing.

I decide to press the menu hard button.  It has an option to “Reload” so I “Reload” and viola, the screen formats (sorta) better, there a buttons with text now instead of just text.  So I select Distance…nothing.  Maybe I need to enter a workout name…no soft keyboard, opening hard keyboard and I’m waiting….waiting….

Start over.

Never mind – I tried other things all without success.

This was indeed a trial, of my patience….

Anyway.  SportyPal Pro, the free, non trial, version works great.  It does what I want, but then again so did the previous version.  Perhaps they will make the dumb bell option such that this dumb bell can figure out why I need to pay for it.

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Colorado Rapids Preview – Part 2

Posted on February 27, 2011 by CDave

Returning Players

As I mentioned in my last blog, the Rapids will return the starting 11 that won the 2010 MLS Cup.  The Rapids use the traditional 4-4-2 formation. The defense is Matt Pickens in goal, Kosuke Kimura, Marvell Wynne, Drew Moor and Anthony Wallace across the back.  The mid fielders are  Brian Mullan, Jeff Larentowitcz, Pablo Mastroeoni, and Jamie Smith and the forwards are Conor Casey and Omar Cummings.

The teams strength is up the middle as JL and Pablo work well together defending, and getting the loose ball and starting the offense, which more often then not means either a mid range ball to Casey or Omar or sending the wide to the mids down the touch line.  The Rapids don’t employ lengthy buildups, preferring to strike quick.

Defensively, what the may players lack in faultless play, they make for in their remarkable ability to recover.  Marvell Wynne especially has prevented many easy chances with his quickness and speed.

New Players

As mentioned last week, the teams biggest weakness was it’s lack of quality depth.  Coach Smith has done, on paper, a great job addressing that concern.  In the midfield, Jamie Smith and Mullan are good possession mid fielders, but lack speed.  Coach Smith has brought in Sanna Nyassi from Seattle.  Sanna has excellent speed and quickness and is very explosive towards the goal.   Joseph Nane, recent of Toronto, will provide a tough backup for JL and Pablo.  Replacing Julian Baudet is Tyrone Marshall who, while not the imposing physical presence Julian was, is good in the air and tough on the ball.   As I write this, the Rapids are negotiating with Hull City for Caleb Folan. Caleb accompanied the Rapids on their pre-season trip to Arizona recently, scoring a goal and playing games with both Conor Casey and Omar Cummings.

The addition of Nyassi and Nane represent a big step forward in quality depth.  Adding Folan would be another huge plus.

Tactics

I saw an interesting analysis the other day regarding midfield tactics.  The article mentions the Rapids technique of “funnel-and-press” and how they’ve used it to success.  One positive thing mentioned was the Rapids completed an MLS best 83% of their passes.   According to Matthew Doyle:

That’s at least partially because they attempted fewer passes than most other teams, but also because they have Jeff Larentowicz sweeping and distributing in front of his defense.

Some (like me) might argue the high percentage might also be due to the fact the defenders do an awful lot of passing among themselves before moving the ball forward ;) .

It’s no secret, I prefer a different style of play.  But given the choice, I’ll take the results we saw last year.  But due to money constraints, MLS teams simply will not be able to  build a team with 11 highly skilled possession oriented,  players, at least any time soon.

Ever since the Designated Player rule, I have argued, against the wind,  having such a player (or recently, players) doesn’t guarantee success.   First, the additional money, while huge by MLS standards, still isn’t enough to get quality players in their prime.  Second, but more importantly, it’s a team game and adding one,  two, or even three as the New York Red Bulls did last year, doesn’t a championship make.  Unless I’m mistaken, as of now no team with a designated player has won the MLS Cup.  That will change, if for no reason than the odds.

The secret to wining is getting players who fit into and believe and can execute the coaches system (assuming, of course, the system is a good enough one to win).   That’s what Gary Smith and his Rapids did in 2010. Oh yeah, in addition to that, you need the ball to roll the right way and a bit of good fortune to boot.  The Rapids finished 2010 with all three.

What fortunes will 2011 hold?

At first glance, despite the constant hype about the L.A. Galaxy, it doesn’t look to me like the Western Conference is any stronger then last year.  FC Dallas doesn’t appear to be stronger, nor Real Salt Lake or San Jose.   In fact, I don’t see anything to suggest the Rapids couldn’t compete for the top spot.

Returning the starting team that won the 2010 MLS Cup is a good start, but is it enough?  Just a few things which could go wrong and send the team backwards include:

  • Playing like they are the returning champions instead of with a passion to defend.  That means working hard and playing smart instead of expecting results.
  • Key injuries. They are a bit deeper this year, but at this point, losing one or more of Omar, Casey, JL, Pablo, Marvell or Drew would be very painful.
  • More about depth.  The addition of the champions league games means more chance for fatigue and injuries.  Plus the Gold Cup will mean Omar will miss games playing for the Jamaican National Team and maybe some other Rapids players may earn spots on the U.S. National Team.  The new players need to play close to the level of those they replace.

According to the count down widget on the right, the first home game is less then 20 days out.  The legendary and MLS best tailgate 3 hours sooner.  We’ll learn a bit more about the team over the next few week as they take a trip to Southern California and play some more pre-season games.  We also should here if the Rapids are able to sign Folan.

MLS soccer is almost here, it’s time to break out the jerseys, scarves and hats, but leave the vuvuzelas at home because word is they’ve been banned from Dicks Sporting Goods Park.  

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Colorado Rapids – 2011 Preview

Posted on February 19, 2011 by CDave

The 2011 Colorado Rapids season is about a month away.  The season opener is Saturday March 19th at Dicks Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City, Colorado.  I will be there.

My last post on the Rapids was over two months ago on December 17th.   My last post on the Rapids forum on BigSoccer.com was on December 18th.  The Rapids 2010 MLS Cup championship was less then a month old and already there was a lot of negative emotions being displayed on the forum.  A new tagline was selected which, rather then celebrate the accomplishment,  provided a back handed compliment wrapped in sarcasm.  Now…Normally, I would applaud such a thing but here we were, the moment all Rapids fans have been waiting still fresh in our memories, but instead of celebration, choose to forget the good and focus on the bad.

Initially, I got caught up in discussions but decided instead  step back and spend more time with other interests.  Soccer and the Rapids still entered my mind, but the thoughts were of Conor Casey, stretching his right leg and foot far enough to poke the tying goal into the net.  Or of Mac Kandji nutmegging his defender and ricocheting the ball off George Johns into the net for the winning goal before falling down clutching his torn ACL.  I was picturing the Rapids players, led by Pablo Mastroeni hoisting the cup high over their heads.  Later it was watching the 2010 Denver Parade of Light and seeing Kosuke Kimura riding in one of the lead cars with the cup at his side.

Those were good thoughts, great thoughts and memories.  This was no time to get back into the mud.  There would be plenty of time for that in 2011. ;)

2011 – Defending Champions

Before the 2010 season I reflected on 2009 and tried to identify the areas the Rapids needed to improve to become a contender.  The Rapids failed to make the play-offs for the 3rd consecutive year, there were a lot of opportunities to improve.  The 2010 Rapids won the MLS Cup.  What’s to improve, what’s to talk about?

Coach Gary Smith must have felt the same way because he managed to keep his entire starting lineup as well as a few regular substitutes.   Clearly, Smith felt the starting 11, good enough to win in 2010, were good enough to win in 2011.  It’s tough to argue with that.  The team that went through the play-offs to the Cup, was a different team then started the year.  Jamie Smith and Brian Mullan were playing the wings and Anthony Wallace was playing left mid.  Further, it took Omar Cummings half the year to settle in and boy did he ever, becoming one of the most dangerous forwards in MLS.  It also took half the season for Jeff Larentowicz and Pablo to become real comfortable together, allowing them to alternate defending and attacking.

The team that ended the 2010 season was a pretty solid team.  Not every player was an all star, but there are no clear weak links either.  Having the same core of players, settling in and being comfortable playing together and within the system designed by the coach goes a long way towards making a team successful.  Without any obvious weak links, making changes to improve the team is risky.

An area the Rapids did need improvement was with their depth, quality depth.  Winning the Cup means the Rapids are playing in the CONCACAF Champions League.  That prestigious tournament demands a lot from the players.  The tournament brings long distance travel and mid week games, tough games.  Being successful requires quality depth, depth the 2010 Rapids did not possess. One only needs to look at the home D.C. United game to see what happened when the Rapids tried to rely on their depth.

The Rapids actually began to address their depth issue in the latter half of 2010 by acquiring Kandji.  Since the championship, they’ve further added depth with Joseph Nane, a tough defensive midfielder and Sanna Nyassi, a speedy outside mid and forward.   Both are very capable players who will improve the depth.  Coach Smith has also been looking at a few other players.  Two who made an impact during pre-season games in Arizona are Steven Emory, a local product out of Metro State and Ireland international Caleb Folan.

Preseason Rankings

I was amused to read the MLS Preseason Power Rankings a few weeks back.  The Colorado Rapids, 2010 MLS Cup Champions were ranked 5th.  Behind the team they beat for the Cup and  behind two teams beaten by teams the Rapids beat on in the play-offs.  Neither FC Dallas (FCD) nor Real Salt Lake have added any notably players.  FCD, in fact, lost Dax McCarty, Jeff Cunningham and Atiba Harris.  Two starters and a dangerous scorer. Yet they are ranked ahead of the Rapids.  Also ahead of the Rapids are the L.A. Galaxy and New York Red Bulls.  Both teams are darlings of the media as they have multiple marque Designated Players.  Never mind they were both upstaged by FCD and the Rapids last year.

Next week I’ll talk about the changes made for this years team and how they might impact the Rapids as they defend their title.

About the picture – I like having a picture at the top of these posts.  Sometimes it’s obvious, to me, what picture to use.  Often, however, I look for something “different”.  I Google (Google Image) a phrase which describes, to some extent, the theme of the post and then pick the most interesting or maybe the wackiest one I find.  To date, my favorite is the one for this post, a preview of the Rapids first play-off game against the Crew.  Not only was it heavy on wacky, but when we left the stadium after the game we received discount coupons to some kind Ozzy Osbourne event.  The picture above is one of those obvious ones.

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Cutting the Cord – Postlog

Posted on February 6, 2011 by CDave

Cutting the Cord – The First Week

It’s been a week since we “Cut the Cord”.

What’s changed?  We’ve watched the normal ABC, CBS & NBC content as well as a little from FOX.  We’ve also started streaming Internet content including HGTV & ESPN3 (From Kylo.tv), and misc. shows from Netflix and from Boxee.  Previously we used the Wii for Netflix, but using Boxee simplifies getting there a bit.

Issues So Far

No show stoppers at this point, but there has been a learning curve.

Using SageTV means a new remote and new ways to record, view and maneuverer around.  One feature of Directv which we took for granted was the Directv remotes behavior when fast forwarding.  When fast forwarding on the Directv remote, when you stop, the remote will backup the recording a bit to account for the delay of recognizing when you need to stop and actually stopping.  This meant you almost always started watching again right where you want.  With SageTV we end up needing to rewind a bit.  Oh the horrors :)

We expected watching shows on the Internet would be more work and it is, so that wasn’t a surprise.  On thing that did surprise us was the huge variance in volume of Internet between show and commercials.  I’m not just talking about your “normal” loud commercial, I’m talking blaring loud.  Plus there is even variance between shows.  Also, while the quality is well below HD, it hasn’t been distractingly bad.

We haven’t settled in one streaming entry point software as each seem to have their niche.  At this point  we’re most using Kylo,  Boxee and Netflix although we’ve used some Hulu.

Regarding navigation, The Loop is nice, but still harder then a “normal” remote.  Actually, it’s not The Loop that’s the issue so much as number of “clicks” you need to finally view a show.

I’ll close out this series in the next few weeks with a wrap up off the technology, costs and how our viewing experience has changed.  After the first week, I can say, we survived and see no reason to turn back.

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Cutting The Cord – Almost There

Posted on January 26, 2011 by CDave

I cancelled Directv today.  They were so sad.  They tried to entice me with getting less so I could pay less.  Maybe throw in some free pay TV.  No thanks, I politely responded.

Today I started to fine tune the Zino and SageTV HD300.  Tomorrow The Loop arrives, hopefully the tool which simplifies navigating the Internet.  The loop is a mouse which doesn’t require a “mouse pad”.  You hold it in the air and it responds to your hand movements to move the pointer.

The Loop arrives with TurboTax Deluxe which reminds me I hope we can escape on the plus side again.  But that’s another story for another day.

As I’ve waited for this week to arrive, I’ve kept my eye open for alternative Internet streaming options.  Specifically, I’ve been hoping that GoogleTV would progress to make it an option for us in 2011.  It might as the GoogleTV App store is expected to open in the next couple of months.  I’m hoping for a SageTV App which would greatly simplify my setup.  I’m also hoping for some competition in the set top box space for the Logitech Revue which I believe is priced about $100 more then it should.  So far GoogleTV is more promise then reality.  I’m hoping by the end of this year, we’ll see some real competition along with some good Apps.

I’ll post my thoughts after we go through our first week without subscription TV in what seems like forever.  It might as well be forever as I can’t remember when we didn’t have cable (or most recently satellite).  I’ll summarize what I’ve spent and compare it to what I’m saving.  Despite buying The Loop, I’m saving even more as Directv announce a rate increase which would have cost me about $72 more this year.  The Loop was $39 including the LivingSocial $20 for $10 deal at Amazon.com

Stay Tuned.

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Business As Usual is Dead, Long Live…

Posted on January 6, 2011 by CDave

Well you know the rest.  I won’t offer much of my own opinions in this blog, I will let quotes and links do most of the talking.  Like last time, I urge you to read the links and research other stores about these topics.  Any emphasis below is mine.

John Boehner – Speaker of the House – June 05, 2011

The people voted to end business as usual, and today we begin to carry out their instructions

About 12 hours earlier regarding a $2,500 a ticket dinner

If incoming GOP freshmen were hoping to bring fiscal responsibility and ‘family values’ to Washington, they may have gotten off to an interesting start,” conservative blogger Matt Lewis noted, citing the event’s steep ticket prices, as well as Rimes’s confessed extramarital affair and her recent appearance in a “Sexy Santa” outfit at a gay men’s chorus Christmas performance….Helping the freshmen get reelected is a project that (Denham) is very interested in and, of course, his own reelection is part of that,” Dave Gilliard, a consultant for Denham, said last week. “It’s such a huge freshman class, and that first reelection is the time that you end up losing people, so he really wants to help keep the majority.

Just so we’re clear.  The night the brand new house members were sworn in, they were working on their re-election.

Honest and Integrity in the first 48 hours

According to the rules laid out by the incoming House Republican majority, the House must pay for all new legislation that increases federal spending - and a repeal bill, of course, is a form of legislation. That would suggest that they must come up with $143 billion to make up for the cost of repealing the health care bill.

The GOP solution? To exempt repeal from that rule.

And…

No one believes that the job-killing healthcare law will lower costs, because it won’t,” said Michael Steel, spokesman for incoming House Speaker John Boehner.

Mr Steel didn’t bother mentioning any analysis or study to support his contention, nor did he mention the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office analysis he arbitrarily waves off.  Can you guess why?

And…

Despite promising a more open amendment process for bills, amendments for the health care repeal will be all but shut down. After calling for a strict committee attendance list to be posted online, Republicans backpedaled and ditched that from the rules. They promised constitutional citations for every bill but have yet to add that language to early bills.

And…(same link as above)

House Republicans have voted to peel back a requirement that would have required them to publicly post committee attendance — the first reversal on a set of proposed rules the GOP has laid out as it prepares to take control of the House on Wednesday…Republicans positioned the posting of attendance online as a major step that would help increase accountability and bolster the activity of committees – both major tenets of John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) impending speakership. But the quick reversal shows that not everyone in the Republican Conference was ready to embrace this step.

And…

The incoming House budget chief, Republican Paul Ryan, told NBC’s “Today” program a Republican campaign promise to cut $100 billion in spending this year had been “compromised” by the momentum of spending already under way…But aides said the actual cuts are likely to be less than half that amount because the fiscal year will be half over by the time Republicans get a chance to affect spending in March.

I understand the fiscal year issue.  I’m surprised those making the claims while trying to get elected, didn’t understand.  HA HA, no, I’m not really surprised at all.

So to summarize, in 48 hours:

  1. Republicans in the House broke (at least) three campaign promises
  2. The new House Republicans have started their 2012 re-election campaigns and
  3. Breathed new life into the term hypocrisy

I guess Boehner may have been right, this isn’t business as usual, it’s much worse.

Hmmm, this might be political :)

Edit – I found this as well, to tasty to let go.  Republicans made a big deal out of reading the Constitution at the opening of session yesterday.  Tea Party supporting members especially since they seem to view it as  a “Moses” like carved in stone document.  From here.

There is only one official, canonical version of the Constitution—and most of the folks who read today, Republicans and Democrats alike, have a copy in their offices, if not their breast pockets. The suggestion that there is some other, agreed-upon, document, whose “portions [were] superseded by amendment” is simply untrue. As CBS News Capitol Hill Correspondent Bob Fuss pointed out, the “redacted” version as read this morning had no coherent logic. They skipped over the three-fifths compromise but included the constitutional clause referring to the preservation of voting rights only for males over the age of 21—a provision superseded by the 26th Amendment. They skipped the 18th Amendment (Prohibition) then read the 21st (repealing Prohibition). Andrea Stone at AOL News picked up on the fact that they “read 14 words from Article I, Section 9 about taxation. Under a strict reading of the ground rules, though, it likely should have been excised because of the later passage of the 16th Amendment that legalized the federal income tax.”

In other words, in addition to taking it upon themselves to whitewash past constitutional errors, House Republicans today compounded the sin by inventing a choose-your-own-ending document they tried to pass off as official. …

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