Being on Facebook I've had a chance to network with some wonderful people.  Its always nice to be surrounded (even virtually) by people who share the same values, beliefs of how people should be treated in this country, in this world.   The majority of the people I network with are people who vote for democrats, however, I have found people who don't.  These people are not republicans, they are people who believe both parties are corrupt, I must admit, for the majority of my life I have felt that way.  So I continued to read  their views and their postings about the democratic party, about President Obama and I decided to do some research on my own. 

 I started reviewing how democrats voted on issues that are important to the majority of us, and what I found was quite disturbing.  I found  40  voted for the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 33   voted to extend them in 2011. 39 voted against the health care bill, 3 voted to repeal it. 10 voted to defund Plan Parenthood, 64 voted for the Stupak Amendment, 5 voted against the Dream Act, 65 voted for the re-authorization of the Patriot Act, 3 voted to continue the oil subsidies, 11 voted against the extension of unemployment benefits and 81 voted for the last budget deal.  After reviewing how the democrats voted, I then reviewed where they get their money and those facts are very disturbing as well.  Plenty of democrats in the senate and house are getting a lot of corporate, special interest money, you can review at http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/index.php.  After reviewing this I had to start questioning if these people really reflect my values.

I continued my research by reading many articles, watching videos, listening to other people's points of views, reviewing the facts and I really had to start thinking if I was being conned.  We make fun of the right and their ignorance, we all know that they are being conned, but then I had to stop and wonder the same of us, are we being conned?  If the right is bought by corporations, could the left be?  Why wouldnt' they be, they get their money from the same people who give to the right.  I often wonder why democrats appear to be so spineless and such horrible negotiators when dealing with the right, maybe they can't stand up. These people know that in order to keep the job they have, they will have to raise a lot of money and whose got the money? Of course there are democrats that do not fall into this category, but there is one too many that do.

  

Lets say that's true, then what?  We all know that the majority of Americans do not follow the news, let alone politics.  When these people vote, they don't vote out of knowledge, they vote out of ideology most of them just vote how their parents voted.  By a person having the democratic label, that's all it takes for many people to vote for them, so the issue comes to play for the people who do follow politics.  We know if we don't vote for that democrat we split the vote, which may allow the republican candidate to get in, so what do we do?  If your like me, you vote reluctantly for that democrat and rationalize it in your head, at least it's the lesser of two evils, however, I'm not sure i want to do that anymore.  So the only way out is to try to get someone on the ballot that actually does represent our values, and stop settling for the lesser of two evils.  If we allow many of the democrats that are in office today to keep their jobs I am convinced  we are going to continue to lose.  The republicans in office today are so extreme, and the democrats do not or refuse to stand up to them.  The democrats as a whole are negotiating our social programs, education, and many other things away, they are not negotiating to better us. 

Politically I don't feel any hope or any great changes coming our way, I feel like I'm dating someone where I can see potential, and I hope and I pray that they will meet that potential, but they never do.  Now, if I was dating someone like this, that person would not last long in my life, as I would never sit around living on hopes and dreams. I would tell myself  that no matter how much I like, or love someone I can't compromise myself waiting for someone to be the person I want them to be.  I would remind myself that I can't change people, face reality, and say goodbye so I could move on to find the right person for me.  So I have decided to use that logic in how I vote in the future.  Unless that democrat has already proven themselves worthy of my vote by being a liberal, progressive, and fights for us they will no longer get my vote, I will no longer compromise my values and vote for the lesser of the two evils.  I do realize what it could mean, which is the republican candidate gets in and I prepared to sacrifice the seat for a few years, in order to move us forward.  Being I can't get progressive democrats/independents in office, I will help remove the democrats that don't belong in office in hopes that the next election we will find a more progressive/liberal democrats.  We are stuck in limbo, I see the democrats moving right because the republicans have moved so far right they feel they have to just to negotiate with them.  I don't want the democrats to be where the republicans once stood, I want us to move left not further right.

Facebook Security/Advice on how to keep you and yours safe

Many of you are new to Facebook, many may not know so I wanted to remind you about somethings that you should know to help protect yourselves.

1)  To opt out of Facebook’s new profile sharing is a multiple step process: STEP 1: Go to the “Privacy Settings.” Go to “Applications and Web Sites.” Then go to “Instant Personalization and then edit settings.  An automatic check in the box below, which allows Facebook to share your information with other web sites. You are automatically “opted in.” If you do not wish to share this information, uncheck the box.

2) While on Facebook, look at your URL address: if you see http: instead of https: then you don't have a secure session and you can be hacked. Go to Account/account settings/ account security and select the box for secure browsing. Share this with your Facebook friends to reduce the hacking.

3) Remember anyone can make Facebook apps, so when using them, you are using at your own risk.  For example, the apps that you allow when playing games, anyone could have made that app.

4) Regarding privacy of what you share with people, first go to account then go to privacy, on top you will see view settings, click that link and set them to your preferences.  After that,  go back into privacy and customize your settings and choose what is best for you.   For me, I do not allow my friends to see much and I do not allow people outside my friendship to see anything.  If you go to my page, you won't find much information about me, you will not see a list of my friends, if you are not my friend you may not email me.  As of right now, no one is allowed to put anything on my wall, they are only able to comment to my posts.  I have chose to basically shut everything down for the following reasons:  When people are able to put things on your wall, it is easy to be hacked.  If people are able to see my birth date, my city, where I went to school  etc, I am putting myself at risk for identity theft.  I don't allow the list of my friends to be seen because if they do not have their setting set correctly, I am putting them at risk.
 
I would also recommend people stop using the check in options.  It is none of my business where you are at any given time unless you tell me yourself.  This feature is great if a person was stalking you, wanted to rob you, or burglarize your home or worse.  I would also recommend that you be careful on what you put on your status, for example do not tell people your activities of your comings and goings, again if you want to share, share when you get home.  Again, you may be setting yourself up for criminal activities.  The bottom line is, there is no reason for me to know where you work, where you went to school, where you live, the names of your children, the ages of your children, your age, what the year of your birthday is.  Please be careful on how much information you are putting out there, as you are not only putting you at risk, but possibly putting your family at risk.

5)  The most common ways to get a virus is by liking a link,   Never click on links that give shocking news, or states "I liked this celebrity until I saw this kind of link".  The most common ones are found with celebrities, animals, babies, weight loss.  So be very careful when seeing them and avoid clicking on any of them.

6) Spammers sometimes take advantage of a vulnerability in the web browser to try to trick people into clicking on links they might not want to click on. This is called clickjacking, and it’s done by overlaying the link with something more enticing, like a phony offer.

7) Spammers take advantage of another browser weakness by asking people to copy and paste malicious code into their address bar, which then causes the browser to take actions on those people’s behalf, including posting status updates with phony links and sending spam messages to all friends.

8)  If you find one of your friends have posted a link to your wall do not click on that link, until you have verified that the friend actually put it there and its not a virus.  If you are networking and really do know the person, avoid clicking on the link, even if you have verified the friend put it there.

9) If you see a friend,  putting out multiple posting on yours and other friends walls with the same link, that friend has been hacked.  If you are a person or knows a person who has been hacked a full virus and spyware scan would be required, then change all passwords.

There are many websites such as snopes.com or hoax slayer that can confirm or deny viruses.

Supporting the troops for defending our freedoms while voting for people who don't

The day that Bin Landen was killed, I saw many statuses go up on facebook congratulating our military of how proud they were to be an American.  I saw statuses about how our military protects are freedoms and our freedom is what they have been fighting for all these years and on and on people went with their praises, which of course they should.  Our military did do an awesome job, and accomplished something that should have been accomplished many years ago (that's another subject).  What I find to be ironic is the people who claim to support our military, and strongly believe that the military is fighting for our freedoms, are the same people who then vote for people that are taking away those freedoms away.  I don't see this irony with just the people that vote republican, but with those who don't vote, at all.  How can a person support the military, if they don't vote?