Bio:
I grew up in Florida, received a degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Florida in 1983, and then worked for NASA on the space shuttle and space station programs in the areas of mission support, astronaut training, flight procedures development, and spacecraft design. I began investing in the stock market in 1990, and have since 1991 done so for a living. In 1999 I moved to Greenville and bought a house off North Main.


Why am I running?
As much as anything, I'd like to raise the bar a bit.

The democratic process in our country has become a money driven circus, with politicians marketed substantially like cereal, in many cases qualified for office by not much more than money and packaging, while the principal fixed goal of either main party has become greater market share and the power it brings.

The consequences of this political retailing are increasingly dire. Our country now as a matter of stated policy wages aggressive war, the greatest of crimes, invading other nations without legitimate cause. The US is increasingly under what amounts to martial law, with American citizens subject to imprisonment without charge and search without warrant. The US now tortures people, sometimes to death, and laws against torture are brushed aside by a President who essentially proclaims himself above the law. A potentially ruinous public debt continues to mount, the current administration having amassed nearly as much debt as all the previous administrations combined. The US military budget is by any rational standard morbidly obese, greater than all the military budgets for the rest of the world combined, fueling a spiraling arms race which threatens to eventually destroy humanity. The US operates a de facto concentration camp in Cuba, to the detriment of our global standing. The US is effectively a client state of Israel, degrading the quality of American political leadership and compromising prospects for peace in the Middle East. Election turnouts are at historic lows, and with the increasing use of unverified computer voting many have lost confidence their votes are even counted. The Constitution has substantially in principle, and in no small measure in fact, passed into history.

These are grave matters, yet it is unlikely most will be discussed in any substantive fashion, if they are broached at all, by most politicians in the coming election (addendum: see Corden). The American political process is plainly dysfunctional, and we need to talk about it.


Why vote for me?
In a word, change.

Democrats:
For all you Democrats who want somebody to vote for besides a regular Democrat who would likely lose being not too functionally different from Bob, that could be me.

Republicans:
For all you Republicans, particularly the ones who aren't quite sure what a Republican is anymore, lemme 'splain somethin' to you. The founder of Christian Exodus pretty well summed it up when he said "All we have to do is put our guy on the ballot with an ’R’ sign. It could be a corpse and they’ll vote for him." Forget things like NAFTA, CAFTA, "guest workers", deficit spending, a massive budget, foreign aid, etc., etc., etc. The Republican hierarchy knows Inglis will be reelected no matter how he votes. They take you for granted. The only way to change this is to give them some time off. Otherwise, you probably might as well be realistic and just get used to it.

And now that I think about it, how did the Republican party get a copyright on religion? They wage war like Philistines, they spend money like Pharisees, and some of them would give the Sodomites a run. To collectively equate them with God or Jesus seems just plain dumb.