You have probably read the term "green shoots" as related to the economy. This, of course, is a term that means the first signs of growth after seeding. What is making economists nervous is the fact that many key growth indicators are either mixed or unstable.
I refer to this situation as "brown shoots." You can seed and fertilize all you like, but heatwaves and droughts can still wreak havoc on your lawn. The grass is there, but the tint is an ugly brown. Even as it grows, it isn't pretty.
This is what I see happening to the economy right now. Obama, the Fed, etc, have done everything they can (short of taking extreme measures that could rip the country apart) but the reults remain tenuous. Let me tell a personal story that I think best reflects the situation.
Two things happened to me recently: the economy tanked and my student loans capitalized. I reacted in the usual way. First, I made financial cutbacks. Second, I began to pay down debt. Third, I began to pay down debt.
These things worked well for a while. The cutbacks and savings actually offset the debt reduction to the point that I could spend a little more. Rent a movie here, eat out there. No big ticket items, of course, but spending nonetheless.
Then my son lost his job. So I dipped into the savings to keep his rent and utilities paid until he found a new job. At the same time the little spending that I did dried up. After a few months he got back on his feet and things went back to normal, not the old normal, but the post-recession normal.
Shortly thereafter my daughter lost her home to foreclosure. Again, I dipped into the savings until she could, as a low-income worker, get into HUD-based housing. It didn't take long to find out that HUD is massively under-funded and so I had to borrow in order to get a roof over her head, as well as her three children.
So now I find myself back to square one. The savings are exhausted, all of the repaid debt has been replaced with more debt, and all disposable spending is slashed.
My gut tells me that the situation is the same across the country. It may not be helping out kids. It may be a job loss, or a health care emergency, or a foreclosure. Our best case scenario, at least for the short-term, may be two steps forward and one step back at best, the reverse at worst.
At the very least, this may help explain the current mixed indicators in the economy as a whole.
This was the headline I read when I pulled up the webpage on Yahoo! I looked at this headline and remembered that I just I watched the Joint News Conference with President Sarkozy and President Obama on C-SPAN. It is complicated on so many levels. These two countries of course have a history together. Perhaps the most poignant relationship these two countries have with each other resides in the fact that when one of the two countries was in the throes of a revolution, the other was secretly supporting the cause.
When France was close to the nadir of a monarchy, Thomas Jefferson was the Minster representing the United States. He had a front row seat to the passions that overcame the whole of France. I suspect he was probably the biggest cheerleader of the French Revolution because he had such disdane for monacharies in general. He after-all penned the first words of the Declaration of Independence and he directed those words squarely at King George of England.
Looking beneath the surface of the French Revolution and focusing on Thomas Jefferson's life in Paris as the Minister representing the United States is mesmerizing. It reveals an even more complicated story. And Jefferson's household was the source of this complication. He lived in France with his daughters and his slaves James and Sally Hemings. After reading Annette Gordon-Reed's, The Hemingses of Monticello, I learned that Jefferson paid James and Sally Hemings an income because he, Jefferson did want to cause a scene in Paris. Jefferson paid Sally and her brother about the going rate in France for the work they did in involuntary servitude on this side of the Atlantic.
What I love about Gordon-Reed's book is that she colored in the experiences James and Sally had while they lived in the United States and France. In other words, she humanized them. She stripped the veil of Slavery from American history. She even believes that James learned French as he hired someone to teach him how to speak it. I think the most memorable aspect of Gordon-Reed's narrative is what Sally Hemings had to go through to be vaccinated against smallpox.
I couldn't help thinking of Annette Gordon-Reed's book as I watched Obama and Sarkozy at this press conference and when I read the headline, "Its complicated." I could not stop thinking about Jefferson, his daughters and the Hemingses during this press conference because Sarkozy and Obama seemed as close as France and the United States has ever been; but it is complicated.
Outcry for help, a Innocent Chinese genocided humanitarian sufferings
My name is Xu Han-You（in Chinese: 徐汉友）. I comes from China. Because my brain thinkings have been being communicated to others at the study time as a talent student. I was expelled from Cancer Institute, graduate school of Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences/Peking Union Medical College(CAMS/PUMC) as a postgraduate student just before graduating and getting my graduate certificates without any right lawful support by the CAMS/PUMC in November, 1990. At that time, I began to feel that what I thought in my brain have been being communicated to all others at the same time. My work and life have been being disturbed and interfused up to now.
In December, 1996, because my brain thinkings have been being communicated to others all the time as a talent doctor and man. I was hitted by the planned unlawful trouble makers and caused me suffering from long time nerve bio-psycho-social medical damage and short time face damage at Department of emergency medicine of Xinye county people's hospital, Henan province, China. While the related government departments and hospital officials did not do fair treatment to me. So I took this issue to the court of Xinye county, Henan province, China by myself with my wage savings to sink fair judgement. But the court of Xinye county, Henan province, China judged against the law and did not fair me. According to the Chinese laws at this time my sufferings was belong to damages at the working time and could receive government compensations. But not any government compensations have I received up to now.
In October, 1997, because my brain thinkings have been being communicated to others all the time as a talent doctor and man. I was damaged by the rivals to suffering from intestine bleedings. I lost lot of blood. While the treatment spendings was paid by myself. Which caused me poor and poor.
In April, 1999 to April, 2000, in order to sink fair treatment, I took the issue of my being expelled from graduate school of CAMS/PUMC to the Chaoyang district court of Beijing. While the Chaoyang district court of Beijing judged against the law and facts, did not fair me and did not give me the graduate certificates and compensations.
In April, 2005, because my brain thinkings have been being communicated to others all the time as a talent doctor and man. I was refused to be enrolled into Zhejiang University as a postgraduate student majoring in emergency medicine for high level doctor education.
In December, 2007, Because my brain thinkings have been being communicated to others all the time as a talent doctor and man. I again was hitted by the planned unlawful trouble makers and caused me suffering from long time nerve bio-psycho-social medical damage and short time face and arms damages at Department of emergency medicine of Xinye county people's hospital, Henan province, China. While the related government departments and hospital officials did not do fair treatment to me.
In September, 2008, because my brain thinkings have been being communicated to others all the time as a talent doctor and man. I was taken in when I was changed into high level and high wage payment hospital, Nanshi hospital, a hospital under administration of Henan Province branch (oilfield) corporation (or Henan Province Petroleum Administration), China Petrochemical corporation and worked as a hospital medical sciences and education strategy maker.And the doctor majoring was refused to do. Just because my brain thinkings have been being communicated to others all the time as a talent doctor and man. I worked and research wholeheartedly and important medical sciences strategies and ideas were invented. After the Nanshi hospital and others stolen my medical science ideas and strategies. I was expelled from the Nanshi hospital. And I have lost my former stable job and life. Several monthes, I have been no job to do and life had been being no support. Now, I still work as a unstable worker in a low payment hospital as a doctor. I have apllied for government support. The related government department for labor dispute fair judgement in my living city Nanyang city, Henan province, China has not done anything to help me after more than 8 monthes. But even make me more sufferings when the government department for labor dispute fair judgement do not fair me the labor rights. Which again is causing me suffered from long time bio-psycho-social medical damage.
Because my brain thinkings have been being communicated to others at the working time as a talent doctor and man. My life is much too difficulty and even in danger. I must take much too high energy to make the ordinary life. And I am much too difficulty to fing fair payment job.
A lots of sufferings can not be writen in a single space.
Because my brain thinkings have been being communicated to others at the working time as a talent man and around the all days and all nights. I have been suffering from unnormal life. I have been suffering from long time bio-psycho-social medical damages.
I have been suffering from these genocided humanitarians unfairs!
There may be no other people suffered like what I have been suffering in the world. I apllied for normal life as a ordinary citizen of China and The UN, for stopping communicating my thoughts to all others.I applied for you immediately taking actions and investigating my above mentioned issues or publish this paper and giving my compensations and my graduation certificates in graduate school of Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences/Peking Union Medical College.
If I got these compensations and my graduation certificates in graduate school of Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences/Peking Union Medical College and fair treatments. I can do lots of good contributions to the world.
If I did not got these compensations and my graduation certificates in graduate school of Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences/Peking Union Medical College and fair treatments. And if my brain thinkings were still communicating to others. The man-kinds will have been suffering the heavy mistakes. The people can not forget this history. The fair movements may be achieved in the future.
I am looking forward to hearing fron you soon.
A innocent Chinese:Xu Han-You.
Address: Department of internal and emergency medicine,Workers hospital of Nanyang textile corporation, Nanyang city Changjiang RD No.200, Henan province, China.
Mr. President, Chancellor Merkel, Bertrand, ladies and gentlemen. As I came here today it was actually a way of coming and visit my father's grave -- but he had no grave. His grave is somewhere in the sky. This has become in those years the largest cemetery of the Jewish people.
The day he died was one of the darkest in my life. He became sick, weak, and I was there. I was there when he suffered. I was there when he asked for help, for water. I was there to receive his last words. But I was not there when he called for me, although we were in the same block; he on the upper bed and I on the lower bed. He called my name, and I was too afraid to move. All of us were. And then he died. I was there, but I was not there.
And I thought one day I will come back and speak to him, and tell him of the world that has become mine. I speak to him of times in which memory has become a sacred duty of all people of good will -- in America, where I live, or in Europe or in Germany, where you, Chancellor Merkel, are a leader with great courage and moral aspirations.
What can I tell him that the world has learned? I am not so sure. Mr. President, we have such high hopes for you because you, with your moral vision of history, will be able and compelled to change this world into a better place, where people will stop waging war -- every war is absurd and meaningless; where people will stop hating one another; where people will hate the otherness of the other rather than respect it.
But the world hasn't learned. When I was liberated in 1945, April 11, by the American army, somehow many of us were convinced that at least one lesson will have been learned -- that never again will there be war; that hatred is not an option, that racism is stupid; and the will to conquer other people's minds or territories or aspirations, that will is meaningless.
I was so hopeful. Paradoxically, I was so hopeful then. Many of us were, although we had the right to give up on humanity, to give up on culture, to give up on education, to give up on the possibility of living one's life with dignity in a world that has no place for dignity.
We rejected that possibility and we said, no, we must continue believing in a future, because the world has learned. But again, the world hasn't. Had the world learned, there would have been no Cambodia and no Rwanda and no Darfur and no Bosnia.
Will the world ever learn? I think that is why Buchenwald is so important -- as important, of course, but differently as Auschwitz. It's important because here the large -- the big camp was a kind of international community. People came there from all horizons -- political, economic, culture. The first globalization essay, experiment, were made in Buchenwald. And all that was meant to diminish the humanity of human beings.
You spoke of humanity, Mr. President. Though unto us, in those times, it was human to be inhuman. And now the world has learned, I hope. And of course this hope includes so many of what now would be your vision for the future, Mr. President. A sense of security for Israel, a sense of security for its neighbors, to bring peace in that place. The time must come. It's enough -- enough to go to cemeteries, enough to weep for oceans. It's enough. There must come a moment -- a moment of bringing people together.
And therefore we say anyone who comes here should go back with that resolution. Memory must bring people together rather than set them apart. Memories here not to sow anger in our hearts, but on the contrary, a sense of solidarity that all those who need us. What else can we do except invoke that memory so that people everywhere who say the 21st century is a century of new beginnings, filled with promise and infinite hope, and at times profound gratitude to all those who believe in our task, which is to improve the human condition.
A great man, Camus, wrote at the end of his marvelous novel, The Plague: "After all," he said, "after the tragedy, never the rest...there is more in the human being to celebrate than to denigrate." Even that can be found as truth -- painful as it is -- in Buchenwald.
Thank you, Mr. President, for allowing me to come back to my father's grave, which is still in my heart.
I was invited to attend a 'Healthcare Organizing Kickoff' by Mitch Stewart at barackobama.com that took place today. I decided to attend to see what was going to be discussed at an event like this. It took place at our local Democratic Party Headquarters, and lasted a little over two hours. We were all issued a sheet of 'talking points' with which to arm ourselves when defending health care reform to those who may remain opposed to the idea. I was heartened by the overwhelming support for a single payer healthcare plan. In fact, if there was anyone in attendance who was not 100% committed to single payer, they were keeping their mouths shut during some pretty heated discussion about the general feeling of disenfranchisement from the political discussion as regards single payer. One of the ardent supporters of single payer whom I spoke to following the discussion, is a salesman for long term health insurance. I shook his hand, and told him I find it encouraging that someone who makes his living within the existing, for-profit system is not threatened by the prospects of instituting a single payer system in America.
I thought I made myself clear. Get the fuck out of Afghanistan. Now. Today. Forget it. Let it go.
I'm so old, I remember when unpopular wars were ended by popular demand I'm thisclose to predicting that Obama will not be re-elected if he does not withdraw us from the two Bush Wars. #1 Reason: Trillions of dollars. Trillions and trillions of dollars.
Much more than it will ever be worth.
If people are going to insist on staying in Afghanistan and Iraq to 'get the job done', and NOT sign up, it won't work. Anyone who thinks otherwise is not thinking straight.
If you want to really win the 'War on Terror' with military might, you're gonna need a bigger army. A draft. A Marshall Plan. And one more thing: Moral authority.
Does spotting a red tulip confirm that all crows are black? Yes, but before I try to persuade you this is true, I'll try to explain why that truth is essential to a proper understanding of Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Evolution, and Anthropogenic Global Warming.
Each of these entities is a theory - a set of related hypotheses built around an organizing principle. The first three are thoroughly established by evidence. The last, AGW, is the newest kid on the block, and less secure, but closing fast.
None has been proved, however. In science, theories are almost never provable, because it's always conceivable that a new observation will emerge tomorrow that renders a theory untenable. Each of the foregoing theories has been vigorously challenged with observations alleged to invalidate it, but to date, each has survived, either because the observations have been shown consistent with the theory, or because they could be accommodated by minor modifications of the theory that do not destroy its underlying tenets. Even Newtonian mechanics, superseded by Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, remains valid in almost all circumstances affecting our daily lives.
These theories are strong, however, not because they have been proved but because they have been repeatedly confirmed. "Confirmation" in science is not the same as proof, nor should it be confused with the concept involved in confirming a hotel reservation, but rather has a different and very specific meaning. It refers to a piece of evidence that increases the probability that a theory (or hypothesis) is true. As the evidence accumulates, that probability rises, but never reaches 100 percent except for rare (and usually trivial) theories that are limited to so few situations that every conceivable counter-example can be tested and falsified.
Even the dramatic Hafele/Keating experiment, showing time to proceed at a different pace on jet airplanes, depending on whether they flew East or West, only confirmed Relativistic principles (albeit powerfully) rather than proved them -
Armed with the distinction between proof and confirmation, readers may better appreciate the entertaining example of red tulips and the blackness of crows - a relationship philosophers have occasionally quarreled over, usually in a manner more confusing than informative. It's also fair to warn that not all confirmatory evidence has equal weight; an observation can "confirm" in the strict sense of the word without strengthening a theory by more than an imperceptible amount. All that is required is that it reduce the number of opportunities for a theory to be proved false.
Are all crows black? Proving that hypothesis would be daunting (assuming it to be true), but confirmations are easy to come by. Look out the window the next time you hear a "cawing" sound. If you see a crow, and it's black, you've added confirmatory evidence to the hypothesis - one fewer crow to observe before you decide they're all black.
Red tulips may strike you as another story. In fact, though, they are simply one more route to the same conclusion, albeit a more circuitous one.
The following two propositions are logically equivalent:
(1). All crows are black. (2). All non-black objects are non-crows.
A moment's consideration will show that if either one is true, both must be. Conversely, if either is false, they must both be false. Proposition 2 may strike you as unhelpful, but only because it would make far more practical sense to observe the properties of all crows than of all non-black objects. In reality, though, neither one would be very practical, and the best anyone can say in favor of focusing on crows is that each confirmatory sighting would be a greater step forward than is feasible from observing non-black objects.
Even so, you may not have the pleasure of seeing crows in your neighborhood. In that case, finding a red tulip will still pave your way toward accepting the hypothesis that all crows are black. It's only one tiny step, of course, but if you look out the window and also spot a blue convertible, that's an additional step. Still a ways to go, but at least you've made a good start.
Less frivolously, I hope you and I might save a few red tulips to reward school boards who resist creationist demands to teach that evolution is seriously challengeable because "it's just a theory", and to honor scientists who insist that although we can't prove with certainty we're warming the planet, it might still be prudent to stop using the atmosphere we share with all living things as a global garbage dump - one into which we've already poured 1.8 trillion tons of carbon dioxide and possess enough oil and coal reserves to add trillions more - http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v458/n7242/full/nature08017.htmlhttp://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v458/n7242/full/nature08019.html
Creigh Deeds is surging, but his supporters should think twice.
After all, we've been down this road before, and it did not end well.
Back in 2005, Creigh Deeds ran a losing race for Attorney General. His opponent? Bob McDonnell - the Republican nominee for governor in 2009.
In 2005, Deeds and McDonnell were on pretty much equal footing in terms of name recognition. Over the last 4 years, Deeds has labored in obscurity. McDonnell, on the other hand, has basked in the spotlight of the Attorney General's office. Think Elliot Spitzer, only slicker. The upshot is that if Deeds wins the primary, he'll have to climb out of a hole just to pull even with McDonnell.
But that's small potatoes.
The real worry is that the 2009 race will replicate the 2005 race in one really scary respect: guns.
There's only one way to say this: Creigh Deeds is a certifiable gun-nut.
For the YouTube-challenged, here's the upshot:
1) Creigh Deeds voted to allow concealed handguns in nightclubs, bars and restaurants. Moreover, when Governor Wilder vetoed the bill after it passed Virginia's legislature, Deeds voted to overturn the Governor's veto.
2) Creigh Deeds voted against a Brian Moran sponsored bill that keeps guns out of the hands of convicts busted for domestic violence and/or stalking.
3) When Governor Wilder proposed a 1 handgun a month purchase limit, Deeds voted against the bill.
Creigh Deeds is so much of an extremist that he earned the NRA's endorsement over McDonnell in his 2005 race. That endorsement ended up being an albatross that he just couldn't shake. McDonnell hung it around his neck at every turn.
Democrats, of course, must have the African-American vote. And guns disproportionately decimate black families and neighborhoods. Moreover, the Moms (and Dads) in the bedroom communities of Northern Virginia - the other Democratic stronghold - harbor no great admiration for the Saturday Night Special.
Deeds' love for handguns hurts him and McDonnell didn't waste any time taking advantage. He ran ads all over Northern Virginia and in African-American communities across Virginia that highlighted Deeds' extreme views. The ads were devastating.
Do you trust McDonnell to refrain from using Virginia Tech against Deeds? I know I don't. That's what we're looking at if Deeds claims the ring.
One more thing you need to know if you are considering Creigh Deeds: his opposition to Governor Wilder's (the first black governor of Virginia) reasonable gun laws lowered him a coupla notches with the popular former Governor. For a long time, Deeds opposed legislation that allowed gun dealers to skip background checks at gun shows. After Virginia Tech, Deeds said he changed his mind, but continued offering a series of amendments to the legislation that resulted in watering the bill down substantially.
Wilder, who has been wooed by all of the gubernatorial candidates but has not said whether he will endorse anyone in the primary, said he was disappointed with Deeds's reversals. "What Creigh is saying now is, 'I've changed my philosophy,' " Wilder said. "Suppose we had elected you before? Would you have changed?"
It doesn't look to me like Wilder is any more excited about Deeds this cycle than he was four years ago - when he refused to endorse Deeds for Attorney General, largely because McDonnell has saner ideas about reducing gun violence.
If Wilder sits on the sidelines for this year's Governor race , the message will be received loud and clear. African Americans won't trust Deeds and won't show up at the polls.
It's time to choose. I'm choosing Brian Moran for VA-Gov.
Its half past spring, what spring cleaning have you done? I still see a dozen posts from the "guess what I read in the headlines yesterday" category. Um.. Actually, I read the headlines myself and so you don't need to tell me what you more or less remember that some bl-undit regurgitated from the headlines.
Be thoughtful. Or, at least be witty.
Dang, if you can't do that, please be inscrutable or use creative poor grammar and spelling.
Last option... Be quiet.
"Better," as Lincoln is said to have said, "to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." Apparently, the self publishing blogosphere needs the Lincoln editor.
July 4th is coming up. I challenge you all to AVOID trite posts about patriotism. Its fine to love your country and all, but the other team has spent the last half-century turning patriotism into Xenophobic nationalism, so it is hard to discuss this topic without sounding stupid, trite, or like a Xenophobic nationalist. There will be plenty of paid fools to make those mistakes, try to discuss something else, such as fairies (mid-summer comes quick on the heels of July 4... check your calendar).
August will be totally boring, even Congress goes home. Here, let me give you the news now... Universal Health Care will not be passed and signed into law before Congress goes home and Sotomayor will not yet be confirmed. Republicans will continue to be acting like asses. The bright spot will be that Franken is finally seated, but we will have plenty of Democratic senators screwing things up. Now, please, don't get bent out of shape when that comes to pass. It is already true. It has always been true.
Now calm down and think about something creative to post about.
Today, the 7th of June, is a groundbreaking day for Lebanon's
future, as it marks the date of the parliamentary election that occurs
once every four years. This election has polarized the country and
energized many people who have never voted in their lives. Expatriates
from every corner of the world have flocked to Lebanon in droves to
participate in this election--estimates are around 19,000, and my family
would be included in that number.
We live in America and although we have kept in touch with our
roots and visited often, we have not returned to Lebanon since we were
caught in the summer war of 2006. This year we have returned in order
to vote in what many people are calling one of the most important
elections in our country's history (well, I should clarify that only my
parents are able to vote, as voting age is twenty-one here--and how it
burns that I am just one year too young!!).
Perhaps it is fitting that here in Lebanon, where the east meets
the west, where you can find a six million dollar flat next to a
bombed-out building, where the old is so intricately laced with the
new, you will find such radically mixed views about the upcoming
election. There are people so scared that they have been flooding the
supermarkets and souks and stocking up on essentials such as water and
bread, too scared to go to the polls, and warning everyone not
to go vote and risk any violence that may break out.
On the other hand, there are also people who are rambunctiously
outspoken in their views: holding loud motorcade parades in a
festival-like atmosphere, taping political flags to every visible
surface of their cars, draping themselves on top of cars and hanging
outside of windows while flying through the streets and shouting their
slogans at the top of their lungs.
There have been 60,000 soldiers and police deployed to patrol the
streets all over the country-- just a few hours earlier I saw six military tanks, full of
soldiers, climbing up the narrow mountain road next to our house-- to
serve as a deterrence to any potential conflict. It has also been
reported that all public agencies and many stores will even close the
day of the election and the day after.
At this point I'm sure some background on the situation would be
very much appreciated for those unfamiliar with Lebanon's confusing
political infrastructure. The election tomorrow is for 128 seats, which
are divided up into all sixteen religious sects found in Lebanon. There
is a 50/50 representation in Parliament for Christians and Muslims. The
party who has the majority of seats in the Parliament will be able to
choose the new Prime Minister and the majority of Cabinet positions.
This election would put Lebanon in the hands of either of two
camps: the US-backed March 14th coalition, a pro-democracy organization which
favors a peaceful resolution to the Middle East's ongoing conflicts,
versus the March 8th coalition which favors alliances with Syria and
Iran and open-ended conflict with Israel. The March 14th forces include
the Mustaqbal movement headed by Saad Hariri, the son of the
assassinated Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, representing the majority of
the Sunni Muslims; the Phalangists; the Lebanese Forces (Maronite
Christians); and the Progressive Socialists (Druze Muslims).
The March 8th movement is composed of the Hizbollah party and Amal
party, representing the majority of the Shiite Muslims, and the Tayyar
al-Horr party, headed by General Michel Aoun (Maronite Christians).
To
clarify, March 8th, 2005 represents the day that these parties held a
rally supporting the military presence of Syria inside of Lebanon while
March 14th, 2005 represents the day of the "Cedar Revolution," in which
people protested the Syrian occupation and demanded their withdrawal,
accusing the Syrian regime of assassinating the former Prime Minister
Rafik Hariri on February 14th, 2005.
Both camps are predicting that their camps will win, and the polls
are confusing. The March 8th followers have claimed that the other
coalition will drown the country in more debt, accusing them of
corruption, and calling them a proxy for the west, while the March 14th
followers argue that the other camp will force the country into a
dictatorship and into becoming a proxy for Iran and Syria.
There are three international agencies that are monitoring the
election to ensure a fair process, including former President Jimmy
Carter's foundation, the EU council, and the Arab League Council.
Because the Sunnis are mostly solidly for the March 14th movement and
the Shiites are primarily for the March 8th forces, the observers are
predicting that it will come down to the Christian vote as the
Christians are evenly split between the two camps (Lebanon has the
unique position of being composed of roughly 33% Sunni Muslims, 33%
Shiite Muslims, and 33% Christians).
From a personal viewpoint, I am proud of my family's unwavering
commitment to the power of democracy in coming to vote for the first
time in this momentous election. While I am certainly apprehensive
about the outcome of the election and potential fall out, I can say
without hesitation that the Lebanese people are strong and will bounce
back from whatever happens today and in the days to come.
The post-9/11 emphasis on Pakistan continues to portray madrassas (religious schools) as a focal point – their rising prevalence the subject of great concern. What is surprising is that this “myth” persists despite evidence to the contrary – that madrassas are in fact not the real revolution in the Pakistani educational landscape but rather it is affordable private non-religious “mom-and-pop” schools that now dot the (rural) landscape.
In a series of papers in the past few years using publicly verifiable data sources and established statistical techniques my colleagues and I have documented this private sector revolution and the relative absence of a madrassa revolution.[1]
This human animal--prescient, sagacious, complex, acute, full of memory, reason and counsel, which we call man...
***
In fact, reason, which alone gives us so many advantages over beasts, by means of which we conjecture, argue, refute, discourse, and accomplish and conclude our designs, is assuredly common to all men; for the faculty of acquiring knowledge is similar in all human minds, though the knowledge itself may be endlessly diversified. By the same senses we all perceive the same objects, and that which strikes the sensibilities of the few, cannot be indifferent to those of the many. Those first rude elements of intelligence which, as I before observed, are the earliest developments of thought, are similarly exhibited by all men; and that faculty of speech which is the soul's interpreter, agrees in the ideas it conveys, though it may differ in the syllables that express them. And therefore there exists not a man in any nation, who, adopting his true nature for his true guide, may not improve in virtue.
How encouraging Mr. Cicero is. Some days I cling to what he asserts as a drowning man might cling to a lifeline. To temper my enthusiasm for his faith in the universality of reason and what it can accomplish I have to remind myself that just because we can doesn't mean that we will, or even that we want to practice what Cicero preaches. Yesterday morning, hearing one inane commentary after another, I finally couldn't stand it any more. I offed the radio before it offed itself. I expected very little, and wasn't disappointed. The best I heard over the last two days was on Public Radio International's The World, and even there, I rather cringed when Lisa Mullins asked two Professors of Islamic Studies something to the effect of whether Barack Obama was trying to change America's relationship with Islam or change Islam itself. (Strange, huh?) (They responded he wasn't in the remaking Islam business).
Anyhow, wandering around the links at The World I found myself over at the BBC website, and the most sensible presentation of this speech plus analysis I've yet found: sensible not only in what was written, but in how the page was designed. The video of the speech is present in full. The text of the speech is present in full. Extensive analysis by Paul Reynolds, BBC world affairs correspondent was presented as well, but in a way I've never seen before. Section by section the speech unfolded, but the analysis was hidden in drop-down boxes. One could read the analysis or not read it, or best, read the entire speech first, and then return section by section, re-read what Obama said, then read what Reynolds thought, and then reason whether or not Reynold's analysis agreed with one's own. Remarkable. So Beeb. So American-not.
I have done two of the steps... I'm still in the process of making my own analysis. I'm thinking I want to write something about this, but not about just this, but Obama's rhetorical style in general. I'm not entirely in tune with George Lakoff's framing linguistics, strict fathers v. forgiving mothers and all that. But if we're going to make an impact on Obama's reasoning methinks we have to understand how he does reason, and looking carefully at the structure of his speeches can help us give him food for thought. If I want to know how to convince someone else, I can do much worse than analyze how he or she tries to convince others.
In the meantime, just so the title of this entry isn't entirely misleading, let me state my humble opinion that it has been a very long time since we've had a President as subtle and intelligent as Obama is. Bush was neither. President Clinton was certainly intelligent-but perhaps he tried clever as a substitute for subtle. Reagan learned how to sell stuff by selling GE refrigerators...enough said. Carter? Intelligent, certainly the best ex-President of my lifetime, and perhaps of any since Jefferson, but cursed with a pondering speech which the bozos in the New York smart set found too boring to pay attention to. (If you're a New Yorker and have read this far, you're definitely not a bozo). The thesis I'm developing is that we've forgotten how to take intelligent, serious, people seriously. In fact, we now use "serious" as an epithet.
It think it refreshing to have a man of letters in the White House. I also think it is hard work, because we can't scan Obama the way we scan a beach book. Some on my side of the political fence don't even scan him that well-rather more like they might scan The National Enquirer while waiting at the checkout counter at Pigley-Wigley. He deserves better of us than that. So I'm going to give my best shot at analyzing the relationship between Obama's personal history, intelligence, and rhetorical style. I'd love to see a couple of others take a similar stab at this. We can organize a conference, maybe.
What in the world was I doing on an almost entirely liberal blog, I often wondered when I first arrived here.I came due to an invitation from my daughter, LisB.I had admired her writings for years and was curious what she was contributing here. Being a conservative
all of my life, I was not a happy camper when she announced at the beginning of Barack Obama's run for the White House that she had become a liberal. Her views were foreign to me and not very welcome.I could not believe that this woman, who had wanted John McCain to win the nomination when running against W. for president, was
now firmly imbedded with the opposition.I know I argued with her, trying to point out what I thought were astounding views on her part and terribly wrong in my eyes.
Eventually, I grew to admire her strong support for Obama and her great interest in politics.She seemed so knowledgeable about causes, world events and views that I almost felt uninformed and at a loss for good arguments defending my principles and well ingrained Republican talking points.I continuously watched O'Reilly, Hannity and other Conservative thinkers, gleaning information to bolster my thinking and give me fodder against the Democrats.I especially relished in the disclosures of Rev. Wright's sermons and Obama's close ties to his church.It seemed to me this proved that he was un-American and had ultra liberals surrounding him.I tied into the conservative press and their name calling, such as Fascist.
The notion of big government, high taxes and worsening of the economy was extremely abhorrent to me and I wanted Obama to fade away into the wood work.However, he became the nominee for his party and I had to endure his acceptance speech and the hoopla that accompanied it.Sheer staging and grandiose were my opinions at that time.I saw the charisma of the man and the growing support and idolization.I was envious of the attention from mass media and grew more and more attached to Fox News as the campaign continued.There, I heard what I wanted to hear, or so I thought.
I can recall one argument I had with LisB regarding Palin.I thought she was the wrong choice from the git go. I found her rather childish in her approach to the campaign and her family gave me nightmares.With LisB, however, I was a loyal defender of McCain's pick for the vice presidency.Looking back, I really was rather ashamed of myself for not being honest and agreeing with my daughter's assessment of her.I think, at that time I became very disenchanted with McCain. I knew I would vote for him but not with any great enthusiasm.
Today - I am becoming more interested in what used to be "the other side" and the opinions stated here and in the news that I now follow.I rarely watch TV but when I
put on the news, I put on Fox, Cnn and Msnbc to get all sides and then I can form my own opinion.No longer am I willing to agree with ALL that the right or republican side put forth nor do I accept it as gospel.I think I am in the "let's think about that a bit" faze and allowing my own feelings and beliefs to form my opinion and what I want to espouse to.
I wish to thank those who post such informative and well thought out blogs for me to use as a learning tool.The chat room people have been so patient and helpful as I
grow and learn.I have confidence in their guidance and understanding.There are others here that have shared that they too, have changed their political thinking and I am grateful to them for showing me I am not alone.
In summation - I think I am still on the fence in many areas but I am tilting more and more to the left side.I will register as an independent for the time being until I resolve some of the questions I still have regarding health care, the bail out of so many banks and companies, and the single pay issue which Obama seems to be against.I will ask questions when I am not sure of facts, and I will do some major soul searching.The one thing I do know is that it is okay, after so many years, to begin to grow and learn - it is never too late.
GM, as part of its restructuring plan, decided to shut down its Norton, Mass facility. I'm sure that Obama's GM task force was heavily involved in the GM restructuring plan and deciding which plants needed to be closed. These are very hard decisions to make.
But Barney Frank decides it's not in the best interest of his constituents to close the Norton plant. So he leaned on Fritz Henderson to keep that plant open.
Why is Barney Frank dictating how GM should restructure itself?
President Obama says he has no interest in running GM, but apparently Mr. Frank has other ideas. Barney Frank's spokesman says that they are "just doing what any other Congressman would do".
But it's not a level playing field. Every member of Congress will want to force their own special favors on to GM. And that's no way to get GM back to financial health. GM's restructuring decisions must be driven by economic factors, not political ones.
Being a Christian around here can, at times, be a pretty humbling experience. For the most part I feel like most of you regulars accept me as being a little different than the majority of Christians you know. I have good relationships with many here who are atheists or agnostics. Religion (or lack thereof) doesn't get in the way of our friendship or political discussions. I appreciate very much those who have taken the time to get to know me, and who accept me for the flawed, but "anxious to learn and improve" person that I am.
I'm not terribly preachy, never in anyone's face about their lack of belief, and have been known to make an off-color joke now and then. When I hear the words, "If only more Christians were like you..." I feel like I'm living a life that Christ would approve of. He doesn't expect me to be perfect. He certainly doesn't want me to feel like I am better than anyone else. And He absolutely doesn't want me to claim to be a follower of His, then turn around and live a greedy, self-centered, hypocritical life that would make anyone think, "Jeez, if that's what Christians are like, forget it."
There are others who suspend any attempt to be "politically correct" and are either outright hostile towards Christians, or are extremely condescending/rude. I find it interesting coming from people who are supposed to be more tolerant than the "righties" they detest. Rarely is this behavior directed at me, personally, but it does happen from time to time. Mostly I don't take it personally. Every once in awhile I get my feelings hurt, but, that's my problem...thickens the skin a little...builds character. Anyway, my point is, hypocrisy abounds on both parts of the equation. I often wonder as I'm evaluating myself, and my thoughts and behavior, do those who lump all Christians together ever think about what THEY are doing and saying? Are they aware that by shoving us all together into the same box, they are engaging in discriminatory behavior?
Not all Christians are the same. There was some discussion here recently (my apologies to whoever's post it was...I didn't bookmark it and can't find it) about liberal Christians. I think many didn't even think there WAS such a thing. The Christian movement has been hijacked by the vocal right-wing extremists to the point that when you say "Christian" many, if not most, think of Hannity and Rush and Sarah and their ilk, and don't even realize that they are only part of the story.
Whose fault is that? I would say it was the fault of liberal Christians. We have not stood up and demanded to be counted. We have not stood up and said "Enough already!" We have allowed our religion to be co-opted by the fringe. We have not held our religious "leader's" feet to the fire by DEMANDING that they practice the teachings of Jesus. We have stood by pretty much silently, thus giving tacit approval to their misrepresenting the truthlying, their hypocrisy in attempting to block universal health care while claiming to be their brother's keepers, their rabid insistence that abortion is murder, yet apparently having no problem with those who murder abortion providers or bomb their facilities, or condone torture or kill thousands of innocents, in addition to our own children, in a war that we did not HAVE to wage...
When did the Ten Commandments become the Ten Suggestions, or worse yet, multiple choice...pick which ones you want to follow?
In a recent comment I said that if I were searching for a religion to follow now, I don't know that Christianity would get a second look from me. The face of Christianity today is one of hate. Of dishonesty. Of greed. Of hypocrisy. Of exclusion. This is NOT the religion that I signed onto. I despise that we have let this happen.
As far as I'm concerned, you know a Christian by his/her actions.
But, there is a divide in the Christian Church concerning the matter of
being saved. Some say once saved, always saved, others say you can lose
your salvation by the way you live your life. We are never going to
know for sure until we meet our maker face to face.
Perhaps those who believe once saved, always saved, think that just because they have asked Jesus into their hearts, they can now do whatever they want...they have their ticket to Heaven, so whatever they do now, they are covered.
But I contend that you can, indeed, lose your salvation through your
actions, and these right-wing whackos that go around spreading lies,
tearing people down, murdering abortion providers, denying people the
most basic of human rights (i.e. health care) and generally behave in a
manner that I am SURE makes our Lord cringe had better start doing some
serious soul searching. And if they are smart, they'll err in favor of
believing they CAN lose their salvation, because it may help them to
think twice before acting the way they act. We are told by our Lord that we are to do NOTHING that will cause another to stumble in their faith. If we, as a group, behave in ways that bring disdain on our Lord, are we not causing them to stumble? Do we not have an OBLIGATION to behave in a way that brings glory, not ridicule to our Lord?
I love my Lord with all my heart, and the poor behavior of my fellow Christians is NEVER going to change that. But those of us who believe that the vocal minority of whacko Christians are ruining Christianity, have an obligation to change what is happening. So "WAKE UP LIBERAL CHRISTIANS!" To do any less is to agree with what they are doing. And then we have to be willing to accept responsibility for what they have done.
I offered to host a discussion of Russ Baker'sFamily of Secrets when he threw down the challenge to us readers to actually read his book before commenting. Today is the day I said I would try to hold this discussion but I am only half-way through and know that other people who expressed an interest are just beginning to read it. I want to get feedback for when a better date would be while giving some reactions to what I have read so far.
The book attempts to put at least a hundred years of the immediate past into the context of the rise of a crime family flourishing in the light and shadows of established power. With such a goal, the book is long but also short since it draws from a massive array of other books and resources. Some of the information brought forward in the footnotes is impossible to verify independently. Other stuff can be easily found on the web. Their is a huge middle ground between those extremes. Each of the books cited have their own circle of promoters and critics (along with a ton of their own footnotes). With the quantity of data to digest, you almost have to be Russ Baker to read this book. On some level, I think that is his ultimate point.
When describing the network of interrelated people in the story, an expression Russ Baker often employs is "at minimum." On page 246, he says "At minimum, it certainly is a small world." Before reading this, I didn't realize how small that world was. And at minimum, Mr. Baker has assembled enough reasons to be doubtful of previous narratives even if his story does not prove guilt. I was trying to make a flow chart that mirrored his description of interrelated people but became overwhelmed by the loops.
I have been tracking the criticism to this book. The criticism falls into two categories, (definitely not mutually exclusive categories). The first category challenges stories told in the book (and the books referred to by the book). The second dismisses the discussion itself as paranoia. Since it is too early to address the book as a whole, I would like to start a discussion about what people thought about conspiracy theories.
One critic who drove over this book on the way to the beach was Tim Rutten :
One of the impressive things about paranoid
literature is the contrast between its fantasied conclusions and the
almost touching concern with factuality it invariably shows" is a
characterization of Hofstadter's that might have been tailored to fit
Baker's book. "It produces heroic strivings for evidence to prove that
the unbelievable is the only thing that can be believed. Of course,
there are highbrow, lowbrow, and middlebrow paranoids, as there are
likely to be in any political tendency . . . [that] all but obsessively
accumulate 'evidence.' . . . The higher paranoid scholarship is nothing
if not coherent -- in fact, the paranoid mind is far more coherent than
the real world.
I have seen a lot of instances where the "paranoid style" replaced another kind of thinking. But if enough narratives come together to show that the previously received consensus is wrong, when does the thinking stop being paranoid?
Lebanon goes to the polls tomorrow, and even though Obama didn't mention the election in his big address in Cairo on Thursday, the outcome is rather important.
This is a chat with my good friend Nadine, a young political activist whose family is from Lebanon. It provides some valuable insight into tomorrow's elections - and hopefully we'll be hearing more from her soon over the next day and half, as I've urged her to write into TPM as a reader and maybe even start a reader blog!
Nadine: elections tomorrow!!! you would NOT believe how crazy it is over here!!! me: oh man!! tell me all about it!!
i was thinking about you the other day, you know everyone's talking about the middle east now bc of obama's big speech in cairo
what did you think of it?? Nadine: it was great, although a little weak on women's rights
i mean, women are being stoned and genitally mutilated and all he mentions is the right to a hijab? ehhh me: yeah
good point Nadine: but it was very well-received here me: awesomeeee
glad to hear it!! Nadine: but seriously things are CRAZY here me: so tell me about the elections...who are you supporting and what's the public feeling like?
crazy in a good way?? Nadine: there are basically two coalitions me: right, i remember you telling me about him
so tayyar al-mustaqba is the name of the party or that means something, like 'go mustaqba'? haha Nadine: there is the March 14th coalition and the March 8th coalition
tayyar means flag, it's how they refer to the parties here
the March 8th coalition is hezbollah and its allies me: right, i was just about to ask if this was accurate: 'Lebanon goes to the polls on Sunday with the main choices a Hezbollah-backed alliance or the U.S-backed coalition to lead their government.' Nadine: everyone is afraid that hezbollah will cause problems
yes that is correct me: so i guess the march 14th is the US-backed one? Nadine: here they are referred to as March 14th (US backed) and March 8th (hezbollah)
yes that's true me: got it Nadine: there are a lot of people who are afraid to go into beirut and vote tomorrow
you should see the streets
right now
there are soldiers EVERYWHERE me: oh god
that is scary!
your parents get to vote, right?
where are you exactly, are you in beirut? Nadine: we just saw six tanks filled with soldiers go up the street next to us, and we're in the mountains right now! me: omg
geez
:( be careful :( how likely is it to erupt into violence?? Nadine: my parents get to vote too, but i have to wait until i am twenty one until i get to vote here!!! lammmme me: 21! damn Nadine: and there are political parades everywhere too, just a bunch of young people taping political flags to every surface of their vehicle as they sit with their bodies halfway outside the window (or even on top of the car!) and honk horns and yell and stuff, there was already a car crash earlier from someone who was going too fast (right outside the house!) me: oh dear Nadine: there are political ads all over the tv
and all over billboards and the radio and people are saying that if
hezbollah wins, lebanon will become another iran! basically right now
it comes down to the christian vote: lebanon is 33% sunni muslim, 33%
shiite muslim, and 33% christian.. the sunnis are mostly all for the
progressive democratic Future party and the shiites are
mostly all for hezbollah, and the christians are split. me: it sounds exciting and a little terrifying, haha! Nadine: well nobody knows me: oh man Nadine: what will happen me: the christians
i think i just read about a christian leader who's backing the march 8th guys? Nadine: if hezbollah loses they might just try to take over again like they did may 7th me: :( Nadine: yeah that would be the general aoun me: ugh
frustrating
how long are you going to be there, until the end of the summer? Nadine: he was a general in the civil war, and he is absolutely desperate to be president
he would do and say anything to be it me: you should totally get a TPM account and post a blog there nadine. everyone would be fascinated Nadine: i am staying until june 30th
you think so? me: YES, definitely
The rest of the chat is just technical stuff about emailing TPM and getting a blog here - but I thought I would share the above. I know I'm interested, even though the Obama administration thus far is literally staying away from Lebanon - thought you all might be too.
It's important to remember what occured on D-Day, as it is to remember all the bravery, courage and fortitude it took to fight in World War II to defeat Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany. But let us not get too wrapped up in the sentimentality and worhsiping of the sacrifices made to the point where we forget that what occured on D-Day was an inhuman slaughter of young men who were ground up like hamburger attempting to establish a landing point for the great invasion of France.
Young Americans and the young men of our allies have never displayed a lack of courage, fearlessness, determination to fight for the lands they love or to selflessly give their lives on behalf of their country. What happened on D-Day demonstrates this. My point here is to remind people that modern warfare is mass murder. For those who may not have seen it in a while, I urge you to watch Saving Private Ryan again. What is most evident in that movie, for me, is how outmoded are the old romantic concepts of gallantry, bravery, skill in warfare and so on in an age of mechanized slaughter. When those teenagers were mowed down by machine guns as the doors of their amphibious vehicles opened up it was nothing but murder and they never had a chance. That movie, while certainly paying homage to what happened then, is also the best representation I have seen on film of what the carnage of war is really all about and how inhuman and ghastly a business it really is. There is nothing romantic or desirable about any of it. Any veteran who has been through it will tell you so. I ahve spoken over the years to men who have fought in World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq and they are universal in their assessment of what a genuine horror show war really is.
Having read endless volumes on World War II and other wars, having seen countless documentaries about that war and other modern wars and having read and seen the testimony of so many men who fought in World War II and our other modern wars the lesson is clear: war must come to an end. It is a senseless, horrific activity that produces little or no good under the best of circumstances. The weapons now employed on the battlefield completely negate most skill and reduce a soldier's chances to mere luck as can be seen so very poignantly in Saving Private Ryan. The weapons we have invented are utterly merciless and provide no second chances. we have industrialized the battlefield to the point where it is simply shocking in every respect.
After the carnage of World War II was over, the mass of people around the world, having seen atrocities, destruction, death unimaginable and an endless amount of pain and suffering were united in their determination to put an end to warfare and to use international law and to develop a worldwide body of laws that would provide for alternative means of settling the disputes of nations so we would never again have to endure the kind of slaughter World War II brought upon us all. The US, despite it's laudable leading role for decades in the attempt to build and strengthen the rule of international law and morality, has been at war more than any other nation since then and we have been in a state of emergency almost constantly since the end of World War II. This experience over time has twisted and warped our country and hurt our republic, not to mention our economy. During the Cold War there could be some justification for our obscene outlays for the military. But since that time, especially since the beginning of our imperial and clearly illegal invasion of Iraq, there has been no such excuse. All of the young Americans who have died in that effort have died fighting a fight that needn't have been fought. The hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqi's have lost their lives too in a fight that should never have been fought. And the war we are fighting which had some initial genuine justification has now become a pointless, endless process of destabilization and destruction that is perilously bleeding over into Pakistan.
Presently, as we remember the tragic slaughter in Normandy of the thousands who never got to grow old, the United States is escalating the war in Afghanistan and gearing up to fight an expanding conflict in Pakistan. The withdawal of our troops from Iraq will likely not happen within the next decade if our leaders have their way--despite the official position that we are drawing the troop level down to "only" 50,000 troops by sometime next year. There seems to be no real exit strategy from these wars that are only breeding more hatred, instability, and future violence in the middle east and south asia.
We need to remember on this anniversary of D-Day that none of the major wars we have fought since World War II have concluded with "victory" but instead they have concluded in either stalemate or defeat for US forces. And all this stalemate and defeat has come at great financial and human cost to our country and the countries in which we have fought. There is absolutely no reason to believe that the imperial wars we are now engaged in will end in "victory" either. We are not fighting armies as we did in World War II. We have no defined enemy, but each day our imperial forces continue killing Iraqis and Afghanis and Pakistanis in their own land we breed enemies and hatred for our country and our people. Far too many Americans among the elite and amongst the common people seem to think about war as little more than a strategic contest in the same way one would a major sports event. But that is a luxury for those who are not near the death, destruction, and chaos of war.
So, now 65 years after the massive invastion of Hitler's Fortress Europe began we need to remember that sacrifice and the courage of the thousands upon thousands of young people who did what they had to do. We need to remember those who tragically lost their lives or were wounded. We need to remember those who were blessed and lucky enough to survive that awful conflict. But we need also and most importantly to give meaning to all those sacrifices by remembering just exactly what war is---mass murder---and by pledging oursleves to do all we can to stop the wars currently being fought and to prevent war in the future.
You should click on the link to the brief but excellent commentary of this World War II vet, but the bottom line of his commentary was:
"Remembering doesn't do the remembered any good, of course. It's for ourselves, the living. I wish we could dedicate Memorial Day, not to the memory of those who have died at war, but to the idea of saving the lives of the young people who are going to die in the future if we don't find some new way - some new religion maybe - that takes war out of our lives. "
So, I'm readin' Dr. Reich's post about the murder of the Public Option and right there in the title it says "What Obama and the Rest of Us Must Do". Basically, all Obama has to do is sign the bill, then zip, his job is done.
That leaves The Rest of Us.
Well, let me tell you, Dr. Reich, The Rest of Us have been letting our congress people know what we want. We have been writing. We have been e-mailing. We have been phoning. We've shut down fax machines. We've been yelling. We've been protesting. We've been arrested. We've been holding meetings. We have told our stories. We've told them and told them and told them until our voices are hoarse and our eyes are dry of tears. I believe the urging to tell our personal stories on the websites and elsewhere was just a sop to us. How many stories were told? Thousands? Millions? Does the number even matter? Were they read? Were they considered? More likely they were used to decorate speeches of false passion by insincere politicians decrying our need for fair health coverage while pocketing money from Big Pharma-Big Insurance.
We have done everything short of showing up at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave with pitchforks. Is that what it's gonna take? Because let me tell ya....there's a lot of unemployed people around that don't have anything better to do this summer.
It's easy to sit behind a monitor screen and type out the obvious. I know this because I'm doing it myself, right now. But one thing you have that I don't is connections. I don't have friends on the Hill. I don't know people in D.C. I don't have access to ears that are attached to people that move and shake things.
If I were you, Dr. Reich. If I were in your high position, if I talked daily with friends on the Hill, you could bet your sweet ass that they would be getting an earful about Public Option. You could bet that I'd be twisting arms and pulling ears and banging my fist on tables. You could bet that I would be making enemies.
You are in an unique position, Dr. Reich. You are right there in the middle of it. You have the attention of highly placed individuals who make things happen and who actually seek your opinion and all the while you are not wrangling for a win in the next election. You are untouchable, Dr. Reich...Big Pharma cannot control you. Writing blogs addressing the great unwashed is swell and all, but is that all you can do?
I think not.
I think you need to speak to your friends in D. C. and tell them that the great unwashed has just about had it with the Fools on the Hill.
We have been doing our part. We Are Doing Our Part.
The seminal event of this week, and perhaps this year, ends, as it
should, on a day of national consecration as much as those we celebrate
that way. The photograph of the President, whose grandfather and
great-uncle were part of the liberation of Europe commenced that day is
yet another image which can almost reduce a grown man to tears.
First I think there was some misunderstanding when I mentioned in one of my post that my job was cutting out the overtime. Its not that I need the overtime to survive its just that the company that I work for builds cabinets for construction and remodeling and this is ussually our busiest time of year, and when the overtime started going down (this week we're only working 30 hrs,) it means construction is going down and that is what worries me that puts a lot of people out of work and we are a national company so it tells me the economy isnt getting as good as I had hoped.
That said I'm happy to say I'M ON VACATION THIS WEEK nothing to do unless I want to do it. This will be the first time in a long time I didnt have a job to go to for a day let alone a week. I can catch up on my TPM reading. There seems to be a lot of new people here that I havent had time to read so it should be great.
My oldest son is home for the first time in three years. It's great the way it worked out he didnt know I was going on vacation and I didnt know he was coming home so we get to catch up with whats going on in each others lives and work on a couple of cars that we have. He's the mechanic Im the body person.
Our favorite Right-wing blowhard -- and professional liar -- Michael Savage hit a twofer today on his Web site.
Savage
enjoys linking to stories found on other Web sites, but with headlines
of his own making. (See, Savage thinks he's a journalist. He tried to
get a job at a university some years back as head of its journalism
department -- the sum total of his experience was a couple of years as
a radio gum-flapper -- and was denied. Starting what would later become
a habit, Savage sued, claiming he was discriminated against because
he's a white male. The case was tossed.)
So anyway, Savage links to these sites and then writes his own headlines. Today we have two stellar examples:
Savage biggest story in Britain -- not covered by US press!
Science dies as men pushed out for less-qualified women
Now,
both of these headlines, of course, distort reality. But perhaps Savage
is an adherent of the George W. Bush-era philosophy of making up reality
as you go.
And that's a good thing. Obama's short list for SCOTUS picks were all women; ergo: Affirmative action choice. She is an Hispanic who was on the list of women; ergo: affirmative action choice. Hooray for him. He not only chose to make the Supreme Court look a bit more like America, but he will score some political points along the way by inviting Republicans to fight her nomination.
Affirmative action attempts to provide opportunity to minorities and women to allow our institutions to be more diverse in ethnicity and gender, thereby strengthening the fabric of ideas and policy and, in this case, legal opinions. We have heard Sotomayor's opponents arguing that the President should have chosen the best candiadate; we have heard her adherents claim that she is the best candidate. Phooey; there is no such thing as the best candidate, only really good (or some, come to think of it) really bad choices. And almost always politics plays the largest part in a President's choice. Ideology, geography, Party affiliation, etc. In Sotomayor's case, she has plenty of experience and intelligence. She may not be the female liberal lion many of us wanted; perhaps a Diane Wood could be his next choice.
But in the meantime, let's stop wincing at The Right's "affirmative action" charges, and say, "Yeppers; and it's about time." The judge herself has been open and matter-of-fact about herself in this regard. I do hope that during the hearings she can make it clear that, yes, she does have a uterus, and no, it does not in fact cause her to be hysterical. And that yes, she has Latin Blood, but no, that does not make her "hot-blooded." She seems to evidence quite a bit of wry, tongue-in-cheek humor. Let's hope she uses it well.
On January 20, 2002, six Algerian men who had been arrested in Bosnia arrived at the American prison on Guantanamo Bay. One of them, Lakhdar Boumediene, won a landmark case in the Supreme Court, and was subsequently released to France on May 15, 2009. Others, including Saber Lahmar, are still "detained."
Melissa Hoffer, one of the lawyers who represents the Algerian prisoners, has described the conditions of their imprisonment and the circumstances of their transfer from Bosnia to Guantanamo.
After a three-month investigation, the Bosnian federal prosecutor recommended to the Bosnian Supreme Court that all six be released. But again under heavy pressure from the United States, the Bosnians caved, and as the men were released from a jail in Sarajevo, the Bosnians turned them over to the United States.
"We could not understand what he was saying."
When we last saw Saber in November, he was in his sixth month of solitary confinement. Since August, he has seen us, his legal team, twice and a psychiatrist on three brief occasions. For a few minutes each day, he sees the camp guards who bring his meals. He has had no other human contact. The glaring lights in his cell are on 24 hours a day, seven days a week. When we left the cell, we could hear Saber shouting -- brief, truncated cries.
Tonight at 9:57 PM, the world welcomed into it my youngest son Christian Barack Wood. He was 6 lbs 11 oz, and looks like Daddy. I am not entirely embarrassed to note that upon arrival, he emerged--and peed directly on his otherwise mild-mannered doctor. He was crying and screaming, until I got to hold his hand for the first time. He and Mom are doing well, and I am so pleased that he entered life at this most hopeful and interesting of times.
Please all of you continue with your personal efforts to help shape, define, and improve this planet for him and for all of the little ones who will grow and learn in it, and "make gentle the life of this world."
Josh says on the main page that peace is the priority, and that it's not much an issue whether Obama topples Bibi from power; what matters is moving forward swiftly.
I fully agree, Obama wants results, although it's quite a snub not to visit Israel on this trip and instead go way the hell out to Buchenwald. I'd love to have been a fly on the wall for that scheduling. By this put down, Obama is saying, "I'm looking for something from you Bibi, and so far I'm not seeing it. You gotta keep me smiling or we're gonna have issues." Obama's from Chicago after all, and they don't react well to being played for chumps. Bibi's already been weakened by this (brought it on himself), and voters can see what a tough spot he's already in, right in the first inning. Some in Jerusalem have expressed concern (please forgive my childishness on that), but most Israelis understand, and Barack Obama's real point is,
"Look, Bibi, you play this right (and so far you ain't been) and there's a Nobel with your name on it. But you wanna try jerking me around, we can go that way too and maybe your successor can learn the lesson from it." The solemn Buchenwald visit instead of dinner at Bibi's place sends the message: "Jews we truly love. Land-expropriation that promotes bloodshed including ours we gotta take a pass on. And we want results very soon." In a way it helps Bibi, too: He can now tell his chauvinist cheering section that he tried throwing the low curve like they said, but Obama easily smacked that out of the park and now the coach will take him out of the game if he doesn't come up with something different quick.
-------------------------------- Now the one thing we got right Was the day we started to fight Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on.
Once again Media Matters caught Fox News cropping video to create a completely different representation of President Obama's speech in Egypt yesterday to support their agenda.
Clearly Sean Hannity, much like Rush Limbaugh, can't handle the truth. If they allowed themselves to acknowledge the truth, they would be out of a job.
But isn't this video cropping illegal and shouldn't Fox News 'BE SUED' for this? It is bad enough that they misrepresent everything but to crop video in order to make it appear as though others have actually said things the way they prefer for their own purposes... that is unacceptable. They are going beyond misrepresentation here.
Are they getting away with this just because they have the financial power of Rupert Murdoch behind them? This is criminal behavior and there must be a way to put a stop to it. Perhaps we should do an hour long crop of Hannity demonstrating the views 'we wish he had'? Would THAT be legal? (or is it only illegal if you don't have billions of dollars?)
Blunderdick and Widdledub have surfaced at DonDi's "Why I Tortured Dick Cheney." DonDi's post challenges readers to caption the dialog of a cartoon he labored long hours to create. Quinn, Stratofrog, DonDi, and Flowerchild all have pertinent captioning. Strato also brought up the noobocons, and Wwstaebler riffed royally.
I
have been a silent bystander for several months enjoying the blogs and
comments.Needless to say, I have
learned a great deal.I have been
content being "silent" but at the urging of my better half (Sleepinjeezus--SJ) I
have decided to take the plunge and be part of TPM.
I have finally gotten the courage to participate mainly because you people seem so
friendly and forgiving. I need the "forgiveness" due to the fact that I feel my writing skills are not the greatest.In the past, I have been very comfortable
allowing SJ to be in the drivers seat (in more ways than one).However, SJ has never been one to
criticize one for anything and has always been encouraging regardless.
I
grew up in Canada, twelve miles from Niagara Falls.At the age of 21, my parents decided to move to Ft.
Lauderdale, Florida, after visiting for vacation on a number of occasions.After living there two years, I decided
to move back north and settled in Hamburg, NY near Buffalo.After 17 years of marriage and a subsequent divorce, it was there, during a blizzard that SJ almost ran me
off the road in his orange "Pumpkin."I was a long way from my home in the far north side of Buffalo, and after a
few apologies from SJ on the CB, we engaged in a pleasant conversation during
the hour and half ride that should have taken 15 minutes.My girlfriend happened to be the Night
Auditor at an Inn in my hometown where SJ always stayed.A few weeks later, she called and said,
"Someone is here looking for you."That was the start of our relationship - convened over a cup of coffee - that ultimately led to my two
children and myself moving to
Madison WI to become a family with SJ and his three children.We are now celebrating our 25th
Anniversary this summer and have eleven grandchildren.
I
was never afforded the luxury of even considering going to college in
Canada.In my hometown, it was
available only to those who had well-to-do parents.So, that let me out.It always bothered me especially when I moved to the States and learned
that almost everyone went to college.So at an advanced age, I decided to go back to school.I was scared to death but soon
discovered that at our local Tech College, the evening classes consisted of
half young students and the other half older students.In a couple of my classes, I became the
class Mom and that was fun.I
chose Liberal Arts and to my surprise, was able to make the Dean's List each
semester for two years.My
intention was to transfer to UW.After a conversation with a school counselor mapping out my future, I
discovered the very next day that Jeff and I were about to become parents to
our nine-month old grandson.So,
my schooling had to be put on the back burner (with the exception of several
computer classes.)Raising Jordan
has been fun and we have thoroughly enjoyed it.Jordan will be a senior next year and will go on to
college.
So,
with this information in mind, please bear with me in the future. I look forward to posting and sharing with you ideas and comments as they occur to me as being appropriate for these pages in TPM.
I
am always open for suggestions and look forward to continuing my reading of the various bloggers here. I have one of the best, SJ, to critique my
writing before posting but he is hardly without bias. Thank you all in advance, and let the dialogue begin!
As discussed in this post, Honey Bees have been having some trouble lately.
They're suffering from something called colony collapse disorder (CCD) and they're dying off in droves, and we dont really know why.
In 2006, CCD began devastating commercial beekeeping operations, with some beekeepers reporting losses of up to 90 percent, according to the USDA. Researchers believe CCD may be the result of a combination of pathogens, parasites and stress factors, but the cause remains elusive.
Now mind you, these are 'domesticated' or commercial honey bees were talking about, not native bees species.
Honey bee colony losses nationwide were approximately 29 percent from all causes from September 2008 to April 2009, according to a survey conducted by the Apiary Inspectors of America (AIA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
This is less than the overall losses of about 36 percent from 2007 to 2008, and about 32 percent from 2006 to 2007, that have been reported in similar surveys.
"While the drop in losses is encouraging, losses of this magnitude are economically unsustainable for commercial beekeeping," said Jeff Pettis, research leader of the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Bee Research Laboratory in Beltsville, Md.
The genisis of the last post was the discovery of a parasite Nosema ceranae that appears to at least be partly responsible for the disorder. It didnt take long, but now the parasite's genome has been decoded.
The microsporidian Nosema is a fungus-related microbe that produces spores that bees consume when they forage. Infection spreads from their digestive tract to other tissues. Within weeks, colonies are either wiped out or lose much of their strength.
Sequencing the genome should help scientists trace the parasite's migration patterns, determine how it became dominant, and help resolve the spread of infection by enabling the development of diagnostic tests and treatments.
Genome sequencing is just standard procedure these days if you want to study something. But there's much we have to learn, including what happens to the native bee population when the domesticated bee colonies collapse and what happens to pollination levels.
Fear not, in steps more modern technology. Something called the interwebs, or something? Actually, more like crowd sourcing, its called the Great Sunflower Project, and it might not be too late for you to participate. From their website:
By watching and recording the bees at sunflowers in your garden, you can help us understand the challenges that bees are facing. While we are no longer sending out annual Lemon Queen sunflower seeds for 2009...The instructions are here. Do join us!
It takes less than 30 minutes.
It's easy.
Free Sunflower seeds for planting - will be sent for 2010.
No knowledge of bees required!
Its a great marraige of low cost, remote data gathering and technology.
"What you do is you stand out there and you time how long it takes for five bees to visit," LeBeun said, up to thirty minutes.
Then watchers report their results on the website or by mail. Soon participants will be able to upload time-stamped digital photographs to vouch for their observations.
One of the most enduring qualities of science fiction is that given
time, much of it comes true. That's not always a good thing, though.
While we have yet to achieve something resembling the BAMA sprawl that
is portrayed in William Gibson's Neuromancer, the dystopian future of burning books envisioned in Ray Bradbury's classic Fahrenheit 451
is trying to be realized in West Bend, Wisconsin. Four overly-zealous citizens are seething about and suing the city about a book
that they claim has caused them emotional strain simply by being in
the library and accessible to children.
The book in question is "Baby Be-Bop" by Francesca Lia Block, and
the ostensibly traumatizing material in the book has to do with that
most dreaded of things that should not be written about much less made
available to teenagers who may be questioning their own identities --
homosexuality. According to an abstract about the book,
the protagonist's "idyllic childhood... ends when he enters adolescence
and recognizes homosexual feelings." To make matters worse, the
similarly dreaded "N-word" appears somewhere in the book.
The four people in question have filed a lawsuit against the city, not only in hope of having the book banned from the West Bend library, but also seeking $120,000 in
compensatory damages ($30K a piece), the resignation of West Bend Mayor Kristine Deiss for allowing the book to enter the library, and have asked to be granted "theright to publicly burn or destroy by another means the library's copy of Baby Be-Bop." [Emphasis added.]
Perhaps what the would-be plaintiffs need instead is a nice box of Denham's Dentifrice,
or Denham's Dandy Dental Detergent. Or perhaps they need a lifetime
supply of ketchup, which is said to contain natural mellowing agents.
It may be just what they need to help them through this trying time in
their lives. After all, if one small book on a shelf in a library can
so impact these people's lives, they're going to need a lot of ketchup.
Though this will doubtlessly cause the hounds to be loosed in
pursuit of me or the firemen to pay a visit, I say that this suit
should be thrown out. I'm not a lawyer, but I personally believe their lawsuit has a snowball's chance in Dubai. And though I'm not a lawyer, this sort of case is
precisely what interests me in becoming one, just so that I can fight
indignant radicals who seek to ban, censor, or do worse to books and
other sorts of media.
Mpeterson has the backstoryon this whole situation.
You ever get so mad you are not sure how you are going to react?
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/
Well Bay Buchanan thinks that the guys in their anonymous pjs took after her friend and compadre Marcus Epstein. Well I was so damn mad reading her attack on some of us, that I broke into a rant.
So I decided that I would write her a letter:
Dear Bay Buchanan:
Hey Bay. Bay Buchanan. I am right here. I am Richard Day and
I live in Virginia, Minnesota.
I am one of those worthless citizens you and your brother speak about although
I am of the correct color and European background and everything.
So I am not nameless.That Marcus fellow you work with and that Tom TANCREDO works with, well, now he is
something I am not. He is a felon. Oh you people took care of that. I am sure.
Why do you not reread this: http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/dikkday48yahoocom/2009/06/republican-inbreeding.php#comments
You somehow 609'd him or some such. You got him into some
Repub rehab situation there and got his record all straightened out so that he
did not exactly tell the judge that he had struck a defenseless woman and then
proceeded to call her a 'nigger'. But then again,
Those nameless people in pajamas that you speak about from
time to time.
Well, I am one of them Bay. And I am not nameless. And this
son of a bitch racist bastard, was hired onto one of your fascist web sites and
was a speech writer for another fascist that you ran as a candidate for President
of the United States.
Oh Bay, you can call me worthless. You can call me a commie.
You can call me a traitor. We can deal with that. We can deal with those terms.
But DO NOT CALL ME NAMELESS because it pisses me off.
I am right here. Come and get me.You worthless fascist right wing racist
bitch.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME AND CONSIDERATION IN THIS MATTER.
I wrote a post that advocated for the jailing and execution of global warming deniers. If any of you have read my former posts - I may get very angry sometimes - but I truly don't want for anyone to die. I'm vehemently against the death penalty - and do my best to respect all forms of life.
My intention was not to wish imprisonment or execution of global warming skeptics. I am not a trained writer (I hear your collective "no shit sherlock" loud and clear) - and was not able to get my point across. That point is now irrelevant because I did true harm to this site, as well as the cause of global warming research. It's hard enough for respected scientists to battle Fox News ability to provide mass misinformation on the subject - they didn't need the extremist language in my post riling up conservatives. My original point was to combat what I considered an extreme (denying global warming) with another extreme (my ill conceived jailing and ... - well you know). A good writer would have found a better way to make their point without the threat of violence. I find the thought of being locked up for your views truly disgusting and disturbing as well. The whole post was ill conceived, poorly written - and not representative of who I am. But I did write it - and I take full responsibility for it.
This post was linked to many conservative sites before Josh could take it down, and I was even included as the subject of a Washington Examiner article. Wow - I'd reached the big time!! But I had been compared to an extremist abolitionist and the murderer of an abortion doctor. And sadly I didn't have much room to argue based on how my post was taken. Someone asked me how my language was any different from an extremist anti-abortionist calling for the murder of abortion doctors. While my intention was certainly different, the tone was not.
Some of the global warming skeptics actually had reasonable arguments against my extremist position, pointing out that science is ever evolving and changing. One in particular (I can't find it now - but it was well written) showed how throughout history scientific consensus have been overturned by new evidence - and that we should never stifle true scientific inquiry. This definitely made me think and further realize I was wrong in my approach. For those of you wishing to be thoroughly informed about the issue by a true master, I humbly direct them to the great potholer54 on youtube and his extremely reasoned scientific look at the issue. You will be glad you did.
What was truly disgusting though were the right wing vultures who pounced upon the story like it was a piece of rotting flesh (a good analogy for the post). They quote mined the story - picking out only the part about jailing and murdering people who don't agree with you and made sure it looked like Josh himself approved the article. Many of them insinuated (or just stated) that the post was written by the staff at TPM. They knew full well that the site allows anyone to post a blog - but they tried to drag the site through the mud because it wasn't pulled quick enough. One of the things I regret most is a comment on red-alerts.com who said that my post was just another reason to stock up on ammunition. Again - I know you don't know me - but the thought that my post made even one more lunatic on the right consider further arming themselves makes me sick and I question whether I should continue to write. As you can see from some previous posts - I push the envelope with people on the right and with evangelical Christians as well. I certainly hope I have never given the impression that I wish harm or violence to any person or group. I may (and do) vehimently disagree on some big issues - but I want everyone to live a healthy happy life.
As I thought about what to write - I wanted to post without throwing too many jabs at the right. I hope I have succeeded in that endeavor - it was not easy. There are many things that separate the views of progressives from the views of conservatives (and especially neo-conservatives). But one thing I think our side does much better is admit when we're wrong. I don't remember the last time someone on the right offered a sincere apology for some of the vile viewpoints they project onto our World. I'm not talking about offering a half hearted generically written apology when a sponser threatens to pull out due to public outrage - but an honest "You know what - I was wrong" apology. It would honestly make me listen to their viewpoint more if I knew they were introspective enough to question their own views and admit when they've made a mistake. I've taken this experience as an opportunity to do just that. I have concluded that although I think I'm right in my progressive World view - I can always do more homework and look at the true facts - and maybe examine the views of the other side for validity before I completely make up my mind. If anyone takes anything from this retraction - I hope it's that.
In conclusion - I'd like to offer my thanks to Josh Marshall for the second chance he's given me. He had no reason to allow me to post here - and in fact it was probably in his best interests to suspend my account permanently. He gave me some advice that I truly value and will do my best to heed it. I promised to abide by the terms of service - and to think before I hit save. Josh - thank you for taking a chance and for allowing me to continue to post here.
begins his letter in today's FT" Sir, I am glad to have furnished grist to Martin Wolf's mill"
Then subsequently tell us " the normally hard-headed Mr Wolf must be dreaming" and that "Mr Wolf blithely writes::" etc. and as a parting shot , summarizes " the Fed is less insouciant than your columnist."
That's Wolf. The well known insouciant.
You might ask what this is all about. In broad terms it's about the self destruction through over exposure of a possibly competent historian who presents his deeply conservative biases as self evident ecomomic truths, Or, more colloquolly, it's about the fact he's cluelss.
This episode kicked off three weeks ago in a New York Review of Books symposium in which NF magisterially presented his view that the projected 2019 deficit in Obama's plan would drive up current interest rates thus frustrating the 2009 recovery which is his immediate goal.
The other guests,for the most part, stared into space ,glanced at their watches or otherwise occupied themselves until NF finished.
And then carried on an economic discussion among economists.
Krugman ,courteously I thought, disagreed with NF.saying there was a world wide savings glut which would ensure against interest rates becoming a problem.
In the following weeks interest rates did escalate by a couple of percentage points ( or two hundred basis points as you might learn by taking my course in "Teaching Wall Street Jargon as a Second Language"). Which was followed by an NF FT op ed last Weekend modestly declaring hs defeat of the assembled forces of Keynesdom as personifed by Krugman. Interest rates had indeed risen said he and Obama's plan was failing just as he had warned and The End Was Near.
I'd expected Krugman to enter the fray but instead the next round was a column by the FT's impeccably conservative Martin Wolf. The interest rate rise over the last 3 weeks was indeed significant said he. It proved Obama's plan was working.,The true danger continued Wolf had been deflation. And Obama/Geithner had slain it and left its lifeless body ornamented with a cross stuck in its heart.
Digression. Deflation kills economies. It means that if you spend a buck to buy a widget intended for resale, when you do resell it , it'll be for 98 cents.Not a way to make a profit.
Consequently,said Wolf, the recent rise in rates showed the market believed Obama had preserved us from Deflation so normal business could be resumed.
Stung by this rejection of his own self adulation from Saturday NF returned to the attack by striking out at Wolf in a letter in today's FT.Whose graceful passages I quoted above.
Why do intelligent , well edited publications like the NYR or the FT give the guy column inches ? You might well ask
My theory is that an English accent will get you anywhere.As is so unfortunately true of Christopher Snitchens. Particularly if you are able to support yourself by polishing up the handle of the big front door , issuing irrelevant proclamations and pretending they're serious positions.
Much has been made recently, particularly on slow news days, of Sonia Sotomayor's frequent invocation of the phrase "wise Latina" over the course of numerous speeches. In the 2001 speech, she appeared to be referring specifically to her hope of bringing superior insight to cases involving gender or racial discrimination of the kind she had experienced. In earlier remarks, the same phrase may not have been equally limited (although I haven't seen the text of those speeches), and so alarms are ringing over fears she will unfairly favor Hispanics, or women, once she is elevated to the Supreme Court..
The excessive use of "wise Latina" by Sotomayor does seem a bit over the top to me, but I recognize that when someone comes up with a felicitous phrase, it's hard to resist reusing it, like a plastic bag that is still so intact it's a shame to throw it in the trash after only one shopping trip. What then to make of the notion of Sotomayor as "wise Latina"? Does her obsession with the concept imply that she's too Latina but not wise enough to decide cases without prejudice?
Nothing in the record of her judicial decisions even hints at such a prejudice, and in fact her decisions have generally tended to rule against plaintiffs in discrimination cases, but of course this is unlikely to hinder speculation. My own interpretation of her emphasis on "wise Latina" is that in the context of her speeches and the nature of their audiences, the phrase reflects a very substantial ethnic pride in her Puerto Rican heritage - pride perhaps worn too publicly for the taste of some - but pride nonetheless.
Now it's quite reasonable to expect our judges not to translate pride into favoritism, but I would hope we would not wish them to take no pride in who they are. Equally, we should be wary of attempts to discourage expressions of pride, lest we add to the list of hypocrisies we expect nominees to employ during confirmation hearings.
"Have you ever come to an opinion about Roe v. Wade"? "Of course not." "Your heritage is [fill in the blank - Hispanic, Russian, Italian, Jewish, etc.] Do you consider that important in the way you see things?" "Of course not."
Here's the problem. Almost everyone, to the extent he or she sports a minority ethnic heritage or identifies with a group that has suffered discrimination, will feel the pride of group identity. What happens if that becomes a disqualifying stigma?
Unfortunately, there is probably one group that can most often be honest in denying substantial group pride. I suggest that if you ask someone, "Are you very proud to be a white male?", only a few will answer "Of course", whereas a much larger number will reply, "You know, I never really think about it." Nothing in the American experience suggests any reason why they would need to, but for many other groups, heritage is a sustaining element in their sense of worthiness in a nation symbolized by words at the base of that statue in New York harbor .
If we wish to be fair in choosing our Justices, perhaps it's something we all should think about. Pride is one thing and prejudice another. I didn't make that up. Didn't someone once write a book telling us they're two very different creatures?
When people use tobacco insurance companies charge them higher premiums. So smoking and chewing must be unhealthy, right?
Right. More smokers means more lung cancer, heart disease and other illnesses. According to the CDC, about 443,000 Americans die from smoking-related illnesses each year.
Then
why are seven of the largest life and health insurance companies in the
United States, Canada and the UK invested to the tune of $4.4 billion
in tobacco companies?
Having
grown fat off individuals' health care premiums, particularly smokers',
giant insurers like Prudential, Mass Mutual and Sun Life are investing
some of those billions in tobacco companies.
J.
Wesley Boyd, MD, PhD, and colleagues at the Cambridge Health Alliance
at Harvard shared a list of the insurers and the size of their
investments in tobacco companies as of March of this year. In a correspondence piece to the New England Journal of Medicine published June 4 they wrote:
"Although
investing in tobacco while selling life or health insurance may seem
self-defeating, insurance firms have figured out ways to profit from
both. Insurers exclude smokers from coverage or, more commonly, charge
them higher premiums. Insurers profit -- and smokers lose twice over.
"These
facts should discomfit Canadian and British readers as their countries
consider further privatization of health insurance," wrote Boyd. "For
those of us in the United States, these data are a reminder of the true
priority of the insurance industry, which is making money, not ensuring
health and wellbeing."
A
rational person might hope that this knowledge would cause some
discomfiture in Washington, DC, where Congress is presumably wrestling over how to
best reform the health care system so that it serves people, not
profits, and wrests some control over health care delivery away from
insurance companies. But so far, those in charge of crafting the plan
are listening only to industry.
In which we discover that Newt Gingrich has no scruples, the Left has no spine, and Rush still has no testicles.
Obama got make his first big appointment, that of judge Sonia Sotomayor, to the United States' Supreme Court, as a replacement for the retiring David Souter. who wrote a famous decision saying that the government had every right to take the property away from those folks who weren't using it to its full potential. Prompting an immediate lawsuit by someone saying that the land under Souter's antique ranch house in New England could be more suitably used for the construction of a shopping mall.
Don't worry, he still lives there.
However, the story isn't about him - it's about her. Or, more importantly, it's about the right-wing punditocracy that's currently foaming at the mouth and flailing around madly trying to come up with ways to block the nomination, or at least to turn the nominating process into irrelevant crap by making the nominee answer all those "when did you stop beating your wife" kind of questions that the Repugs are so adept at creating.
She said once (severely paraphrasing) that being a Latina would give her a different perspective than that of a white male, and that having her background might make her a bit more empathetic to a poor minority person's plight than an old white man might be. Not unlike the quote from Samuel Alito about how his Italian-American background might influence his decision-making.
"Racism!" shouts Newt and Rush. Of course, not to be outdone, G. Gordon Liddy suggested that there might be certain times of the month where she shouldn't be asked to make decisions because of PMS.
Wow.
I mean.
Just.
Wow.
I have to wonder how Sandra Day O'Connor (a Reagan appointee) might have reacted to Mr. Liddy's statement.
Anyway, the Left, with it's infinite ability to find things to apologise about, has already been out there, full-throated, quite sorry that their prospective nominee actually had the nerve to go out and to say something that's true (darn her!). Both Robert Gibbs and his master, President Obama, have sort of said something to the effect that if she had to do it all over again, she probably wouldn't have said something like that.
When will the left-wing in power develop spinal bones? Get the mealy out of their mouths? Remove the skirting from around the issues?
And for Rush to call someone else a racist...
"You know who deserves a posthumous Medal of Honor? James Earl Ray [the confessed assassin of Martin Luther King]. We miss you, James. Godspeed. " - Rush Limbaugh
That's not racism, that's just tellin' it like it is - right, Rush?
The Weekly Standard and its Arabic freak-out (by Eric Boehlert at County Fair, Media Matters for America) If we've confirmed anything this week about the GOP Noise Machine it's that its members' heads pretty much explode at the mere mention of Islam or Muslims in the context of the Obama president... The sheer xenophobia though, and the blatant disdain for all things Islamic and Arabic, doesn't get much more transparent that [a] kooky blog post at the Weekly Standard in response to Obama's two-syllable response to the king of Saudi Arabia: "Shukrun," which is Arabic for thank you... [A]t the Arab-hating Weekly Standard that set off all kinds of alarms bells.
Liz Cheney: Obama Wants To Hold Hands With Terrorists (by Greg Sargent at The Plum Line) That's not really an exaggeration! On an appearance on MSNBC, Liz Cheney appeared to say that Obama's speech in Cairo today showed that he wants to deal with terrorists by "hand-holding." Click through to watch the video.
ABC News thinks Sean Hannity's anti-Obama screeds = news (by Eric Boehlert at County Fair, Media Matters for America) We noted earlier that the news crew at ABC dashed to post a bulletin about how right-wing talker Sean Hannity hated Obama's Muslim speech [Thursday]. Because at ABC, Hannity's important and insightful. A couple hours later here's how the Note summed up the reaction to Obama's speech: "...'This is an extension of what has become an apology tour, that America is an arrogant country," Hannity said... The instant reaction from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, per ABC's Jake Tapper: It was a 'wonderful speech,' she said."
At ABC News, Sean Hannity's reaction to a foreign policy speech is on par with the reaction of the United States' Secretary of State. Behold your liberal media at work.
How Fox News Defies Ratings Gravity (by Jeff Bercovici at AOL Daily Finance) In the just-ended May ratings period, Fox once again manhandled the competition, posting big gains in both primetime and full-day while MSNBC stumbled and CNN plunged headlong... It's tempting to ascribe Fox's surge to the change in administration. There's something to this. Political media outlets, whether print, web or broadcast, tend to flourish in opposition. Certainly that was the case with MSNBC, which rode the crests of Obamamania to new highs last fall, only to settle to earth once campaigning gave way to governing. Even the network's powerhouse, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, was down in May (a 20 percent drop among viewers 25-54), the first time that's happened in almost three years.
But Fox has never fit comfortably into this mold. When George Bush took office, analysts and competitors predicted Fox would fizzle without Bill Clinton to beat up on. Instead, it merely opened up an ever-growing lead on CNN. Just a few months ago, the chin-strokers were thinking that maybe it was actually Bush and his War on Terror that had been propping up Fox and that the dawn of the Obama era would prove Fox's undoing. That's clearly not happening. What Fox News gives its audience is a worldview that it reinforces every single day, many times a day. How else could almost 30% of the population still have believed, when he left office, that George Bush did anything worthwhile as president?
What so-called progressives like those on MSNBC have tried to do is mimic the us-vs.-them mentality that Fox News uses so successfully. But I don't believe that reinforcing tribal hatred and propensity for exclusion is the way to build a more progressive, more tolerant, dare I say more moral society. But Obama's kind of moralizing isn't the way to do it, either.
Too bad we have so few voices explaining, convincing, teaching. Too bad so many people have bought in to the smartass model of social interaction that they don't think teaching and being taught, convincing and being convinced, is worthwhile. Too bad for our social structures. Too bad for all of us.
Click here for more politics and media news headlines.
Senator Dodd asks: Is your health care working? What changes would you like to see? Add your ideas at YouTube's Senate Hub at http://youtube.com/senatehub
Democratic Senators are writing a major health reform bill. Rising
costs are hitting families and businesses and now 46 million Americans
live without health coverage. We need reform. Respond now with your
ideas as the Senate writes health care legislation. You can help.
Did you know you could purchase a gizmo that will detonate a nuclear bomb? Or the essential parts of an IED? Or how about a pair of night vision goggles, the kind that our military wear?
Amid all the hoopla of whether President Obama is a Socialist, or Supreme Court Justice nominee Sotomayor is a racist, some very frightening testimony was given to a House subcommittee.
And largely ignored.
The testimony was from Gregory D. Kurtz, the managing director of forensic audits and special investigations for the Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative arm.
Over the course of a year, from May 2008 to June 2009, the GAO went undercover and bought a number of items that the agency said are in demand by terrorists and foreign countries.
Kurtz testified that his investigators were able to easily purchase these items -- some of which were not supposed to be sold without certain forms of identification -- and, worse yet, to send them to a foreign country in violation of export laws.
And not just any country, but one that Kurtz testified is "a known transshipment point for items being sent to terrorist organizations and other foreign governments."
Kurtz' testimony detailed more than a dozen instances where investigators using phony names, a phony company and PO boxes were able to buy items from the Web.
For example:
Investigators were able to by a "triggered spark gap," which can be used to detonate a nuclear bomb. Kurtz said they have been the "center" of illegal exports to Pakistan and India, but are legal to buy in the U.S.
They were also able to buy an inclinometer, which measures an object's angle of slope and inclination. These devices are used in roadside bombs.
Gyro chips, which are used in guided missles, were also purchased.
This is really scary: the GAo was able to buy IR flags. These are the infra-red visible only patches that our military wear in Afghanistan and Iraq. They're used to identify "friendlies" at night (they can only be seen with nigh vision scopes and goggles). Can you imagine what could happen if the enemy gets ahold of a couple hundred of these?
They were also able to buy the same kind of body armor and inserts that our military are using.
And finally, they were able to buy night vision scopes and night vision goggles. The fear here is that they could be reverse-emgineered and produced for terrorists.
The GAO was able to get non-functioning versions of the items they bought and ship them to a foreign country. This was a test to see how well our domestic security works. It doesn't.
To be fair, officials said it's impossible to check every single package that leaves the country.
Kurtz recommended that a "comprehensive network of controls and enforcement" is necessary to make sure these things don't fall into the wrong hands. But, he said, the lack of legal restrictions over selling these things in the U.S. and the difficulty in tracking them when they are shipped overseas "results in a weak control environment that that does not effectively prevent terrorists and agents of foreign governments from obtaining these sensitive items."
"The key to preventing the illegal export of these sensitive items used in nuclear, IED and military applications is to stop the attempt to obtain the items at the source, because once sensitive items make it into the hands of terrorists or foreign government agents, the shipment and transport out of the United States is unlikely to be detected," he said.
Well, it seems to me the first order of business is either to ban the commercial sale of these things in the U.S. or, in the case of items that may have other uses -- such as in medicine -- ban teh sale of them over the Internet and require extensive documentation.
Yeah, yeah, I know all about the "free market." But there comes a time when everything has to be reined in a little.
The charge of "identity politics" has come up in relation to the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. It has been an ugly attack with claims of Sotomayor's racism, belonging to the Hispanic version of the KKK, and that she is more concerned about issues of race than issues of law. She has even been labeled as "un-American." All of these are codes , and the real target is not Judge Sotomayor, it is to stimulate fear among a certain portion of the citizenry with the goal of moving them into the "Republican" camp. This is currently a camp whose leadership is apparently being battled out by Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, and Dick Cheney.
We find ourselves again in the plains of central England.
Sir Cheney and Sir Boner have headed out to find out exactly what had happened
to Sir Quinn and Sir Palidan. Paladin
and Quinn had proceeded toward the Wall, and nothing appeared to come of
it.Where were the two knights?
Sir Cheney had been implicated, as it were, in some sort of
government conspiracy, but as usual, he escaped the noose and he watched others
get treed and such.I had prevailed upon Arthur to do the right thing, but he refused. So
what is a mother to do?
Sir Boner just kind of followed Sir Cheney wherever he went
and it did no good to challenge him anyway. So off he went, seeking Windmills
even though it never worked for Quixotic.
Sir Macconnell was going to follow but he lost his way and
was made a teller at a local bank.
The duo had continued toward their goal all day and the sun
was setting so that Sir Boner decided to caution that it might be best to bivouac
at the current location. There was a Roman Hearth at their current location,
and it was time to dismount.
Sir Cheney, who did not like to agree with anybody, anytime,
suddenly agreed since his bowels were running thin, so to speak, and the two
dismounted.
Sir Cheney scowled as always with that weird slanted grin of
his. I mean most people grin, but Cheney always scowled. It bothered Boner, but
what is a stupid motherf.......er to do?I
mean, everybody has to follow somebody--as Dylan says--and why not the
scowler?WHERE IS MY FOOD, demanded the
scowler.
Okay, okay, I shall seek some fowl or other smaller animal,
replied Boner. Sir Boner proceeded to the edge of the wood nearby and
discovered some wild geese. I mean it was not like there were domesticated
geese. But I have to describe the fowl some way or manner do I not?
Cheney looked to the north and saw a light. It was a glimmer
reflected from the setting sun upon a helmet. What the hell is that? He thought.
I challenge you to a
joust old man!! Called the knight.
Who in the f...k are you
anyway? Nobody calls me out on anything. Cheney challenged.
The knight approached as Sir Cheney sneered. I shall hack you down like the rat you are
right now. I give you the opportunity to mount your steed and meet your maker
like a man....
I have escaped all
attempts to make me an enlistee and this is the thanks I get for keeping our
island safe from barbarians. And now I am to suffer infidels like this.
Cheney mounted his steed with spear in hand. He was filled with fear and the
crapola that had plagued him since birth since he was born of cowards.
The two knights sighted each other from fifty yards and came
toward one another in a clash of steel.
Cheney was dismounted and on the ground, face down and
without breath.
Sir Boner heard the call so to speak. There had been a
clash, a mesh of steel. He knew immediately that something had happened.He moved stealthily from the wood. And he saw
the knight in shining armor sitting on his steed looking down at one of the
most despicable human beings he had ever known.
Methinks I may stay
inside the woods tonight, thought Boner.
Paladin and Quinn, meanwhile, after their epiphany,
proceeded toward the Wall. They proceeded with a new vision; a new concept with
regard to blood and guts and the smell of battle.
For some reason they stopped, half a league from the wall
and decided to bivouac. Paladin welcomed the rest in order to contemplate his
new aims in life.Quinn was filled with
fear and awe with regard to his epiphany. A
star in the east, he thought.
We must not seek the
blood of enemies but we must request that emissaries be present. Methinks that
there are other ways in which to pursue our goals, our final aims in this life,
Paladin. We need a secure wall. But we do not need to shed so much blood as
before, said Quinn.
Yes Quinn, I see that
now. I had a vision of Lancelot. But it had been a vision of my own for some
time. I just was able to seeeeeeee it. Just once. As it was. As it should be
Quinn.We shall begin a new way, so to
speak. We shall seek to incorporate the real message of Jesu Christe (blesses
himself) as best we can. I mean, the 'enemy' wishes that we not traverse their
kingdom. And we have built the wall to keep them out of our kingdom. I mean,
where is the animus, so to speak?There
must be a way that 'they' can stay behind the wall and we can keep our kingdom.
As they sat around the fire cooking their fowl and enjoying
their company a call came out from the south.
I see that you do not
greet the night with dignity. You have sought to disgrace this land with all
that Jesu Christe abhorred!!!
What? cried Quinn.
What? cried the
Moor.
No reflection from the sun could be seen of course, since it
was night. You know there are few truisms in life. But when the sun sets, there
are fewer reflections. Especially in saloons.
Yet the new knight, the new visitor appeared to glow and the
two knights sat at their feast with wonder and awe.
Palidan, the Moor, rose to the occasion and mounted his
steed, much to the chagrin of Quinn. Why,
would my companion after just avowing his need for peace, mount his steed to do
battle in this manner? He thought.
Palidan and the New Knight clashed. Crashed. Their spears
hitting each other with determination.
Both of the warriors fell from their horses in dismay.
The two recovered enough to draw swords.
Why, why are we doing
this?For what reason shall we seek to
kill each other? Cried Palidan.
All righty then,
cried the other knight.
I have heard that you
are from the evil army of cheney whom I have just vanquished. You who were
seeking to disavow the words of our own Jesu Christe, (blesses himself).
Oh no, we do not seek
such things at all fair knight. Join us and we shall split what fowl and herbs
we have left.
The knight layed down the sword and so did Palidan.
And they embraced.And they kept embracing.
And Quinn became worried about the embracing. I mean, it
kept on, and on and on and on....
And yet the two approached Quinn with great joy. And the
three of them began to discuss issues and such.
Palidan requested:We must all have our helmets off.
The third knight responded: All right, one, two, three....
And all removed their masks.
The third knight was shown to be of a feminine manner so to
speak and the dynamic duo were amazed and awed.
You are a woman. I
mean. You are a woman. What art thou doing in the sphere of man's war?
I am Flower d'Arc. From
France and else wheres being here only because I
was given the message of the Lord, Our Lord and Savior. (Blesses herself)
Flower d'Arc. Why doth
not thou capitalize the 'd'?
Well, I am not really
in charge of scrivening but what is a virgin to do?
Are you then a mother
of more knights? Answered Palidan.
No, I am a virgin. I
have never foaled a child.
All righty then, would
you like to try? Asked Quinn.
Do not be discourteous
to the virgin Q. What the hell is the matter with you anyway? The Moor interjected.
I was just asking.
Answered Quinn.
Okay, okay. Let us
feast together and tomorrow is another day.
And so the trio simply discussed points in common and no one
lied about all the sexual activity they had had recently, and truth was found.
The three knights awoke to a new dawn. They were all in
agreement that Jesu Christe needed no new blood on the ground nor more dead in
battle.
Ev'rybody's
talkin' 'bout
Bagism, Shagism, Dragism, Madism, Ragism, Tagism
This-ism, that-ism, ism ism ism
All we are saying is give peace a chance
All we are saying is give peace a chance
(C'mon)
Ev'rybody's talkin' 'bout
Minister, Sinister, Banisters and Canisters,
Bishops, Fishops, Rabbis, and Pop Eyes, Bye bye, Bye byes
All we are saying is give peace a chance
All we are saying is give peace a chance
(Let
me tell you now)
Ev'rybody's talkin' 'bout
Revolution, Evolution, Masturbation, Flagellation, Regulation,
Integrations, mediations, United Nations, congratulations
All we are saying is give peace a chance
All we are saying is give peace a chance
Ev'rybody's
talkin' 'bout
John and Yoko, Timmy Leary, Rosemary,
Tommy Smothers, Bobby Dylan, Tommy Cooper,
Derek Taylor, Norman Mailer, Alan Ginsberg, Hare Krishna
Hare Hare Krishna
All we are saying is give peace a chance
All we are saying is give peace a chance*
Our first freeways were laid down in the '20s, and since most communities out here were orange groves until after World War II, urban planners articulated designs for almost all Golden State cities around four rubber treads and a gas-charged engine.
By that time, cars had long been affordable and commonplace everywhere in America. But since California's instant metropolises were actually conceived with automotive transportation as a given, our cars aren't just conveniences, or sporty penis-surrogates.
Cars are necessities.
Remember, we gave the world urban sprawl; every facet of our social dynamic is so spread out, across the landscape, we can't even consider walking as a transportation alternative. Our public transit systems are mostly new, balky and barely contrived. We gotta have our rides. Yeah, baby! They're basic necessities. Like water, oxygen and bread. (At least, breadsticks, with tomato bisque and a sassy little chenin blanc from Maison Akira.)
So... when gas prices skyrocket, overnight, we tend to notice.
Master Kung (Confucius) said, "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." But another proverb says, "Give a man enough rope and he will hang himself." The lesson of End of the Line, a documentary to be released next week, may be, "Give humanity enough trawling nets and they will starve themselves."
The story begins in the sleepy Canadian resort of Newfoundland. It was the global capital of cod, a fishing town where the scaly creatures of the sea were so abundant they could be caught with your hands. But in the 1980s, something strange happened. The catches started to wane. The fish grew smaller. And then, in 1991, they disappeared.
It turned out the cod had been hoovered out of the sea at such a rapid rate that they couldn't reproduce themselves. But the postscript is spookier still. The Canadian government banned any attempts at fishing there, on the assumption that the few remaining fish would slowly repopulate the waters. But 15 years on, they haven't. The population was so destroyed that it could never recover.
...
Professor Ransom Myers found that whenever the vast industrial trawlers are sent in, it takes just 15 years to reduce the fish population to a 10% shadow of its former self.
Who's next? Charlie the Tuna:
The species in the frontline is bluefin tuna, the pinnacle of the evolutionary chain for fish. This little creature can swim at 50mph, and accelerate faster than the swishest sports car. It has even developed warm blood. Yet every year, a third of the remaining population is ripped from the seas and slapped onto our plates. Soon, it will be gone.
...
But we need fish. Our brains don't form properly without their fatty Omega-3 acids. So why do our governments allow this process of destruction to continue? Why do they actively encourage it, with $14bn of subsidies for fishermen to keep on trawling every year?
A small number of people are making a lot of short-term profit out of this destruction - and they are using this cash to ensure they can carry on hunting, down to the last fish. In 1992, an attempt to get the bluefin tuna listed as an endangered species was scuppered by the US and Japanese governments at the urging of the tuna lobby - who happen to give large campaign donations to all parties. A similar corruption has eaten into European politics.
Add to this the fact that fishermen are a determined and demanding constituency with an equally short-term agenda. They demand the maximum quotas today - even if that means no quotas tomorrow.
Our societies are structured to put these short-term cries for money for a few ahead of the long-term needs of us all. A small determined group with hard cash almost always beats a diffuse group with good intentions - until they get angry and fight back.
Now here's where Hari's article gets interesting:
At the moment, many good people get anxious about environmental issues, and hear the message that The Response is to scrub their own lifestyle clean. Yet individual voluntary action by a minority of nice people will not save the bluefin tuna, never mind the ecosystem. But if all these honourable people act together - by volunteering for, and donating to, organizations like Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and Plane Stupid - they can change the law, so everybody will be required to change their behaviour, not just a benevolent 10 per cent. It was just such determined minorities armed with the facts that spurred the fights against slavery, colonialism and fascism. When you respond as a consumer, you are weak; when you respond as a citizen, you are strong.
Progressive attempts to save the world always run into Jevon's Paradox. We have two children while the Duggars have eighteen. We walk or bike to work and watch Hummers roll by. Hari's solution is ecoactivism, which will almost certainly be attacked as treehugging econazism, but may be the only alternative to watching the world collapse around us.
When I heard what he said, I knew the spokespeople from the White House would have to make all the Sunday morning TV commentaries, no matter how distasteful they had become with their slovenly catering to the Right. The words were crystal clear in their meaning and what was most shocking of all was that Obama said them himself. It immediately accelerated the fear-spiral in which the conservatives have been swirling these past few months, each time getting more hysterical in an effort to revive the tremendous support they once had back on 9/11. Those were good times, with everyone so fearful and maleable. Now, the wheels have come off, however, and what is to be done? Obama's <i>true</i> fiath has been exposed. By his own admission, he has shown himself to be neither Christian, nor Muslim, although we have heard him make references to each at one time or another. The real story is that Obama is a god-made-man reincarnation of an ancient Egyptian deity!!!
As Obama was being guided through the pyramids in Egypt his entourage came upon a hieroglyph to which the President of the United States pointed and taunted, "It looks like me! See the ears!" Everyone was aghast! It did! Now I do not want to start any untoward rumors about this. It does need to be confirmed, but I have the solution. In the definitive work on ancient Egyptian archeology, the movie, <i>The Mummy</i>, we learn that the Egyptian gods are vulnerable to cats in their early days of their reincarnation on Earth. So to verify whether Obama is an ancient Egyptian god, I propose at a press conference we ask him whether, now that the Obama family has a dog, whether they will also be getting a cat? If they say no, then the truth is assuredly that Barack Hussein Obama is a member of the cult worshipping the ancient God, Ra, which is also the words his followers chant whenever he comes into their presence, "Rah-Rah-Rah"and sometimes, Her-Rah, when Michelle Obama is also present.
One final way to confirm whether BHO is a follower of this pagan deity it to inquire with his dog, Bo. Though we may have our many questions unanswered, if we inquired of the dog what the Obama's are doing at the upcoming solstice we should ask Bo, because Bo knows Egyptology.
From progressive Israel/Mideast peace group J Street:
President Obama is getting ready to set his course for achieving real peace and security in the Middle East.
But some are telling the President to go slow and take a hands-off
approach to negotiations, rather than taking the immediate action
needed to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Arab conflicts.
This Administration's first year is crucial to promoting peace in the
region - and the President needs to know that he has strong support in
Congress if he chooses a path of leadership and real action.
Representatives Steve Cohen (D-TN), Charles Boustany (R-LA), and Russ Carnahan (D-MO) have authored a bipartisan letter backing President Obama's strong leadership in pursuit of the two-state solution and a regional comprehensive peace.
The promise of change appears to be more form than substance. The same lower-level staffers, contractors, and other in the homeland defense-intelligence community who were abusing their authority under Bush are still there.
PRINCETON, NJ -- Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Vice
President Dick Cheney have little in common politically, but they
receive almost identical image ratings from the American public.
According to a May 29-31 Gallup Poll, 37% of Americans have a favorable
view of Cheney and 34% have a favorable view of Pelosi. Both Cheney and
Pelosi are viewed unfavorably by at least half of Americans.
I'm not a fan of Nancy Pelosi, even from before she became Speaker of the House; but to put her in the same category as Dick Cheney (the same level of 'disgusting') is ludicrous.
They are both disliked for opposite reasons. She because she refuse to stand up against the Bush administration and he because he refused to admit any wrong doing and for his arrogant actions. They are both disliked for their personalities.
The biggest shocker here is that Cheney's favorably has increased since March. I guess it's true that Americans have short memories.
We Americans that still REMEMBER, must NEVER allow the others to completely forget what this man did to our nation the past 8 years in office. If Democrats in office had any guts and sense of pride in their nation, this man and his so-called boss would be in jail today for war crimes and for lying to the American people.
Who says that President Obama has taken a hard right turn toward fascism since his inauguration?
It's just stinking far-left propaganda!
Those pinko-peacenik-tree-huggers at the ACLU are all liars, and President Obama is totally different from ex-President Bush!
Soldiers of Misfortune focuses on the U.S. military's recruiting tactics that target children as young as 11 and disproportionately target low-income youth and students of color.
The report also demonstrates that the United States fails to observe minimum safeguards for recruitment of youth under 18 as required by the Optional Protocol, recruiting children without parents' consent and exposing youth to heavy-handed recruitment tactics and misconduct by recruiters, including coercion, deception, and sexual abuse.
The Marines are talking with at least six districts -- including in suburban Atlanta, New Orleans and Las Vegas -- about opening schools where every student wears a uniform, participates in Junior ROTC and takes military classes, said Bill McHenry, who runs the Junior ROTC program for the Marines.
The academies have the support of U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who ran Chicago Public Schools before being tapped by President Barack Obama. Duncan sees the schools as another option for kids who don't fit well in a traditional educational setting.
"For the right child, these schools are a lifesaver," Duncan said.
But far-left radicals are too honking stupid to see the beauty of those public military schools that Obama's friend Arne supervised in Chicago, because "students at the public military schools in Chicago have struggled."
Just 27 percent met standards in 2008 -- the most recent data available -- compared to the district average of 60 percent and the state average of 74 percent. At Carver Military Academy in Chicago, just 8 percent of students passed muster on state tests.
None of the Chicago military schools made "adequate yearly progress" last year, meaning they fell short of basic standards under the federal No Child Left Behind law.
On the upside, Chicago's military schools reduced chronic truancy from 24 percent to 8.5 percent, and apparently heavy-duty truant officers are just another benefit of military "coercion, deception, and sexual abuse" in the schools!
Note: What I mean by "fascism" is domination of government by finance capitalism, along with increasing militarization of society. It would be an understatement to say that this definition isn't universal, and defining "fascism" is an ongoing nightmare for political and social historiography. There are numerous online discussions of this problem, in Wikipedia and elsewhere, which are easy enough to find, so I might as well add a little something to the soup, and include a page which I photoshopped out of the Fascism Reader, edited by Aristotle A. Kallis...
It appears kicking in their doors, faxing them out of paper and
ringing their phones off of the hook is helping single payer as nyceve
was invited to go to Washington. I am hoping that means the CNA, NNM
and PNHP might all get their opportunities, as well:
I was asked by Congressman John Conyers,
specifically two of his indefatigable staffers, Joel Segal and Jonathan
Godfrey (and one other Conyers hero, who I don't know named Dan), to
come to Washington to speak to what they tell me is a large gathering
of Congressional staffers about healthcare reform. Yeah, I'd prefer not
to go. I know I'm probably much better sitting behind my computer.
They want me to give a picture of exactly
what Americans are experiencing across the land. You see, living in
Washington, and having access to Rolls Royce healthcare courtesy of the
taxpayers and the FEHBP, probably makes many of these good people less aware of the suffering, than we are.
So I will give them a lesson in human
suffering, death and misery. I will tell them what ordinary Americans
experience day-in and day-out at the merciless hands of the for-profit
insurance industry, and due to generations of official indifference
from those we elect to do our business.
While Baucus continued to aver that single payer can not pass the legislature, the nurses and doctors pressed him to:
• Hold a hearing in which the merits of single payer can be contrasted
with the plans now rapidly advancing in the Senate. While Baucus said
the tight timeline made that very difficult, Sanders noted that Sen.
Chris Dodd is considering a health committee hearing on single payer,
which Baucus could co-sponsor. Baucus said, "let me think about it."
Please consider calling, faxing or emailing Dodd and asking him to do this. Here is the phone number: Tel: (202) 224-2823
I've re-posted this due to the previous posting having been dropped from the queue.
WASHINGTON - Laying out in the clearest
terms yet what he wants in a healthcare overhaul, President Obama told
Congress yesterday that he strongly believes Americans should have the
choice of a new public health insurance plan that would compete against
private insurers.
Obama
said he is also "open" to requiring individuals to obtain insurance
coverage - which he opposed during his campaign - as long as there is a
hardship exemption for those who cannot afford it, an approach similar
to the system in Massachusetts. He said he supports forcing employers
to contribute to their employees' insurance but that there should be
exemptions for small businesses.
In
a detailed two-page letter to key senators released yesterday, the
president wrote that he wants to "fully offset the cost of healthcare
reform" by cutting an additional $200 billion to $300 billion from
Medicare and Medicaid over the next decade, on top of the $309 billion
reduction he has already proposed in the government's two main
healthcare programs for the poor, elderly, and disabled.
June 2, 2009 The Honorable Edward M. Kennedy The Honorable Max Baucus United States Senate Washington, D.C. 20510
Dear Senator Kennedy and Senator Baucus:
The
meeting that we held today was very productive and I want to commend
you for your leadership -- and the hard work your Committees are doing
on health care reform, one of the most urgent and important challenges
confronting us as a Nation.
In 2009, health care reform is not a
luxury. It's a necessity we cannot defer. Soaring health care costs
make our current course unsustainable. It is unsustainable for our
families, whose spiraling premiums and out-of-pocket expenses are
pushing them into bankruptcy and forcing them to go without the
checkups and prescriptions they need. It is unsustainable for
businesses, forcing more and more of them to choose between keeping
their doors open or covering their workers. And the ever-increasing
cost of Medicare and Medicaid are among the main drivers of enormous
budget deficits that are threatening our economic future.
In
short, the status quo is broken, and pouring money into a broken system
only perpetuates its inefficiencies. Doing nothing would only put our
entire health care system at risk. Without meaningful reform, one fifth
of our economy is projected to be tied up in our health care system in
10 years; millions more Americans are expected to go without insurance;
and outside of what they are receiving for health care, workers are
projected to see their take-home pay actually fall over time.
We
simply cannot afford to postpone health care reform any longer. This
recognition has led an unprecedented coalition to emerge on behalf of
reform -- hospitals, physicians, and health insurers, labor and
business, Democrats and Republicans. These groups, adversaries in past
efforts, are now standing as partners on the same side of this debate.
At
this historic juncture, we share the goal of quality, affordable health
care for all Americans. But I want to stress that reform cannot mean
focusing on expanded coverage alone. Indeed, without a serious,
sustained effort to reduce the growth rate of health care costs,
affordable health care coverage will remain out of reach. So we must
attack the root causes of the inflation in health care. That means
promoting the best practices, not simply the most expensive. We should
ask why places like the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, the Cleveland Clinic
in Ohio, and other institutions can offer the highest quality care at
costs well below the national norm. We need to learn from their
successes and replicate those best practices across our country. That's
how we can achieve reform that preserves and strengthens what's best
about our health care system, while fixing what is broken.
The
plans you are discussing embody my core belief that Americans should
have better choices for health insurance, building on the principle
that if they like the coverage they have now, they can keep it, while
seeing their costs lowered as our reforms take hold. But for those who
don't have such options, I agree that we should create a health
insurance exchange -- a market where Americans can one-stop shop for a
health care plan, compare benefits and prices, and choose the plan
that's best for them, in the same way that Members of Congress and
their families can. None of these plans should deny coverage on the
basis of a preexisting condition, and all of these plans should include
an affordable basic benefit package that includes prevention, and
protection against catastrophic costs.
I strongly believe that
Americans should have the choice of a public health insurance option
operating alongside private plans. This will give them a better range
of choices, make the health care market more competitive, and keep
insurance companies honest.
I understand the Committees are
moving towards a principle of shared responsibility -- making every
American responsible for having health insurance coverage, and asking
that employers share in the cost. I share the goal of ending lapses and
gaps in coverage that make us less healthy and drive up everyone's
costs, and I am open to your ideas on shared responsibility. But I
believe if we are going to make people responsible for owning health
insurance, we must make health care affordable. If we do end up with a
system where people are responsible for their own insurance, we need to
provide a hardship waiver to exempt Americans who cannot afford it. In
addition, while I believe that employers have a responsibility to
support health insurance for their employees, small businesses face a
number of special challenges in affording health benefits and should be
exempted.
Health care reform must not add to our deficits over
the next 10 years -- it must be at least deficit neutral and put
America on a path to reducing its deficit over time. To fulfill this
promise, I have set aside $635 billion in a health reserve fund as a
down payment on reform. This reserve fund includes a number of
proposals to cut spending by $309 billion over 10 years --reducing
overpayments to Medicare Advantage private insurers; strengthening
Medicare and Medicaid payment accuracy by cutting waste, fraud and
abuse; improving care for Medicare patients after hospitalizations; and
encouraging physicians to form "accountable care organizations" to
improve the quality of care for Medicare patients. The reserve fund
also includes a proposal to limit the tax rate at which high-income
taxpayers can take itemized deductions to 28 percent, which, together
with other steps to close loopholes, would raise $326 billion over 10
years.
I am committed to working with the Congress to fully
offset the cost of health care reform by reducing Medicare and Medicaid
spending by another $200 to $300 billion over the next 10 years, and by
enacting appropriate proposals to generate additional revenues. These
savings will come not only by adopting new technologies and addressing
the vastly different costs of care, but from going after the key
drivers of skyrocketing health care costs, including unmanaged chronic
diseases, duplicated tests, and unnecessary hospital readmissions.
To
identify and achieve additional savings, I am also open to your ideas
about giving special consideration to the recommendations of the
Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), a commission created by
a Republican Congress. Under this approach, MedPAC's recommendations on
cost reductions would be adopted unless opposed by a joint resolution
of the Congress. This is similar to a process that has been used
effectively by a commission charged with closing military bases, and
could be a valuable tool to help achieve health care reform in a
fiscally responsible way. These are some of the issues I look
forward to discussing with you in greater detail in the weeks and
months ahead. But this year, we must do more than discuss. We must act.
The American people and America's future demand it.
I know that
you have reached out to Republican colleagues, as I have, and that you
have worked hard to reach a bipartisan consensus about many of these
issues. I remain hopeful that many Republicans will join us in enacting
this historic legislation that will lower health care costs for
families, businesses, and governments, and improve the lives of
millions of Americans. So, I appreciate your efforts, and look forward
to working with you so that the Congress can complete health care
reform by October.
This has been bugging me for a while now. When TPM TV shows a commenter I hate, should I give it 5 stars or 1 star on youtube? I'm talking about stuff like the two recent videos showing Liz Cheney comments ("Liz Cheney: My Dad Never Said There Was Connection Between Saddam and 9/11", and "Liz Cheney: We Don't Live in World Where Terrorism Can Be Dealt with By Hand-Holding"). My first instinct is to vote 5 stars to thank TPM TV for capturing those comments, bringing them to light, and putting them out there for everybody to see and discuss. But then, I feel like I'm endorsing the commenter in the process (like "Yay, 5 stars for Liz Cheney!"), which of course I don't want to do.
Anybody with a more in depth knowledge of youtube/TPM TV protocol, please advise. Thanks. :)
I was considering Emma's timely and well-put remarks regarding western womens' problematic encounters with customs of mandatory head-covering in Muslim states. We concentrate, of course, on the several and variegated mandates of female modesty that always include the covering of the head.
While we click our tongues at this (without peradventure) obsessive preoccupation with female modesty (and, male, for that matter...) may we not pause and reflect how, across all of the Yahwist Cults,and for both sexes, hair is to be hidden, shaved, shaved and replaced with a wig (if you are some sort of crazed haredin chick) symbolically hidden (a skullcap), or otherwise obscured (a wimple, cassock, turban) and either mandatorily allowed to grow (the taliban beard and hair) or cut at the peril of the wearer (Samson) and never, ever, should Yahweh be confronted by uncovered hair in church, temple, or mosque. It'll drive him nuts.
So, I put it to you, Yahwists of whatever stripe. (You have your Old Testament, or Jewish Yahwists, Your New Testament, or Christian Yahwists, and your Koranic, or Muslim Yahwists), what is up with the hair thing?
It's hard to see what Obama can do to stem the tides when there's so much hate speech coming out of the Middle East. These people can't control themselves - it just spews out naturally. Take a look - this is the situation we're trying to step into, make civilized. Any chance of that happening? And if we don't succeed, it just reflects badly on us. Make sure and watch the video - it's the straight-to-camera attitudes that often get filtered out of the news, lost in translation.
Better to focus our energies on rebuilding Detroit. Those people share our values.
PPS - And I find something distasteful about Bill Ayers advertised over to the right. Okay, I give - give me back the Muslim women matrimony ads - I'll take sexist over... over whatever Ayers is supposed to be.
I didn't care much for the speech, I guess it served its purpose.
But one thing I found encouraging is to read that his team's backing it up with lobbying Capital Hill hard to close Gitmo. Good for them. Like Obama? Lobby your Congresspeople. Give him a success, on something we care about. No more "some day, one day". Close it now, next week, last week. Amnesty International's still reporting abuse coming out of Gitmo, the "last chance to torture before they take it away" challenge. Get out now.
I don't want Gitmo closed to open another one. I want it closed because the whole concept sucks - military tribunals, indefinite preventive detention, torture and mistreatment that barely skirts the definition of torture. It all sucks. We have real prisons that have enough security and enough human rights problems to control. Better than one that avoids any oversight at all. And if we can't convict? Follow the American way, let them go, do a better job next time. The FBI and CIA and police work all the time on preventing crime, not just arresting after the fact. 9/11 didn't change that. The only that changed is we got scared. And now we can start to recoup that - better late than never. Vote. With your emails, telephones, feet.
PS - about releasing those pictures, seems Petraeus wants to get them out:
Petraeus argued in favor of release, saying "Let's lance this boil." He feared that the damage from withholding the photos would be greater than that from releasing them, because it would fuel suspicions that the photos are worse than they are. General Ray Odierno took the opposing view.
So it's not a slam dunk "this will hurt the troops" or "this will hurt Iraqi civilians" - our generals even disagree. So how about we resort to law and ethics and transparency in government and military - get them out there, lance the boil - show them Americans can face the truth about themselves.
I'm thinking that Obama's pick of Hillary at State must have been obvious for a man who knew he'd need her to reassure the Israelis while he reaches out to engage the non-Israelis who have an interest in cradle of civilization.
From what I understand, Hillary Clinton had cred with Israel that Obama desperately needs over the next . . . however long it takes to get a sane dialog started.
Back when I was young I would go cross country in the summer in my grandpa's 18 wheeler. I've been through well over half the states in the union but never really got to spend time in many of them. Recently, a fellow member of the Cafe Chat Room encouraged me to share some of the stories here.
Without further ado:
Many may know the famous CCR song Lodi. Well, I was actually stuck in a Lodi motel and missed the first three days of school back in North Carolina. To my father's chagrin, grandpa decided a trip to Oregon was necessary before we headed back east.
Speaking of California, one year the AC broke down from Phoenix to LA. Grandpa, of course, could only get the AC fixed by his AC guy in LA. That's 400 miles of pure heat, the kind of heat that takes your breath away.
Alcatraz is visible from the Oakland Bay Bridge. Not so much from a picture taken on a disposable camera at 90 miles an hour.
The casinos in Laughlin, Nevada has great arcades for kids.
The Mojave desert is very, very windy, especially at night.
Louisina has very bumpy roads. Reading Mad magazine from the sleeper is next to impossible.
Driving through Texas takes a long, long, long, long time.
Don't play with the CB radio.
If you can't eat all of your Shish-Kabob at the Sizzler, don't order it.
The best truck stops are the ones that have gift shops, especially if you can get grandma by herself with the cash. I prefer T/A and Petro. Flying J has the largest sodas known to man, and the smiley-face station, while offering cheap diesel, is quite dull.
Dwight Yoakam sang about it, but I literally walked the streets of Bakersfield to buy $100 worth of scratch off lottery tickets.
If possible, always stay at a Best Western.
There is nothing to do in Oklahoma.
Flagstaff has good showers, until you see your grandpa wash his ass with a cloth because there is only one free shower per fill-up.
Weigh stations are a bummer.
Don't slow down, go around.
Florida isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Log books are fun for kids, not so much for drivers.
Don't put quarters into those stuffed animal claw machines, or the vibrating bed.
If you put a penny on a railroad track, it looks very cool after the train runs over it. But you need to put down at least five to get one back.
Don't put pennies on the railroad tracks.
Even if your grandparents saw you nude as a baby, it doesn't make it easier to shower in front of them in Flagstaff when you are 12, regardless of what they say.
No, you can't drive.
No, you should have peed earlier.
No, we're sleeping in the truck tonight. You spend the motel money at the Petro gift shop.
Seeing your grandparents drunk on Coors and wine coolers in a Lodi motel is almost as bad as seeing grandpa wash his ass with a cloth in Flagstaff.
Always get the buffet.
The white pills are vitamins.
So there you have it. My experience on the open road with grandpa summed up in one post. I learned a lot. I know how to navigate. I know how to make good time. I know how to be thrifty on a trip. And most of all, I know that truckers deserve full respect, but never to be one.
Hi there, come on in. What are you doing out and about this late? No, of course not. You could never bother me. Hmm? I'm just listening to some soft music and thinking about the day that has recently gone to bed. Enjoying some of my usual cheap Zin and snuggling with pillows while the light plays across the shadows. Just one light, really. And the gentle glow of the moonlight. It's a beautiful evening for reflection and generosity of spirit, so find yourself a place to relax and let me get you something. You name it, then find the songs that make you peaceful and play them for me ... the time is yours. Now then, tell me. What would you like tonight?
Republicans ignited a firestorm of controversy on Thursday by revealing some of what they had been told at a closed-door Intelligence Committee hearing on the interrogation of terrorism suspects.
Democrats immediately blasted the GOP lawmakers for publicly discussing classified information, while Republicans said Democrats are trying to hide the truth that enhanced interrogation of detainees is effective.
GOP members on the Intelligence Committee on Thursday told The Hill in on-the-record interviews that they were informed that the controversial methods have led to information that prevented terrorist attacks.
When told of the GOP claims, Democrats strongly criticized the members who revealed information that was provided at the closed House Intelligence Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations hearing. Democrats on the panel said they could not respond substantively, pointing out that the hearing was closed.
Of course what would you expect from a party whose members still think beating slaves is a pretty neat idea. And whose former leader got his yayas from blowing animals to pieces with fire crackers.
Between August and October 2005 Palestinians and their supporters
expressed fears that the Israeli pullout from Gaza would give Ariel
Sharon the cover he'd need to expand settlement construction in the
West Bank. They were essentially accusing Sharon of magic tricks: "look
at the pretty lady on the left side of the stage while I pull some
strings over here on the right." Here's a Palestinian MP on August 12, 2005, one month before the final departure of the last settlers:
"Many
Palestinians believe Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's pullout from
Gaza is a ploy to divert attention from the strengthening of
settlements in the West Bank and around Jerusalem.
'Sharon's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip is a smokescreen, because he
is consolidating settlement activity in the West Bank and completely
modifying the demographic and cultural make-up of Jerusalem,' said
independent Palestinian MP Hanan Ashrawi.
She
argued that leaving Gaza is a small price to pay for Israel if it gives
it a free hand to tighten its grip on the rest of the occupied
territories.
'The Gaza Strip was a
demographic and security burden for Israel. By withdrawing from it
unilaterally, Sharon is turning it into a large prison and imposes on
us a long transition period,' Ashrawi told Agence France-Presse."
In
fact, Sharon himself said as much in the process of placating Likudniks
opposed to the Gaza withdrawal. The rationale was that if Gaza must be
given up (and who wants that human disaster anyway, right?) then at
least the West Bank would be for the taking. Here is AP on August 26, 2005:
"Sharon
has repeatedly said the withdrawal would help consolidate Israel's
control over large settlement blocs in the West Bank, where the vast
majority of Jewish settlers live. New figures from the Interior
Ministry show robust growth in these blocs."
At the time, the US position was clear. The following is from an AP report from August 4, 2005:
"But
during a meeting with Sharon this year, Bush said he opposed any new
settlement construction, even in existing communities, as a violation
of the U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan."
Here's AP again on September 6, 2005:
"The
United States has urged Israel not to expand West Bank settlements, in
line with a construction freeze under the internationally backed "road
map" peace plan. However, in selling the Gaza pullout to his public,
Sharon has said it would allow Israel to strengthen its hold over
Jerusalem and parts of the West Bank.
[...]
"We've
been clear with the Israelis on their obligations under the 'road map'
and President Bush has specifically called on the Israelis not only to
remove illegal outposts but to stop settlement expansion," U.S. Embassy
spokesman Stewart Tuttle said Tuesday."
And yet, despite
Sharon's widely reported statements to Likudniks, despite the public
fears of many Palestinians, the Gaza pullout was heralded as a success.
Progress on West Bank settlements and a peace deal could not be far
off! Now that Sharon had made such a historic first move, the onus was
entirely on the Palestinians to make peace happen - with the
implication that any (inevitable) failure would be their fault. Here
are excerpts from letters to the editor in response to an August 15, 2005 editorial in The New York Times that
speculated that the Gaza disengagement plan would have...the exact
effect that its architects had been saying it would have:
"At
the moment of Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, it seems that
only the Israelis are willing to make sacrifices for peace, while the
Palestinian "troublemakers" like Fatah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas
continue to attack civilians."
"Mr. Sharon is
proceeding bravely with a painful withdrawal without Palestinian
reciprocity. In the meantime, in sharp contrast to Mr. Sharon's
resolute leadership, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, shows great
weakness by appeasing terrorist groups intent on creating a separate
Palestinian authority. It is up to Mr. Abbas, not Mr. Sharon, to make
the next move."
As usual, ADL offers the most extensive denial:
"Your
assertion that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel is using the Gaza
disengagement to deflect international pressure to make West Bank
territorial concessions is belied by the prime minister's own
statements.
Indeed, an Aug. 13 news article
cites an interview that Mr. Sharon gave to the Israeli newspaper Yediot
Aharonot in which he said that Israel might eventually have to give up
additional Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
With
Israel's disengagement from the Gaza Strip, the onus is now on the
Palestinian Authority to assert order, clamp down on terrorist
operations and govern responsibly."
And of course, ADL was right. Settlements in the West Bank have not grown.
The Bush administration applied the pressure necessary to uphold their
public statements in complete opposition to expanded West Bank
settlement construction. Except...what was it that I read the other
day? Oh, right:
"When
Israel signed on to the so-called road map for a two-state solution in
2003, with a provision that says its government "freezes all settlement
activity (including natural growth of settlements)," the officials
said, it did so after a detailed discussion with Bush administration
officials that laid out those explicit exceptions.
"Not everything is written down," one of the officials said.
He and others said that Israel
agreed to the road map and to move ahead with the removal of
settlements and soldiers from Gaza in 2005 on the understanding that
settlement growth could continue."
So it turns out
that in reality, the Gaza pullout was indeed a smokescreen to distract
from continued West Bank settlement construction. And not only that,
but the Bush administration's public opposition to West Bank settlement
growth was a bald-faced lie. Bush had actually made a private agreement
with the Israeli leadership that allowed for the very construction he
claimed to oppose. And yet, in 2005 Israel supporters fervently argued
that the Gaza disengagement was a critical first step (made entirely in
good-faith) to a long-term peace plan. They urged us to ignore Ariel
Sharon's words, dismiss Palestinian fears as so much conspiracy
theorizing, and offered Bush's opposition to settlement building as a
check on any expansionist Likudnik desires. Well, that worked out well.
BrainGate's mission is to further the advancement of this life-changing technology to promote wider adoption to help impaired individuals communicate and interact with society. For instance, the Cyberkenetics BrainGate Neural Interface is currently the subject of a pilot clinical trial being conducted under an Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) from the FDA. The system is designed to restore functionality for a limited, immobile group of severely motor-impaired individuals. It is expected that people using the BrainGate System will employ a personal computer as the gateway to a range of self-directed activities. These activities may extend beyond typical computer functions (e.g., communication) to include the control of objects in the environment such as a telephone, a television and lights.
The line between living organisms and machines has just become a whole lot blurrier. European researchers have developed "neuro-chips" in which living brain cells and silicon circuits are coupled together.
The achievement could one day enable the creation of sophisticated neural prostheses to treat neurological disorders or the development of organic computers that crunch numbers using living neurons.
The proteins allowed the neuro-chip's electronic components and its living cells to communicate with each other. Electrical signals from neurons were recorded using the chip's transistors, while the chip's capacitors were used to stimulate the neurons.
Scientists at the University of Florida aren't just creating a neural implant that can translate human brain signals, but one that can act independently to increase its efficiency and synergy with the brain as it learns new things.
"In the grand scheme of brain-machine interfaces, this is a complete paradigm change," said Justin C. Sanchez, Ph.D., a UF assistant professor of pediatric neurology and the study's lead author. "This idea opens up all kinds of possibilities for how we interact with devices. It's not just about giving instructions but about those devices assisting us in a common goal. You know the goal, the computer knows the goal and you work together to solve the task."
The Implications are grand:
However, there is a whole slew of other fantastic sci-fi inspired applications that are theoretically possible with this type of computer "symbiote" implants. For example, how would you like to be able to calculate enormous equations in your own head? You'd just think about what you wanted calculated and your neural implant would do the work for you instantaneously. Or how would you like the entire library of congress stored neatly in your brain where you can access any kind of information you'd ever want instantly just by thinking about. You wonder to yourself, "When was Abraham Lincoln born?" Your symbiote could then theoretically feed the correct answer back to you in what felt as natural as your own thoughts.
Or maybe not so grand?
One day soon were all going to be seriously fucked up!
I was reading this transcript of a interview of Dick Cheney by Jonathan Karl, 2008-12-16 (Tuesday), ABC News, and one particular statement just stunned me. It wasnt what Karl said or even what Cheney said that got my goat, it was what Cheney's wife said.
KARL: The attacks don't seem to have bothered you but when they make a political ad out of you in the last week of the campaign simply because you've done one event and you know the approval rating, so I understand your position on the polls, but do those attacks on you get to you? Do they bug you?
CHENEY: No. If they did I shouldn't take this job. We've talked about how Senator Clinton referred to me as Darth Vader.I asked my wife about that, if that didn't bother her. She said, no, it humanizes you. So it's you've got to have a sense of humor about it. Don't take it personally. You've got to have a thick skin or you shouldn't be in this business
See what she is saying? That she considers her husband Dick Cheney being called Darth Vader makes him seem more human. So is she saying that Darth Vader is more human than Dick Cheney and being called Vader is a step up the humanity scale That being called Darth is actually a compliment in this case? Is Mrs Cheney implying that being being put on equal ground with the Evil Dark Knight of the Empire who has no conscience or morals is an improvement over what her own husband really is? " Oh darling, they just called you Adolph Hitler and it makes you seem so much nicer." Whoa, it is pretty bad when a step up for you is becoming an evil monster.
Enough of that ,now that my sarcasm spasm is over, I want some fun time. So Dicky being called Darth Vader got me thinking, how about subjecting Dicky to a little of my own Enhanced In-terror-gration Methods. Just a little manipulation of pixels to bring out the truth. I admit,I did it, I stayed up late tonight and tortured Dick Cheney. So now I have the cartoon evidence and I welcome all accomplices, anyone who can caption the deed, a little dialog so to speak.
Anyone care to help me figure out what they are saying?
I don't know where it started , but we all know the most obvious examples of those that figured out how to utilize the electronic bully pulpit of their own particular sphere... Huey P Long, FDR, Hitler, Churchill, Clinton, et al.......
Whatever you want to say about the substance or style or truth of his message, President Obama with his Cairo speech (soon to be known as "The Speech") has commenced to use his bully pulpit in an international way the world has not yet seen. This could be awesome.
Be smart and just get out of the way, Rush and Sean.
...How in the fuck is it that we liberal westerners, who already by and large agree with Obama's foreign policies and do not really harbour any particular islamophobias, are able to judge the Cairo speech to be historic, a turning point, a speech truly addressing the Muslim world and really completely revolutionary even though everything in it has been said a thousand times before but this time it is different and how we can really feel kinship and bridge the divide etc., etc., etc.?
Rush & Newt Are Winning, and Adam Davidson is still holding down the fort for the bellicose right over at NPR.
As a follow up to my May 15th post, I wanted to point out that NPR's Ombudswoman Alicia C. Shepard has written a complete dressing-down of Adam Davidson's malpractice (I mean interview) committed on Elizabeth Warren ("Planet Money Meltdown").
Many listeners said they were deeply disappointed in Davidson. Some threatened to never donate again to NPR. Others have demanded that Davidson be sanctioned or fired. It's not necessary. He is contrite. He knows how unprofessionally he behaved. And NPR supervisors probably will be watching his work more carefully in the future.
Planet Money is far too valuable a resource for explaining today's strange and hard-to-fathom financial information to let one botched interview derail it. But judging by the volume of criticism, it will take some time for Davidson to earn back the trust and respect initially (and deservedly) showered on him.
It is nice to see NPR kinda apologize for him, but I'm not feeling like he deserves much benefit of the doubt going forward. And, IMO, Planet Money is unlistenable with him around.
In fact, his non-apology needs an apology as well. In this follow-up post-mortem that Shepard links to, Davidson never apologizes. Instead, he attacks Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi for picking an "obvious partisan" (paraphrase) like Liz Warren for the TARP overseer post in the first place. Honestly, this follow up interview sounds to me like Davidson thinks family economics & personal finance is still merely a "trivial, woman's issue" (my words). Warren's "pet issue" (his words) that should remain in her academic work where it belongs, not on Wall Street - where all the men are oh-so-serious, apparently. (Aside: Dave Ramsey is a huge conservative. His Achilles heel is that he can't help himself from spouting FauxNews talking points, but he is 1000% in Warren's camp. Family economic health is bi-partisan.)
Clearly, IMHO, Planet Money can't rehabilitate itself with Davidson still spitting his Andrew Ross Sorkin-like, CEO brown-nosing, Reaganomics stock phrases.
This whole episode illustrates E.J. Dionne's brilliant Op/Ed today. It's the anatomy of how the business right dominates the public discussion, and silences intelligent people for "appearing liberal". I don't think they succeeded in this case, but Davidson was trying to radicalize Professor Warren's image.
How about that. I believe somewhere in this forums archives a discussion took place about the complicity of the North in American slavery and just like that another Northern state apologizes for its part in America's history of forced servitude.
HARTFORD, Conn.--Connecticut
became the second northern state to apologize for slavery, segregation
and other racist policies its lawmakers once condoned after an
unanimous vote late Wednesday by the state Senate.
The resolution
expresses "profound contrition" for the General Assembly's role in
perpetuating slavery and other practices. The House approved it last
week.
New Jersey last year became the first northern state to
apologize for slavery. Five other states--Alabama, Florida, Maryland,
North Carolina and Virginia--have approved similar measures.
Building on Mr. Kurtz's post about the outrageous Georgia Rep, it's worth noting that cap-and-trade is exhibit A, conclusive proof in the case of the Republican party's lurch into lunacy.
I'm just old enough to remember when policies like cap-and-trade were quintessentially conservative. As an econ undergrad in the 1980s, cap-and-trade was the leading light in a suite of then radical, new, market-based regulatory ideas propounded by right-of-center economists. These new market-based approaches, they argued, would achieve superior amelioration of environmental problems without the heavy-handed inefficiencies of the "command-and-control" limits embraced by liberals in the 1970s. During my undergrad years, and the the years after, there was a decent debate about the policy and economic merits of the competing approaches to regulation. I imagine someone with Lexis Nexis could even find historical documents (Galaxy Quest!) of elected Republicans advocating cap-and-trade approaches as a conservative alternative to old-fashioned, unfair "liberalism."
Fast forward to 2009, and I confess I still find myself amazed that the conservative policy won the argument. No less a liberal lion than Henry Waxman is the champion of this market-based approach to controlling carbon emissions. The new liberal president speaks sincerely of his understanding of and appreciation of the benefits of markets in economics and policy. Organizations like the Sierra Club, that 25 years ago would have treated cap-and-trade suspiciously, now whole-heartedly endorse it. Self-avowed, card carrying liberals like Matt Yglesias and Ezra Klein (my heroes) unself-consciously trumpet this formerly conservative approach to environmental policy. So, the Republicans won, right? Champagne corks are popping in John Boehner's office and the AEI executive suite, right?
Ironically, while their proposals were winning in the marketplace of ideas, the Republican party has abandoned the field of competition and retreated into an extremism that would probably shock even the 1964 edition of Barry Goldwater. Where you might have seen someone like Jack Kemp endorsing cap-and-trade as a sexy new idea 25 years ago, now the very same policy approach is crazy communism to today's Republicans. The policy hasn't changed, but the Republican party sure has. What was once a center-right party looking for innovative new ideas (like cap-and-trade), it is now a right-of-everyone-but-the-lunatics rump, mistrustful of any and all public policy and clinging only to the irrational scraps that feed their hysterical, anti-scientific state of denial. Kind of sad, really.
The tradition of brave and proud nurse activism for guaranteed healthcare on the single-payer model continued today thanks to Janice Webb, RN, and her nurse intervention at the convention of the health insurance industry in San Diego, AHIP. They're the lobbyists for the insurance giants who make money by denying care to the very patients that Janice cares for at UC-San Diego Medical Center.
With thousands of well-paid insurance executives around her waiting to hear from Jeb Bush and Howard Dean, Janice marched up to the stage at the San Diego Convention, where the moderator was droning on about how hard AHIP is working to find healtcare solutions -- meaning legislation that will protect their position at the center of power over our health and the profits they make from the pain and suffering of patients.
Taking the mike, Janice held up a copy of an $11 billion dollar check, Janice then declared, to a mix of cheers and boos, "Nurses have the solution. You all need to get out of healthcare. We took up a collection and want to present this check to you to go away so we can finally institute a humane single-payer system for this nation...everybody in, nobody out!"
Of course it did not last long. Burly security men rushed the stage, grabbed Janice and a companion, and hustled them off. Hysterical AHIP security guards angrily denounced Janice, and demanded her arrest.
Instead, the police officers smiled, asked Janice if she had any warrants out, and started to describe the healthcare cutbacks they're facing due to SDPD's trouble with affording ever-rising insurance premiums, and escorted her outside where she was given a raucous welcome from a crowd of nurses, teachers, patients, doctors, and progressive democrats.
Taking the mike again--this time to the cheers of the crowd, Janice said, "They refused my check of course, but they'll take every bit of money my patients can come up with. Insurance corporations, nurses and patients want you out of our lives! How many lives ruined by these corporate executives? How long will Washington let them deny care, delay care, cancel policies, buy off Washington policies, and masquerade their marketing plans as healthcare reform? Forcing people to subsidize insurers is NOT healthcare reform."
Gordon told the crowd, "As I was driving here I knew I was in the right place because there's a whole flock of corporate jets lined up right over there. We're here to tell AHIP that it's time to get rid of their jets." He added, "The power of those people across the streets keep the people in Washington from talking about the real problems in healthcare in this nation. And if you don't make the right diagnosis there is not cure--which is to get rid of the health insurance industry."
Jim Gothe, a board member of the California Teachers Association followed Gordon's point, saying "the bad news is that they're paying for this conventino with money from students, teachers, retiress. What sense does that make? Students are the future of this state!...CTA believes healthcare is a human right for all people." The local CTA rep, Kathy Rallings continued his point saying, "My one-year-old son had open heart surgery when he was 3 months old. You know what that means? He has a preexisting condition FOREVER. That means his life will be spent following healthcare...not his dreams."
It's not too late. We will get single-payer in this country because we cannot care for all our patients while also subsidizing AHIP. Help it along. Tell Max Baucus that he should still hold a hearing on single-payer, or co-sponsor one with the health committee to provide a real side by side comparison with the plans they are proposing, so the American people can judge for themselves which approach will really produce a reform plan that covers everyone, improves quality of care, and includes genuine cost controls -- and gets the hands of AHIP off our necks once and for all.
Single payer activists from coast to coast have done a great job getting the message to Congress, but we have to keep it up. Please Fax Baucus and other committee chairs today. Healthcare is too important to let Washington get wrong.
Remember President Bush's 16 little words in the 2003 State of the Union Address - the slander that Saddam was seeking uranium from Africa which helped serve, along with nonsense about mushroom clouds pluming over American cities, as our impetus to invade Iraq a few weeks later?
They're at it again.
This time the spurious Middle East Media Research Institute snookered the Washington Times into publishing some credulous twaddle that al Qaeda is planning a "bio attack" from Mexico.
"Four pounds of anthrax -- in a suitcase this big -- carried by a fighter through tunnels from Mexico into the U.S. are guaranteed to kill 330,000 Americans within a single hour if it is properly spread in population centers there," the recruiter said. "What a horrifying idea; 9/11 will be small change in comparison. Am I right? There is no need for airplanes, conspiracies, timings and so on..."
Let's
not forget that President Bush, and Condi Rice, also went to the Middle
East and made lofty speeches about freedom and about how the U.S. was
not in conflict with Islam. It was not the rhetoric that failed them;
it was the disconnect between the rhetoric and the policies.(...) What
he says in Cairo will make little difference to the way he's perceived
in the Arab world and beyond; he'll be judged by what he does. Tony Karon
Speaking
about a policy of pursuing a war against extremism and working towards
two states for peoples on Palestinian lands is no different from the
policy of his predecessor, George W Bush. Ayman Taha, Hamas spokesman in the Gaza strip - BBC
Arabs are waiting for pressure to be exerted on Israel so it can stop its violations in Gaza and the West Bank. Iraqi government spokesman - BBC
"The
United States is in a weaker position now," said Omar Amiralai, a
well-known 65-year-old Syrian film maker. "They are stuck in Iraq and
Afghanistan and don't know how to get out. Bush, after the Iraq war,
had some ability to pressure Sharon on Israeli settlements, but I don't
see that the United States has the ability to impose its law or desires
on Israel now."New York Times
The immediate effect though is to buy America space and time. Daniel Levy- TPM
What is the Obama administration's objective in the Middle East?
I
ask the question because the stated objective, the Palestinian state,
if it ever gets off the ground, will be nothing more than a huge
concentration camp with no sovereignty over its borders or air space,
with the most trusted inmates being allowed to run the day to day affairs of the prison, keep order among the prisoners,
keep their jailers well informed of the other prisoner's doings and
presumably to skim the cream off the "state's" budget for their pains.
This, of course is essentially repackaged Rice/Bush.
We can't really claim to be blameless or fully magnanimous, but reading someone's comments on the speech, I am a bit struck that we helped get Egypt back the Sinai with a nice annual payoff, helped push the Russians out of Afghanistan, helped ease the Shah out the door, pushed the Iraqis out of Kuwait, fought in Somalia to try to calm things down, went into Bosnia and Kosovo to protect the people, complained loudly and initally somewhat effectively about Chechnya, and even have government broadcasts for freedom to the Muslim region now known as western China. And yet we're always giving these speeches saying, "hey, we really don't hate Muslims". For a nation built on marketing, we're really bad at PR. In fact, our Middle East efforts are really expensive bad PR. Bush even sent an accomplished PR agent on top of Karen Hughes and Condi Rice, and all of them came across ridiculously flat. And now, with change, a speech that consists largely of, "yeah, we've really got a lot of great accomplished Muslims" without naming one (okay, Keith Ellison, whoopdie), a speech that pretends we have no power designs on the rest of the world, a speech whose center point seems to be explaining something that should have been obvious quite some time ago, that 9/11 pissed us off, so much that we lost our heads and invaded Iraq. Oh wait, he didn't quite say that, did he? No, I think there was something about fighting for their freedom. I don't know. Maybe if we didn't drive expensive gas guzzlers, we wouldn't have to be coming up with such transparent nonsense to deal with the Middle East, and we wouldn't have to pretend to be at war with Islam. After all, Morocco was way cool in the 60's, Malaysia used to be a William Gibson cyberpunk fantasy, Indonesia? What can I say, give me 5 years there on the beach. Lebanon (without the civil war) - ooh la la, the cuisine, the cafés. Turkey? Fantastisch, has it all. The Gulf States have become party & money countries. Ignore Syria, insignificant, the only countries we have issues with are Iraq, Iran, Saudi and Libya. That's it. And Saudis are mostly our allies, even if they're a bit stiff. So 3 countries. Pakistan-India's just sibling rivalry, nothing much to do with us, they're mostly British anyway, think of it as football hooliganism. Afghanistan's irrelevant without Al Qaeda training camps. Tunisia, great vacation spot. Algerians? All up in Paris & Morocco now playing Rai music, France's issue, and mostly they just want jobs. Nigeria? Keep the oil flowing, that's all anyone needs to know. So why 55 minutes of explaining? Could have just brought in Rachid, "Rock El Casbah". Ein Volk, ein Kultur, it's all hip-hop now anyway. We've been enchanted with this part of the world ever since the time of Alexander. About time we figured out how to get down with it.
PS - Brilliant, I guess the keywords triggered off an ad campaign for "The International Muslim Matrimonials Site". "7 Brides for 7 Brothers", I suppose, down ol' Al Qahira way. Sing a song about them Sabine women, back when musicals were musicals and politically correct was something for the McCarthy hearings.
PPS - Also strange that the 'g' got lopped of "Assessing" in deriving the post URL - I guess Hassan-I Sabbāh has his eye on me, better make myself scarce. Who needs Alamont when we have Alamut? Who needs TV when we got T-Rex? Just call me Isma'il.
So much for our kids safety...Budget Cuts GOP are
recommending:
Republicans are suggesting killing a program that pays for
building sidewalks, bike paths and crossing guards as part of the Safe Routes
to Schools program. That would save $183 million a year.
So much for your pension if a federal worker....
--Eliminating retirement benefits for federal workers who
retire before age 62 to save perhaps $267 million a year.
So much for helping opening up markets...
--$72 million a year in cuts to the Agriculture Department's
Market Access Program that promotes the sale of brand name products overseas
like Sunkist.
So much for women equality...
Termination of the Womens Educ Equity program
I say we cut PENSIONS for all GOP House of Representatives, they make entirely too much money as it is.Or how about giving them only one TERM's worth of pension.
George W. Bush used this phrase a lot, too. Got plenty of mileage out of it. Might even end up facing a jury or even prison because of it.
No, President Obama, your FIRST duty is NOT to protect the American people. Your first duty is the one you swore on January 20, 2009--to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America.
Are we dirty fucking hippies the only ones who understand this very simple concept?
There is much more to say about this important moment and, when I have a few minutes this weekend I will try to present a few here to see what others think, but I did have time to throw this out:
Still spitting tacks over the New York outing, are you? Thought Broadway was an Overreach?
Well clear your airways for the pièce de résistance, mes petits,cuz are you mouthy people ever in in for a treat!
Ah, but I can see them hurling their steaming TV dinners at the TV screen now! LOL!
(And it's actually "Oh-la-la" by the way, not "Ooh". Anyhows, Overreach THIS!, you venomous Liz Cheney nabobs of the world! I'd only wish to be a fly on the wall!)
I was pleased by President Obama's speech in Cairo today. Many of the things I'd praise about the speech, which had many fine moments, will be praised elsewhere, so I'll confine myself to one detail of its purpose and of the expectations about it.
I've already seen some reaction from fairly hard-line Islamist figures rejecting Obama's gestures of reconciliation and mutuality. I have also seen some reaction that is surprised by that rejection, despite how deeply unsurprising it is, and even reaction implying that Obama's outreach has failed, and that his approach was "naive," and so forth.
The leader of Hamas isn't buying what Obama's selling? Of course not. He's the leader of Hamas. No speech was going to change his mind. And Obama knows it. The speech is not meant to do that.
Yes, the speech presents itself as an invitation to a new beginning of cooperation, and on some level it is. But Obama knows that anti-Americanism won't vanish overnight and be replaced by a new pro-American attitude. That is his stated aspiration, not his genuine rhetorical goal. And anyone who expects him to magically convert all of America's bitterest enemies into allies tomorrow is being naive.
The speech is a beginning: the beginning of a debate. The goal of Obama's address was not to win over America's enemies through his personal eloquence. The goal was to put America's enemies in the Islamic world at a disadvantage in their argument with America's supporters. The leadership of Hamas might come around someday, at least in part, but only in response to political realities on the ground, because other groups are gaining traction against them. Obama wants to lend their opponents some rhetorical traction. Obama is not going to win the hearts or minds of Hamas or Hezbollah. But he might put Muslims who share America's goals in a better position to win their own political battles with Hezbollah.
This is a version of what Andrew Sullivan calls Obama's "rope-a-dope" strategy. Obama reaches out an eminently reasonable and conciliatory hand to his opponents, they slap it away, and they make themselves look petty and unreasonable in the process. He's done it to the Republicans over and over again. Now he's done it to hard-liners in the Arab and Muslim worlds, and it's their turn to look bad. Yes, some hard-liners have already denounced Obama's speech. Obama's not interested in them. He's interested in peeling away their supporters. And he doesn't need to do all of the peeling today. This is the fabled Obama long game.
Obama chose to tell some unpopular truths to his audience, and he had a lot of good reasons. It burnished his credibility, as someone who was talking to the Islamic world honestly about the difficult things. It gave listeners a solid outlines of the points that weren't negotiable (with the unstated reminder that the Muslim world will never get a more sympathetic President of the United States, and are looking at the best deal they can expect). But just as importantly, it gave anti-American Islamists a list of talking points that are probably untenable. Obama pushed back on Holocaust denial and calls for Israel's utter destruction, which are real and toxic positions that have to be engaged. But Obama set up the engagements on his terms. If America's opponents want to put all of their chips down on Holocaust denial fantasies, I suspect Obama is looking forward to accepting that bet.
Yes this is a beginning. It's the beginning of an intense argument, in the Muslim world, about Obama and his speech. That argument will be won and lost by Muslims themselves, and not by Obama or any other Westerner, and it has already begun. But Obama has chosen the grounds for the debate, and he's given his supporters the best advantage he could.
A currently challenged
provision of the Voting Rights Act requires several states with a
history of discriminatory election practices to seek federal approval
before changing election rules. Under this provision, the Department of
Justice this week rejected a Georgia voter list maintenance procedure
that it deemed both discriminatory and inaccurate, according to the Associated Press.
Much is being made in the media of the current tension between the Obama administration and the right-wing government in Tel Aviv on the issue of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, and I fully expect that coverage of Israeli reaction to the tough line on settlements taken by Obama in his Cairo speech will focus on the negative. Equally important but likely to receive far less attention is the applause and support Obama is receiving from Israeli progressives, many of whom are as critical of the settlements as their counterparts in the West.
A sampling of progressive Israeli opinion on Obama and his stand on the settlement issue includes the following from Gideon Levy in Haaretz, predicting hopefully that Binyamin Netanyahu and his right-wing government will ultimately have no choice but to acquiesce to Obama's demands:
"Washington will decide the fate of the West Bank settlements, and we can only hope it insists on their evacuation. Obama standing firm beside the revolutionary Mideast policy he has begun will light the torch of hope here, too. The battle of the titans, Netanyahu and Obama, is little more than a farce - let us recall the fable of the elephant and the bee, or the frog and the ox. Not all creatures can become as great as they think. Let's also be realistic: An Israeli prime minister has no option of saying no to America once Washington has dug in its heels. Netanyahu knows this better than anyone, and the time has come to explain as much to his 'patriotic' coalition allies.... Time is short but the keys are in the ignition, President Obama. Drive on to peace."
Kadima MK Ze'ev Boim said that "Obama's speech is yet another proof that Netanyahu miscalculated the foreign policy of the new American administration."
"The President's take on the Palestinian question is similar to Kadima's, and it's a shame that narrow political considerations prevented the Israeli government from espousing the two-state solution which is the only one that can ensure a Jewish and democratic existence in Israel."
Kadima MK Yohanan Plesner said that "Israel could benefit from the America's improved image in the Arab world and leverage it to forge a regional coalition, together with the moderate Arab countries, to counter Iran, but instead the government is engaged in marginal debates on outposts."
Minority Affairs Minister Avishay Braverman (Labor) said that Obama was right that the world's common enemy is extremism and that finding a common strategy is the way to defeat it.
"We should adopt a similar strategy in Jewish-Arab and religious-secular relations, as well as vis-a-vis the Palestinians," Braverman said. "We are committed to the two-state solution."
Meretz leader Haim Oron, for his part, welcomed Obama's speech. He said it was filled with inspiration, optimism and vision.
"The speech is the feat of enlightenment," he said.
Negative reaction to Obama's speech from right-wing Israelis, meanwhile, has been predictably harsh. Most outspoken in their opposition to Obama are settlers themselves and their leaders, whose hysterical, lowbrow rhetoric strongly echoes that of right-wing Americans. Like their teabagging U.S. counterparts, right-wing Israelis have taken to throwing Obama's middle name around as an epithet, accusing him of being a closet Muslim and of betraying Israel. Organizers of a right-wing protest outside the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem had the following to say in a press release reported by Arutz Sheva:
"Barack Hussein Obama! Hands off the land of Israel! You cannot appease the Islamic lust for conquest by selling down the Jews and their Biblical homeland."
Settler leaders quoted in Y-Net likewise said that "Hussein Obama opted to adopt the Arab's bogus versions over the Jewish truth" and that Obama's speech "pandered to Islam." Sound familiar?
Reader comments in Haaretz and the Jerusalem Post make it clear that right-wing Israelis and right-wing Americans are finding each other and connecting online, sharing their hatred of Arabs and their contempt of Obama, and hatching all manner of hysterical theories on the coming end of civilization as we know it. Before long American news audiences may see images of their president burned in effigy not by Palestinians in a Gaza refugee camp but by right-wing Israelis in a West Bank settlement. On the other hand, the enthusiastic support Obama continues to receive from Israeli progressives sounds a hopeful note both for the peace effort and for the future of the U.S.-Israeli relationship.
When dd (yes, that guy over there in the plaid pajamas) asked me to do a post on pie and/or recipes for pies, my initial response was to 'fess up that while I love to cook and bake, I have never succeeded in the quest to make a decent pie crust (no, please, don't send me any hints, advice or products as I no longer seek to discover this particular treasure).
But then I recalled that long heralded adage - As American As Apple Pie!....
And now here we are together, twixt Memorial Day and the Fourth of July, seemingly there is no more appropriate time to celebrate our celebrated rights and rites of Freedom of Speech (of which we are renowned). Let's enjoy our own personal slices of Americana and converse about topics oft as forbidden as some believe the apple was - Politics, Religion and Personal Finances! The recipes I guarantee to be tasty, but the flavor of the discourse is up those who choose to contribute.
Obama Overture to Hamas Suggests
Inevitability of Terror Group's Dominance Among
Palestinians
In an apparent policy shift, President
Obama on Thursday invited Hamas -- a designated terror organization -- to
"play a role" in the future of the Palestinian people.
During his speech to the Muslim world
in Cairo on Thursday, the U.S. president bluntly recognized the group,
which has called for the destruction of Israel, in a two-sentence passage
that was part of a broader discussion about the terms for peace between the
Israelis and the Palestinians.
"Hamas does have support among
some Palestinians, but they also have to recognize they have responsibilities.
To play a role in fulfilling Palestinian aspirations, to unify the Palestinian
people, Hamas must put an end to violence, recognize past agreements, recognize
Israel's
right to exist," Obama said.
Give me a break.Policy shift invites Terrorist?
Is that what President Nixon did when he became the first
president of U.S. to visit China in 1972, ending 20 years of frosty relations
between the two countries?President
Nixon said, "There is no reason for us to be enemies," he said. "Neither of us seeks the territory of
the other; neither of us seeks domination over the other; neither of us seeks
to stretch out our hands and rule the world."
Didn't President George W Bush end up visiting China even
after they kept our downed airplane and crew hostage for 12 days in the
beginning of his term?24 American
crewmen, including three women and eight code-breakers were taken into custody
by the Chinese; how was this different than what Iran did during Carter's term?The incident was called the Bush
administration's first real foreign-policy crisis.Yet even after all that, Bush pays an
official visit to China?Imagine if Carter had gone to visit Iran?
Is that what Ronald Reagan did when he sent Donald Rumsfeld
to shake hands with Saddam Hussein the brutal dictator and man that used WMD
against innocent citizens.That happened
at a time when Saddam was first alleged to have used chemical weapons. The
meeting in late December 1983 paved the way for an official restoration of
relations between Iraq and
the US,
which had been severed since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
It is only by showing a bit of strength and the willingness
to compromise do we improve relationships with our enemies that's been proven over history.
We've tried the 'show of strength' way over the past 8
years.All that did was get our men and
women stuck in a bee hive in the Middle East
in which we can never really pull out of now - unless there is peace.President Obama's desire to 'talk' is just another
option to try and create that peace.
War didn't solve anything.
Sometimes it takes a little charm and understanding to get what you ultimately
want.
Whoever in the State Department that is advising Hillary and Nancy on how to cover their heads on visits to Muslim countries should be fired. It is not like we do not have hats in our own style that would be not only more flattering but more appropriate. Both Queen Elizabeth and Queen Margrethe have visited Saudi Arabia wearing their usual hat styles even though their roles as heads of state are ceremonial. Nancy and Hillary have more real official power. Their dress, including head coverings, should reflect their own culture -- the one in which they were able to rise to power not one that restrict womens' rights as well as dress.
/Vent
Liz Cheney is on Andrea Mitchell's show on MSNBC right now doing her best to tear down Obama's impressive address in Cairo today.
Among the many things she finds "troubling" - Obama's comment that women who choose (keyword - choose!) to wear hijabs are exercising their right to equality. In a rather rambling criticism, Cheney says that "'if you looked at the audience [at Cairo University], you could tell many of the women who weren't covering their heads were Christian."
Really, Liz? And how can you tell that by looking at someone? Was it the lack of a hijab, even though not all Muslim women wear one, or are you alluding to something else?
Argh. As Ashley, another TPM intern put it: She must be able to tell by her "Jesus love radar."
CNN has had experts in Muslim-American relations and the heads of key Muslim organizations and councils on all day to give their response to Obama's speech - so far, MSNBC has had Liz Cheney on. Twice.
(To be fair, they've also had Richard Haass on twice, the author featured in next week's book club...but the amount of Cheney still frustrates me.)
I wrote this in 2005 and it was published in the My View column of the commuter daily newspaper Metro. I thought I'd repost given Obama's history speech in Cairo.
Islam's presence in America is older than the United States itself.Not only were some members of the slave population Muslims it is a little known fact that Thomas Jefferson owned a copy of the Qur'an and studied it in detail.History tells us that Jefferson extracted the best from all codes of law during his quest for the ideal form of government.The Qur'an contains the core democratic principles such as representative government and freedom from oppression that Jefferson advocated in the Declaration of Independence and much of our country's initial legislation.The teachings of Islam are part of the foundation of the American spirit of universal equality and the rights for all humanity.
While the Qur'an serves many purposes, Jefferson focused on its moral and legal code. In today's Muslim world, this code is often abused by autocratic governments and extremists looking to maintain and/or perpetuate their grips on power.These individuals and institutions have abused the Qur'an, resulting in rabid misinformation about the religion that considers it a Divine source.
In recent weeks, the Qur'an has been in the news for unfortunate reasons.The reports of the desecration of the Qur'an by US interrogators and Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi claimingthe Qur'an sanctifies the killing of innocent people for the greater cause of 'jihad' has been a source of distress for most Muslims.John Espisito, professor of Islamic studies at Georgetown, articulated the first issue very simply, "the Qur'an is to Islam what Jesus is to Christianity."He also accurately compares the feeling of Muslims as the same sentiment Americans feel when the flag is burned.
Even more dangerous for the 7mm Muslims in America and the billion plus throughout the world, is the misrepresentation of Islam by the extremists and the media.The word jihad is often erroneously translated as holy war, while the actual meaning is 'struggle'.In its purest form, this struggle is for the defense of Islam's principles. It ranges from simply telling the truth to defending an Islamic society against an invading power much like the US-backed mujahadeen did in Afghanistan.It is true, however, that Muslims believe martyrs go to heaven.We also believe, to paraphrase the Qur'an, that killing an innocent person is like killing all of humanity.While jihad by the sword is an element of a Muslim's struggle, it is given lesser importance than other forms.Ali, the Prophet's nephew and the fourth caliph of Islam, said, "the ink of a scholar's pen is more sacred than the blood of a martyr."
Americans must attempt to understand the fastest growing religion in the world and the words that inspire its believers.We must embrace 'moderate' Muslims throughout the world and give them a platform to defeat the extremist element within it.As a Muslim American I've benefited from the law that Thomas Jefferson and the Qur'an helped inspire.We must all realize that the American Spirit and the Qur'an share the common goals of life, liberty and the humble pursuit of happiness.
So, Max Baucas of Montana, Chair of the Senate committee debating health care, has decided to put Single Payer back on the table! Hoo-ray! Now, if we can convince our senators to give it a fair hearing, we may be able to get something other than a giveaway to the insurance industry in the inevitable compromise this summer. Can you imagine a business model in which the tax payer provides for your most costly customer segment (Medicare) and gives you money directly for those who can't can't afford your product (subsidizing the uninsured?) It is a matter of who is in charge around here! Bumper sticker talking point : "Insurance is NOT Health, Health Care, or all that Healthy!"
Someday, I hope some kid writes his/her masters thesis on how, as late as the 21st century, giving politicians money directly to influence them and calling it a 'campaign contribution' was not considered an illegal bribe.
That admission puts me on thin ice politically, I know. I risk barrages of moral theatrics and dime-store psychiatrics just making it. American western expansion of the 19th century forever is scarred by ethnic cleansing of Native Americans and exploitation of the environment. It served primarily industrial barons and land speculators... blah, blah, blah... Imperialist!... blah... "Why can't you honkies be perfect - like me?"... blah... Rapacious!... blah, blah...
It just occurred to me why China's shutting off Internet access today. Its their 20th anniversary of the People's Liberation Army of China when they began their assault on the peaceful protesters of Tienanmen square.
China is ashamed of this action and now know that it was wrong but has to decided to "MOVE ON".
How terrible it must be to live without a First Amendment, without the right to challenge those in power.
Reminds you of the way our government has also decided to "Move On" when it comes to investigating and prosecuting anybody that committed war crimes and torture during the past 8 years?
At each year's anniversary will we too, see America 'shut out' any stories or facts about the way our government allowed the torturing of prisoners during our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2002-2008?
The state of Texas has plenty of politicians that really makes you wonder how rational people in that state live with the crazies. We all know about Governor Rick "Secessionist" Party, who today literally said "Gold bless Rush Limbaugh." But get to know House Congressman Lamar Smith, and his comments today:
Yes, Congressman Smith is leading the way for a "Media fairness Caucus" in the house of Representatives because.........shhhhhhhhhhhh, the media is liberal, the media is unfair because the're liberal!
"THE GREATEST THREAT TO AMERICA IS A LIBERAL MEDIA BIAS." NOT A TERRORIST ATTACK OR THE RECESSION. SOUND THE ALARMS EVERYONE!!!!!
For this "Call to Action", Congressman Lamar Smith gets the
Straight Jacket Award for the day.
(huge thanks to the crew at Think Progress)
Glenn Greenwald passes along a clip of Richard Wolffe discussing his new Barack Obama biography, "Renegade," on G. Gordon Liddy's talk show, in an interview that rather quickly dovetails into Liddy's conspiracy theories about Obama's citizenship.
LIDDY: Yeah, there's an affidavit from his grandmother that says that she observed the birth in Mombassa, Kenya.
WOLFFE: Yeah. You know, I just think that that is completely false.
***Okay, I figured it out. I thought if I pressed "Enter" a couple of times in the Entry page it would take me to the body of the text. It publishes!!!! Sorry for the multiple posts.***
This post began while reading another post about Jack Tapper of ABC. You can find it here:
I don't know whether Barack Hussein Obama is Muslim or not, but I do know a direct, simple way to tell whether he is truly Christian or not: simply invite him to share his testimony of Jesus. A true follower of Jesus Christ will be made manifest by his fruits, as the Savior taught. It is IMPOSSIBLE to fake a testimony of the Savior-especially to those who share such testimony! Let him tell us exactly WHY he is a Christian, and what it means TO HIM to be Christian. Tell us what is means TO HIM to have the Savior's Love and Mercy manifest in HIS life. If he has truly felt the Savior's love and healing power in his life, it will manifest itself in his testimony! So, Mr. Obama, tell ME what that Savior means to you. I'm listening!...
A few weeks ago I wrote a blog about Taunting Christians. Because this post was so aggressive, I thought I would bring it up to illustrate the point from my previous post. This is a classic example. This is how Christians taunt people, how they are bullying people by being overpowering and demanding. I'm not suggesting Mark has some Divine power in his tack. However, the framing does have an authoritarian tone, so to the unquestioning mind, they submit to this illusion of authority.
The first sentence has one major red flag, which I always bristle at when I hear someone suggest they have, especially after reading Socratees. Mark suggest that HE has the capacity to know if Obama is truly Christian. It is pretty darn arrogant to suggest that one has the key to knowledge of another's faith. That one can discern for that person what their faith is. I would suggest he take others at their word. That is unless there is some qualification about being Christian he wishes to impose on others and I question by what authority he believes that he has that capacity to the exclusion of any other, in particular the one who he is challenging.
Maybe Mark really means to say "I want to know if he is Christian enough, that Obama meets the criteria that he has for being a Christian. This kind of reasoning demands that others have to meet Mark's standards, which are extremely arbitrary. Prove to him that Obama is a Christian? I don't share Mark's perspective on this and I resent his suggestion that Obama answer to him. Mark is not the final authority on being Christian and it disrespects any other denomination's criteria of belief. As I wrote in a recent post about the murder of Dr. Tiller, if Obama is a Christian, then by his deeds we will know him, and it seems to me is deeds are speaking very eloquently in that regard. He need not respond to your provocation.
You should go read this story about 20 UFO's buzzing over Britain. It shows a photo of what was seen.
Stunned families watched as the lights in the sky lined up in a flying formation before disappearing upwards into space.
The close-encounter snap was taken by quick-thinking engineer Paul Slight on his mobile phone at about 10.30pm on Sunday.
He was coming home from a day out cycling with friends in Lincoln when they spotted the lights in the sky.
The eerie extra-terrestrial crafts were hovering in the night sky
over the town moving in different directions before eventually shooting
straight up into the atmosphere.
"There were 26 of them at first, dodging and darting in between each other like they were playing a game.
"After that, seven more arrived from the right hand side and weaved through the crowd of lights like strange kinds of aircraft.
"After five minutes of moving around, the flickering yellow
objects hung in the air for a second then shot off into the sky and
disappeared.
"I have no idea what they were - I'm not usually a believer but what I saw was really weird.
"I have flown planes and helicopters before and I know these were
not them, helicopters couldn't line up like that or move that fast."
In case you didn't know it, I'm a huge believer in the theory that we're not the only intelligent species in the universe.
I always use to say that I watched science fiction movies so that
I could be 'prepared' in the event I would ever come face to face with
an alien being. Of course, if they ever did appear on my doorstep, I'd
probably crap my pants.
