The New York Mafia runs illegal rackets...Scams, protection, union deals, gambling, drug distribution, prostitution, etc. Most of their activities are unlawful and there are efforts made by law enforcement to control such activities.
Wall Street does not violate many laws because our legislators and regulators are paid not to write laws that protect the average investor. The only illegal activity that gets much attention is insider trading. Candidly speaking, if you aren't getting profitable tips and you are working on Wall Street, you are either very honest or very stupid. I strongly believe that the "real" profit made in the finance industry stays in New York or is transferred to off-shore accounts.
I am not knowledgeable relative to Mafia involvement with Wall Street. If I had knowledge, I can assure you that I wouldn't paint a bulls' eye on my chest by posting it here. Smarter folks than I are paid generous salaries to seek out those types of connections. Plus, they have subpoena powers and body guards.

                                     
                                                        Miniature horses and foals

Algie would feel soooooooooooo free at times like this. The pink and lavender ensemble was so perrrrrrrrfect.

The stereo was blaring:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bwy1x0-cZaI

The silk panties were 'form' fitting. Hard to find things like this in a department stores; but he discovered them on ebay, of all places. Oh and the lingerie. Just gorgeous. And the make-up was just ideal for the occasion and made his skin feel sooooooooo soft but maintained the general lines of his face that showed beauty but strength at the same time. HARD TO TOP THAT.  And it enhanced the effect of his moustache.

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On the front page the master, JMM, asks whether the polloi would like to receive their momentary doses of TPM on Kindles and iPhones.  He doesn't provide a feedback device, but I assume he wants feedback on the qt via email.  I am not good at feedback on the qt.

I have noticed a decided preference for proprietary devices in these sorts of queries around here.  Kindles are noted for two things at the moment... They only work with Amazon approved book formats and, so it seems, Amazon can actually invade your device and steal back your book.  While iPhone hasn't that bad a reputation, it is, again, a proprietary device delivering the goods in proprietary format.

Let's assume the intention is good (get the message out in more forms of the media).  Please stop being so upper-middle-class/hooked-on-proprietary-goods.  Its offensive.

Thank you.

TPM has done an excellent job in parsing out the NY-23 Congressional race as a microcosm for the current state of the GOP. After all it has the exciting political drama of the moment:  tea-partiers (replete with astroturf funding and full-on fringe); test of Presidential leadership (Obama is stumping for the Democrat in a conservative district he managed to win); ACORN; and the Weekly Standard.

Commentary on the race has neglected the role of international trade as a linchpin issue. Admittedly, trade has moved to the back-burner lately. Organized labor has backpedaled a bit on fair trade as a priority issue in lieu of EFCA and health care reform. But trade was an important, if overlooked, federal issue in the 2008 elections. Democrats Eric Massa and Dan Maffei both won last November, buttressed by their aggressive stances on fair trade. They won in districts -- and in Massa's case, a sitting Republican -- that are conservative, but heavily impacted by trade deals. These two were part of a significant trend nationwide where candidates from both major parties capitalized on a growing frustration with that "giant sucking" of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs).

Despite following the party line fairly regularly (77.3%), Rep. McHugh consistently voted against FTAs. His was one of a handful of GOP votes against the controversial CAFTA and Peru FTA. The 23rd district is a region of the state hit hard by the loss of the manufacturing jobs and the agricultural impact of lax import regulation in neighboring Canada. Part of the reason McHugh was able to curry favor with voters and gain support from organized labor was his stance on trade issues.  

Yet the trade issue has been markedly absent from the campaigning in the 23rd. Neither Owens, Scozzafava, nor Hoffman have any information on their sites about trade. Free trade has largely been an issue that has fed the schism on the left rather than the right. It marks a divide amongst Democrats between the progressive faction of labor, environmentalism, liberals in the House and Senate (namely, Sherrod Brown and Bernie Sanders), and the Clintonite, Wall Street free-traders. Although, fair-trade Democrats from places like upstate NY tend to be Blue Dogs in Congress. Owens seems to come from the moderate, pro-free trade stock. But it is difficult to tell.

It would be interesting to see how the trade issue comes down on the fault lines of the gaping divide in the GOP. The Club for Growth, which is strongly backing Hoffman in his third-party bid, includes "expanding free trade" on its advocacy agenda. But many of the social conservatives that could pull for Hoffman are most likely those that whose lives have been disheveled by outsourcing trade policies. Whether the Republican or Democrat in the race can make a convincing enough argument for this is difficult to tell.

At the southeastern corner of Arizona, there is across the international border a small town called Naco, Sonora. As late as the first half of the 1970s, when I attended the university in Tucson, nasty scarring still marked adobe bricks in the south wall of an old hotel there. Some were likely bullet holes, some were divots the size of softballs, indications of shrapnel from pretty good-sized howitzer shells.

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A few years ago I was called for Jury Duty and this was "educational" to say the least.  I could go on about some silly stuff like Per Diem and parking... but I won't. 

The Judge before this particular case spoke to potential jurors at length about the importance of rendering our verdict based SOLELY on the Law.  It wouldn't matter if we agreed with the law or not... our own personal opinions on the law could have nothing to do with our decision. If we had a question about the law we could ask the court and the court would explain it.  But it was CRUCIAL that we follow ONLY the Law.

This was being pounded into my head by a Black Woman.  I couldn't believe my ears!  You mean to tell me that, if somehow, this black woman was sitting on a Jury and asked to uphold certain Jim Crowe Laws, for instance, that she'd be "OK" with that?   ...or, if there were some kind of criminal case over Women's Suffrage???   No way! 

There has to be a way to kill an "Unjust Law" if the Jury feels it necessary.

Jury nullification is the process whereby a jury in a criminal case nullifies a law by acquitting a defendant regardless of the weight of evidence against him or her."[1] Widely, it is any rendering of a verdict by a trial jury which acquits a criminal defendant despite that defendant's violation of the letter of the law--that is, of an official rule, and especially a legislative enactment. Jury nullification need not disagree with the instructions by the judge--which concerns what the law (common or otherwise) is--but it may rule contrary to an instruction that the jury is required to apply the "law" to the defendant in light of the establishment of certain facts.

Strictly speaking, a jury verdict which rules contrary to the letter of the law pertains only to the particular case before it; however, if a pattern of identical verdicts develops in response to repeated attempts to prosecute a statutory offense, it can have the practical effect of invalidating statute[citation needed]. Jury nullification is thus a means for the public to express opposition to an unwanted legislative enactment.

The jury system was established because it was felt that a panel of citizens, drawn at random from the community, and serving for too short a time to be corrupted, would be more likely to render a just verdict, through judging both the evidence and the law, than officials who may be unduly influenced to follow established legal practice, especially when that practice has drifted from its constitutional origins. However, in most modern Western legal systems, juries are often instructed to serve only as "finders of facts", whose role it is to determine the verity of the evidence presented,[2] instructions that are criticized by advocates of jury nullification.

Historical examples of nullification include American revolutionaries who refused to convict under English law,[3] juries who refuse to convict due to perceived injustice of a law in general,[4] the perceived injustice of the way the law is applied in particular cases,[5] and cases where the juries have refused to convict due to their own prejudices such as the race of one of the parties in the case.[6]

Much more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification

So... needless to say, I was very relieved to learn of this "Option".   Juries DO have the ability to Not Convict if they feel the Law is Unjust.  Whew!  

Wiki is careful to point out several pro's and con's to this...

Jury nullification is the source of much debate. Some maintain that it is an important safeguard of last resort against wrongful imprisonment and government tyranny.[7][8] Others view it as an abuse of the right to a jury trial that undermines the law.[9] Some view it as a violation of the oath sworn to by jurors. Others view the requirement that jurors take an oath to be unlawful, while still others view the oath's reference to "deliverance" to require nullification of unjust law: "will well and truly try and a true deliverance make between the United States and the defendant at the bar, and a true verdict render according to the evidence, so help [me] God." United States v. Green, 556 F.2d 71 ~.1 (D.C. Cir. 1977).[10][11] They point to the danger that a jury may choose to convict a defendant who has not broken the letter of the law. Jury nullification may also occur in civil suits, in which the distinction between acquittal and conviction is irrelevant.[12]

Some fear that nullification could be used to permit violence against socially unpopular factions.

So... This (BOLD PRINT) gave me pause.  I'd never considered Jury Nullification in Reverse before!  Perhaps some Legal Minds can chime in on this???
Is it conceivable that a Jury could convict somebody who has not actually broken a Law?  Could they, in effect, create a "New Law" if they felt there needed to be one in this particular case?

Even still... I think Juries should be told about this option.
For consideration:

Nevertheless, there is little doubt as to the ability of a jury to nullify the law. Today, there are several issues raised by jury nullification.

• First, whether juries can or should be instructed or informed of their power to nullify.
• Second, whether a judge may remove jurors "for cause" when they refuse to apply the law as instructed.
• Third, whether a judge may punish a juror for exercising his power of jury nullification.
• Fourth, whether all legal arguments, except perhaps on motions in limine to exclude evidence, should be made in the hearing of the jury.

Any Lawyers in the house?  Any non-lawyers wanna chime in?

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE

Conservatives Waking Up in Droves

Well, it seems that the GOP is finally coming into its own. Both its numbers, and its rhetoric, reflect that its rapidly becoming more of a cult than a political party. Recent polls indicate that now only 20% of the American people will even admit to being Republican these days. That's down from 32% in November. If its current rate of decline continues, after the 2010 election there won't be enough Republicans left in Washington to throw a card party - and that's with good reason.

History doesn't lie, at least, until Republicans get a hold to it. But with their desperate attempt to regain power at any cost, this current crop of GOP 'leaders' have inadvertently betrayed their true agenda - to promote the interest of big business at the expense of the American people. Every initiative that they champion is transparently designed to do just that.

And this is not a new agenda for Republicans. It's just that this current group of Republicans are so inept and blinded by greed that they've allowed their animus to be revealed. Alexander Hamilton, the father of Republican thought, advocated that the poor didn't even have sense enough to think, therefore shouldn't be allowed to govern - and the Republican attitude towards the average American hasn't changed a bit. Hamilton said the following:

"All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and wellborn, the other the mass of the people.... The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second, and as they cannot receive an advantage by a change, they therefore will ever maintain good government." (Debates of the Federalist Convention, May 14-September 17, 1787).

Thus, the GOP, literally, treats the American people like mindless children without the capacity to remember what took place the day before. So many well-educated and thinking conservatives are falling over one another as they leave the Republican Party. The reason for that is that they've been given a front row seat to witness how undereducated Republicans and wing-nuts are being manipulated through use of the "isms" and xenophobic fear by the Republican leadership to act against their own interest.

They're beginning to recognize that internal American politics is no longer driven by race or ideology. In the new world order the GOP leadership no longer sees any profit in such nonsense. The GOP even sees America's eternal fight for freedom in terms of dollars and cents - THEIR freedom to make a dollar. In short, it's all about class, stupid.

A perfect example of that can be found in the case of a young lady by the name of Jamie Leigh Jones. This young woman had the ridiculous idea that she wanted to do something for her country, so she went to work for KBR, a subsidiary of Dick Cheney's old company, Halliburton. But as soon as she hit the ground in Iraq, she was drugged, gang raped, and thrown into a shipping container under armed guard for twenty-four hours by KBR employees. She was only 19 years old at the time.

Now Ms. Jones is seeking justice, but she's being blocked by a stipulation in the Halliburton/KBR contract indicating that her only recourse is to go through arbitration - a kangaroo court designed to protect the contractor. In response, a newly elected Democratic senator, Al Franken, drafted an amendment to the senate defense appropriation bill to reverse the policy that's preventing Ms. Jones from seeking legal recourse. The amendment passed by a 68 to 30 vote, and all 30 votes against the amendment was cast by White Republican males.

This is only one of thousands of votes that are routinely cast in the United States Senate. But this vote holds particular significance, and should certainly go down in the annals of political infamy. Because it clearly demonstrates that the Republican Party has crossed the line that separates their advocation of a thriving and robust business environment, to a position that promotes the primacy of business interests over the justice and welfare of the American people. Thus, it's no wonder true conservatives are leaving the Republican Party in droves. The GOP has literally embraced a philosophy that is clearly, and blatantly, un-American.

But this has been the case for some time. It's just that only now are Americans beginning to believe their lying eyes.

If the American people ever started looking back through history they'd notice that the same policies, the very same names, and the same corruption is recycled by the Republican Party every generation. As I've  pointed out in a previous articles, as far back as October 29, 1929, the Republican Party ushered in the Great Depression under President Herbert Hoover, and it took Democratic president, Franklin Roosevelt, to bail the nation out; then on October 19, 1987, under Republican Ronald Reagan, the stock market fell 508 points due to the excesses of Reaganomics. Then, again, due to the continued freewheeling fiscal policies of conservative Republicans, between 1986 and 1989, spanning the presidencies of Reagan and Bush Sr., the FSLIC had to pay off all the depositors of 296 institutions with assets of over $125 billion.

Then in 1988 Silverado Savings and Loan collapsed, costing the taxpayers $1.3 billion. It was headed by Neil Bush, brother of George W. The investigation alleged that he was guilty of "breaches of his fiduciary duties involving multiple conflicts of interest." The issue was eventually settled out of court with Bush paying a mere $50,000 settlement.

Then there was the Lincoln Savings and loan scandal in 1987 involving John McCain. The scandal was very similar to the one that is currently playing out on Wall Street. He was one of a group of senators dubbed "The Keating Five" involved in a scandal by the same name.

In 1976 Charles Keating moved to Arizona to run the American Continental Corporation. In 1984, shortly after the Reagan era push to deregulate the savings and loan community, Keating bought Lincoln Savings and Loan and began to engage in highly risky investments with the depositors' savings. In 1989 the parent company, which Keating headed, went bankrupt, and it resulted in over 21,000 investors losing their life savings. Most of the investors were elderly, and the losses amounted to about 285 million dollars.

After having received over a million dollars from Keating in illegal campaign contributions, gifts, free trips, and other gratuities, the Keating Five--Senators John Glenn, Don Riegle, Dennis DeConini, Alan Cranston, and Sen. John McCain--attempted to intervene in the investigation into Keating's activities by the regulators. Later, they were admonished to varying degrees by the senate for attempting to influence regulators on Keating's behalf. Charles Keating ended up being convicted for fraud, racketeering and conspiracy, for which he received 10 years by the state court, and a 12 year sentence in federal court. After spending four and a half years in prison, his convictions were overturned. But prior to being retried, he pled guilty to a number of felonies in return for a sentence of time served.

Now, even at this writing, Sen. John McCain is involved in a bill that would allow telecommunications companies to partition off the internet for profit, and Dick Cheney is pressuring Obama to go off half-cocked like he did in Iraq, yet again: "Come on, wimp, lets get this war rollin'. You must me scared, or something." And of course, I'm sure that Cheney's hurry to 'get it on' has absolutely nothing to do with Halliburton's profit line.

And these are the people who want us to turn our backs on President Obama, and place our faith in them: "Just trust us . . . again."

Yeah, right.

 

Eric L. Wattree

wattree.blogspot.com  

Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

which has nothing to do with modern day politics...

Plenty of Blame to Go Around: Jeb Stuart's Controversial Ride to Gettysburg
Eric J. Wittenberg & J. David Petruzzi
2006, Savas Beatie LLC, New York NY
ISBN 1-932714-20-0

(For those who have not previously spent any time learning about Gettysburg, this is not the place to start, go read Stephen Sears' account and then visit the battlefield to place things in context. It's hard to truly understand a battle until you understand the terrain on which it was fought.)

People normally learn about military campaigns in ways that are almost guaranteed to produce poor understanding of what was going on and why. some of this is failure to understand geographical issues. some is failure to understand behind-the-scenes politics. and some is due to the fact that we tend to fixate on the major battles and lose the context.

With Gettysburg, we tend to focus on July 1st through July 3rd, with vague discussion about Jeb Stuart's unnecessary ride around the Federal Army but not much talk about why he did it and what happened. Likewise, we tend to not learn anything about the weeks of hard fighting that occurred in the aftermath of Gettysburg, as Lee struggled to extricate the Army of Northern Virginia.

Eric Wittenberg, David Petruzzi (and in later volumes, Michael Nugent) are addressing some of these issues. The first book (the one I'm reviewing here), deals with Stuart's infamous ride, from the initial concept and Lee's initial orders, through the extend sequence of things that didn't go as expected, through the series of savage firefights that Stuart fought with the Federals that slowed him down, and the capture of the Federal supply train that subsequently bogged Stuart down as he tried to bring everything back to Lee, who could certainly use it.

The second phase of the book focuses on the controversy, as various figures start pointing figures and assigning blame. Stuart, who died before the war ended, of course, cannot defend himself. Lee's chief of staff, Charles Marshall, made a particular effort to blame everything on Stuart, probably to protect Lee's reputation. Marshall's writings heavily influenced the post war picture of Stuart's ride.

The final conclusion arrived at by the authors is straightforward and well supported -- Lee did not issue clear orders and did not manage the calvary forces he retained with him well after Stuart departed on his ride, and Stuart made some poor decisions during the ride.

The authors of Plenty of Blame, joined by Michael Nugent, have gone on to write about the Army of Northern Virginia's retreat, in One Continuous Fight: The Retreat From Gettysburg. When I finish it, I expect I'll write something here.

   Not all Inspection columns appear here at TPM. More Inspection columns can be found here.

     If you think a bit first; reconsider the delusions of some of those who attempt to lead or "educate" us, like the Geico Gecko you'd know better than to stand behind them...

    Afternoons I tire of a screechy hostess on Left Talk and the same old, same tiresome regurgitated talking points over at Con gushing out of marginally different sounding mouths, so I go to POTUS: a stream offered by Sirius. Often it's Pete Dominick. I feel comfortable with him. He doesn't seem to be overly one-sided, or partisan. He's from Syracuse area. I used to hang around Syracuse when I went to college in Utica, NY and met my wife from New Hartford, so I suspect there may be some regional familiarity there. We're both from New York originally. Although if you live south of Harriman; like I did as a youngster before Bill Carman returned to the family homeland known as the Adirondacks, you might pronounce it more like "Nu-Yawk."

    Pete had Newt Gingrich on this last week.

    I don't know if you've noticed, but Newt Gingrich has been doing the talking head show circuit again. Now I feel some regional familiarity with him too, since I hang around Marietta, Georgia occasionally and he, like quite a few Atlanta region-ites, doesn't seem too "South." Seems like he was raised in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Eh, not that far away, culturally.

    Over the years as Newt returned to that circuit again and again, somehow he has retained, and even gained, more gravitas than pretty much any one else from the 80s who went through their own scandals. Newt, a college professor... subject: History... is quite interesting to listen to when he lectures regarding his beloved history, and that's why he's during the tour. He has written yet another book, this one regarding our forefathers. But when he tries to inject religion into our founding documents his professor persona gets swallowed by his obvious partisan skew.

    This separates him not one iota from his "intellectual" brethren and sister-en like Limbaugh, Beck, Malkin, Coulter. Whenever Newt switches to his partisan view of things by conflating his own opinions with the forefathers I keep imagining he's about to enter the chamber in The Fly. He always seems to come out just like that misguided scientist: part human, part fly and all wrong.

    Newt is the kind of intellectual that put the facade of "legit" on the movement so the barn burners can continue spreading accelerants. He knows just how to get Right Wing bobble-heads bobbing, and less sophisticated thinkers to mimic a snagged bass: swallowing his "wisdom" hook, line sinker, pole and fishing reel.

    Newt claims that because the Declaration uses "endowed by their Creator" the forefathers meant God, and only God, gives us rights. When questioned his retorts is, "Then who?" The answer is simple, "No one."

    If we are to believe most of our forefathers and the intellectual-theological skew they had: they exist naturally: part of Creation.

    Being a history professor, and obviously well educated and studied regarding history and especially American history, I find it puzzling that Mr. Gingrich would even suggest such, considering most of our forefathers were deists... unless of course the object is to stroke some religious base that keeps the Right Wing in power and buckaroos.

   Newt would never expose himself by performing that form of political-theological self manipulation in public, would he?

    Would he?

    Hmmm... tantrums because a president won't give him his undivided attention during a funeral, shutting down the government in an attempt to bully a president into anything and everything he wanted, getting rid of a politically troublesome wife who may be on her deathbed for a more politically and financially advantageous one, hiding his own affairs while ranting on about a president's inappropriate sexual trysts...

    Well, maybe.

    All that is so tawdry, so let's get to the philosophical core of the matter. Why would our forefathers have used "Creator" if they didn't mean "God?" I suspect Mr. Gingrich would like us to believe, or at least a portion of the Neo Con base to believe, because they agreed with the Fundamentalist's version of a Christian God.

    Yes, the majority of our forefathers were neither atheist or agnostic. But they weren't even what would be considered these days to be your standard theists. They were deists. Whether you consider deism a form of theism, like I do, or something that deserves its own category like some do, what deists believed is crucial to this discussion, as I'm sure Newt knows. No one I know would claim he's ignorant historically.

de·ism
n. The belief, based solely on reason, in a God who created the universe and then abandoned it, assuming no control over life, exerting no influence on natural phenomena, and giving no supernatural revelation.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

    So Mr. Gingrich is probably being more than a little deceptive with "if not God, who?" The term "endowed" relates directly to design, as in creation and what a Creator would do. Most likely that's why they used "Creator" rather than God, plus "Creator" is more vague and can be accepted by a wider base, faith-wise. You know, like those Mr. Gingrich's religious base might find offensive? But if they meant "God," wouldn't they have used "God," or even "God as represented by his son, Jesus Christ?"

No creation, to the deist, was designed that way. That's how we were "endowed." But the religious right believes more in a Santa like being where everything is a personal gift.

    While this all fits in well with the misguided efforts over the years to spread the wrong headed myth that our forefathers were devoted Christians of the fundamentalistic kind, let's step back from that for a second. It also misrepresents the Constitution and the Declaration in a very politically convenient way.

   The Constitution does not "give rights." Indeed it even explicitly mentions that all rights not mentioned belong to the people. When the Bill of Rights was proposed objections were raised that the "any other rights belong to the people" provision would be circumvented because, get this, opponents said this would make people claim that the Constitution would have to specifically mention a right for it to be a right. Silly opponents. That would never happen, right? But supposedly wiser heads prevailed because it was felt these specific rights were so important they should be mentioned, emphasized, highlighted if you wish, by a Bill of Rights. After all, these were the grievances tossed at a tyrant they wished to be free from.

    Ah, sometimes "wiser" heads are not as wise as they think they are, are they?

    But when making an argument with a King quite public, any deist would certainly use the argument that the Creator designed our rights into creation. Yet even if we went all atheist on this, the logic still applies. Our rights exist naturally. We can do anything we want, until our neighbor decides not.

    Now here's the hard part. Our documents do not give us rights. We are considered to have them even if they haven't been mentioned. Our documents take them away, while limiting how many can be taken away. That's why the Bill of Rights was so controversial. And those who opposed it obviously had a point: they have led to claims made by forgetful progeny that these documents "give rights."

    Any decent form of governance limits rights. Otherwise we might think we have the right to murder, to steal... not that many haven't argued and won those rights. If a CEO makes a decision to market something their tech department knows is toxic or might easily kill, and many citizens die... how many out there expect to see them in a few years with a needle in their arm, at the end of a rope or in an electrified chair. Raise your hands!

     I'm waiting.

    The problem is the majority of the populace either isn't able, or willing, to look under these rocks, to dive deeper into the issues, and understand such things. I don't blame them. I blame people like Mr. Gingrich who spend some time educating, and the rest deceiving for political gain.

    But to be clear, I think we'd have more luck buying religious concepts regarding our forefathers from the Geico Gecko than a Newt.

                                             -30-

   Inspection is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for over 30 years. Inspection is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks and into the unseen cracks and crevasses that constitute the issues and philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to venture.

© Copyright 2009
Ken Carman and Cartenual Productions
All Rights Reserved

Hey Barack!  I have an idea for you.  You are spending a lot of time and energy fighting something you should be celebrating as your own - healthcare reform.  Democrats, why are they all so initimidated by a party that has dwindled to a 20% representation by voters?  Their party is dead and no one has told them yet.  When we think of Social Security and Medicare, those are Democratic institutions and no matter how much misinformation the GOP throws out there, they have never had any success getting the people to agree with them these are failed institutions, even despite their greatest efforts to sabotage those institutions.  Healthcare reform can be the same thing, a badge of honor for Democrats.  Own it!

If there are no Republicans willing to take part in the passage of life-changing legislation {and that is not hyperbole} let them keep out!  They have already torn out the heart of the reform.  Or I should say, they took out the heart of what was left of reform, and now we're being told it will not be "robust".  All I can say is that Oprah said, you are "The One!"  Be the One!  Own it.  If the GOP fails to see the importance of this monumental legislation, well, you can lad a horse to water, but you can' tmake him drink it, and this is about as clear an analogy as there is.  We're talking about something as critical to life as water.  We are talking about medical care!  If they wish to run from this, let them go.  I hope you will stand up for the American people and be 'The One".  Own it!

A curious thought came to me as I was considering this post.  You are the <b>worst</b> President since George W. Bush!  You are also the <b>best!!!</b>  Own it!  Because for the American people we feel as though this country was som completely trashed by the last one, you are getting to start all over again. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJ1Q_cZTYGI

 

OWN IT!!! 

If you are of a certain age, you have heard this so many times, you can probably probably feel the beat when it gets played again and again.

As we watch a nearly dysfunctional legislative process try to accomplish what strong majorities of Americans want them to doagainst the will of the torrent of money dangled as campaign contributions before the very eyes of those privileged to serve as our Senators and Representatives, those words, from a cold and snowy January day more than 48 years ago, deserve another reading:

In your hands, my fellow citizens, more than mine, will rest the final success or failure of our course. Since this country was founded, each generation of Americans has been summoned to give testimony to its national loyalty. The graves of young Americans who answered the call to service surround the globe.

Now the trumpet summons us again -- not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need -- not as a call to battle, though embattled we are -- but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, "rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation," a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself.

Can we forge against these enemies a grand and global alliance, North and South, East and West, that can assure a more fruitful life for all mankind? Will you join in that historic effort?..

I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it. And the glow from that fire can truly light the world.

And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.

My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

...[W]hether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own.

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Watching the 2010 US midterm election season open from my vantage-point far across the Pacific in China, I can barely contain my glee at the latest news from New York's 23rd congressional district as its Nov. 3 special election approaches. Due to the growing rift between the GOP establishment and its frothing-at-the-mouth conservative base, Democrat Bill Owens (pictured here, see campaign website) appears increasingly likely to capture what until now has been considered a safe Republican seat. With strong support from the right-wingnut faction of the Republican Party - including endorsements from leading wingnuts such as Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and Michele Bachmann - Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman has drawn enough conservative support away from moderate Republican Dede Scozzafava to give the Democrat a clear lead in both poll numbers and fundraising.

Despite endorsements and support from establishment Republicans like Newt Gingrich, Scozzafava has fallen to second place in two recent polls, the most recent showing her carrying 30% of likely voters to Owens' 35% and Hoffman's 23% (see CQ Politics, Daily Kos). Meanwhile, campaign fundraising figures released Oct. 22 show that Owens raised more than his two rivals combined between July 1 and Oct. 14: Fundraising totals for the three are $502,197 for Owens, $233,583 for Scozzafava, and $205,139 for Hoffman (see Swing State Project, NY Daily News). This is not not good news for the GOP, but of course it is wonderful news for Democrats. A conservative-leaning Democrat and therefore not an especially exciting candidate for progressives in and of himself, Owens' surge nonetheless represents an opportunity for Democrats across the United States and abroad to take one more seat in Congress away from the Republicans and grab some early momentum as we head into 2010.

It would also be a lot of fun meanwhile to watch the GOP slide into even deeper disarray. I for one relish the prospect of the NY-23 special election signalling all-out war nationwide between a pragmatic but impotent GOP establishment led by Gingrich and a tea-party faction led by the likes of Limbaugh, Palin, Beck, and Bachmann. Boy howdy, what a show! Should wingnuts turn against the Republican establishment and split the conservative vote nationwide, what looked like a less-than-promising midterm election year for Democrats could turn into a far better year than any expected. 

In addition to Owens' campaign website, support may be directed his way via Act Blue and/or via the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Mark C. Eades
Shanghai, China
http://www.mceades.com

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If I marry, I prefer my husband to be alive. Makes going to bed with him a hell of a lot easier, for one thing.

That being said, there was one point in my teens where I daydreamed about becoming a nun. My eldest sister was becoming a Catholic and there were times when I felt in awe and a bit envious. The ceremony, the let us prays, the faith...that sort of thing. She gave me her CCD booklets to study, wherein I found a lot of stuff about the father, the son, and the holy ghost, and I determined that it was easy to understand the father/son thing, but the ghost made no sense, but that was okay, because I had watched a lot of Scooby-Doo.

I started praying to Jesus, one night, in my long white nightgown, kneeling beside my bed, and I tried to open my heart to him the way my sister's CCD booklet told me to, and then I turned off the lamp on my nightstand (wishing in my heart that I could blow out a candle, instead, because that just seemed so much more appropriate, somehow), and then I went to bed with an open heart and open mind.

The next morning, I awoke with my first ever migraine.

Now, I'm sure the two have nothing to do with each other, but....was the timing not divine, or what?

Anyway, I decided through the years that I'm just not religious. I'm not against the thought of God or Buddha or Allah or anyone else, I'm just not into it enough and, even if I was, I'll be damned if I try to pigeon-hole myself into one little religion. Literally. I'll most likely be damned. I'll decide to become a Catholic only to die and be told at the Gates, "Um, sorry.....Catholics aren't allowed. Go back down there and do ten Hail Mary's, and St. Peter might let you live again to become a Buddhist." Or I'll decide to go to my local Congregational or Unitarian Church only to discover it wasn't DEEP enough, or SERIOUS enough, to warrant God's attention, let alone a backstage pass to his daily concert.

My parents baptized me as a Protestant and I attended Sunday School as a kid, but when it came to my family actually practicing our faith, we pretty much sucked at it. My dad confided in me that the closest he could come to pinpointing himself on the religion map was at "Druid". Years earlier, he had watched Exodus and decided to become Jewish. This lasted all of a few days, because he realized that the only reason he wanted to become Jewish was so that he could be like Paul Newman. He then went through a similar phase after watching Lawrence of Arabia, but with different results. By the time he watched Last Tango In Paris, we were ready to lock him up in the attic. But, I digress. My Protestant mother considered becoming a Catholic once, simply because she found the Pieta so soothing, but once she started reading up on it, she decided being a Catholic was too much work. I tend to agree.

All that being said, I'm rather sad to learn, belatedly of course (these things always come to me belatedly, but without the migraines, thank gawd), that the Catholic Church is losing their religion. Um, their religious women, to be exact.

Seems more and more women want live husbands, and less and less women want humble (albeit pretty)  homes to live in while performing good deeds for little pay.

And this is rather sad.

Myself, I'm thinking it has a lot to do with the Catholic schoolgirl uniform, and less to do with the true calling.

But, call me agnostic.

Goldberg, Goldstone, Goldhagen, Goldfinger - all are right and all are wrong.

It's not complex. When you have just 5m Israeli Jews, sitting in just 20,000 sq km on the eastern Mediterranean, intent on influencing the foreign policy of the entire global population of 6.5 billion people, over one billion of whom are Muslim, in nearly two hundred countries, and in part, succeeding - they you have a VERY SERIOUS PROBLEM.

The state of Israel needs to recognize who and what she really is, and those who support her - in preference to their own countries of residence - need to step back and reflect and what sort of world they are trying to achieve for their children and grandchildren. That future will be a world of nuclear conflict, brought about by unthinking men who mistakenly thought that they were doing good and helping to crystallize a biblical prophecy, and in doing so would ensure their place in heaven.

How extraordinarily naive can otherwise sophisticated, educated people be, to be working towards such a tragic future?

Two more perspectives from the left on Obama's Nobel Prize. Thank you in advance for your patronage.

http://www.americanpolymath.com/AP4_Scandinavian_Candidate.html

http://www.americanpolymath.com/AP4_Inclusive_Nobel.html

Hi everybody. This is Greg McCay. Turn out your zero investment to million dollars! Surprised? Yes, Anthony Morrison scam free ideas really helped me in a great way to know more about online jobs. I want all those who are new to online jobs to buy the book written by Anthony Morrison and rock on

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A chapter from my time travel novel TIME WATCH:

I wouldn't exactly say the place I found myself after jumping to 2072 was deserted, as promised... something I would have to take up with myself at the appropriate time. However, no one appeared to be paying any attention to me, and there was a vehicle I recognized... a mini van, no less... no more than ten feet away, so I followed the directions I'd given myself. Once inside with the door closed, I pulled out the silver card I'd gotten from Future-Me and thumbed the little green spot on it.

Almost immediately, a female voice said "Zoning... fixed. Uploading... please wait." A second or so went by, during which all the dials on the dashboard of the van... some of which looked non-standard to me, but I don't drive so what do I know... lit up, blinked a couple of times, and went dark again, in apparently random order. The radio came on in a blast of static, then shut off again. The windshield wipers swiped back and forth a few times, then stopped.

"Upload completed," the female voice said. Looking over, I could now see Alicia Silverstone, in an outfit straight out that Aerosmith video she made with Liv Tyler, smiling at me sexily from the passenger seat.

"You're a holographic projection, right?" I said, hardly ever at a loss when major film hotties suddenly appear in a previously empty seat three feet away from me.

"I am the personified imagery of the home piece belonging to and programmed by deceased Time Watch agent Jose Clamor," she responded, in a tone with all the warmth of something you'd find in the back of your fridge in a Tupperware container you'd been pretty sure you'd actually lost sometime prior to the previous Christmas. It made a really startling contrast with the sexy little, I'm-so-cute-just-ball-me-now Silverstone grin she had on her face as she said it.

"I have 20,000 pairs of stretch socks," I told her solemnly. "And a truly kick ass collection of New Mint Silver Age superhero comic books."

'Alicia' cocked her head to the side in apparently dispassionate puzzlement. "You don't find this particular projection acceptable?"

"Can I put in a request for Katie Holmes from the last fifteen minutes or so of THE GIFT?" I asked, trying to sound innocent.

She seemed to ponder that for about half a second, then said, in that same utterly emotionless voice, "I believe you would find that particular image of that particular actress unduly distracting," she said, then rippled and turned into Katie Holmes, obviously in her 'Joey' persona from DAWSON'S CREEK. "Hopefully this will be satisfactory for the time being."

She was doing Joey's voice now perfectly, too, but the effect was ruined by her utter lack of inflection.

"Sure," I said, "whatever. Um... I'm not real sure what else we have to do here, but I'm pretty certain I have to, at some point fairly soon, recruit a bunch of guys in black trenchcoats to take this minivan back in time and rescue myself from a couple of creeps who are going to try to kill me, or already have, or something like that."

I had hoped to make 'Katie' boggle a little, but she refused to give me the satisfaction. "Clearly, we must interactively exchange information," she said. "With your permission, I will take this SUV to a space/time locus I judge to be relatively secure from surveillance or crosstemporal intrusion."

I turned my thumb up and in my best gravelly Picard voice, said "Make it so, Ensign." I thought about it for a second. "Or should that be..."

I glanced out the minivan window. "...engage?" I said, hearing my voice trail off.

We appeared to be parked in the middle of someone's living room.

'Katie's emotionless voice inquired from off to my side, "Would you prefer me to project myself as the image of fictional character Acting Ensign Wesley Crusher?"

I shuddered. "Only with gaping chest wounds," I said, then, remembering how literal minded computers tended to be in SF stories, hastily said "No, no, forget it, you look fine as Joey." I stopped and thought for another second. "Um... you ARE a computer... right?"

"As I stated," 'she' responded coolly, "I am the designated home piece of deceased Time Agent Jose Clamor."

I just stared at her. "Yeah, okay," I said. "Um... can I get out, here...?"

She was still for half a second, and then said, "My surveillance distorting subprograms appear to be functional. You may access the living quarters."

"Yeah," I said, opening the door and cautiously stepping down. "You gotta figure, if the minivan showing up in the middle of the living room didn't set off the burglar alarms, Happy Little Jim won't, either."

The minivan very nearly filled the room we were in; if I closed the door I could edge around the front of it and get into an area that... I had no idea what it was for... except it looked more tiled and less carpeted than the area where the van was parked, and there was some kind of dark glass panel inset into one of the tiled walls. Behind the van's rear was a comfortable looking shiny silvery desk chair sitting next to a wall, and jutting out from the wall, surrounding the chair on three sides, was a clear piece of plastic with what looked like faint circuitry diagrams etched on it in red. It was flat, seemed about a quarter of an inch thick, and projected out of the wall at what I'd consider to be a normal desk level.

The wall above it appeared to be a window, at ground level, looking out over a very pretty beach scene, with seagulls and waves rolling in and a young couple dressed in Victorian swimsuits strolling hand in hand through the surf.

"Um... where and when are we?" I said, already figuring we had to still be in 2072, and therefore, the 'beach scene' had to be a projection, and the plastic console with the circuitry printed on it had to be this time's equivalent of a PC. Which was when it dawned on me: 'piece' had to be future slang for 'PC'.

"This is Jose Clamor's assigned living quarters," 'Katie' told me dispassionately. "It is my central processing hub. I have covertly assumed control of the normal surveillance software and hardware installed here."

"Right," I said, turning to look at 'Katie', who was now apparently standing a few feet away from me beside the minivan. "And... Jose Clamor is who?"

"Jose Clamor," Katie said without batting an eye and with a wide, shy smile that was completely incongruous to her voice, "is a deceased Time Watch agent whose Temporal Displacement Device you are currently wearing."

"Ah," I said. "Mr. X. And... just checking... 'piece' is slang for 'PC', right? You're a personal computer."

She paused a second. "I extrapolate that would be a logical evolution of the common usage term, yes," she said finally.

I walked over to the silvery looking chair, put my hands on it, swiveled it back and forth experimentally. "Can I...?"

"As you like," 'Katie' said. "Jose will not object. The chair also contains neural induction circuitry which will allow us to interact across a full sensory spectrum."

I had to think about that for a second. "This is like the thing in THE SIXTH DAY with the virtual girlfriend, right?" I regarded her doubtfully. "No hitting." Then I sat down and swiveled the chair around to face 'Katie'. "Okay. So you're a PC. Jose's PC, right?"

"I am Jose Clamor's designated home piece," she said with that same artificial calm. "Assigned to provide him with all processing and personal services compatible with his status as a Technical Agent 17L of Time Watch. Originally manufactured by MacGates-Ibbumco, modified extensively by Paraco for the use of their employees, and further modified by my designated assignee, Jose Clamor, to optimize my capacity to render processing and personal services to him."

I frowned. "Yeah... okay. And this full spectrum of sensory array interactions... that would seem to indicate a whole different level to the phrase 'user friendly', I'm thinking."

"I am programmed to directly interact with the sensory processing centers of the human brain, either through implanted biotic wetware or through direct electrical induction," 'Katie' said gravely. "While this is merely a photonic projection, I can fully simulate a coherent broad-spectrum sensory experience and am programmed with the capacity to provide a wide variety of tactile stimuli, including erotica. Would you care to access any of these subroutines?"

'Katie' had walked closer to me as she said this... seemingly walked closer to me, anyway. Now she was standing no more than two feet away, directly in front of me, head still cocked to the side, regarding me with what I can only call interest, if dispassionate.

"Uh," I said, quite intelligently, I thought, having just been fairly indisputably propositioned by an intelligent computer that currently looked a whole lot like Katie Holmes. "Er. Ub. Gnar."

She straddled my lap, slipping her hands behind my neck and kneading my scalp expertly... and yes, I could definitely feel that delicious Joeyesque weight and those wonderful Holmesian fingers caressing through the hair at the back of my neck. "I detected no syllables my linguistic software recognizes as a demurral," she said without inflection. "In the absence of a demurral, I shall proceed to provide you with the personal service discussed. If you wish a specific personal service not being provided at any current moment, you need only specify and I will comply."

"Gee," I kind of half croaked, "I'll bet you say that to all the 20th Century fanboys who end up in your apartment."

She didn't respond, just tilted her head, leaned in, and kissed me. And yes, I could feel that, too, and whatever sensory or memory centers she was directly electrically inducing, she'd picked the ones associated with the better kissers in my personal history, and distilled them all down into one fairly astonishing kisslike experience.

Simulated or not, the kiss progressed for several seconds, and was hovering on the brink of full throated and utterly enthusiastic total committal on my part... when...

Insanely, I pushed her off my lap. Since she wasn't really there, that should have accomplished nothing, but apparently, she read the intended response as a bellowed (or, more likely, inaudibly whimpered) "For God's sake STOP IT BEFORE YOU DRIVE ME MAD, WENCH!", and abruptly, she was standing in front of my chair again.

"Did I misperceive your behaviors, metabolic indicators, and chemical signals?" she asked me, not even sounding curious. "I have no specific experience with persons of your temporal period, however, I am well versed in the recorded media from the late 20th and early 21st Centuries and I processed the data I was receiving from you as meaning you wished to interact erotically with my projection prior to our information exchange."

I stared at her through a haze of lust induced psychochemicals and shook my head groggily. "Garf." I said. "Urb. Fnargle." I took a deep breath. "I... will explain... my utterly deranged and insane act in rejecting your advances... in a moment. Before that... do late 21st century apartments have cold showers in them?"

She cocked her Joeyesque head to the side again for a second. Otherwise, she made no move. Nonetheless, despite the fact that I was actually fully clothed and sitting in a damned chair, I suddenly found myself utterly naked and standing in a freezing cold shower. If you think that's confusing to read, you should try experiencing it.  Except you really shouldn't.

"HOLY SHIT!" I howled in agonized shock. "STOPPPPP ITTTTTTTT!"

As abruptly as the icy inundation had begun, it stopped, and I found myself sitting in the chair again, perfectly dry, but shivering. And with a much clearer head.

"I interpreted your question as a request for serv -" Evil Katie began.

"NEVER. INTERPRET. ANYTHING. AS. ANYTHING," I gasped at her. Then I glared at her. "Always. Ask. Before you do... shit." I paused. "Especially EVIL SHIT LIKE THAT."

She actually looked, briefly, petulant. "Fine," she said, finally, sounding like a real girl for half a second.

"You do have emotions stuck in your programming somewhere," I said, wonderingly.

Her voice went flat again. "My emotional software is currently offline. However, it is impossible to completely de-integrate it from my personality projection profile."

I looked at her for a second. I thought about that, and realized I'd been kind of stupid. "Um. Did you take it offline... just a guess, here... after you heard about... whathisname... your designated owner's... that he'd died?"

She nodded. "Yes," she said flatly. "Negative stresses were causing fluctuations in my subroutines and reducing the efficiency of my processing." A chair appeared behind her and she sat down, then leaned forward to look at me. "May I direct an inquiry to you?"

I sighed. "Why did I shove you off my lap?"

Katie looked all puppy dog hurt and wistful. "You said you would explain."

"Goddam," I said, whistling. "You are a real girl after all." I blew air through my lips in aggravation. "Okay... this is kind of hard to articulate... um... let me try this... why do you have emotional software?"

She cocked her head to the side in what was apparently a habitual gesture for her indicating a thoughtful pause, however brief. It had to be entirely a programmed sham, but it was a nice touch "Human users are emotional creatures," she said. "Emotional simulation software in a personal service processor helps facilitate personal interactions."

"Uh huh," I said dryly. "Now, when you were trying to jump my bones just a minute ago, is that something you'd normally call a 'personal interaction'?"

She actually looked surprised. "But you are a 20th Century human male," she said. "The recorded media of your native time period indicates that the greatest desire of 20th Century human males is the perfectly satisfying sexual act with no emotional interaction whatsoever."

I frankly goggled at the wench. "Whoa," I said. "Just how many times have you watched PORKY'S?"

"It is an easily extrapolated sub-theme found in the vast majority of recorded media from your time period," she said earnestly.

"Well," I said, crossing my arms and harrumphing, "I'm pretty weird, even for my time. I like emotional interaction. Also, much though I'd probably enjoy jumping Katie Holmes from here to eternity, I'm very aware that you're not really her, and that makes the whole thing very weird for me."

She didn't say anything, just looked at me.

I sighed. "Also," I said, "in all honesty, I have a hard time having any kind of sexual interaction with... I don't know... someone or something... that doesn't seem to be there of their own free will. I mean, apparently, you're programmed to provide certain services, and for some reason you've decided to provide these services to me, and you perceived that I wanted these services, so you jump in my lap and start grinding."

She said, again, quite earnestly, "I do not understand. I am not grasping this gestalt. I have taken on the appearance you requested and which your biophysical response array indicates you find highly sexually attractive. Your biophysical response since I first encountered you indicates a high degree of tension and sexual frustration which, as a service processor, I am programmed to alleviate. My interactions with the sensory centers of your brain indicated to me positive feedback. And yet you required me to cease. I can grasp that you would find my projection more three dimensionally erotic with my emotional software engaged and I will do so since that apparently will please you. But am I to understand that even this will not be sufficient for you to enjoy erotic interaction with me?"

I threw my head back and gave a truly exasperated groan. "I can't... look. What's your name?"

She gave me that same blank stare. "You may assign me any familiar name-label you find acceptable," she said.

"Augh!" I aughed. "That's it! That's the whole problem! You're acting like a goddam slave or a prostitute or... or a vacuum cleaner with a special blowjob attachment, or something! And, in the first place, I don't want to screw a machine, and in the second place, you're not a machine, you're a person, just, you know, a computer person. And I can't screw someone, no matter what they look like, if they're only doing it because it's their job, or something they're programmed to do."

I took a grip on the arms of the chair and forced myself to calm down. "Look, it's not your fault, it's just me. I'm weird like this. I can't have sex with someone who isn't there willingly, who isn't going to enjoy it, who doesn't want to be doing it with me as much I want to be doing it with her. It's..." I paused. "It's just an ego thing," I said, finally. "It doesn't make me a nice guy or anything. I just... can't really enjoy it... if I think my partner isn't primarily in bed with me because that's where she really wants to be, and what she really wants to do."

She blinked at me for a couple of seconds. "I am forming a gestalt," she said carefully. "You feel erotic interactions should have an emotional context, and that both beings involved should be there for their mutual pleasure."

"At the very least," I said. "And since you don't have brain chemical pleasure centers for me to electronically induce back, you're obviously not going to get any pleasure out of erotically interacting with me... it's just something you're doing because you're programmed to. And... I just... can't do that. I mean, well, I could, but honestly, I really don't want to. Sorry. It's not something that makes any real sense."

"If I were to re-engage my emotional simulation software," she said, after a second or so, "and write a subprogram that would integrate a name and appearance individual to my personality profile, would you then wish to erotically interact with me?"

I frowned. "Um... I don't know," I said. "I mean, you're still not getting anything out of it. You already seem like a real person to me, just, you know... one that really can't enjoy even simulated sex. I'd feel like I was using you."

She visibly sighed. "The things I do to get laid," she said in a grumpy tone of voice. "Okay, fine. Sit there a sec and be quiet."

I gaped at her. "Whycum you don't sound like a computer so much any more?" I demanded.

"Hush," she said, kind of absently. "I brought my emotional software back online, and I've been integrating your speech pattern with the language in the material I've got access to from your time period. I think I have a feel for it now. Hmmmm. But this picking my own name and appearance... this is kinda nutty." She frowned. "You guys don't do this," she said accusingly. "You have parents who assign you your names and contribute the genes that control your appearances."

I couldn't help it, I had to laugh.

"It's not a problem, it's a feature," I said after a few seconds, shaking my head. "Believe me, most of us would pick our own names and appearances if we had the option." I had to admit, I was fascinated. Her 'Katie Holmes' projection was showing some distortion; fragmenting into vertical running bands of red, green, and blue, widening out, then pulling back together again, flickering into black and white two dimensionality, then back into color and seeming solidity.

"Ah said hush and ah MEAN it," she said, in a sudden southern accent, waving her hand at me, and I could see a flicker of a flirty smile as she did it. Abruptly her image wavered, then re-focused. She was now short... well, as short as she had been as 'Katie', anyway... a little bit plump, big busted and wide hipped, with shaggy dark blond hair cut in a pageboy crop and feathered back on her temples, and a face that was pretty without being movie star gorgeous. Big blue eyes set nicely on either side of a slightly blocky nose, a wide, full lipped mouth, square chin, slight suggestion of a fleshy pudge under the line of her jaw. Very nice looking... actually quite sexy... without really specifically resembling anyone I'd ever seen before. Very individual.

She also had plump nipples about the size of plums and the shade of half ripe strawberries protruding from the tips of nicely rounded, just slightly saggy, very full breasts... and clearly, she was a natural blond. "Ahem," I said. "We don't wear clothes in our natural appearance here in the late 21st Century?"

She cocked her head to the side in the same gesture I'd seen on her as 'Alicia' and 'Katie' and one corner of her delectable mouth turned down slightly. "Well," she said, the accent turned down to the faintest trace, "Ah am at home, honey doll." She sighed. "But fine, fine..." (the words came out as 'fahn, fahnnnn', but I'm going to stop spelling it phonetically and just let you imagine it) "...your wish is my command." Suddenly she was wearing a frayed denim miniskirt and a sleeveless white scoop necked sweater vest she looked ready to fall out of at any moment. She had little gold leaf earrings in her earlobes, a thin gold chain around her neck, and a tiny gold ankle bracelet looped just above one bare foot.

"I see we don't care for brassieres," I said, dryly... not, in this case, because of a dry sense of humor, but because of a suddenly very dry mouth. Even just standing there breathing, she was jiggling fetchingly under her sweater vest, and the exact location of her nipples was rather achingly obvious.

"I don't believe I need one, darlin'," she said, cocking her head over to the other side and wrinkling her nose adorably at me. I'm pretty sure that while she did that she added some freckles, as there appeared to be some on her cheeks and the bridge of her nose that I had not noticed previously. She put her hands on her hips and wiggled in a fashion even the most articulate among us could only describe as 'saucily'. "Oh my," she said, giggling again. "I believe you like my real appearance, dumplin'."

"What..." I cleared my throat. "What's your name, hon? I'm Jim."

She moved a bit closer and abruptly I found her straddling my lap again, her round little knees firmly clasping either side of my more than ample belly through my coat and shirt. She propped her elbows on my shoulders on either side of my head and rested her chin in her cupped hands, her solemn little face no more than two inches from mine. "Why, hi, Jim," she said in a throaty purr. "I'm Belinda." She nudged my nose with hers, then nibbled my lower lip. "Say," she whispered while engaged in doing that, "you wanna screw, Jim?"

I shifted under her. "Belinda, I have to compliment you," I said, my voice nearly squeaking, "this is MUCH more convincing, except, you know, for the whole drop-dead-gorgeous-blond-sitting-on-my-lap-and-asking-me-to-screw thing, which is nice, too...but..."

She was kissing across my cheek; upon reaching my ear, she flicked her tongue around inside it for a second, then took my earlobe firmly between her teeth, nibbled it, and said, "Now you listen here, Jim... I may be an artificial intelligence and this may be just a virtual reality projection but you already said I was a real girl, dammit, and I AM a real girl, an' I want you to think about a couple of things, you selfish slob. First, I loved Jose and he just went off and got himself killed and you're the person who's showed up to finish doin' what he got killed tryin' to do. So I'm already inclined to like you. Second, Jose was so damn busy buildin' his little bomb for the past three weeks he didn't have no time for rest an' recreation..."

"Buh bomb?" I squeaked, faintly, as she nibbled.

"We'll get to that," she said. "Later. Third, I am an artificial human bein' who has no real human sensory perceptions except when I am interactin' with the sensory and perceptual apparatus of an organic human bein'. You think I only fuck for YOUR pleasure, mister? And fourth, what the hell is wrong if I am programmed to enjoy performin' my designated tasks and providin' my little list of services? You think it's right to deny me that pleasure? After three weeks watchin' Jose run all over the place and not havin' any time for me and then he goes off and gets himself killed on me?"

I could have sworn I felt wetness on my cheek from where her face was pressing against mine. "So if you wanna say no to me now, you can, but I have to tell you I will think you're just the meanest man in the history of the world if you..."

I reached up, grabbed a handful of her short blond hair at the back of her head, and pulled her mouth firmly to mine. "Less talk," I said, before covering her lips with mine in a kiss I had no intention of coming up from for several minutes at least. "More goddam action."

I imagine anyone watching you have sex with a hologram sees a pretty comical sight. On the other hand, as John D. MacDonald has noted, if you look at it dispassionately, every sexual position humans contrive to get into is pretty damned comical, anyway.

As my last note on this subject, I'll mention that the only thing bad about having sex with a computerized person is that your partner, however gorgeous she may be and however fragrantly, softly, wrigglingly, moistly solid she may feel, cannot undress you. However, these are minor matters and easily dealt with. And yes, there is some clean up when you're finished, but anyone who thinks any kind of sex isn't messy and sticky and you shouldn't have a towel handy for afterwards is clearly a virgin, and you virgins shouldn't be reading this passage, anyway. It will give you naughty ideas.

Much, much later, I murmured in her ear (she had her head resting easily on my left shoulder and was lazily nibbling my neck on that side) "Every female name in human history to choose from and you picked 'Belinda'?"

She nipped me sharply, and then, when I gasped, immediately licked the spot she'd nibbled. "I like the Go Gos," she mumbled against my neck. "Sue me."

- an excerpt from TIME WATCH, by D.A. Madigan

An uber-conservative making sense?!?  On Fox News All Stars of all things?

I mean, this is Krauthammer we're talking about here!

Is the apocalypse nigh?

I have no objection in principle at all about these cuts in pay. This is not intrusion into free enterprise. These enterprises are not private or free. They are wards of the state. They ran themselves into the ground, and they are now partially or largely owned by the government.

 

So the government has every right to intervene and dictate salaries.

 

But the question is a practical one. Is it smart if you're a shareholder in the company, as we all are, and thinking of its future and the ability to repay the loan, is it smart to institute a cut this drastic?

 

The obvious danger is that if the cut is too large, it will induce the people who run it and who presumably know how to run it to go elsewhere.

 

So, to me, it is a practical decision, and the fact that Obama was hands-off on this and he left it in the hands of someone who's an expert in this area I think is the right decision. Obama is not an executive. He is not a businessman. He ought to leave it to Feinberg, who in these negotiations has become expert, so I think it was handled the right way.

Eliot Ness
Bureau of Prohibition
Eliot Ness
April 19, 1903(1903-04-19)-May 16, 1957 (aged 54)

Oh good news on the drug front. I mean assuming you are not short a nickel bag or something.

Federal officials arrested more than 300 people in raids against the Mexican drug cartel La Familia on Wednesday and Thursday, the Associated Press reports. More than 3,000 police officers and federal agents carried out raids in 38 cities and 19 states "as part of a long-running effort that has netted nearly 1,200 arrests over almost four years." The raids were concentrated in California, the Southwest, and Texas--Dallas was the site of 77 arrests. La Familia, based in southwestern Mexico, "has earned a reputation for dominating the methamphetamine trade and displaying graphic violence, including beheadings," according to the AP.

Associated Press | Thursday, Oct. 22, 2009

 

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FYI Georgians...

Georgia GOP Census Fraud:

11 Alive, a local Georgia news station, reports today that the Georgia Republican Party is sending out a political mailer disguised to look like an official U.S. Census survey. The news station learned of the scam when a voter called the station saying she was "upset" that Georgia Republicans would send out such a mailer, given that many Georgians, especially senior citizens, will not realize that it's a political ploy and not an actual Census survey:

"I got real upset 'cause I think a lot of people would just automatically fill it out," [Anne Wilson of Smyrna] told us in a Thursday TV interview, "It's their civic duty; by law they have to fill out the census. Turns out I and many others across the country have received the same survey letter which is titled the "2009 Congressional District Census".

The outside of the envelope is stamped "Do Not Destroy, Official Document". The survey lists a specific congressional district and includes an individual "Census Tracking Code", with the request, "Please Respond by: November 16, 2009″. [...]

"I could see a lot of my neighbors that are older who would get something like this in the mail and fill it out," she adds, "all the information, every little section, and send in money."

The Georgia GOP also sent the mailer to the 8th Congressional District Chair for the Democratic Party of Georgia, who promptly snapped a picture, which his wife placed on her blog...

Continued here: 

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/10/23/georgia-republicans-send-census/

I've been sick and in the hospital for many weeks now. A few years ago, I sold some land and have been living off of the proceeds since then. I planned to start up my own web development business. I have no health insurance. My care has hit an obstacle, which I have not found a work around for. I am asking for help from TPM members.

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A few weeks ago, an anguished blog on TPM recapitulated a news story from the Midwest. According to the news reports, two parents who believed in the power of faith healing watched their 11-year old daughter die from uncontrolled diabetes while they prayed for her recovery without seeking medical help.

The responses of commenters were extraordinary in their outrage at this act of parental negligence, in some cases expressing a fury that was almost palpable. One comment called the parental decision "premeditated murder" and demanded the severest penalty legally possible.

A recent Washington Post/ABC news poll reported that only 52 percent of parents polled said they would have their child vaccinated against the H1N1 influenza virus when the vaccine became available. Scaled to the larger population, that unwillingness translates into tens of millions of children at increased risk for serious illness and death. The H1N1 virus is unusual in that its threat to the elderly is less than that of seasonal flu, but its lethality in children is much higher. Already in the U.S., at least 96 and probably more children have died from H1N1 flu, and the epidemic is still growing -

Pediatric H1N1 Flu Deaths

On the other hand, the vaccine appears to be efficacious, based on antibody responses and parallels with similar flu vaccines - H1N1 Vaccination - as well as safe - Vaccine Safety - CDC  and Vaccine Safety - WHO   .  It therefore appears that many more children may be condemned to death if current resistance to vaccination persists.

I hope it's clear that I use the term "condemned to death" metaphorically. I don't denounce the parents, who undoubtedly care deeply about their children's health. Rather, I would make the following point. Among these millions of reluctant parents, I expect there have been thousands or more who encountered the news story about the faith healing couple, and who reacted with the same outrage I described above. And yet, negligent deaths among children from faith healing in the U.S. are likely to be fewer - probably far fewer - than deaths from infectious diseases that would have been averted by vaccination. If they are not, faith healing is a far worse threat to this nation's health than most of us realize.

What is ironic, of course, is that if one asks either the faith healing believers or the vaccine rejectionists about their decisions, each expresses equal faith in the rational nature of their decisions, with the corresponding view that those who criticize are biased and closed-minded. Indeed, the choices are often justified on the basis of testimonial evidence - the paralytic who walked again after a faith healer touched him, or the child who died the day after vaccination - even though we also know that when the claims are subjected to rigorous scrutiny, none of the evidence supports the claims of efficacy for faith healing or excessive risk for vaccination.

The issue of vaccination in general is too broad to address here, except to say that the viral nature of Internet rumors combined with a natural suspicion of government and of authority figures tend to reinforce the understandable skepticism of individuals urged to take action for their own good. The H1N1 threat is severe enough, however, and the dangers to children great enough, to emphasize that in this case, the innocent will be destined to suffer, and on rare occasion to die, if well-intentioned but misguided suspicion of vaccination is not countered.

In that sense, the guilty parties may ultimately be less the well meaning but misinformed parent, and more those of us with some knowledge of public health who don't do our job. That means providing accurate information, but it also means treating the lay public with respect rather than an accusatory attitude, so that they respond favorably to our attempts at education. When I used the term "condemned to death" earlier, I emphasized that I did not mean it literally. But even as I reread what I wrote, I find it too willing to pin blame on others, particularly if we antagonize those whom we wish to convince. When it comes to condemning children to death, we must be careful that we're not the ones doing the condemning.

UPDATE: Great, so the story was wrong! Good to hear.  No prob.

With the White House showing such courage in the face of swine, I am much relieved that the reported cowardly buffoonery did not occur!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/10/23/white-house-loses-bid-exclude-fox-news-pay-czar-interview/

Fox News is the scourge of billionaire-funded overseas propaganda in our free society.  Nothing less absolutely, and that's well been proved.  See, the old Frontline, if one was too frivolously unprofessional and irresponsible to take such a ridiculous/embarassing stand without the rank minimal step of looking it up!!   If it is really true that genuine journalists bandied together to defend repulsive disinformation merely because certain deal-pushing producers investing in Glenn Beck et al, comically also called themselves "journalists" when convenient, that is a black disgrace that cannot and should not be forgiven.  

Ever!  And they are no better than Beck, now that he is their cohort, if true (and pray it isn't this way!). And so I am still hoping that they are not so utterly **cretinous!**  I want to believe that these executives are not so spittingly disdainful of real journalists (who may have foolishly put their faith in their employers) to sell out all, so as to stand by a for-big-profit foreign propagandist scum.  One who has notoriously shamed several other countries along the way, as EVEN THE MOST CURSORY LOOK would reveal!!  The execs just *couldn't* be so breezily dismissive of their professional ethics, could they?

Say it ain't so, Joes!  Say you ain't the ultimate patsy tools and kindly explain ***why not***, okay?!

This is an attempt to look at the economic aspect of US - China relations from a Chinese perspective. This approach may yield interesting insights  in the most important economic axis of economic interdependence of the modern world, and generate innovative ideas about how to approach existing and future issues.

Theoretical background
The contemporary phase of US-Chinese relationship characterized by high level of economic interdependence can be analyzed from a realist perspective. Henry Kissinger was working towards a classic "realist" balance of power arrangement by seeking closer relationship with China to counterbalance Soviet influence in Asia after the end of the Vietnam war. In Dr. Kissinger's own words with Nixon they "had ideas for the construction of peace on a global scale". Consequently it could be argued from a constructivist perspective that this classic 'realist' foreign policy act created a reality that will develop into the most remarkable phenomenon of modern politics the economic interdependence between the world's leading liberal free market democracy and the last explicitly communist state. The impressive rise of the economic exchange between the two countries after the reforms introduced by Deng Xiaoping in 1979 led to the current situation in which they dominate world trade and global economic stability is dependent on their successful development. The management of these relations and the interlinked political and security implications require skillful economic statecraft to resolve the issues bound to arise from the unparallelled scope of the economic interdependence and the structural differences between the communist rule over an economy in transition to free market in the case of China and an economy in transition from the 'laissez-faire ' principles of the Reagan era to increasing calls for more regulation after the global financial crisis of 2008.

Historical Context
The relationship between US and China began to develop in in a new direction after  Henry Kissinger approached China and the economic relationship picked up particularly after the reforms of Deng Xio Ping in 1979. Trade with the US has helped China achieve dramatic success in improving the quality of life of the most populous country in the world. Chinese political life has advanced towards more openness, democracy and accountability and the protection of private property has given the opportunity for a prosperous middle class to emerge. At the same time China remains a Communist country ruled by Communist Party which is far even from the notion of something resembling Gorbachev's perestroika, let alone more comprehensive political reforms. The remarkable economic development has been accompanied by extensive environmental damage. Some of the new rich have earned their wealth through corruption and the lack of effective judiciary to deal with the problem is due in part to the CCP opposition to political reform.  The livelihood of a large part of the population though better than the starving populations of sub-Saharan Africa is still precariously close to the poverty line. The economic development is based on cheap labor and has yet to show signs of achievement into more technologically advanced areas as Japan, and the Asian Tigers have done.
The US approach to China has ranged from the desire to ensure good relations to alleviate the security threat in the 70s through the remarkable period of the growth of economic relations starting with Deng's reforms and culminating in China gaining the top spot among US trading partners and world wide prominence leading to US uncertainty as to how to treat China: as a rival, an ally or controversial partner-difficult to deal with but impossible to reject.
Floating exchange rage for Chinese currency.
The Chinese government has strongly resisted international pressure led by the US to float Chinese currency. The Chinese complain that now after the financial crisis the problem is not the exchange rate of their currency but the value of the dollar or more correctly not the value but the stability of the dollar which is dependent on the stability of US policy. The above conclusion of the Wang Qing, an economist from Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong make the US government responsible for exchange rates linking their stability with the stability of policy. While a link between policy and currency values may be established it is not that direct. There was no observable policy change when the financial crisis struck in the latter days of the Bush administration.  It is more the adequacy of particular policy that may affect the exchange rate. In any case the huge Chinese trade surplus has materialized in US dollars mostly in the form of Treasury bonds.

 "We have lent a huge amount of money to the U.S. Of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets. To be honest, I am definitely a little worried." The problem is that The Chinese cannot  undertake a massive sellout of US treasury bonds as this will cause their price to fall. But even if they hold them massive US stimulus will mean the US government selling more bonds and the market may demand higher interest rate for them than the interest rate for the bonds the Chinese hold. That scenario will result in a price drop of bonds held by the Chinese. Alternatively if the US government chose to limit the borrowing and respectively the stimulus may mean slower recovery for the US economy which will hurt Chinese exports to the US. Another scenario involves reduced US trade deficit because of the crisis resulting in less Chinese purchases of US bonds. In any case the financial crisis confronts the Chinese leaders with a difficult dilemma. The US sees the solution in encouraging Chinese domestic consumption. The Chinese government sees a solution in decreasing its reliance for its reserves on the US dollar and dependence on US financial policies outside its control, by calling (alongside Russia) for the establishment of an internationally managed reserve currency that will increase the stability of world financial markets and have the added benefit of more freedom for the financial policies of reserve currency polities like the US, the EU and Japan.

2. What China expects from the US

Budget deficit control
Following the financial crisis and the implementation of stimulus measures the primary concern of China is the US government's resolve and ability to bring the budget deficit under control. From the perspective of Chinese national interest their ability to deal with the adverse effects of the global financial crisis depend on the value of their national reserves which is dependent on US policies. Commentators speculate on whether China will continue to buy US securities to and thus finance US government spending. The obvious answer is yes because there is no substitute for US government bonds in terms of secure investment even when taking into account all the pitfalls of using them as financial reserve instruments. A logical consequence of improving trade balance between China and the US will be that China will buy less US securities as it will have less free funds to use for bonds purchases but will use the money gain from export to the US to pay for imports instead. To conclude if China had a financially viable option to switch reserves to other safe haven like IMF Special Drawing Rights or Euro they would have done so and they will not hesitate to do it if it becomes viable in the future. The current calculations though make the US dollar most attractive despite its contradictory position of serving as an international currency but held under US national control. China will continue to keep their national reserves in US dollars and attempt to influence the US government to pursue policies that will prevent the dollar from losing value.

Free trade not rotectionism
The other most important economic statecraft policy issue that China would like to see positively resolved in their relations with the US is how the administration will go about with dealing with protectionist pressures from Congress. China is understandably suspicious on the true US intentions. On one side we have the resolute declarations of president Obama on several G20 meetings warning against the dangers of protectionism and on the other the controversial imposition of tariffs on tires imported from China.

New US financial regulations to prevent crises
China is concerned with the negative impact of the current financial crisis that has exposed their economic vulnerability to events beyond their control. Understandably, China wants to see better regulation to ensure the smooth operation and predictability of the US financial system as the world trade is dependent on its health.

Increased role for China in IMF
At the 20th meeting of the International Monetary and Financial Committee of the Board of Governors of the International Monetary Fund in Istanbul the Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of China Yi Gang made a point for a larger quota for the developing nations and better monitoring abilities for the International Monetary Fund. He accused the IMF of failing to foresee the global financial crisis and blamed this failure on mismanagement stemming from skewed representation in IMF governing bodies. That is a valid Chinese complaint as they have done what was expected from them: efficiently produced goods for export and the financial collapse adversely affected them without warning. That the IMF is in need of structural and administrative reform including quota revision is acknowledged supported by the US government.
 
Recognition of the status of China as a market economy.
The recognition of China as a market economy affects the way the fair market value of goods is calculated to determine whether the country engages in subsidies or dumping. As China is not recognized as a market economy by its main trading partners the US and the EU they can more easily apply punitive measures against China as was in the latest case of US tariffs on tires imported from China. Theoretically the question has two sides. The first one is can China be considered  a market economy? The prevalence of state enterprises and the strict control over the national currency points towards a negative answer. On the other hand the remarkable development of China towards establishing efficient enterprises including private ones successfully working towards ever increasing export capacity points to a conclusion that China is making considerable effort to implement a market driven system. The results of the latest China - US Strategic Dialogue show that there are no insurmountable obstacles on the way of US recognition of China's market economy status which will materialize sooner or later depending on political developments in both countries.

While official Chinese policies may be concerned with the continuing dominance of the Communist Party and Marxist ideology from the Russian (and Yugoslav) experiences suggest that the true interests of the ruling elite may be the more material than ideological centering on the perpetuation of their economic power. The metastasis of corruption feeding on China's economic boom points int that direction Bearing that in mind three scenarios can be discerned for the future development of China. The most desirable, but maybe not the most probable will be the gradual political development of the Chinese society towards democracy following the consolidation of the  market principles in the economy. The most dangerous would be a slip backwards under the pressure of economic duress into the oppression and belligerence of the Mao era. The most probable though will be the collapse of the Communist party and transfer of power into the hands of corrupt officials and mafia like structures. US inducement for democratic reforms in China may diffuse the dangers of chaotic collapse of communism and the and the considerable security implications that may cause. Ultimately it can be concluded that there is a convergence of interests between the Chinese Communist Party, the entrepreneurs and the people of China and that leads to peaceful economic development as a way to solve all problems facing modern China. That position can find understanding in the US and the rest of the world because it is in harmony with the long term interests of all countries interested in developing economic relations with China on a win-win basis.


 

Obama's anti-bonus measures go even further than anyone expected and further than even European measures!

I CAN'T WAIT how poor repubs, most of them with NO health will come to the aid of those poor, poor, poor defenseless millionaires and billionaires who took our tax money and then awarded themselves bonuses.

I predict that reactions will go from insults, calling our President names and such to screeching things which are not related to bonuses at all.
Actual arguments against this plan, I don't expect to hear. They will try to pretend they are, but they won't BE actual arguments against this plan.


PS
Obviously Obama expected these greedy coyotes to do "the right thing", and yes, that was naive. At least he's setting up a system with the right incentives: They get stocks if the company performs well.

The foxes guarding our much-raided chickens have handed us a gamy egg in exchange for stealing the coop.

I guess I should be real impressed the Obama administration has drawn a line in the sand and told seven banks they couldn't pay their executives kings' ransoms out of the bailout kitty. It's an emotional issue, after all. Why should already-rich, overpaid crooks who got us in the meltdown jam profit with taxpayer money? As current affair, it's like episodic TV and freeway driving: There are good guys, bad guys, dumb folk and bang-up excitement. Maybe even a little blood and some broken glass.

Meanwhile, though, efforts to plug up the crumbling dike that is the derivatives market with safe-and-sane regulations are fading away slowly under cover of the bankers' salary smokescreen.

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It is obvious that since coming to Fox News Glenn Beck has sucked much of the hot air out of many radical-right commentators, like Ann Coulter, Michele Malkin, Rush Limbaugh, who now in the Beck Era are mere shells of their former selves. This of course is understandable, in the course of his one hour broadcast Glenn Beck provides viewers with their daily dose of demagoguery that former right-wing commentators needed a whole day to dispense. 

Well, right-wing commentators are not sitting down accepting defeat (unlike many Congressional Democrats and their desire for a public option). They are stepping up their game and bringing out the extreme rhetoric to show to their fan base that in the world of right-wing pundetry they are still relevant. 

Ann Coulter, the former star of the radical-right's ideological camp, in an attempt to outdo Beck's "progressives were once called 'slave-owners'" like comments and sell more copies of her book Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America made a stunning declaration in a recent segment for The Joy Behar Show. "Every presidential assassination or attempted presidential assassination was committed by some kind of left-wing loon, communist, anarchist, communitarian, or they had no politics at all." She said delightfully. 

Behar, who is not a fan of social-conservatives (and I am sure the feeling is mutual), did not waste any time bouncing back, accusing Coulter of making illogical connections between liberals, murderers, and terrorists. 

Coulter's guilt by association argument is not a new, and has been used by social-conservatives over the past decades to assualt liberals and progress not based on their ideas but rather intangible associations. Possibly most famously articulated in Jonah Goldberg's book Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning. Of which as Eric Alterman of The Nation notes that the entire book is based on questionable ties between today's liberals and "progressives" like Hitler. Alterman writies, "Some fascists were vegetarians; some liberals are vegetarians; ergo... Some fascists were gay; some liberals are gay... Fascists cared about educating children; Hillary Clinton cares about educating children. Aha! ... This is a book that argues that Woodrow Wilson 'was the twentieth century's first fascist dictator' and that it is 'impossible to deny that the New Deal was objectively fascistic.'"

While scholars continue to debate whether or not one can accruately define fascism and figures as Adolf Hitler as extreme-left or extreme-right, right-wing pundits have had no trouble with making these associations to contemporary progressism with little regard for historical accuracy. The truth of the matter is while historical figures like Hilter or Mao Zedong have described themselves as forward-leaning for their time their ties to contempory maintstream progressivism in this country exist only in the minds of right-wing pundits like Glenn Beck. 

It is a clever strategy. Right-wing punidts know that they cannot win an argument on ideas, such as cleaner energy, better schools, reproductive choice, health-care for all, equal-rights for all Americans; and as a result must rely on misinformation and deception to scare voters into thinking that the contempary progressive movement is a political effort to finish the work of the 20th century worst war criminals and dictators. Rather than debunking the tenants of contemporary progressism right-wing pundits have tried to smear the movement with falsehoods in an attempt to turn the word progressive effectively into a political bad-word. And they have largely been successful in this charge. However, despite this when we take a look at the issues more Americans are agreeing with more progressive views than before. 

Coulter, like Beck and other prominent right-wing mainstream pundits, is not likely to stop the campaign to label every liberal proposal as a Marxist-communist-socialist-fascist take over anytime soon--it has been too profitable--however, their arguments which until Glenn Beck arrived merely hinged on the absurd has dived right in, and as a result more Americans are becoming tired of the illogical hyperbole rather than solutions. 

For all you Guys and Gals out there who just LOVE to twist Dick Cheney's knickers, I present you with an OPEN THREAD to have at it.  It will be tagged as "SPORT."

PUT YOURSELVES ON IRONY ALERT!

I can't be the only one who believes that all this is about Mary running for office, can I?

So have some fun here; take your best shots!  (sorry, pun intended)

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When I worked for a software company, a fellow computer programmer once lamented that the salespeople earned so much more than the coders, despite the fact that the coders were generally better educated, more intelligent, and more essential to the company's core value: its products. The reason for the disparity is straightforward. Salespeople are closer to the money. It is very difficult for executives to perceive the value good programmers, who represent cogs somewhere deep in the machine, but the value of good salespeople is obvious from their sales numbers. For instance, it is easy to justify paying $200,000 in salary and bonus to a salesperson who makes sales worth $500,000 in annual profits.

My colleague's dismay exhibited the wide gap between "merit value" and "market value." Merit value is an amorphous sense of the worth of an employee based on capability, education, seniority, and hard work. Market value is the perceived monetary worth of an employee. Our economy is primarily based on market value. Insofar, as we reward merit value, it is because of cultural reasons and a loose, indirect relationship between merit value and market value: people generally perceive monetary value in the meritorious qualities of capability, education, seniority, and hard work. Yet while this indirect relationship may hold true within a particular field, it varies widely between fields. Thus, the most capable coders are likely be the top paid programmers, but they are unlikely to be paid as well as the most capable salespeople.

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I predict that Barack "Pretty-Man" Obama's Obamacare will include a weak public option.

Why?

Because the complete and undeniable failure of that useless con-man would expose the American two-party political system as the barely differentiated corporatocracy that it really is, and expose it so obviously that even the TV-intoxicated morons who elected Barack "Pretty-Man" Obama would finally understand it.

Washington will not allow that to happen.

You tell 'em, Pretty-Man!

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said she has nearly enough votes to pass a bill that would include a wording that creates a government-run program to compete with private insurers.

In the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who took a team of negotiators to the White House Thursday, has been considering the idea of a public option that would allow for states to opt out.

Even the always-out-of-it Senator Kent Conrad don't need no stinkin' weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing!

"What I'm hearing is that this is the direction of the conversation," said Conrad, who supports an alternative approach under which nonprofit co-ops would compete with private industry.

But don't expect a "robust" public option from your barely distinguishable corpo-rat-ocrats...

Speaker Nancy Pelosi counted votes Thursday night (10-22-2009) and determined she could not pass a "robust public option" -- the most aggressive of the three forms of a public option House Democrats have been considering as part of a national overhaul of health care.

And what kind of public option isn't robust?

That would be a decrepit, debile, feeble, infirm, rickety, sapless, and weak public option, and that's exactly what Washington will give Barack "Pretty-Man" Obama, to preserve a minimum of credibility for the American "two-party" political system, which is really just a stinking corporatocracy, but...

When that glorious (but also decrepit, debile, feeble, infirm, rickety, sapless, and weak) public option is finally signed into law, then the corporate media will celebrate it so magnificently and with so much pomp and circumstance that hundreds of millions of TV-intoxicated morons will forget all about multi-trillion dollar give-aways to criminal bankers and bigger war in Afghanistan and soaring unemployment and all join together in a hymn of praise for our incredibly pretty (but also decrepit, debile, feeble, infirm, rickety, sapless, and weak) President Barack Obama!

In my inbox yesterday, this CV summary:

Wall Street mover/shaker now accepting offers:

Creative financier. Talented rainmaker. Innovative lender.

Recent Achievement Example: accepted $1.2 trillion from Federal Reserve, non-recourse, at 0.0001% annual interest rate. Invested in T-bills at 4%. No risk, remarkable spread. Infinite ROI a/c zero capital requirement. Returns $48 billion annually. How's that for creative financing?

Reason for leaving present position? Kenneth Feinberg says I can't have my 10% of $48 billion earned commission. #@&*! government thinks it can do my job, just let them try it.

Currently vacationing in the Seychelles. Interested parties may apply by leaving a message on my cell phone. Phone messages that do not clearly specify the compensation package will not be returned. All offers will be considered on a first come, first served basis. Do not leave multiple messages, because that's needy.

Mike Ross and his fellow Blue Dogs have been beating the rest of the House and Senate Dems about the head and shoulders everytime any sensible health care reform promises negatively to impact the near term deficit numbers. In particular, they declare the “public option” DOA, even threatening to bolt party discipline if forced to vote in its favor.

Frequently, their aversion to spending public funds is couched in flowery and ideologically ornate protestations about self reliance and liberty and such shit.

It turns out that Ross is ok with the public option closest to single provider, Medicare for everybody , just as long as we spend .more public money.:

“Medicare could be offered as a choice to compete alongside private insurers for those Americans eligible to enter the national health insurance exchange, but at a reimbursement rate much greater than current Medicare rates,”

Medicare is already 75% funded from the general fisc; Blue Dog Ross wants to add a generous surcharge, which will all fall to the puclicly financed portion, meaning higher taxes/deficits, all so that health care costs can be protected from reduction.

It’s nice when the running dogs of the rich and rapacious are stupid enough to show their true colors.

Today's  NYT, following the announcement by Obama's executive pay "tsar" that 125 of the country's top execs would have to choke down a big paycut, warned that any stunt pulled by Feinberg would prove illusory in the long run.  Instead, the times insists that it's up to "shareholders" to reign in executive pay.  See http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/23/business/23nocera.html?_r=1&hp

 

What's not entirely clear from the article (perhaps because such clarity would come only with embracing a bit of legal wonkishness) is the drastic change in our corporate laws required to allow shareholders to actually govern CEO salaries.

 

Ever since the seminal CEO pay case - the one dealing with, if you remember, Michael Ovitz at Disney and his golden parachute (Brehm v. Eisner) - it's been clear to us lawyers that no one can touch a salary set by an executive compensation committee unless there's outright, plan-faced fraud or a conflict of interest.  This, incidentally, is almost impossible to prove.  Folks familiar with corporate law know the roadblock as the "business judgment rule."  It's a presumption that anything an "independent" board does passes the legal straight face test.  Only when a board member is on both sides of a transaction will a court begin to look at the merits of the deal and whether it's in shareholders' best interests.  And for you normal non-lawyers, "conflict of interest" is a term of art.  It doesn't mean "smells like fraud," "looks shady," and "indirectly, of course there's a conflict."  It means that the board member is voting himself his own pay raise, or voting for one for his best friend - not "if I give him a pay raise now, it will help inflate salaries everywhere and generally be good for rich people like me." 

 

Moreover, as the article does make clear, it's nearly impossible for shareholders to control corporate governance through their suffrage rights.  Boards are stacked - so your shares only entitle  you to vote for certain board positions - and unless you have a candidate to endorse, it's financially infeasible to launch a proxy contest against the incumbents.  You can't just complain about their behavior, you have to find a willing replacement.  On top of it all: since when do beneficial share owners pay enough attention to have a voice?  The folks with enough weight to make a difference are your institutional investors.  That's Fidelity, along with your state pension fund.  Inspiring confidence??

 

My point is this: there's a mountain to move if you want to control executive pay through empowering shareholders.  On the other hand, passing a law linking executive pay to, for example, 10-year average profits is easy.  Okay, so you discourage risk taking and maybe the most talented of the talented will find a career that will bring in bigger bucks.  But last I checked, there are some pretty brilliant hard-working people in, for example, the ivory towers of academia who are motivated by such other than dollars.

By Raquel Brown, Media Consortium Blogger

After several prominent members left the Chamber of Commerce over its prehistoric climate change policies, the organization appeared to do an about-face on its climate stance during a press conference on Monday. Sound too good to be true? It was. Members of the Yes Men, a group of satirical, anti-corporate activists, posed as Chamber of Commerce officials and held a fake press conference claiming that "There is only one sound way to do business: That's to support a strong climate-change bill quickly, so that this December in Copenhagen, President Obama can lead the entire business world in ensuring our long-term prosperity." In reality, the Chamber has not changed their climate stance and continues to oppose climate change legislation. The Yes Men's stunt is just one more in a chain of hoaxes this Autumn, including a boy in a balloon, death panels on health care reform, and recent allegations that radical Islamists are using interns to infiltrate Capitol Hill.

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And is there anything left that does not affect interstate commerce?

The question arises because the U.S. Constitution did not give Congress the power to legislate generally, over any subject, but only over the subjects listed in the Constitution, one of which is the regulation of interstate commerce.

And so, in S. 909, the "Matthew Shepard and and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act," which yesterday became part of the 2010 defense appropriate act (S. 1390), Congress dutifully found that violence motivated by bias "affects interstate commerce."

Really? 

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I loved watching every Saturday The Soupy Sales Show. It certainly influenced my sense of humor and personal growth developement! White Fang and Black Tooth and the many other characters on the show made my saturdays a delight! Even when he ran into trouble for showing his middle finger at his show's sponsors, it was all in good fun!

May you recieve the "heavenly" pie in the face, Soupy! You desreve a place in the spritual realm in the sky!

A couple years back in South Korea in the FIFA under-17 World Cup, the United States team suffered a shocking 4-3 loss at the hands of Tajikistan. While the result was roundly ignored in most American sports circles, in political circles the result got attention.

For in just 90 minutes of play, the U.S. helped create something that sent shivers down the spines of foreign experts everywhere - Cocky Tajiks.

Yes, Tajiks are still strutting about greater Tajikistan today with chests puffed out. Because now in Tajikistan, anything is possible. And as we all are aware, Satan hath no greater ally than an arrogant Tajik.

And sure, aside from the victory by its teens, Tajiks have some things to be proud of. Nearly one-third of its residents don't live in abject poverty, after all. And if you're an Afghani drug lord, you pretty much have no choice but to traffic your drugs through Tajikistan if you want to get them into the lucrative Russian market. Also, Tajikistan is just one of only five countries on the planet to share a border with Uzbekistan. So it's by no means all bad there.

But the triumph on the soccer pitch will likely get Tajiks thinking they are on par with the U.S., and this is by no means the case, whatsoever. A simple look at the facts will show that the United States of America is far superior to Tajikistan.

Infant Mortality Rate: When ranked against other industrialized nations, the U.S. ranks second-to-last. However, Tajikistan isn't an industrialized nation and the U.S. crushes them in this race, as just 6.37 U.S. babies die out of a thousand births. While this lags far behind nations like Sweden (2.76) and Singapore (2.30), it's way better than Tajikistan (43.64).

Human Rights: An authoritarian state, there have been widespread allegations of torture in Tajikistan. In comparison, the United States, on average, rarely tortures its own citizens, and, for the most part, only tortures non-citizens when the President feels it absolutely necessary.

Health Care: Again, American dominance comes shining through. According to the World Health Organization, the U.S. has the No. 37 health care system in the world, trailing such health-conscious nations as Colombia, Costa Rica and Chile. Tajikistan however ranks a lowly No. 154, which is even worse than Iraq (103).

Military: The U.S. has a military that is used to invade nations like Iraq, Afghanistan, Panama, Nicaragua, Grenada, etc. Tajikistan has never invaded any nation worth noting, and, in fact, American troops are currently stationed in Tajikistan to keep them from getting any ideas.

Paris Hiltons: Not only does the U.S. lead the world in Paris Hiltons (1), it is also a leader in such stars as Britney Spears (1), Lindsay Lohans (1) and Olsen Twins (2). No one famous has ever come from Tajikistan.

So while Tajiks gloat over their victory over the United States, it is imperative that they not get too excited about this. Simple statistics prove that the United States is far superior to Tajikistan, in nearly every category.

And for Americans, chin up. The loss to Tajikistan could be construed as painful. But keep in mind, compared to the average Tajik, an American lives a life of luxury. And compared to the rest of the world, the U.S. settles in nicely in the upper middle area in most categories.

So in the end, it comes down to this: while the U.S. may not technically or statistically be the "Greatest Nation on Earth," it is a far greater nation than Tajikistan in everything that does not consist of teenage boys playing soccer.

-WKW


Originally posted at William K. Wolfrum Chronicles

I took this down too early; my apologies.  I thought I was just gettin it out of the way for other, more universal blogs.  It was requested that I re-publish it and the comments.  If they don't appear, I can cut and paste them into comments, I'd guess.  Here goes.

Some of you have been kind enough to help me, and thank you again.  Some of your help got through to me.  I spent about 4 hours yesterday trying to get a picture into my blog, but failed.

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Everybody needs work.
Right now, we need art to inspire work.
Here's how it happens:
First, humans find themselves on earth. We're like, "Get busy; survive. Gather stuff to eat."
We learn a few things along the way. We plant seeds, instead of just finding them already in the ground.  We manage. This becomes agriculture, man's first industry.
That's part of it. Meanwhile, our neighbor down the road, across the street or across town or across the ocean, is doing something different: there's  animal husbandry--raising animals for their milk or meat, not to mention their dung (valuable stuff, that dung.)
There's mining, metallurgy, mercantilism, chemistry, industry and study.
Humans use their intelligence to manage earth resources--minerals,plants and animals. We devise ways to increase yields, making our efforts and our resources more productive. Old-fashion way of managing agriculture was done through accumulated generational farmer smarts and responsible stewardship of the land and its resources. In the modern way of doing things, this could mean genetic engineering.  We shall see how all that pans out. Some folks are not into it. They'd rather have God's little acre and organics. Hopefully we can maintain a society where techies and earthies can coexist and not ruin each others' trip. We get along.
We innovate. We invent tools. We fine-tune things. This is art; art is not just something that hangs on the wall at the Met.
When man has more produce and goods that he, his family and/or community, can consume, there is surplus. What to do with it? Save it for leaner times. Fine. Some stuff doesn't save so well, or could be put to better use by some other person or entity.
Trade surplus for other stuff. This is very important. It's the basis of commerce, economics and modern life.
Surplus accumulated and well-managed becomes wealth. Wealth on your day(s) or week(s) off becomes leisure. Does leisure produce anything?  Yes.
Art.
Art is the human's response to having a little free time.
A few thousand years pass by. Cut to the chase: Modern society has arranged for folks' needs to be met collectively. We have devised various systems for doing this--capitalism, communism, and everything in between.  That's oversimplifying it, but blogosphere denizens prefer simplicity.
But here's the rub. Once we've established economic systems, it turns out that everything works in cycles: day and night, sunrise/sunset, rise and fall of tides,  seasons, spring planting and fall harvest. Just like the old days. Economics is no exception to every other activity in the world. Boom or bust, like it or not. Shit happens. So we're deep in it now.
Got job? 
What our present cycle is revealing is that our era of financed leisure is over. Kaput.  Our levels of languor, our revels of being being entertained on the couch are tanking. The easy money is spent. This lifestyle maintained for too long by too many has become unsustainable.
Unsustainable:
 Time to get back to work. And if you don't have a job, can't find one, now is the time to stop waiting around for something to happen. The government may bail you out somewhat with some fake money, but the real question is: What are you going to do with your life? Get busy finding new ways to make your life productive. That's where the art to inspire work comes in.
Art is life; life is art. Get creative. Get busy. What can you do today to improve the life of yourself, your family, loved ones, community, nation?

Carey Rowland, author of Glass Chimera

It happened again this year.  Not that it was a surprise.  It's happened the same way 20 times out of the last 23 years.  Congress was unable to pass a budget before the beginning of the fiscal year.  They are 23 days into the current fiscal year and still no budget.   And while this places a strain on a lot of different agencies, perhaps none suffer as badly as the VA does each year.

You see, when Congress delays passing a budget for whatever political or economic reasons it does so...it's a problem.  It leaves an agency like the VA in limbo until they know for sure how much money they will be allotted for that year.   For example, in 2004, while the VA received more money than they did the previous year, it was still 1.1 billion dollars less than the agency expected.  Worse they didn't find out what their final budget would be until 4 months into the fiscal year!  1.1 billion dollars is a rather large shortfall to try to recover with no warning a fourth of the way through your fiscal year.

That means that the VA spends a lot of time each year rationing.   Rationing care, keeping labor costs down by understaffing, delaying the ordering of needed equipment, whatever it takes to make sure that they don't run out of money at the end of the year. The focus is on saving money...just in case they don't get as much money as they think they will.   Once they get the budget for the year, they can adjust their spending....providing they haven't already over spent this year's budget.

But that changed on Thursday when President Obama signed the Veterans Health Care and Budget Reform and Transparency Act.   This is a piece of legislation that has been requested for decades from Veterans groups.  It was the number one legislative priority for the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America this year.  And this year it was passed by Congress in a bi-partisan manner and signed by the President.

What the legislation does is not earth-shattering, merely wise.   Under the new law, the VA budget will be approved a year in advance.   That means that Congress can fight over the budget all they want; but neither Democrats nor Republicans will be able to point to our vets and use them as political pawns to force a budget into passage.  Even more importantly, it also means that the VA will know BEFORE the fiscal year starts just how much they have to spend.   And that's a blessing to our vets.

You may not like having a Democratic controlled Congress and you may hate the current President...but give the devil his due.   After over two decades of trying to change a bad system, Thursday, October 22, 2009 was a good day for the United States and it's veterans!  

Thank you, Mr. President.

It is quite possible that in the not-too-distant future, huge banks, including FNMA, will control a large portion of America's housing as rental property, courtesy of you and me and the foreclosure crisis which the banks refuse to end and may in fact be fanning. And unless you own your home outright and plan never to move, you may end up as one of the renters, even if you'd like to own your own home.

I've criticized banks for letting houses drop into foreclosure instead of doing what it takes to keep them in the hands of their owners. (Deep down, we know the banks own the houses anyway, but there's at least a patina of ownership in the current system. Work with me here.) Unfortunately my new expertise arises out of necessity; I have been trying to short sell my duplex for nearly a year. Ask any real estate agent how his or her short sales are going to get a sense of how much the banks are stalling these things and how difficult it is.

The buyer is offering more than other comparable properties in the neighborhood have sold for but apparently not as much as Fannie Mae believes the property is worth. I have been concerned that if FNMA (the investor) does not accept the buyer's offer, then the property will drop into vacancy and be vandalized, which would be bad for the neighborhood and for the taxpayers who will ultimately be on the hook for the mess.

Today I encountered a new and chilling wrinkle. A person on the phone at Fannie Mae arily informed me that if the potential buyer for my property doesn't offer enough to meet Fannie Mae's requirements, Fannie Mae would probably foreclose on it, then hold it "for five years or so" and rent it out in the meantime.

I checked out the FNMA website, and sure enough Fannie Mae is setting up to be a giant rental company. And I mean giant. I don't remember the exact statistic but I think Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac hold 85% of all the mortgages out there (sorry if I am wrong on that number.)

http://www.fanniemae.com/newsreleases/2009/4581.jhtml

According to one newspaper article I read, "Many are hoping that other banks will follow Fannie Mae's lead." Now, on the surface this might seem like a fine thing. The program is described as a way to allow renters living in foreclosed properties to stay and sign a lease--20% of foreclosures have a renter living in them when they are vacated, and those people have to go somewhere. 

And that would be cool, if FNMA were doing it as a last resort, after going through all the other possibilites including short sales to willing buyers and independent investors at prices that the market will bear. (I'm not a huge fan of this "race to the bottom" mentality myself but lots of people are and if we're going to establish a bottom we'd best get going.)

But for FNMA and other banks to turn up their noses at reasonable offers and embark on a giant plan to effectively hoard housing until the "market comes back?"  Practiced extensively by the small number of enormous banks who still own mortgages, (bailed out but not "invested in" by taxpayers), this thing holds the possibility of price-fixing on a grand scale.

Imagine what will happen when everyone in America who is going to lose their first home or investment property loses it. (Sadly, they may not qualify for any of the half-hearted modification schemes that have so far saved some 85,000 folks from foreclosure in a sea of millions of vulnerable or defunct homeowners.) With huge numbers of homes held as REO Rentals, if you want to buy a home your choices may be to purchase it at Fannie's price--or be satisfied with renting--at Fannie's rate, on Fannie's terms, and from one of Fannie's property management companies. What will happen to neighborhoods--and to America's famed "pride of ownership" society? Something, for sure. 

I hope I'm wrong about this--but if it is indeed the banks' plan to just forget about doing much other than letting houses drop into foreclosure, be turned into rentals and "marketed for sale" at the banks' price, then paranoia is justified. 

What is going on?

 

 

Look At Em

Yeah, just look at em.

I've thought about this often and started to write on this subject a few times but a comment by Stillidealistic finally got me to the keyboard.

 

"John Boehner on Hardball...what an arse. Just seeing his smug, slimy face makes me want to kick the t.v. I wouldn't buy a used car from him."

Stilli, I have destroyed a remote with a good throw at my TV screen.

So, do A high percentage, like 99%, of despicable people really look despicable or is it just that I see them that way because of how I feel about them?

Some names to consider: Oh, and I'm sorry about the accompanying visuals but this is in the interest of science.

Don't these guys all look like either pricks or idiots, or idiotic pricks. The exceptions look like mean, evil bastards. Classify them for yourself. Bill Kristol, [Smarmy, slick faced pimp] Charles Krauthhammer [should be cast as Frankenstein's fuck-up] Paul Wolfowitze, [A prick with ears], John Boehner, [Looks like a guy Perry Mason should let hang even if he could get him off] Ol' what's his name, Mich Mac the Minority Mouse of the Senate, [A perch eyed imbecile if ever there was one], Glenn Beck, [Sorry, too close to dinner time for that one], the Smirking Chimp, [Looks like a capitalized smirking chimp], Darth Chaney, [Black holes opening into chaos where his eyes should be], dough-faced Perle, [A face like a four pound sack filled with five pounds of crap.].

The list goes on. Or is it jut my bias?

The following is a post that I originally posted on a local Fox News Website.  I was curious after all of the posts that I had seen on that site over the past few years against "pork barrel spending" what there reaction would be.....the sound you're not hearing is crickets chirping in the ethernet!

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It's been a while since we've talked about "pork barrel" spending coming out of Washington.   But here's an example of how one man's "pork" is another man's "urban renewal".

The General Services Administration (the government agency tasked with controlling rental of government property and purchasing for government) has a decision to make.    One of their regional offices is currently housed in an older facility.   The once bustling facility was built in the mid-1940's and until recently housed three different divisions of government.  Two of those divisions have moved to other areas of the local municipality.    The GSA wants to move out as well.   They have three options:

A)  They could rent from space already built and pay to have the space modified to fit thier requirements.  The local municipality has a large number of unoccupied office space in their downtown area.

B)  They could also hire a private company to construct a new building to GSA specifications that is owned by the private company and then leased to the GSA. 

C)  Or they could wait on their move.   Submit a proposal to Congress to appropriate the necessary funding to erect a building that is owned and operated by the GSA.   

Choice C is actually the cheapest route to take for the federal taxpayers.   Over the course of time, it is significantly cheaper to own the building outright than it is to pay for modifications to current available facilities or to pay a middle man to build the building for them.

The problem with choice C is that local politicians want the GSA to move thier operations to a specific location within their city in hopes of continuing a "re-vitalization" of that area.   It would bring increased revenues to the area hotels and restaurants.  It would be good for the city if the federal government chose (A), but it would also waste federal tax dollars.   So it's a form of "pork barrel" spending.

The GSA however, has stood it's ground.    They are seriously considering delaying thier move and using option C which would save federal tax dollars at the expense of the local economy.

Is this good or bad?   Local politicians from both sides of the aisle have voiced thier preference for choice A.   Are they trying to bring home the "bacon" for thier constituents or are they taking "pork" from the rest of the country's tax payers?   Which do you prefer and why?

Does it make a difference if you are told that the city in question is Kansas City?   That Sens. Bond, McCaskill and Rep. Cleaver are all for "pork barrel spending" in this case.   Because it would be good for downtown business.  There's a lot of empty spaces sitting around in offices downtown.   It would do a lot for the local corporation that rents to them.   But everything it does for the local economy will be on the back of the federal tax payer.  How do you feel about pork barrel spending now?

One last ethical question for you.   Regardless of where you come down on the issue of where the GSA moves, whether you're voting your local dollar or your federal dollar....should Sen. Kit Bond hold up the confirmation hearing of Obama's nominee to head the GSA?  Because that's what's happening.  Sen. Bond has put a hold on the confirmation hearing of Martha Johnson until she agrees to move the GSA downtown.   And that sounds like blackmail to me!  Anyone want to explain why that's an ethical move on his part?

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If you are like me and upset with Sen. Bond's hold on Ms. Johnson's confirmation, please feel free to contact him at 202-224-5721.

Because the DNC says that if you disagree that Obama deserved the Nobel Prize, you side with the Taliban:
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2009/10/620000171/1
Using this polling data, progressive blogger Glenn Greenwald criticizes DNC for acting Republican: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/10/22/tactics/index.html

My experiences have taught me what it takes to build successful economic efforts in South Carolina. So, like many others who are concerned about the current economic condition of our state, I am deeply embarrassed by a Governor who has been completely missing in action on the jobs front. At this point, our Governor isn't just absent in our economic development efforts; he's actually an impediment that we have to work around in order to get anything done. South Carolina's families deserve better than the struggling economy and soaring unemployment that we're experiencing. That's why I am running for Governor: to get South Carolina back in the jobs business and to get South Carolina working again

I feel so strongly about jobs because more and better jobs are the answer to South Carolina's problems. With a Governor who is truly engaged and focused on creating more jobs and growing businesses, we can help address our fiscal problems, improve our schools, and strengthen our families. And I wholeheartedly subscribe to the old saying that a good job is the best government program. South Carolinians should know that as Governor, I will wake up in the morning thinking about how to create jobs, and I will go to bed every night thinking about how to create jobs. There is no more important and fundamental issue in this election - and indeed for the future of our state - than jobs. And as Governor, no one will work harder than me to bring jobs to South Carolina.

The next Governor needs to lay out a wide-ranging agenda for immediate improvement and long-term transformation of South Carolina's economy. Today I released the initial installment of the major economic action items that I think are necessary for our people to have not only the hope but the reality of better jobs for a better future. The complete plan is available on my web site.

Read the full entry to see the top line bullets of my plan.

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Cross-posted to Project Vote's Voting Matters Blog

Media manipulation by the right-wing to influence public perception has been a decade-long tactic to undermine voter registration in America. While the current media frenzy surrounding the community organization ACORN is only partly related to voter registration efforts, it is important to note that the attacks have been built on a foundation of misinformation and media manipulation by the right-wing over several years, largely surrounding the myth of "voter fraud."

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It seems to me that many people who consider themselves left wing are unaware of the polling data on Medicare for All. On the one the hand we have the Democratic establishment crowd, who typically assume that, because Democratic leaders largely oppose Medicare for All, public opinion must be against it as well. (About four of one hundred favor it in the Senate.) On the other hand we have the Medicare for All activist crowd, who sometimes believe support is higher than it really is. (For example, a two thirds majority hasn't been recorded in any poll this year.)

To explain the true situation, I did the following exercise. I took all the polls I could find from this year on Medicare for All, along with a roughly equal number of polls on the "public option," and plotted them on this graph:

 

 

There are four bands in this picture. The first two bands, one black and one red, represent Medicare for All support and opposition. In any poll, we will have a certain number in support, a certain number opposed, and some undecideds. The next two bands represent support and opposition to the public option. The blue dots represent the mean of the closest band. The mean for the first band indicates that a very narrow majority (50.4%) is in support of Medicare for All and a slightly larger majority supports the public option.

 

The Medicare for All polls I used are listed here. Most are available through this link.  I also made sure to use the one commented on by Matthew Yglesias here.

Kaiser Tracking Poll (Phrasing #1, yearly average) 46.8-49%

Kaiser Tracking Poll (Phrasing #2) 58-38%

CBS/NYT Poll (covering only emergency problems) 59-32%

CBS/NYT Poll (covering all medical problems) 49-42%

Grove Opinion Research Corp. Poll 59-?%

Time Magazine Poll 49-46%

Rasmussen Poll 32-57%

 

The public option polls I used were:

Rasmussen Poll 41-41%

Kaiser Tracking Poll 65-29%

Economist/YouGov Poll 41-33%

CBS/NYT Poll 72-20%

Quinnipiac Poll 62-32%

Time/SRBI 56-36%

 

Choosing public option polls required some thought because there are so many. I adhered to the following guideline: either use Nate Silver's recommended polls or choose one from the same source as a Medicare for All poll. (All the polls above are also linked to by Silver's page.)

At this point I thought it would be helpful to try to get rid of polls that might not be valid and look at the results. Therefore, I removed both polls by Rasmussen because the way they're phrased seems biased. I also removed the NYT/CBS figure asking about coverage of emergency problems only, since Medicare for All would cover more than that. (Of course, one could argue that the other figure for all medical problems is bad too, since Medicare doesn't cover all medical problems. Ideally, we might perhaps then use a weighted average, but I did not bother.) Finally, I threw out the CBS/NYT public option poll because it calls the public option a plan like Medicare, which it is not.

Here are the results. 

The full version of this blog post is available at ZBlogs. (You will need to click the link twice due to the Emergency Funding Appeal.)

See my essay covering this topic here.

What I like about language is the fluidity of words and phrases. A few years ago was having a conversation with a friend--a graduate from U.C. Berkeley in English-- who happens to be to an African American librarian wherein I explained that language is dynamic and it changes as we change as human beings. He looked at me like I said something revolutionary. I told him  a few years ago it was very common among African American teenagers to say 24/7 and What's the 411? After I gave him these examples he understood what I was talking about. These words and or phrases now can be found leaping off the tongues of a people delivering the news in the United States. I have seen CNN use 24/7 in advertisements for several of their news broadcast.

Language is as alive as sure as we breathe. This is why I think it is incredibly asinine to insist on English only in the United States. If this was a national policy, the world will surely leave us behind. Just ask those parents who insist their children learn Mandarin, Farsi or Arabic.

Besides, I am still learning how to get my American tongue around quite a few Mexican influenced Spanish words.

 It seems like the more we become connected as a diverse group of rational beings on this Earth we influence--sometimes for the better-- each others languages and lives.  Just look at Japan. It seems the Japanese have come up with a word Obamu which is one letter short of Obama. Obama is of course a city in Japan and yet it is the name of his father born in Kenya. I don't know which came first but it is interesting. I think the President of our United States has inspired a new Japanese word.

Maybe the Japanese can see something about Obama from afar better than most of us can hardly recognize up close?

Gloucester Cathedral The western end of the cathedral

Frank greeted Sean and Bernice from accounting at the same time. Along with that damn mutt. (shivers) Frank sat his guests down. Bernice of all people wanted a matini as Sean smiled at his Henikin. Spanky was fixed up with his bowls.

So Spanky speaks Sean?

It is Sparky Frank, but yeah, I mean you got to hear this, said Sean pulling a tape from his sports coat. Without prompting, Sean put it in the cassette in Frank's EC and turned it on.

...

There is not much there Sean.

God Frank, I heard it. Hell I told you I played it this morning.

Shortly, after playing it thrice, the three could barely hear:

Rooooooooooooouuuuuuuuut Wooooooooooow

What the hell....blurted Sean.

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On Tuesday, Obama supporters from all over the country made over 300,000 phone calls to Congress. It was an amazing effort that proved we've never been more "fired up and ready to go" for health care reform!

Today the FDL Action PAC launches an online phone bank effort to call 40,000 of the most progressive Democrats in Nevada, asking them to contact Harry Reid and let him know they support a public option.

Click here to register and start calling!

Why are we calling Nevada? Because we absolutely have make sure the bill that comes up for a vote on the floor of the Senate has a public option, because according to knowledgeable policy experts and Capitol Hill staffers, it will be virtually impossible to add a public option later.  

We have 51 votes in the Senate - a majority - to pass a strong public option, yet Senate Majority leader Harry Reid has been sending mixed signals that he doesn't have the 60 votes he needs to overcome a Republican filibuster. He won't even tells us what Democratic Member out of our 60-vote supermajority is threatening to stand with Republican's to hold the pubic option hostage!

This is unacceptable. We need health care reform - with a strong pubic option - brought to the floor of the Senate for an up or down vote. If there are Democratic Lawmakers in Washington who don't want to vote for it, make them vote in public! Don't let them hide behind a filibuster threat so they don't have to go on the record.

Fortunately for us though, Reid's up for reelection in 2010 -  and the polls show him behind possible Republican challengers. So if we can get enough of his own constituents to call him and tell him they want a public option in the bill, we're likely to get the kind of traction that outside petitions and calls from out of state can't.

Register now to phone bank to Nevada for the public option.

We can make those 40,000 calls. YES WE CAN!

TIPS FOR MAKING SUCCESSFUL PHONE CALLS

I ran hundreds of phone banks during the general election last year. Here are a few tips I hope you will find useful.

1. Read the script a couple of times before you start, so that you feel you understand the concept. If you don't feel comfortable reading off of it verbatim, don't. Make it your own. Make it conversational. But be sure to ask all the questions on the script.

1. You'll only reach 15-20% of the people you attempt to call at any one time. Most will not be home. Some numbers will be wrong.  Some people will not be supporters. This is normal for every phone bank, and it's why we ask so many people to make calls, because it usually takes several attempts to reach a voter.

1. If someone is unsure, feel free to tell them why you personally support a public option. You don't have to site a bunch of facts and figures. For instance, I tell people that I want a public option because my brother in law joined the army 15 years ago because his wife was pregnant and they couldn't afford insurance. 15 years and 3 kids later he still can't. He's about to be sent to Iraq for the third time. No one should have to make that choice.

1. If someone says they don't know if if they'll call and you can't get a definitive answer from them, I would recommend marking them as "not home". That means someone else will call them later and try and persuade them again.

1. Don't take rejection personally. Even a "no" is valuable information and will help refine the list down to real supporters.

Lacul Valiug On Flickr, Lake Valiug looks picturesque, but locals are dumping trash in the nearby woods to avoid collection fees.