platopal's Blog

QUIT IT! ALREADY!

2008-11-25T23:13:16Z

President Obama, please don't give us another one of your 'this is a serious crisis' talks. I've had enough. everybody knows it. Tell us specifics. Give us some creative ideas. Like maybe the auto industry can sell bonds and get their money the way I do. I earn it. Maybe they can sell bonds. Quit borrowing from the Chinese. Americans can get themselves out of debt, can't they? They elected you against all odds.NO MORE NEGATIVITY. Give us creativity. Where is that hope? Lighten up!

The decline and fall . . . protecting our resources

2008-11-08T23:14:19Z

Government organizations are neither immortal nor unshrinkable. We face a future dominated by resource scarcity. Our choices are two: a change to iron government with civil liberties diminished and resources allocated from the central government. Or a change in values away from material consumption, a gradual withdrawal from our fascination with economic growth and more efficient use of resources, especially raw materials. The preferable future might not be the most probable future and this prospect should trouble us deeply.

Guarding the polls

2008-10-27T15:04:20Z

This from the Miami Herald.

Statewide, about 5,200 attorneys, law students and other volunteers will be poll watchers for Obama's legal team. Poll watchers are registered voters assigned to observe election activity inside the polling station. They cannot interact with voters.
In Miami-Dade, which has 764 polls, Democratic observers number about 450. They will focus on what key members call ''voter protection'' in minority, elderly and traditionally strong Democratic precincts. Their observers include immigration lawyer Ira Kurzban, lawyer and former Orange Bowl Committee president Albert Dotson Jr. and Miami-Dade prosecutor Abe Laeser.

Guarding polls

2008-10-27T15:04:20Z

This from the Miami Herald.

Statewide, about 5,200 attorneys, law students and other volunteers will be poll watchers for Obama's legal team. Poll watchers are registered voters assigned to observe election activity inside the polling station. They cannot interact with voters.

In Miami-Dade, which has 764 polls, Democratic observers number about 450. They will focus on what key members call ''voter protection'' in minority, elderly and traditionally strong Democratic precincts.

According to a Miami Herald computer analysis of precinct designations, the Democrats are devoting two-thirds of their poll watchers to precincts where less than 25 percent of the voters are black.

Their observers include immigration lawyer Ira Kurzban, lawyer and former Orange Bowl Committee president Albert Dotson Jr. and Miami-Dade prosecutor Abe Laeser.

Overconfidence

2008-10-26T16:04:30Z

A Reuters post says that Obama's lead has dropped to 5 points, with a margin of error of 2.9 points, which essentially gives him only a one or two point lead. Why all the discrepancy?

McDespicable

2008-10-14T18:59:04Z

Chris Hitchens nailed it when he calls McCain despicable and his cohort shameful. I think it's even more despicable that the race is so close. It would be interesting to find out how many of those who lost money and homes voted for Bush in 2004. How many that voted for Bush will vote for him again. Education has nothing to do with it. It's the composite American that supported the Mexican-American War of 1846 but didn't want to annex it to the U.S. because they had such a low opinion of Mexicans.

bob schieffer and the Bush clan

2008-10-14T00:30:17Z

Surprised that nobody has picked up on the connection between the two. I wonder how that will play out in the debate.

Palin: what eye popping integrity!

2008-10-11T08:23:40Z

Fox news called Sarah Palin a politician of eye-popping integrity.. "Her rise is a great (and rare) story of how adherence to principle--especially to transparency and accountability in government-" But applied apparently only to other people's ethics as she is found guilty of violating ethics in pressuring to get her brother-in-law fired.

Community: an Idea Whose Time Has Come

2008-10-08T18:22:32Z

The Republican model: society is viewed as a collection of automatons who have no community life. Interactions consist entirely of trading with one another to maximize individual well being. The model emerging now is a society in a struggle over ideas. Ideas are a medium of exchange and a mode of influence even more powerful than money and votes and guns. Shared meanings motivate people to action. This is what Obama sees and McPalin does not.

FUNDING HEALTH CARE

2008-10-05T00:54:49Z

Obama doesn't have to search hard to get the money to fund health care even after the $700 billion bailout. The Defense Department owns more than $40 billion in unnecessary supplies. Put them on EBay, maybe? The Agriculture Department still operates more than 12,000 field service offices more than a century after industry replaced farming as America's principal business. The federal government knows how to add, but not to subtract.