Wednesday, May 27, 2009
The Day of the Dead
by Cindy Sheehan
I was on an airplane flying to Orange County from Sacramento to attend the al-Awda Conference, which is a Palestinian Right's Conference (al-Awda translates to "The Returning"), when the pilot's voice filled the cabin to make an announcement that I think went unnoticed by most of my fellow passengers, but I heard it.
As the plane was on the approach to John Wayne airport, the Captain came on the intercom to remind us all to "remember our brave troops who have died for our freedom." Even in this post 9-11 paranoid paradigm, if I wasn't belted in for landing, I would have popped out of my seat at 13D and charged up to the cockpit to let the pilot know that my son was killed in Iraq and not one person anywhere in this world is one iota more free because he is dead.
As a matter of fact, the people of Iraq, the foreign country thousands of miles away where my oldest child's brains, blood and life seeped into the soil, are not freer, unless one counts being liberated from life, liberty and property being free. If you consider torture and indefinite detention freedom, then the pilot may have been right, but then again, even if you do consider those crimes freedom, it does not make it so.
Here in America we are definitely not freer because my son died, as a matter of fact, our nation can spy on us and our communications without a warrant or just cause, and we can't even bring a 3.6 ounce bottle of hand cream into an airport, or walk through a metal detector with our shoes on. Even if we do want to exercise our Bill of Rights, we are shoved into pre-designated "free speech" zones (NewSpeak for; STFU, unless you are well out of the way of what you want to protest and shoved into pens like cattle being led to slaughter), and oftentimes brutally treated if we decide we are entitled to "free speech" on every inch of American soil.
If you watch any one of the cable news networks this weekend between doing holiday weekend things, you will be subjected to images of row upon row of white headstones of dead US military lined up in perfect formation in the afterlife as they were in life. Patriotic music will swell and we will be reminded in script font to "Remember our heroes," or some such BS as that.
Before Casey was killed, a message like that would barely register in my consciousness as I rushed around preparing for Casey's birthday bar-be-que that became a family tradition since he was born on Memorial Day in 1979. If I had a vision of how Memorial Day and Casey's birthday would change for my family, I would have fled these violent shores to protect what was mine, not this murderous country's. Be my guest; look at those headstones with pride or indifference. I look at them now with horror, regret, pain and a longing for justice.
Bush's Shocking Biblical Prophecy Emerges: God Wants to "Erase" Mid-East Enemies "Before a New Age Begins"
The revelation this month in GQ Magazine that Donald Rumsfeld as Defense Secretary embellished top-secret wartime memos with quotations from the Bible prompts a question. Why did he believe he could influence President Bush by that means?
The answer may lie in an alarming story about George Bush's Christian millenarian beliefs that has yet to come to light.
In 2003 while lobbying leaders to put together the Coalition of the Willing, President Bush spoke to France's President Jacques Chirac. Bush wove a story about how the Biblical creatures Gog and Magog were at work in the Middle East and how they must be defeated.
In Genesis and Ezekiel Gog and Magog are forces of the Apocalypse who are prophesied to come out of the north and destroy Israel unless stopped. The Book of Revelation took up the Old Testament prophesy:
"And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them."
Bush believed the time had now come for that battle, telling Chirac:
"This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people's enemies before a New Age begins".
The story of the conversation emerged only because the Elyse Palace, baffled by Bush's words, sought advice from Thomas Romer, a professor of theology at the University of Lausanne. Four years later, Romer gave an account in the September 2007 issue of the university's review, Allez savoir. The article apparently went unnoticed, although it was referred to in a French newspaper.
The story has now been confirmed by Chirac himself in a new book, published in France in March, by journalist Jean Claude Maurice. Chirac is said to have been stupefied and disturbed by Bush's invocation of Biblical prophesy to justify the war in Iraq and "wondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs".
In the same year he spoke to Chirac, Bush had reportedly said to the Palestinian foreign minister that he was on "a mission from God" in launching the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and was receiving commands from the Lord.
John Lennon and Yoko Ono Montreal bed-in for peace was 40 years ago
By Nelson Wyatt
MONTREAL - The hotel room where John Lennon and Yoko Ono created a watershed moment for the peace movement at the height of the Vietnam War is a little smaller now.
Part of the Queen Elizabeth Hotel suite, which has a gold plaque on the door noting its history, went to the installation of a panoramic elevator on the floor.
But that hasn't dimmed the aura of the place where the ex-Beatle and Ono staged their bed-in for peace between May 26 and June 2, 1969, and recorded the iconic antiwar anthem "Give Peace a Chance" the day before they left.
"The furniture has changed because of course it's 40 years ago and we do renovate every five to 10 years," hotel spokeswoman Joanne Papineau said as she gave a tour of room 1742 on Tuesday.
Pictures of Lennon and Ono during the bed-in dot the walls. Sunlight floods in from the large window in the sitting room where Lennon positioned the couple's mattress and held court with throngs of people in 1969.
Papineau leafs through a security log book from the visit, which notes the couple's room service orders - a mix of British and Japanese food - and a request for an extra large comb plus a cage for a white mouse.
"They were throwing (flower) petals into the air a few times a day so we had to keep vacuuming the floor," she said with a chuckle.
"There were 200 'fellow Beatles' who were running around in the lobby so you see it was a bit of a circus and guests were not always so happy."
The Queen E, as the landmark hotel is nicknamed, didn't boast about holding the event at the time.
"It created a lot of problems with guests," Papineau said. "They didn't talk about it for a while but guests wanted to see where it happened."
There was a spike in interest after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States when Lennon's message of peace was given increased resonance.
Now, many fans of Lennon and the Beatles want to book the room. Others reserve it for romantic getaways.
"Guests love it," Papineau said of the room. "A lot of them feel a presence. They say there's a special vibration."
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/090526/entertainment/lennon_mtl_bed_in
Why having daughters makes fathers more likely to agree with Left-wing views
By Sophie Borland
When she needs a lift or money to buy clothes, a girl will turn the charm on her father.
But it seems that a daughter's influence on her dad goes far beyond the odd favour.
Research has found that the more girls a man has, the more likely he is to be Left-wing.
Daughters have such a profound effect on their fathers that they can switch their political viewpoint, a study suggests.
Daddies' girls: Brad Pitt with two of his three daughters, Zahara and Shiloh, is an example of how, perhaps, girls make their fathers more likely to be Left-wing
Compared to men, women are more likely to favour Labour or Liberal policies such as higher taxes to fund provisions like the NHS.
They also tend to earn less than men so won't be as hard-hit by higher taxation.
As a man fathers more daughters, he will gradually be won round by their more Left-wing viewpoints.
The study, carried out by Professor Andrew Oswald from Warwick University and Dr Nattavudh Powdthavee from York University, also found that a predominance of sons can make a mother more right-wing.
The researchers even suggested that well-known Left-wing politicians and personalities owed their beliefs to the high numbers of daughters in the family.
moot wins, Time Inc. loses
a blog about music technology by Paul Lamere
This morning Time.com published the final result for their annual TIME 100 Poll. Time reports that the new owner of the title 'Worlds's most influential person, is moot'. What TIME doesn't say is that their poll was so totally manipulated that the results of the poll are not an indication of who is the most influential, but instead they stand as a monument to Time's incompetence.
Looking at the poll results we see clear evidence of the hack. The first letters of the top 21 finalists in the poll spell out 'Marblecake, also the game'. Evidence of precision hackery for anyone to see. And yet, Time says they rebuffed all attempts to hack the poll. Quoting from the time article: "TIME.com's technical team did detect and extinguish several attempts to hack the vote". Which leads me to wonder whether Time.com is being dishonest or is just plain incompetent. Considering Hanlon's razor , I have to go with incompetence. (And if you have any doubt about Time's incompetence, take a close look at the Poll. Notice that Oprah Winfrey and Ratan Tata have the exact same number of votes. That's because they both shared the same ID in the poll. A vote for either one was a vote for the other. Same goes for Michael Bloomberg and Gustavo Dudamel. If you vote for one, you vote for the other.)
Facebook blunder betrays NZ millionaires
By New Zealand correspondent Kerri Ritchie
Interpol is still trying to find a couple of cashed-up Kiwis, believed to be living it up in Asia, after they were mistakenly given $8 million ($NZ10 million) by Westpac.
Rotorua service station owners Leo Gao and his girlfriend Cara Young fled New Zealand with about $NZ3 million after they discovered the money in their bank account.
But their chances of being caught have increased after they were joined overseas by Ms Young's sister, Aroha Hurring, who posted details about their location on her Facebook page.
Police believe the trio are in China after Ms Hurring foolishly updated her status to say she was drinking the local Asian beer and enjoying the heat.
Her mother Sue Hurring, who runs a hairdressing salon in Blenheim, has been helping police with their inquiries.
"Well, you've got to have a laugh," she said. "It is bizarre.
"She's never pinched a thing in her life. Probably as a little girl, yes, but so honest."
Ms Hurring says she blames her daughter's boyfriend.
"Well, if you really want to know I'd like to wring his blinging neck for getting the whole... I don't know what to say.
"Never mind Leo, he can stay there. Just come home now please [Cara]. It's going to be OK."
But getting the trio home could prove tricky, because New Zealand does not have an extradition treaty with China.
The affair began after the couple applied for a $10,000 loan to stop their business going under, but Westpac mistakenly transferred $NZ10 million into their account.
Westpac's New Zealand spokesman Craig Dowling says he had not banked on all the publicity the case has attracted, but is confident the accidental millionaires will be found.
"We're concentrating on making sure our people are OK with the attention this is getting, and then also following the money trail.
"The details of that we're still wanting to be a bit cagey about - we don't want to say anything that will jeopardise our chances of recovering the outstanding money."
Traumatised
He says a bank employee made a simple mistake.
"The entry in one area jumped from $100,000 to $10 million, so it was about a couple of errant noughts that caused a, quite a major issue."
The employee is reportedly so traumatised that they are now receiving counselling.
‘Clean’ Energy and Poisoned Water
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| AP photo / Keith Srakocic |
| A drilling rig used to bore thousands of feet into the earth to extract natural gas from the Marcellus Shale deep underground stands on a hill above a Pennsylvania farm. |
By Chris Hedges
In the musical "Urinetown," a severe drought leaves the dwindling supplies of clean water in the hands of a corporation called Urine Good Company. Urine Good Company makes a fortune selling the precious commodity and running public toilets. It pays off politicians to ward off regulation and inspection. It uses the mechanisms of state control to repress an increasingly desperate and impoverished population.
The musical satire may turn out to be a prescient vision of the future. Corporations in Colorado, Texas, Louisiana, Pennsylvania and upstate New York have launched a massive program to extract natural gas through a process that could, if it goes wrong, degrade the Delaware River watershed and the fresh water supplies that feed upstate communities, the metropolitan cities of New York, Philadelphia, Camden and Trenton, and many others on its way to the Chesapeake Bay.
"The potential environmental consequences are extreme," says Fritz Mayer, editor of The River Reporter in Narrowsburg, N.Y. His paper has been following the drilling in the Upper Delaware River Valley and he told me, "It could ruin the drinking supply for 8 million people in New York City."
Trillions of cubic feet of natural gas are locked under the Marcellus Shale that runs from West Virginia, through Ohio, across most of Pennsylvania and into the Southern Tier of New York state. There are other, small plates of shale, in the south and west of the United States. It takes an estimated 3 million to 5 million gallons of water per well to drill down to the natural gas in a process called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The water is mixed with resin-coated sand and a cocktail of hazardous chemicals, including hydrochloric acid, nitrogen, biocides, surfactants, friction reducers and benzene to facilitate the fracturing of the shale to extract the gas.
The toxic brew is injected with extreme force deep within the earth. The drilling is vertical for about 5,000 to 7,000 feet. The technology, developed by Halliburton, allows drills to abruptly turn sideways when they reach these depths. The lubricant and biocides propel the sand on a horizontal axis for as far as half a mile. The fissures created are held open by the sand, and the natural gas flows to the surface through steel casings. Feeder lines run from the grid of wells to regional pipelines.
About 60 percent of the toxic water used to extract the natural gas—touted in mendacious commercials by the natural gas industry as "clean" energy—is left underground. The rest is stored in huge, open pits that dot the landscapes at drilling sites, before it is loaded into hundreds of large vehicles and trucked to regional filtration facilities. Such drilling has already poisoned wells in western Pennsylvania, Colorado, Alabama, Arkansas, New Mexico, Kansas, Montana, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wyoming. Those whose water becomes contaminated, including people living in towns such as Dimock, Pa., must have water trucked in to provide for their needs. Farm animals that have drunk the toxic mixture that has leeched from gas drilling sites have died. Cattle ranchers in Colorado, where drilling is occurring in close proximity, have reported that their livestock birthrates have gone down and animals are bearing deformed offspring.
"The single biggest concern is the release of poisons into the environment and its impact on all that live in proximity to the drilling activity," the River Reporter's editorial this week read following a visit to local drilling sites. "Large pits, lined with sagging black plastic, did not instill confidence that it couldn't escape into the environment. And we wondered how migrating birds would know the difference between this body of fluid and an area pond. Ironically, the effect on animals became very real that afternoon when, upon our return, we received the news that in Caddo Parish, LA, 17 cows died after apparently ingesting fluids that escaped from a nearby gas pad."
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090525_clean_energy_and_poisoned_water/
Royal Canadian Governor Eats Heart Of Baby Seal
JESUS CHRIST, CANADA. Wonkette Loonie operative "David" writes that where he lives, in Canada, "The Representative of Her Majesty the Queen has raised the profile of the Monarchy in Canada by grabbing the beating heart out of a baby seal and eating live on camera." It's true, she really does — it's in the newspapers!
The Toronto Star ("The Josh Marshall of Lower Nutland") writes that Canadian Governor General Michaelle Jean "sliced off and sampled a piece of seal heart from the dripping carcass of a freshly slaughtered seal" at some local thing.
Watch damnit!
Is this Michaelle Jean's "Sister Souljah moment" on national security?
http://wonkette.com/408754/royal-canadian-governor-eats-heart-of-baby-seal#more-408754
U.S. soldiers' options limited to protect Afghans from Taliban
By Philip Smucker
Wrapped in space blankets — thin foil sheets familiar to campers — to avoid detection by the thermal imaging cameras in the U.S. outpost, they zigzagged up the escarpment. Troops at the base said insurgents had come right up on the helicopter landing zone, fired their rockets, then disappeared "like ninjas into the night."
Fortress Margha, with its grenade launchers and mortars sticking out from behind sandbags and bulletproof windows on three watchtowers, is a safe redoubt for the American troops stationed there. Within its walls, soldiers play ice hockey and video games that imitate guerrilla warfare.
For the Afghans who live in a medieval world of mud homes with interlocking walls in the valley below, however, reality is a reign of terror.
Taliban fighters rule the day and the night in the Bermel district, using threats and atrocities to control the civilian population, Afghans in the valley told a visiting reporter in interviews over two weeks. Accompanied by Arab and Chechen advisers, they behead civilians or sever their hands to force their cooperation. One of the latest Taliban edicts is a ban on cutting trees, so that insurgents can hide and lay ambushes for foreign troops.
From a distance, the U.S. base in Margha, occupied by a platoon from the 3rd Battalion, 509th Infantry Regiment of the 4th Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division out of Fort Richardson, Alaska, is a monument to a risk-averse, shorthanded American strategy in Afghanistan.
That could change with the arrival of an additional 17,500 American combat troops and of Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, a hard-charging special operations man, to replace Gen. David McKiernan, who'd been faulted for failing to implement counterinsurgency strategy quickly enough.
The small U.S. base can be defended against as many as a thousand insurgents at once, confident American soldiers said. That sums up their dilemma, however: The fortress protects American troops, but it does little to help win a guerrilla war that's now in its eighth year and about to enter another violent summer.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/national-security/story/68630.html
Michael Moore's Financial Collapse Documentary Gets Release Date
FILE - In this March 27, 2009 file photo, filmmaker Michael Moore, center, tries to speak to traders outside the New York Stock Exchange for his latest untitled project about the global economic meltdown. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, file)
NEW YORK — Michael Moore's documentary about the economic crisis will hit theaters on Oct. 2.
The announcement was made Thursday by Overture Films and Paramount Vantage.
The film is not yet titled. Moore earlier planned to make it more broadly about America as an empire. Instead, the documentary explores the causes of the global economic meltdown. Moore has called it "the biggest swindle in American history."
The division between rich and poor is old territory for Moore, who broke through 20 years ago with "Roger & Me" _ about General Motors closing a plant in his hometown of Flint.
Moore won the Academy Award for best documentary in 2003 for "Bowling for Columbine."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/21/michael-moores-financial-_n_206562.html
U.S. holds journalist without charges in Iraq
Reuters cameraman Ibrahim Jassam has been held since September. The U.S. military rejected a court order to release him, saying he is a 'high security threat.' No evidence has been presented.
Reporting from Baghdad -- The soldiers came at 1:30 a.m, rousing family members who were sleeping on the roof to escape the late-summer heat.They broke down the front door. Accompanied by dogs, American and Iraqi troops burst into the Jassam family home in the town of Mahmoudiya south of Baghdad.
"Where is the journalist Ibrahim?" one of the Iraqi soldiers barked at the grandparents, children and grandchildren as they staggered blearily down the stairs.
Ibrahim Jassam, a cameraman and photographer for the Reuters news agency, stepped forward, one of this brothers recalled. "Take me if you want me, but please leave my brothers." The soldiers rifled through the house, confiscating his computer hard drive and cameras. And then they led him away, handcuffed and blindfolded.
That was Sept. 2.
Ibrahim Jassam, a cameraman and photographer for the Reuters news agency, stepped forward, one of this brothers recalled. "Take me if you want me, but please leave my brothers." The soldiers rifled through the house, confiscating his computer hard drive and cameras. And then they led him away, handcuffed and blindfolded.
That was Sept. 2.
Jassam, 31, has been in U.S. custody ever since. His case is the latest of a dozen detentions the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists has documented since 2001.
No formal accusations have been made against Jassam, and an Iraqi court ordered in November that he be released for lack of evidence. But the U.S. military continues to hold him, saying it has intelligence that he is "a high security threat," said Maj. Neal Fisher, spokesman for detainee affairs.
The Obama administration harshly criticized Iran for its imprisonment of Roxana Saberi, the U.S.-Iranian journalist who was convicted of espionage and sentenced to eight years in prison before being freed two weeks ago. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton criticized Iran's treatment of Saberi as "non-transparent, unpredictable and arbitrary."
Washington also has called upon North Korea to expedite the trial of two U.S. journalists being held on spying charges.
Yet the U.S. has routinely used the arbitrary powers it assumed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorism attacks to hold journalists without charge in Iraq, as well as Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Committee to Protect Journalists said.
None of the detained journalists has been convicted of any charge, undermining the United States' reputation when it comes to criticizing other countries on issues of press freedom, committee executive director Joel Simon said.
"The U.S. has a record of holding journalists for long periods of time without due process and without explanation," he said. "Its standing would be improved if it addressed this issue."
Reuters has expressed disappointment over Jassam's detention and has said there is no evidence against him.
No formal accusations have been made against Jassam, and an Iraqi court ordered in November that he be released for lack of evidence. But the U.S. military continues to hold him, saying it has intelligence that he is "a high security threat," said Maj. Neal Fisher, spokesman for detainee affairs.
The Obama administration harshly criticized Iran for its imprisonment of Roxana Saberi, the U.S.-Iranian journalist who was convicted of espionage and sentenced to eight years in prison before being freed two weeks ago. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton criticized Iran's treatment of Saberi as "non-transparent, unpredictable and arbitrary."
Washington also has called upon North Korea to expedite the trial of two U.S. journalists being held on spying charges.
Yet the U.S. has routinely used the arbitrary powers it assumed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorism attacks to hold journalists without charge in Iraq, as well as Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Committee to Protect Journalists said.
None of the detained journalists has been convicted of any charge, undermining the United States' reputation when it comes to criticizing other countries on issues of press freedom, committee executive director Joel Simon said.
"The U.S. has a record of holding journalists for long periods of time without due process and without explanation," he said. "Its standing would be improved if it addressed this issue."
Reuters has expressed disappointment over Jassam's detention and has said there is no evidence against him.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Local forums to implement high-speed networks (broadband): proposal open for votes
The Open Government Dialog site where this proposal appears is part of the White House's implementation of the Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government that Obama signed on his first day in office. Hundreds of ideas have already been posted. Many are very specific and some look quite worthy, but I think mine stands out for the reasons listed in my justification:
First, one of the Administration's major goals is to bring high-speed networking to every resident of the country.
Second, this goal is fundamental to the other goals in the Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government. Members of the public need continuous access to the Internet and the ability to handle video and sophisticated graphical displays in order to make full use of the resources provided in open government efforts.
The local community aspect is also crucial, for reasons I list in my justification.
Many readers will note that the people who need my proposal the most the ones who have the most trouble participating in the forums--people who can't afford computers, who have access only to intermittent dial-up Internet access, etc. I deal with this ironic problem in the proposal in several ways (public terminals, face-to-face meetings, partnering with newspapers and television).
Because the formatting came out a mess, I'm reprinting the proposal below.
Local forums to implement high-speed networks (broadband)
Municipalities and regions undertaking projects in high-speed networking be encouraged to create online forums that:
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Post regional maps showing the demographic features, geographical features, patterns of network use, and technological facilities relevant to the project
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Accept proposals, provide comment and rating systems, and run polls
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Provide public terminals and low-bandwidth versions of data, so that people who are currently on the disadvantaged side of the digital divide can offer input to help cross that divide
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Are supplemented by face-to-face gatherings
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Collaborate with newspapers and with television and radio news programs to publicize proposals, meetings, and opportunities for public comment
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Create visitor accounts, perhaps with validation procedures for determining local residence, and allow visitors to identify their expertise and credentials
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Provide tools for mapping proposed facilities and for calculating the reach, bandwidth, and costs of proposed facilities
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Provide data about ongoing deployments in standardized, open formats on maps and in downloadable form
The federal-level initiative can support these efforts by:
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Mandating the types of information that participating municipalities and companies should provide, such as the capabilities of current facilities, statistics on current usage, demographic information such as income and connectivity on a neighborhood basis, and detailed implementation plans with measurable milestones
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Funding the development of software tools, such as programs that can estimate the quality of wireless coverage for different terrains, or the time period required to recoup the costs of building out networks
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Providing formats and quality standards for the data provided
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Publicizing successful initiatives, the tools they used, and their best practices
Why Is This Idea Important
High-speed digital networking (also known as "broadband") should concern open government advocates in two ways.
First, one of the Administration's major goals is to bring high-speed networking to every resident of the country.
Second, this goal is fundamental to the other goals in the Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government. Members of the public need continuous access to the Internet and the ability to handle video and sophisticated graphical displays in order to make full use of the resources provided in open government efforts.
http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/05/local-forums-to-implement-high.html
Blue Cross Millionaires Are Scared to Compete With a Public Plan
by: Dean Baker
The basic story is that Blue Cross of North Carolina decided to jump the gun on President Obama and Congress and start running television ads telling people how awful a public health care plan would be. According to the ads, people enrolled in the public health care plan wouldn't have a choice of doctors, would face long waiting periods for appointments and procedures and would not even be able to get a clerk to answer questions on billing.
That sounds pretty awful, but if it were true, you have to wonder why Blue Cross of North Carolina is so worried. After all, President Obama is not proposing that anyone would be forced to join a public plan. He just proposed that people have the option to buy into a public plan. Is Blue Cross of North Carolina really that terrified that it will be unable to compete with a public plan that doesn't let patients choose their doctor, subjects them to long waits and doesn't answer questions about billing?
Of course, if the ads being planned by Blue Cross of North Carolina were accurate, then it would not be concerned about a public plan. The reason that Blue Cross of North Carolina is running the ads is that it knows the ads are not true. There is no reason to think that a public plan will offer less choice, require longer waits or provide poorer service than a private plan, like Blue Cross of North Carolina. And there are reasons for believing that a public plan might cost considerably less.
President Obama Requests Supernatural Intervention In Speech To Scientists.
By Donald B. Ardell
President Obama Is Wonderful But I Wish He Would Stop Asking God To Interfere In Our Affairs
On April 27, 2009, President Barack Obama gave a splendid speech to the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine. I'm an unabashed admirer of the president and I'm delighted with his performance to date. I confess - I'm a fan. Please take this into account when reading my recommendation for better endings to future speeches.
In describing the complex set of challenges America faces today, the president told the scientists that he will double federal investments in science-agency budgets. He said science is essential for our prosperity, security, health, environment and quality of life - more so than ever before. The president promised to seek increases in medical and energy research. He said he would also urge tax credits to encourage companies to pursue scientific breakthroughs. All this and more would amount to what the president termed the largest commitment to scientific research and innovation in American history.
It was no surprise that he got rousing applause throughout the talk.
Mr. Obama also criticized previous administrations that undermined scientific research by politicizing it because they cared more about advancing predetermined ideological agendas. You might be forgiven if you suspect the president had the Bush Administration in mind.
Overall, Mr. Obama's remarks were a testament to his commitment to reason, evidence and free inquiry. It is clear he wants to advance the sciences of biology, genetics, medicine, biomedicine, physics, chemistry, computer and environmental science and engineering. The president seeks to restore science to its rightful place. He stated, Under my administration, the days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over. Our progress as a nation - and our values as a nation - are rooted in free and open inquiry. To undermine scientific integrity is to undermine our democracy.
All this was viewed as a welcome change from the recent past, but there was more. In closing, the president added this: At root, science forces us to reckon with the truth as best as we can ascertain it. Some truths fill us with awe. Others force us to question long held views. Science cannot answer every question; indeed, it seems at times the more we plumb the mysteries of the physical world, the more humble we must be. Science cannot supplant our ethics, our values, our principles, or our faith, but science can inform those things, and help put these values, these moral sentiments, that faith, to work - to feed a child, to heal the sick, to be good stewards of this earth.
Well, who could ask for anything more?
Not to be ungrateful or anything, but there is one thing. I have a suggestion. Please reconsider those endings. No, not the next-to-last part (be good stewards of this earth) - no, not the parting thank you to the assembled scientists (Thank you all for your past, present, and future discoveries). That was nice. If only President Obama got off the stage at this point. Alas, he had one more zinger that he just could not resist. Oh Lordie, here it comes. I can imagine the gasps that must have come from the scientists: Here is the ending. Prepare to be dismayed: God bless you and may God bless the United States of America.
Holy Spaghetti Monster! Great Zeus above! Oh Holy Baal!
Just what in the name of science does that mean - God bless the USA? There are tens of thousands of gods. There are Norse gods, Roman gods, Greek gods, Celtic gods and so on. There are gods of war, of love and sexuality and everything else you could think of. There are even gods of science.. Hermes was the god of science for the Greeks; Athena/Minerva did the trick for the Romans. Since Mr. Obama was speaking to scientists, it might have been better to end with Hermes bless you and may Athena/Minerva bless the United States of America.
So, which god is the president summoning and what exactly or even what more or less would a divine blessing entail? Even today, there are competing gods - surely the god the Taliban invoke when beating women can't be the same god Mr. Obama had in mind! (On the other hand, maybe the Taliban god and the god of Pat Robertson might be related.)
How does the blessing thing work, anyway? The United States of America has been around for over two centuries - if there's a god, and if he blesses nations, isn't it likely he blessed us enough already? Does god pay special attention to US presidents who ask for blessings? If so, how many times does a president have to ask? Must President Obama utter this line every time he makes a speech? (Congressmen and Congresswomen also do it, as do governors, sheriffs, mayors, Rotary and all other service club officers, VFW officials and so on). Can there ever be enough calls for God to bless the United States of America? Does our blessing greed have no limit? Please - can we consider a moratorium or something on requests for god to bless the United States of America, for God's sake if not for common sense?
I watched Glenn Beck’s entire comedy special and all I got was this stupid blog post
FOLLOW ME
FOLLOW ME
Before I'd heard of his stand-up comedy special, Unelectable, the words 'funny' and 'Glenn Beck' didn't exactly have what you'd call a magnetic relationship to each other in my mind. After watching the whole thing on DVD, this remains the case.
This is because Glenn Beck is - you'd better sit down for this - not very good at comedy.
I say that not as a liberal, but as a person who enjoys comedy and laughing and things that are humorous. If there are jokes in Unelectable, I didn't see 'em. Sure, there are comedyesque things here – wacky facial expressions, props, observations, rants – but the way Beck executes them bears as much resemblance to comedy as kids playing house does to actually being married with children.
Economist George Stigler once quipped that the plural of anecdote isn't data. I'd like to propose a comedic corollary to that: The aggregate of whine isn't humor. It's annoyance - at least for me. Most comedy specials are a merciful ninety minutes or less, but Glenn Beck's brings the same lack of empathy to his 'entertainment' as he does to his politics. Unelectable has an unconscionable two-hour running time and it's hard not to be claw-your-eyes-out bored by ten minutes in. It's a plodding slog, a never-ending parade of every single thing that gets Beck's easily gotten goat. The main thread of Unelectable is how – you guessed it – unelectable Glenn Beck would be as a politician because he just can't stop telling so much damn truth. Humble, this one. Then there are the threadbare themes like liberals love terrorists, liberals hate America, liberals want to protect widdle owls over jobs, liberalszzzzzzzzzzz. Remember the 2004 Bush campaign? Good, you won't need to rent this, then.
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