I know we haven't been diligent to post and have grown a bit lethargic with the Presidential victory and the slow but assured closing of Guantanamo and withdrawal from Iraq, but that should mean we completely face plant into obscurity and forget what progressives do: push forth ideals that are forward thinking.
What better way to do so than to talk about socialized health care or as they call it in every other industrialized nation, human dignity. With all the blue dogs yapping that we need to find a middle ground, I find it sad to think that as we sit with the first democratic stronghold in the both chambers and the oval office since 92, we don't pursue something that would include all Americans and not dissuade them from trusting our government. For all the backlash we at times give them, they still provide a decent public education system, a great roadway system, and pension to our older citizens. They are not the antagonists that are out to suck the last living breath out of us which is what the GOP wants us to believe. Ironically, vampires are all the rage in pop culture except when it comes to paying into a health-care system that could give us new legs to walk on. Maybe I just don't get it but having every citizen healthy means I'm less likely to get sick, and the H1N1 flu, along with similar diseases, are less likely to create a pandemonium. Either way, opposition to the health care reform that would lead us towards "socializing" health care doesn't seem so bad.
I know I left it with the simplest of approaches but shouldn't health insurance for all be so? Thoughts?
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
I miss this
Friday, October 24, 2008
Supporting Palin...kinda
I know it's been a while since I contributed, and I will eventually get back to that telling bit on the Zapatistas but I feel that there's an issue that's really irked me about this campaign. It is rare that I bring gossip blogs but while at work, a fellow employee were on our break and she brought me to her computer to show me something bizarre that was going on in her pop-centric life: Perez Hilton was writing on Palin's $150,000 wardrobe. At that point, I'd heard that story enough.
Sexism in the campaign is rarely that blatant, especially on a target that can be attacked on a myriad of issues (education, ties to corporatism in the oil industry, a bridge to nowhere and worst of all her stance on women's rights) but instead, a simple approach of attacking fashion was taken. I understand that Senator Obama has and hopefully doesn't address that, but why are we straying from the issues at hand. In what may be the election that defines our generation, we are going to address an issue of materialism? That is sickening. What may be worst, of course, is that in this discourse is that not once where the male candidates questioned on their expenses on clothes. To be fair, Obama's good looks have to translate to some expense, but does anyone take issue to that? I think not.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
What is Sarah Palin Hiding?
So as I was reading the news this morning I came across a sentence which I think accurately describes Sarah Palin. It said “Sarah Palin was at the U.N. for a couple of photo ops but she refused to talk to reporters about foreign policy or anything else. She has not had a single press conference since being picked for the VP slot and keeps the press at a great distance, except for photos while she makes an ice cream run for her family.”
This of course is in stark contrast to every other candidate running who are taking every possible interview they are offered, realizing that its free press time where they can get their message out. Yet for some reason Palin, and Palin alone, is still holding out against the press. Now its one thing if you think the media is a bunch of left-wing nuts and don’t want to do an interview on MSNBC with Keith Olberman, but to say that you aren’t willing to do an interview on CNN, NBC, or even PBS you’ve got to have a good reason why not.
It seems to me that, given the number of scandals she’s involved in (“troopergate”, charging victims for rape kits, trying to ban books), it can’t be she’s afraid of people finding out anything about her. Thus it almost has to be the one thing people can’t find out unless they hear her; she’s afraid people will realize how stupid she really is.
I mean, she’s got bachelors in communication from the University of Idaho, which we all know does not come anywhere close to providing her with the kind of intelligence she needs to run the country, much less apparently the ability to give a coherent interview. When people tell me that I’m a sexist for criticizing Palin by saying she’s only on the ticket because she’s a woman and not because she brings anything to the ticket I can only think that if she really has the brains to be VP she’d be on every news show wanting to interview her. But instead she hides away and hoping that nobody ever hears her talk, and perhaps hoping the VP debate is cancelled.
Unfortunately for her, because she refuses to let the American people know anything about her, everybody will be tuned into the VP debate, and we’ll all be watching when we find out that what's she’s hiding is her incompetence as Biden tears into her. I can’t wait.
Friday, September 12, 2008
How much worse can it get?
Every day it seems there is new information about Sarah Palin that makes me stop, think, and get even more terrified that she is possibly going to be a single heartbeat away from the presidency. I didn't think I could be any more shocked at her extremely conservative stances, and that I was going to be able to tell when we knew everything there was to know about her.
The news that she made rape victims pay for their own rape kits while mayor Wasilla has proved me wrong.
The race can't possibly be this close, can it? Is my county, the country that I love so very much, this easy to manipulate? When is it that we're going to say "enough is enough" and refuse to put up with it again?
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Vice President Sarah Palin? @#!$% That!
As an Alaskan, I was intrigued when I heard about the possibility of Sarah Palin being picked as John McCain's running mate. Then I dismissed it, because of it's utter ridiculousness.
I think this means I was never meant to work in politics.
Here is a link to an Alaskan blog that tells more about Saracuda. I have to say I don't know much about her myself; she's been governor of my state since after I left for college, so I've been pretty out of the loop. An interesting statistic: Sarah Palin has been governor for as long as Barack Obama has been running for President.
I think "wtf" pretty much sums up my thoughts about that one.
If I needed anything to get me more jazzed about the election, this was it. I will work myself to exhaustion this year to keep this woman out of office. Not only because I don't like what she's done to my state, however. I am genuinely terrified about what she would do to this nation as Vice President or President. Running Alaska for two years does IN NO WAY mean she has adequate executive experience to run one of the most powerful (if not the most powerful) nations in the world. Anybody who says otherwise has either never been to Alaska or is smoking something pretty intense.
Which I may need if McCain/Palin actually wins.
Here's some thoughts from my Dad on the choice...
"Saracuda was an interesting choice by McCain but it also shows his desperation and stupidity.
OK, she's a woman....A lifetime NRA member and Pro-Pro-Pro Lifer; So, how will this bring Hillary democratic voters to the Republican ticket? If she's so pro-family, why is she stepping up to do this when she has a 4 month old special needs child at home?
Brought together a bipartisan legislature; you bet. In her first year in office, she vetoed $250 million in projects. However, her pen didn't touch projects for her district. Because of that, the next year the legislature put together a bill of all those things that she vetoed and pretty much told her they had a veto proof majority and that it was going to be passed. Saracuda could only negotiate away projects that were completed by other funds or delay them for a year to be sure they were ready for funding.G
Get on adn.com to read up on trooper gate. Her family seemed to take a lot of liberties trying to get a trooper fired (Sara's sister was divorcing him). Hey, he seems like a turd but that's not how you work through the channels. (Some now refer to the Palinistas as our "Alaska Hillbillies".)
After promising to live in Juneau, she only gave it four months before she moved back to Wasilla. She's allowing Directors of departments to migrate to Anchorage and really turning her back on the capitol city. I doubt she'll get as much support from southeast Alaska if she runs again.
Two years ago she was a mayor for a town of less than 9,000 people. How does this prepare you to be a vice-President? The number of people she represents in the state are probably fewer than what Obama represented when he was in the State House. Despite the concurrence from the State biologist regarding the Federal finding that polar bears are in danger, she says there isn't enough information (Sounds a lot like Bush here.....if I PRAY hard enough, good things will happen....)
Anyway, I'm sure you'll find other good information on the net about her. Have fun the next couple of months. Never get nasty, just stick to the facts. Cornered animals normally lash out as their last line of defense when they're backed into a corner, so be careful.
Yep...McCain's a desperate man....
Love....Dad (Cindi says hi too)"
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
Georgia Retreats, Pleads for Truce; U.S. Condemns Russian Onslaught
Washington Post Foreign Service
It remained unclear Sunday how far Russian troops intended to advance. Georgian villages just outside South Ossetia were shelled Sunday, clouds of smoke and burning fields visible on the horizon as artillery barrages echoed loudly. Georgians fled the villages, bedding loaded into the backs of their cars. Residents of one village outside South Ossetia, Kekhvi, said advancing Russian troops had entered their homes.
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili told CNN in an interview that the people of his country "are not crazy" and "have no interest whatsoever in pursuing hostilities."Western reporters entering South Ossetia with Russian troops, meanwhile, saw Georgian soldiers' bodies lying uncollected in the streets of Tskhinvali, the region's capital, and heavy damage to the city. Georgian troops launched an offensive to take control of the breakaway region early Friday. Civilians told the reporters that Georgian tanks had fired indiscriminately during the two-day seizure of the city, killing and wounding many city residents.
Georgia's retreat is translating into popular anger among Georgians against the United States and the European Union, and a widespread sentiment that this small, pro-Western country has been abandoned to face Russia alone. Georgian officials said that the West's credibility is on the line and that failure to stop the continuing attacks could embolden Russia to threaten other countries in the region.
"Russia has applied unprecedented military power . . . and it is of such amplitude that it would have scared much bigger states," Alexander Lomaia, secretary of Georgia's National Security Council, said in an interview. "This war has changed the whole system of values of pro-Western, liberal-minded people. I don't want to be a bad prophet, but why would Russia stop here? There are other countries where Russia thinks it has a claim to territory."
According to Lomaia, at least 7,000 Russian troops, backed by combat aircraft and heavy weaponry, attacked Tskhinvali, bloodying Georgia's forces in and around the city. Georgian officials acknowledged that their troops were routed and quickly retreated early Sunday.
"Very many military servicemen were killed, probably in the hundreds," Lomaia said, speaking of Georgian casualties in Sunday night's offensive. Hundreds of wounded were taken to hospitals in Tbilisi, according to doctors at one hospital.
Two journalists working for the Russian edition of Newsweek were killed near Tskhinvali after approaching the city from the Georgian side.
"There were more and more of them," said one retreating Georgian soldier near Tskhinvali, speaking of the attacking Russians. Another soldier said his unit received orders to retreat about 1:30 a.m. Sunday. Villagers in the area said they could hear the rumble of the fleeing Georgian forces through the night.
Read page 2 of the Washington Post's full report!
US Flying Georgian Troops Home from Iraq to Fight Russia!!
The official says that the U.S. military has agreed to their request and "some flights have already begun."
The official spoke on condition of anonymity Sunday because he was releasing the information ahead of a formal announcement.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Ted "Series of Tubes" Stevens Gets Slapped with Seven Felony Charges
Recently, I have been quite upset over the general lack of punishment (or, rather, rewards) for the members of the Bush administration who have so obviously been involved in scandal and crime. The Daily Show, as usual, has done an excellent job of editing together only a portion of the insanity (oh, and more from John Oliver. Love!). Though this isn't Karl Rove caliber, I got to feel just a little bit better today when Ted Stevens was caught concealing more than $250,000 worth of gifts that he received from an Alaska oil services company. Some of those "gifts" included a new first floor, a finished full basement, a wraparound deck, plumbing, electrical and heating work for his Alaska home. Of course, he says he is innocent. Whatever, dude- I'm sure VECO Corp just accidentally gave him a quarter of a million dollars, and reporting it just slipped his mind! It happens to the best of us!
"According to the indictment, the total amount of gifts that Sen. Stevens is alleged to have received over the duration of the offense is greater than $250,000. Also according to the indictment, these items were not disclosed on Sen. Stevens' financial disclosure forms, which he filed under penalties of perjury, either as gifts or as liabilities, and further, that Sen. Stevens did not reimburse or repay VECO or its chief executive officer for these items." — Matthew Friedrich, chief of the Justice Department's criminal division. (Associated Press)
Thursday, July 10, 2008
So long 4th amendment!
So the FISA amendments bill went through yesterday, and not only did the Dems hunker under their desks to avoid lawsuits, but even Barack Obama voted for the "compromise," even after showing vivid opposition to any sort of telecom immunity. But, for those who don't know, this bill just isn't about retroactive immunity for the telecoms. It also widely expands surveillance capabilities of the government, and removes a vast amount of oversight from the process. This allows the system to be easily fitted for massive domestic surveillance, especially in the online world. Illegal online gambling, p2p sharing, you name it. Americans have been screaming and protesting this issue for three years now, and all for what? Nothing. This is one issue the dems could have fought easily, brought more support into the party, and finally show that they really aren't spineless like everyone always says. Way to fit their stereotype! Whoever believes the spin that this is some sort of compromise is completely wrong, there is no such thing as compromise on an issue like domestic spying...you can't "compromise" the 4th amendment!
What a pathetic failure of our government.
Giving it the respect it deserves, I'll quote the 4th amendment...and bid it farewell...at least until our representatives have the courage to stand for this country's founding ideals.
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
