Tuesday, June 30, 2009
US expat – no Honduras coup – EXCLUSIVE
In case you are not familiar with the story line, let me refresh you.br /br /Either consciously influenced by President Barack Obama, consciously kowtowing to him, unconsciously doing one, the other, or a bit of both, or else lazily taking the line that Central American military activity automatically equals "coup," U.S. media has largely continued to claim a coup took place in Honduras earlier this week.br /br /Instead, President Manuel Zelaya illegally tried to go ahead with a referendum to change the constitution, then, after the military arrested him, a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/centralamericaandthecaribbean/honduras/5677026/Honduras-supreme-court-ordered-army-coup.html"acting on a court order/a, Congressional leader Roberto Micheletti was sworn in a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090629/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_honduras_coup_5"ONLY to complete the seven months left on Zelaya’s term/a. If this really were a military coup, we wouldn’t have his denouement.br /br /It’s still not a good thing whenever the military gets involved in government, especially in Central America. But, in this case, the military was doing its duty, and did it the right way.br /br /And, now, via getting someone's attention with this blog...br /br /An American expatriate in Honduras, who started there with the Peace Corps several years ago, has this to say:br /blockquoteMost of the country is calm, Most of the people are in favor of the new government as can be seen in the difference in the size of rallies. br /br /The Ex president had said several times that it did not matter to him what the Supreme Court and the Congress thought He was going to carry through his referendum, even went to the extreme of robbing funds from other ministries to pay for the referendum. br /br /Most people are extremely confused by the Response of Obama, Obama was extremely popular down here, and for him to denounce this action without researching it seems like a betrayal to them. br /br /Chavez and the OAS are seen as leftest enteties who are or were trying to illegally influence Honduras's internal politics. /blockquotebr /And, yes, it is a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124619401378065339.html"meddling by the Obama Administration/a when it insists on restoring Zelaya. And, when it tried, for a full week in advance, to prevent the military from arresting him.br /br /I then asked my “foreign correspondent” if I could post some of what he e-mailed me.br /br /He replied:br /blockquote I would greatly appreciat(e) it if you do. I have been increasingly frustrated over the last couple of days as I watched the reporting on CNN which did not at all mirror what I was watching here./blockquotebr /There you have it.br /br /Media sensationalizing. Obama either sensationalizing, with resultant mishandling, or just plain mishandling for other reasons.br /br /Perhaps, per the often sensible conservative blogger Allahpundit, Obama is fearful of “optics,” knowing the Honduran military’s long connection to more thuggish elements in the U.S. military, CIA, etc.br /br /Updates as I get them.br /br /No matter. It’s not a coup.div class="blogger-post-footer"There is no god and I am his prophet.img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7532871-2464815240558300869?l=socraticgadfly.blogspot.com'//div
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An apology in advance
I would like to apologize to readers, in advance, for the neglect this blog will suffer from over the next two weeks. I will be on the road and won't easily have access to the internet during that time. What complicates things is that the lap top I use has a problem. It works fine with wireless internet connection only. It won't connect otherwise. And I know the main hotel I will be in insists you connect by wire, not wireless.br /br /But, even if the connection is solved, I will be on the run from morning until late at night. So my time will be very limited until I return home.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/23782041-1249470478447633847?l=freestudents.blogspot.com'//div
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The Tragic Jackson Curse
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Denmark puts Obama, China under the climate gun
The Danish government says it wants the remaining process in the Copenhagen round of climate-control negotiations, before the actual December Copenhagen summit, a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090630/sc_afp/environmentclimateundenmarkgreenland_20090630204221 "sped up/a.br /blockquote“It is time for a frank and open dialogue so the participating countries can make clear their positions, their concerns,” said Danish Climate Minister Connie Hedegaard./blockquotebr /That said, the U.S. was one of the top 10 big polluters to attend a mini-summit in Greenland. The only one missing? China? And, if as hinted, it was because the Dalai Lama visited Copenhagen in May, that’s just excuse-making.div class="blogger-post-footer"There is no god and I am his prophet.img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7532871-4108986175013407961?l=socraticgadfly.blogspot.com'//div
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Eichelberger Faces His Critics
(H/t to a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2009/06/30/gays-exist/"Think Progress/a)br /br /Here's the entire clip:br /br /centerobject width="425" height="344"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/F9mk8qo-_Tkamp;hl=enamp;fs=1amp;"param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/F9mk8qo-_Tkamp;hl=enamp;fs=1amp;" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"/embed/object/centerbr /br /Think Progress has a transcript:blockquoteSPEAKER: So are you going to apologize to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender people in Pennsylvania — and all the people in Pennsylvania for those comments about allowing to exist and calling them dysfunctional.br /br /EICHELBERGER: No, I think you know my answer to that. Thank you very much. /blockquote And Sue Kerr gets a shout out at Think Progress:blockquotePittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents, an LGBT blog in Pennsylvania, writes, “It is one thing to disapprove of my identity or believe it is a choice, but quite another thing to suggest that I am permitted to exist emin spite/em of my identity. a href="http://www.pghlesbian.com/blog/_archives/2009/6/19/4227534.html"Should I be grateful to Senator Eichelberger/a for not condoning someone taking away my existence?”/blockquoteCongratulations to Sue!div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8213262-8481276642455983491?l=2politicaljunkies.blogspot.com'//div
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Dem AND GOP govs can both eff themselves
I am more than tired of both parties national governors’ associations “lets win the second quarter financial race” e-mails for an election 18 months away.br /br /Keep it up, both of you; maybe some more Americans will join the third-party revolution. Better than that, maybe more of them will join the left-liberal third party revolution, which, unlike the Libertarians, wants to have more public financing of political campaigns and tighter limits on private contributions.br /br /I voted Green in the past, and will vote Green, Socialist or similar any opportunity I have in the foreseeable future.div class="blogger-post-footer"There is no god and I am his prophet.img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7532871-2177170727432327342?l=socraticgadfly.blogspot.com'//div
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Ricci and Sotomayor
Attempts to use Ricci to derail Sotomayor's nomination won't work, but (as Paul also said earlier today) they do showa href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/jun/30/sonia-sotomayor-ricci-supreme-court-firefighters" how silly the whole "empathy" criticism is. /adiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7163938-673779966873806707?l=lefarkins.blogspot.com'//div
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Wimbledon swine flu: Sick as Travis Parrott
The a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196669/Fears-Wimbledon-players-struck-swine-flu.html?ITO=1490"Daily Mail/a reports that three players at Wimbledon have gone down with swine flu:br /blockquoteThe three, who are all believed to be getting better, are closely inter-connected. They are world number 29 doubles player Michal Mertinak, his fellow Slovakian, world number 22 Filip Polasek, and 25th-ranked American Travis Parrott./blockquotediv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6606798-8514929476990015209?l=liberalengland.blogspot.com'//div
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What does a 'Senator Franken' mean in the Senate?
Now that former U.S. Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota has a href="http://minnesotaindependent.com/38181/coleman-concedes-us-senate-contest"officially conceded the 2008 election/a and its legal challenges, which the Minnesota Supreme Court a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/30/AR2009063002200.html"rejected/a earlier today, to Al Franken, now what? br /br /(And, not, now what, on an election certificate. Gov. Tim Pawlenty would be a Grade A liar if he did not sign one.)br /br /No, not that.br /br /What does any of this mean on a practical level? Not quite as much as many would crack it up to mean.br /br /First, just because you have 58 Democrats, plus two generally supportive independents, doesn’t guarantee cloture. Cloture is something decided on a bill-by-bill, even amendment-by-amendment basis.br /br /Let’s look at a few key issues.br /br /National healthcare? Party-swapping Arlen Specter might vote against cloture, based on opposition to the bill by unions. (In addition to Hagen or Ben Nelson possibly doing that, of course.)br /br /Waxman-Markey? Stabenow might vote against cloture to protect the Formerly Big Three.br /br /EFCA, if it ever gets to the Senate? Nelson or Hagen are obvious cloture-opposition potential.br /br /Foreign policy? Joementum is a guarantee not only to vote against cloture, but take a neocon stance, on anything in the Middle East.div class="blogger-post-footer"There is no god and I am his prophet.img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7532871-6976866218013160926?l=socraticgadfly.blogspot.com'//div
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Senator Al
a href="http://electionlawblog.org/archives/014011.html"Finally. /a And, while perhaps this overstates his rationality, now that Coleman a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124638548350674627.html"has conceded/a it's hard to imagine Pawlenty making the courts issue a writ to force him to act.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7163938-4876187975888408046?l=lefarkins.blogspot.com'//div
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Hitler in Bridgnorth
a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGt70o8Q3EInxW0IkgjhaWFj3cUruG-9ClPlPXHT3JFgMT48LqFA3s5zDHVjX7aG17zVXcVyeKDaWxIEfb45yRnJcuqGGqehrYhQ3W232vAKS7YSZqxwtzUooQBFjWheb4vPjS4YqR7YE4/s1600-h/bridgnorth.jpg"img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5353224566963641394" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGt70o8Q3EInxW0IkgjhaWFj3cUruG-9ClPlPXHT3JFgMT48LqFA3s5zDHVjX7aG17zVXcVyeKDaWxIEfb45yRnJcuqGGqehrYhQ3W232vAKS7YSZqxwtzUooQBFjWheb4vPjS4YqR7YE4/s400/bridgnorth.jpg" border="0" //abr /div align="right"span style="font-size:78%;"Photo by Sabine J Hutchinsonbr //spana href="http://www.virtual-shropshire.co.uk/"span style="font-size:78%;"http://www.virtual-shropshire.co.uk/span/a/divspan style="font-size:78%;"/spanbr /br /The a href="http://www.shropshirestar.com/2009/06/29/railways-nazi-ban-at-1940s-weekend/"Shropshire Star/a reported the other day that the Severn Valley Railway has introduced some regulations to cover its 1940s weekend because someone turned up in a previous year dressed as Adolf Hitler. The Severn Valley line runs from Bewdley to Bridgnorth.br /br /This reminded me of a a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/4195939/Hitler-wanted-sleepy-Bridgnorth-to-be-Nazi-HQ-after-the-invasion-of-Britain.html"Daily Telegraph/a report from 2005:br /divblockquotepThe headquarters of Nazi Britain after Adolf Hitler's planned invasion was identified yesterday as a quiet market town in Shropshire./ppAt first glance, Bridgnorth may not be the most obvious choice as the Führer's base for establishing his brave new world, but secret documents strongly suggest that that is what he had in mind .../ppExperts believe that Hitler picked the town because it lies inland away from the urbanised West Midlands, was geographically in the middle of England and had an air base nearby./ppRichard Westwood-Brookes, the documents expert for the auctioneers Mullock Madeley, said: "My jaw dropped when I saw the papers."/ppHe said that some were from 1941, casting doubt on the popular belief that Hitler abandoned all plans to invade the country after the Battle of Britain the previous year./p/blockquoteOn a happier note, you can find some a href="http://www.shropshirestar.com/2009/06/29/rail-visitors-take-a-train-trip-back-in-time/"photographs/a from the Severn Valley Railway event on the Star's website. And you can a href="http://www.svr.co.uk/"visit the railway's website/a too./divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6606798-8287869260655638382?l=liberalengland.blogspot.com'//div
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Chris Huhne on the culture of policing
Writing on Lib Dem Voice, a href="http://www.libdemvoice.org/huhne-scrap-id-cards-and-put-10000-bobbies-on-the-beat-three-reasons-why-hes-wrong-15512.html?utm_source=tweetamp;utm_medium=twitteramp;utm_campaign=a"Stephen Tall/a has noticed a point that I have a href="http://liberalengland.blogspot.com/2008/11/house-points-strengths-and-weaknesses.html"made before/a. When Nick Clegg promises to scrap ID cuts he says that the money will be used to cut taxes. But when Chris Huhne promises to scrap ID cuts he says that the money will be used to put more bobbies on the beat.br /br /I raised this point with Chris Huhne when I a href="http://liberalengland.blogspot.com/2009/04/house-points-chris-huhne-and-sky-news.html"interviewed/a him earlier this year, saying it was hard to believe we are an underpoliced society when you are at Westminster. There every doorway seems to harbour two armed officers.br /br /Chris's reply was that, if you make international comparisons, then Britain does have two few police. I was struck by his observation that when the police patrol in pairs they tend to talk to each other rather than to the public.br /br /This need to change the culture of policing is at the heart of the case for having more police officers. Stephen assumes that anyone making this call must hold the view that more police employed will mean more criminals caught and punished. But those who disagree with his view need not be as simplistic as he assumes.br /br /The culture of policing was in everyone's mind when I spoke to Chris. We met just after the death of Ian Tomlinson at the G20 demonstration.br /br /As Chris said, there are concerns that the Met's Territorial Support Group has inherited some of the DNA of the old a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Patrol_Group"Special Patrol Group/a.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6606798-1453350106025646760?l=liberalengland.blogspot.com'//div
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So should MPs be allowed to have outside jobs?
The short answer is yes.br /br /The longer answer is that it is up to the voters.br /br /Just as the answer to the misuse of MPs' expenses it to require them to publish their claims, so the answer to concerns over their having jobs away from Westminster is to require them to declare these earnings and how much time they spend working for other employers.br /br /I do have doubts over the traditional assumption that it is possible to do a good job as an MP while pursuing a career at the bar. Equally, I see no problem in a href="http://johnhemming.blogspot.com/2009/06/statement-on-extra-parliamentary-income.html"John Hemming/a devoting four hours a month to the companies he founded before he was an MP.br /br /But then I believe that there are too many lawyers in parliament and not enough businessmen.br /br /Ultimately, though, it is up to the voters to decide. They may decide that it is better to have a good MP without outside interests than a mediocre one who is wholly dedicated to the task.br /br /I am reminded of the Southampton fan who called a phone in at the time that Bruce Grobbelaar was on trial over match-fixing accusations.br /br /He said: "I would rather have Grobbelaar trying to lose than Dave Beasant trying to win."div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6606798-3969819355659516781?l=liberalengland.blogspot.com'//div
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It’s Senator Franken!
Norm Coleman a href="http://minnesotaindependent.com/38181/coleman-concedes-us-senate-contest"officially concedes/a.br /br /Earlier today, the Minnesota Supreme Court a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/30/AR2009063002200.html"rejected/a the last state-level legal challenges by Coleman.br /br /What does any of this mean on a practical level? Not quite as much as many would crack it up to mean.br /br /First, just because you have 58 Democrats, plus two generally supportive independents, doesn’t guarantee cloture. Cloture is something decided on a bill-by-bill, even amendment-by-amendment basis.br /br /Let’s look at a few key issues.br /br /National healthcare? Party-swapping Arlen Specter might vote against cloture, based on opposition to the bill by unions. (In addition to Hagen or Ben Nelson possibly doing that, of course.)br /br /Waxman-Markey? Stabenow might vote against cloture to protect the Formerly Big Three.br /br /EFCA, if it ever gets to the Senate? Nelson or Hagen are obvious cloture-opposition potential.br /br /Foreign policy? Joementum is a guarantee not only to vote against cloture, but take a neocon stance, on anything in the Middle East.div class="blogger-post-footer"There is no god and I am his prophet.img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7532871-3863521182392646326?l=socraticgadfly.blogspot.com'//div
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Tax oppression and Sweden's dirty little secret
a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfyYCLaLIc5AFc6_pdh-PuQsL6f3UMXhNNjXOe5MyCU5pCmtmgh0Kd539KnFqyOvesQ8CPt6LBXHb6Hrg6cOcnOcEm8e2KzmF1q92nFHpXLWeRLHm-ndAs9BP8ZUW9RB_XznYLOO-5_Tro/s1600-h/heavy-tax-burden.jpg"img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 256px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfyYCLaLIc5AFc6_pdh-PuQsL6f3UMXhNNjXOe5MyCU5pCmtmgh0Kd539KnFqyOvesQ8CPt6LBXHb6Hrg6cOcnOcEm8e2KzmF1q92nFHpXLWeRLHm-ndAs9BP8ZUW9RB_XznYLOO-5_Tro/s320/heavy-tax-burden.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5353217121106118258" border="0" //abr /French economist Pierre Bassard has published an interesting a style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);" href="http://www.concurrencefiscale.ch/papers/IC-Bessard-Tax-Index.pdf"study/a on “Tax Oppression and Individual Rights in the OECD.” The paper measures: “The tax oppression index is based on 18 representative criteria measuring fiscal attractiveness, public governance and financial privacy in the 30 member states of the OECD.”br /br /Remember the study is limited to the 30 OECD members only, but it is interesting none-the-less. Within the OECD, Bressard says that the most oppressive states, in regards to taxation, with the most oppressive listed first, are as follows:br /br /Italybr /Turkeybr /Polandbr /Mexicobr /Germanybr /Netherlandsbr /Belgiumbr /Hungarybr /Francebr /Greecebr /br /Don’t get too excited because the United States didn’t make the 10 most oppressive tax regimes in the OECD. The US tied for 11th place with that other, increasingly-totalitarian nation, the United Kingdom.br /br /Who are the ten least tax oppressive nations within the OECD? Here are the ten least oppressive states. The least tax oppressive of the nations is Switzerland, followed by:br /br /Luxembourgbr /Austriabr /Canadabr /Slovakiabr /Icelandbr /Irelandbr /New Zealandbr /Denmarkbr /Koreabr /br /Consider the relative positioning of the United States to the so-called “third way” nations of Scandinavia. It has pretty much always been a myth that the Scandinavian nations are the most tax oppressive. It really depends on who you are there. Business itself is not so highly taxed, but individuals are. I shall explain why shortly. But the US ranks as more tax oppressive than Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway.br /br /There is an assumption that the welfare states of Scandinavia were high-tax regimes which tried to redistribute wealth from rich businessmen to the average person. This is not the case at all. One a whole the Scandinavia systems are meant to be redistributive states. Nor are businessmen the targets. Business is relatively lightly taxed compared to many developed nations. It is that the earnings of businesses that the bureaucrats want to control but people.br /br /The Swedish welfare state, in particular, was designed so that the average individual was highly taxed. There was even the well-known case of Swedish author Astrid Lindgren, of Pippi Longstocking fame, who discovered that her tax bill was 102% of her earnings. Consumers are highly taxed, while business itself, not so highly taxed.br /br /The reason for this is simple. Taxation is a means of control. The object of control in the Swedish system is not business, they produce the golden egg after all. The object of control is the individual. The Swedish system doesn’t so much redistribute your wealth but confiscate it and return it to you provided you spend it in ways approved of by the political elite.br /br /Consider how this system works. Say you are taxed $100 on earnings of $150. The state may now say that can have $20 back in education vouchers for your children, $30 in health “benefits” and so on. If you choose to spend in other ways you will not receive the money back. In essence the Swedish system was created to take control of the individual Swedish consumer, not redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor. While some redistribution is inevitable that is not the reasons the system was created.br /br /Swedish business is more lightly taxed because the government wants business to provide jobs for workers. Once the workers are employed the state can tax them and control their spending. Approved spending is subsidized with the tax money that consumers pay in, unapproved spending is not subsidized or may be heavily taxed. This system of coercive incentives is meant to regulate how people act.br /br /While many in the world think that the “third way” of Sweden was a “socialistic” policy of helping the needy, the reality is closer to a “fascistic” policy of manipulating the consumers into behaving in ways that politicians want.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/23782041-6071075417540807890?l=freestudents.blogspot.com'//div
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MN Supreme Court Declares Franken Winner
centera href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkHHXwVRq2pbJklzZempqts5-JX3AK_zIHmktgV5HhG4_w7xruA13yoNH4m7_jfd9IMb7QLdJPyx4pZFZu6cB7cYul7DCaesNsMvyJAWzKOdQHK05J9TnQP2uDGTRSVX3J6_z5Yz7Rqu8/s1600-h/Franken-thumb-275x412.jpg"img style="WIDTH: 266px; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5353199961639934658" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkHHXwVRq2pbJklzZempqts5-JX3AK_zIHmktgV5HhG4_w7xruA13yoNH4m7_jfd9IMb7QLdJPyx4pZFZu6cB7cYul7DCaesNsMvyJAWzKOdQHK05J9TnQP2uDGTRSVX3J6_z5Yz7Rqu8/s400/Franken-thumb-275x412.jpg" //abr /br /emspan style="color:#000000;"strongspan style="font-size:180%;"Congratulations,br /SENATOR Al Franken!/span/strong/span/em/centerbr /br /Your move, Pawlenty. Will you keep a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2009/06/30/franken-winner/"strongyour word/strong/a?br /blockquoteCNN: Your state supreme court has a ruling before it, it could come very soon. After that ruling, the next step would be for you to certify the election. Will you certify the election based on your state’s supreme court ruling, is that for you?br /br /PAWLENTY: strongI’m going to follow the direction of the court, John./strong We expect that ruling any day now. I also expect them to give guidance and direction as to the certificate of election. strongI’m prepared to sign it as soon as they give the green light./strong/blockquotebr /span style="color:#ffffff;"./spandiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8213262-4520985241129151501?l=2politicaljunkies.blogspot.com'//div
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Keeping cool with the TUC
a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcTVUqj60rc29wWheS1PN5ttWm2Bwy-8OMwp6bSRCOieJ44yP_vTn5P0iCJFazHZhd5N7Ur5bVyYqBv3fbFlv_FBRi75ATwM6NfUrgjuoZJTCFHvON0dHRWdJQHsSNLJYDBLyt95Z1v6w3/s1600-h/fan.jpg"img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5353195985669754562" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 200px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcTVUqj60rc29wWheS1PN5ttWm2Bwy-8OMwp6bSRCOieJ44yP_vTn5P0iCJFazHZhd5N7Ur5bVyYqBv3fbFlv_FBRi75ATwM6NfUrgjuoZJTCFHvON0dHRWdJQHsSNLJYDBLyt95Z1v6w3/s200/fan.jpg" border="0" //aAt the 2007 Lib Dem Conference I wrote a piece on the stalls for a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/sep/19/athomeinthestalls"Comment is Free/a:br /br /divblockquoteBy common consent, the most generous stall is the one run by the Trades Union Congress. It is handing out classy home office sets, including a fan that runs off your computer as you write./blockquoteI got out my fan today. It still works and is keeping me cool as I write this.br /br /Thank you, brothers./divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6606798-5687844591545855892?l=liberalengland.blogspot.com'//div
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Minnesota Supreme Court Says AL FRANKEN is the Winner
centerimg src="http://www.jackandjillpolitics.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/alfranken.jpg" alt="alfranken" title="alfranken" width="255" height="301" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-12700" //centerbr /br /From a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-franken-minnesota1-2009jul01,0,2062857.story"The LA Times:/abr /br /br /br /blockquotestrongMinn. rules for Franken in Senate fightbr /From the Associated Press br /11:21 AM PDT, June 30, 2009 /strongbr /br /ST. PAUL, Minn. -- The Minnesota Supreme Court has ordered that Democrat Al Franken be certified as the winner of the state's long-running Senate race.br /br /The high court rejected a legal challenge from Republican Norm Coleman, whose options for regaining the Senate seat are dwindling.br /br /br /Justices said Franken is entitled to the election certificate he needs to assume office. With Franken and the usual backing of two independents, Democrats will have a big enough majority to overcome Republican filibuster.br /br /Coleman hasn't ruled out seeking federal court intervention/blockquotebr /br /br /Now, it's time for that punk Pawlenty to certify it, and give Minnesota Equal Representation in the U.S. Senate. br /br /Getting Franken in there would mean that the Democrats would have 60 votes and NO MORE EXCUSES.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/21083673-1892580292904581813?l=mirroronamerica.blogspot.com'//div
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Why Sarah Palin flew back to Alaska pregnant … and much more
Vanity Fair’s Todd Purdum, as part of a a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/08/sarah-palin200908?printable=truecurrentPage=all"long expose/a on Mamma Bear Sarah Palin, ventures the simple guess that she absolutely, positively, had to have Trig Palin born in Alaska.br /br /Purdum notes of the state and its mentality:br /blockquote John McPhee wrote, “Alaska is a foreign country significantly populated with Americans. Its languages extend to English. Its nature is its own. Nothing seems so unexpected as the boxes marked ‘U.S. Mail.’” That description still fits. The state capital, Juneau, is 600 miles from the principal city, Anchorage, and is reachable only by air or sea. Alaskan politicians list the length of their residency in the state (if they were not born there) at the top of their biographies, and are careful to specify whether they like hunting, fishing, or both. There is little sense of government as an enduring institution: when the annual 90-day legislative session is over, the legislators pack up their offices, files, and computers, and take everything home. Alaska’s largest newspaper, the Anchorage Daily News, maintains no full-time bureau in Juneau to cover the statehouse. As in any resource-rich developing country with weak institutions and woeful oversight, corruption and official misconduct go easily unchecked. Scrutiny is not welcome, and Alaskans of every age and station, of every race and political stripe, unself-consciously refer to every other place on earth with a single word: Outside./blockquotebr /Fine, Todd, but why did she drive out of Anchorage to Wasilla to go to a hospital surely unprepared for a complicated delivery, if a 44-year-old woman had one?br /br /Other than that, Purdum a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/08/sarah-palin200908?printable=truecurrentPage=all"has some very good stuff/a; give it a read.div class="blogger-post-footer"There is no god and I am his prophet.img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7532871-5341967965062376643?l=socraticgadfly.blogspot.com'//div
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Did gOd tell Sanford to lie about frequency of affair?
a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTuNiKBMnKwlPzwyiGjTVbMvbvRmbVoYUbmcI5tnqfJ7eiIE9Ee2Q0U5INBZXtRVEn7Xc_VBrY4hxkXa-oG7CJZBp2i6PHhyJ_co_CuOoCANYyeAm8WjlZdm6yaFr1IgtjZovj30SbsjaM/s1600-h/PantsDownHalfStaffClipping2.gif"img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 214px; height: 388px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTuNiKBMnKwlPzwyiGjTVbMvbvRmbVoYUbmcI5tnqfJ7eiIE9Ee2Q0U5INBZXtRVEn7Xc_VBrY4hxkXa-oG7CJZBp2i6PHhyJ_co_CuOoCANYyeAm8WjlZdm6yaFr1IgtjZovj30SbsjaM/s400/PantsDownHalfStaffClipping2.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351006616023993010" //aEarlier today, it was reported that adulterous Republican Mark Sanford, the South Carolina governor, said a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0609/24353.html"gOd wanted him to stay in office/a.br /br /Did gOd also tell Sanford a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/30/AR2009063001581.html"not to publicly disclose/a all the times he met Maria Belen Chapur, in New York City as well as Buenos Aires?div class="blogger-post-footer"There is no god and I am his prophet.img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7532871-1255044117600516935?l=socraticgadfly.blogspot.com'//div
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QUEEN Michelle?....Sigh.....Here we go again.
centerimg class="alignnone size-full wp-image-12697" title="ba-firstlady_har_0500293767" src="http://www.jackandjillpolitics.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/ba-firstlady_har_0500293767.jpg" alt="ba-firstlady_har_0500293767" width="522" height="358" //centerbr /br /a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0609/24331.html"From Politico:/abr /blockquotestrongQueen Michelle the First?br /By JEREMY D. MAYER | 6/30/09 4:44 AM EDT /strongbr /br /Michelle Obama wants a bigger role in her husband’s administration, according to The Washington Post. Unlike Laura Bush, who focused on a few peripheral issues, Obama wants a seat at the table when key policies are made.br /br /Obama’s new chief of staff, Susan Sher, is part of the crucial 8:15 a.m. White House staff meeting. The first lady’s team of more than 20 has been told to think “strategically” about how to make her a player on policies she cares about.br /br /This could be a very bad idea.br /br /Washington insiders haven’t seen a first lady this ambitious since Hillary Clinton, without question the most powerful holder of that unofficial office.br /br /Clinton put herself in charge of her husband’s plans to radically reform health care, and the nation is still paying the price for her mistakes.br /br /While the failure of the Clinton administration’s health care agenda had many causes, she made some missteps that a more experienced Washington policymaker would not have made. And because she was the spouse of the president, it was very tough for anyone to tell her husband that things were going badly.br /br /Clinton was a Yale-educated lawyer and, without a doubt, a brilliant woman (and she has learned a lot since then). And much the same could be said about the double-Ivy League-degreed Obama.br /br /But if you throw a pebble up in the air at rush hour in Metro Center, you would very likely hit someone with an Ivy League degree. Succeeding at policy development and advocacy at the highest levels of government takes a lot more than that.br /br /Marrying a top policymaker doesn’t magically grant you the rare skills necessary for your spouse’s profession, any more than marrying Serena Williams would enable you to win Wimbledon.br /br /I know few music fans who believe Yoko and Linda improved the music of John and Paul with their contributions.br /br /Yet even if Obama is a natural and immediately grasps how Washington works, there is something troubling about the whole concept of a presidential spouse with a multimillion-dollar staff.br /br /!--more--br /br /br /Imagine the uproar if Chief Justice John Roberts announced that his wife, Jane, would take the lead role on any abortion questions that came before the court and would participate in deliberations with the other justices. She is, after all, a very bright attorney with an Ivy League degree who has impassioned views about abortion.br /br /Or if House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) decided that her husband, Paul, would write our health care legislation.br /br /The only reason that these comparisons seem farcical is that the media have granted the family of the president an oversize role in American public life in the past 80 years.br /br /There is no doubt that first ladies have done great good on issues such as literacy and freedom in Myanmar.br /br /Yet it is, at its core, anti-republican and nepotistic for a citizen to gain access to formal power via blood or marriage.br /br /Over time, we have adopted a “serial monarchy” in which the family — and particularly the spouse — of the president has the potential for enormous influence. Ironically, in European democracies, where monarchies were once powerful, spouses of leaders are not given formal power over policies.br /br /One prospect for this changing is a first spouse abdicating the role. In 2004, Howard Dean’s wife had already suggested that if he were elected president, she would go on working as a physician, as she had when Dean was governor of Vermont.br /br /The key turning point could come with the election of a woman to the presidency. The newness of a “first gentleman” could cause us to re-examine this odd accretion of power via marriage.br /br /For now, the White House knows that Obama is an extraordinarily popular voice for the president’s policies. It would be foolish not to deploy her, now and on the campaign trail in 2012. We can only hope that she avoids a HillaryCare fiasco with her policy input.br /br /Personally, I think Obama is going to be a good “queen” for America during the next four years. But the problem with monarchical power is that you never know what you are going to get next./blockquotebr /br /br /Straight up HIT PIECE.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/21083673-8958532411554103389?l=mirroronamerica.blogspot.com'//div
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Pittsburgh City Council Passes the Amended Amended Act 47 Recovery Plan 6 to 3
span style="font-size:130%;"strongFor:/strong Burgess, Kraus, Motznik, Payne, Peduto, Smithbr /strongAgainst:/strong Dowd, Harris, Shields/spanbr /br /For those who didn’t see it, the discussion before the vote basically went the way you’d imagine: Harris asked the same question half a dozen times, Shields bloviated, etc.br /br /Our Overlords kept 30 out the 42 samendments/s schanges/s suggestions made by Council last week.br /span style="color:#ffffff;"./spandiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8213262-3563850788012045476?l=2politicaljunkies.blogspot.com'//div
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Getting Out
pa href="http://attackerman.firedoglake.com/2009/06/29/if-you-live-in-this-world-youre-feeling-the-change-of-the-guard/"Ackerman:/a/pp/pblockquotepIt's a "carnival" in Baghdad, according to the emPost/em's Ernesto Londono, filled with Iraqi troops grinning as they take their lives into their own hands and graffitti writers further south demanding, "Pull your troops from our Basra, we are its sons and want its sovereignty." Don't tell them tomorrow is just another day. These are the people in whose name the U.S. justified six years of a blunder. Like any rational people enduring a foreign military occupation, they light candles and wave banners and sing patriotic songs when the occupier pulls away. /p pemOccupier/em -- what a nauseating word to hear; what an enfeebling thing to be; what a distorting condition to bear. Remember when Zell Miller told us that nothing made that Marine madder than to hear U.S. troops described as occupiers and not liberators? His complaint should have been registered with the man who made them into such a thing, not with those who wouldn't speak euphemistically or patronizingly about it. What U.S. troops have endured they have endured heroically, in a manner that those who haven't served can't comprehend. I consider it emmore/em heroic that they've done it in spite of the war's maculate conception.br //p/blockquotep/pSpencer puts his finger on something that I've never quite understood about Tom Ricks' a href="http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/06/29/iraq_the_unraveling_xiii_a_faith_based_war_policy_continues""unraveling"/a series; elite and popular Iraqi opinion (with the partial exception of Kurdistan) is united around the idea of the United States leaving. Whether or not the precarious peace created in part by the Surge holds is pretty much irrelevant to that point. The Iraqi preference for an American withdrawal has held steady pretty much from the day the Americans arrived (public opinion in Afghanistan has always beena href="http://www.csis.org/files/media/csis/pubs/094013_afghanpollbyregion.pdf" different/a, although the gap is closing). Any talk of staying on to "finish the job" or "hold things together" is just so much nonsense in the face of this strong, consistent Iraqi preference. Iraq may unravel, and it will in some important sense have been our responsibility, but by the Iraqis' own account it's not our job to prevent that from happening.br /br /See also a href="http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/06/29/bushs_gift_to_obama"Stephen Walt./adiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7163938-949128118661469746?l=lefarkins.blogspot.com'//div
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Rais Yatim Stuck in Colonial Times
During the launch of the multi-billion ringgit High Speed Broadband project yesterday, the Minister of Information, Communication and Culture, Datuk Seri Rais Yatim had a href="http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysia/30994-rais-announces-incentives-to-develop-culture-and-communication-"stated that/abr /blockquotespan style="font-size: 85%;"“We are being colonised. The outside world presents content to us. We should create our own identity with local content. We don’t want to be followers when building society.” /spanbr //blockquoteThe Minister could not have been more wrong in his statement. Over the past 50 years, after Malaysia's independence from our colonial British masters, Malaysia has been progressively “colonised” by UMNO and Barisan Nasional with its frequent and persistent use of colonial controls against dissent and communication, such as the Internal Security Act (ISA), the Printing, Publications and Presses Act (PPPA), the Universities and Universities Colleges Act (UUCA), the Official Secrets Act (OSA), the sedition Act and more. These are the exact tools of our British colonial masters, which have beenr retained and abused by UMNO and BN for their own political ends, with complete disregard for the interest of Malaysians at large.span class="fullpost"br /br /On the other hand, Malaysians should be grateful to the Internet for it brought about a new era of seamless communications and openness which in essence, have de-colonise Malaysians from the iron grip of UMNO and BN. Malaysians must fully embrace the Internet for it has allowed us to “free our minds” from the repressive controls inherited from our British colonial masters.br /br /The choice of Datuk Seri Rais Yatim as the Minister to take over the portfolio of both Information and Communications by the new Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak must have been specifically intended to curtail the new freedom found by Malaysian which is channel through the Internet. He has remained one of the many dinosaurs left over from the Mahathir's administration who has failed to understand and grasp the nature of the Internet.br /br /In this new Internet era, the more the Government seeks to curtail and inhibit discussion and communication via the worldwide web, the bigger the backlash it will have against the Government itself. Datuk Seri Rais Yatim is only further catalysing the demise of UMNO and Barisan Nasional by seeking to impose its archaic controls mechanisms in this new globalised era./spandiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/37045477-2426992511931256297?l=tonypua.blogspot.com'//div
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Coffee fights bad breath!
I’ll drink, a half-caf, black, straight up, a href="http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/06/30/coffee.bad.breath/index.html"to this/a. The study notes that it is probably a mix of coffee’s dehydrating effects, plus milk and sugar additives, that cause the impression that it contributes to bad breath.br /br /So, half-caf for less dehydration, no additives. I’ll drink a href="http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/06/30/coffee.bad.breath/index.html"to this/a.div class="blogger-post-footer"There is no god and I am his prophet.img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7532871-2523566795875233030?l=socraticgadfly.blogspot.com'//div
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Have you ever looked at the lyrics of Rush songs really closely?
That was the question a young man who stopped by my office a few months ago had for me. He had read something I'd written, and was so impressed by my powers of perception regarding what's really going on that he felt he could share with me certain recondite truths, including but not limited tobr /br /(1) The rock band Rush controls most of the world's economy. The members of the band hold controlling voting shares of stock in Microsoft, Oracle, Sun, Intel, and several other of the world's largest corporations.br /br /(2) They use their power of international commerce in the service of Satan.br /br /(3) They used their powers a few days earlier to have him arrested by local law enforcement.br /br /(4) All this and much more is practically self-evident to anyone who makes a close examination of the lyrics of their albums. It's all right there if you're just willing to look.br /br /It was an interesting conversation, but one thing I didn't do was argue with the guy about potential flaws in his theory.br /br /I was reminded of that conversation by this a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZThjYjkxYTFhY2IyYWE0OTkzNDcxNzM0NWYyMjMwNTM="Thomas Sowell column/a, replete as it is with barking paranoia of the most unhinged sort. I don't want to argue with Sowell either. I mean what would be the point? He's a crazy person. br /br /(h/t Yglesias)div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7163938-8633922007291693228?l=lefarkins.blogspot.com'//div
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Sanford sez God wants him to remain gov
Yep, even more so than Monica Conyers two weeks ago, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford is now a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0609/24353.html"the politician who officially knows the will of gOd/a. Or else, more full of bullshit than a 1,000-pound Brahma.div class="blogger-post-footer"There is no god and I am his prophet.img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7532871-8446985389657504285?l=socraticgadfly.blogspot.com'//div
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Ricci, Sotomayor, Scalia Empathy
a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-06-29/sotomayor-overruled/?cid=hp:beastoriginalsR1"The new hit album/a.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7163938-7489716013770079372?l=lefarkins.blogspot.com'//div
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Two Great Progressive Initiatives That Aren't Being Touted By the Obama Administration
Why isn't the Obama Administration touting great policy initiatives that would be popular with Americans...initiatives that are either underway or close to being implemented? To me it's more proof of what I have mentioned before... Obama has lost control of his agenda and his Presidency. It has been hijacked by Liberal fringe interests. All we have been hearing about over the last few months is Gay Marriage, Don't Ask Don't Tell, Gitmo and Torture. I'm not suggesting that these issues aren't important. Certainly they are of primary interests and importance to a few. But these issues have hijacked the spotlight and the Obama Administration at the expense of other interests...that are of primary importance to a very large part (likely a majority) of the Country. This is what I warned about in a couple of previous posts.br /br /There are currently two important initiatives flying under the radar- one I heard about in a 5 second radio news clip a couple of months ago...(and hadn't heard anything else since). The initiative has to do with the Obama Administration pushing a href="http://www.newamerica.net/publications/articles/2009/dont_want_swine_flu_lunch_then_offer_paid_sick_leave_14928"the idea of guaranteeing sick leave for American workers./a Roughly half of all private sector workers (yours truly included) don't get any sick leave.... no paid leave at all. Without sick time you can't take care of a family member a href="http://washingtonpolicywatch.org/tag/paid-sick-leave/"and you can't take care of yourself./a I used to have paid sick leave at the same workplace, but when the business was taken over several years ago by a cut-throat company... workers lost paid sick leave. Even when I had the paid sick days (which amounted to about 5 days a year) I rarely took them. I would take 1 day every 18 months to 2 years. Even then I would usually go to work sick. Now I have no choice. Missing just one day puts me behind- a consequence of being in the "working class". But I liked the way things were before because I at least had the option. It's bad enough that I have inadequate health coverage...and practically have no health care program to speak of and have no doctor, but things are magnified even more when I can't afford to get sick and can't take a day off to even see a doctor (which ends up creating delays that make health conditions worse).br /br /Obama is crazy for not having this kind of initiative (which is a political winner on top of just being the right thing to do) at the top of his agenda. Touting this initiative would be PR gold IMO. And he would probably be able to win a fight with Congress on that issue....and use it as a victory. I believe he tried to sneak this into the Tobacco Bill, but Republicans made him take it out (although I may be mistaken). But why is he being quiet and sneaky about such good legislation...about something that the voters would get behind him on?br /br /The second initiative is one that apparently is already going to happen. It has to do with a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Economy/story?id=7901851page=1"providing relief for those who have student loan debt,/a and it even includes provisions for loan forgiveness. Again... PR gold for Obama. But there's just one problem. span style="font-weight:bold;"No one has heard about it!/span I was certainly not aware of it... and i'm drowning in student loan debt. In fact, i'm pretty much facing Financial Armageddon because of student loans. I'm months away from Bankruptcy... although Bankruptcy won't clear my student loan debt. But the fact is... the Bankruptcy would clear my other debts...allowing me to deal with the student loans. Granted...the student loan initiative would not cover every borrower... because there are so many different kinds of student loans (too many.... I have at least 5 different kinds myself). But it would provide me with a few more options and might be able to help a little. And when you're dealing with Financial Armageddon, you'll take whatever help you can get.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/21083673-7889128126294592692?l=mirroronamerica.blogspot.com'//div
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Act 47: There's going to be a showdown
centerobject width="425" height="344"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/4TiT0_H3DIoamp;hl=enamp;fs=1amp;"param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/4TiT0_H3DIohl=enfs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"/embed/object/centerbr /Pittsburgh City Council will likely vote on the Amended Act 47 Recovery Plan today.br /br /Yesterday in an email blast, Councilor and Finance Chairman Bill Peduto wrote:br /blockquoteAs of this moment, it is still unclear whether or not City Council will support the plan. The Act 47 coordinators have requested final action before July 1st, when collective bargaining begins for most of the city’s workforce. Tuesday is June 30th and the plan still lacks the five votes it needs./blockquoteHe's quoted in today's a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09181/980706-53.stm"strongemPost-Gazette/em/strong/a (posted at midnight) as saying:br /blockquoteThe new fiscal plan for the city, under state Act 47 for distressed municipalities, "is far too important to vote down," said council Finance Chair William Peduto. He said he detected "willingness" among state officials to include enough council-backed changes to the 300-page documents "that should be enough to get us to five" votes on the nine-member council.br /br /[snip]br /br /Last week council tentatively approved the plan 5-3, with one abstention, but only after tacking on a slew of amendments. Mr. Peduto said yesterday that a compromise was emerging based on amendments sponsored by him, Bruce Kraus and Theresa Smith.br /br /State officials are "working with us to form [the amendments] into a plan, not that they're going to be happy with, but that they're going to find acceptable," Mr. Peduto said./blockquoteAnd, he a href="http://twitter.com/billpeduto"strongtweeted/strong/a the following about seven hours ago:br /br /centera href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy45WTcy5iMLHyeK_iTfsf4uNYkSrOvpdm96y9qiK4g5t4e5zuH-62F1eOBs910bupYfe5WHyW_1218kkXP_93mvWfxevRtAg4n11wXT1CkWrK_tMT21HY0XYG1xKoP7QnVZP9YBszArs/s1600-h/peduto-act-47-tweet.jpg"img style="WIDTH: 400px; HEIGHT: 233px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5353096275856699586" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy45WTcy5iMLHyeK_iTfsf4uNYkSrOvpdm96y9qiK4g5t4e5zuH-62F1eOBs910bupYfe5WHyW_1218kkXP_93mvWfxevRtAg4n11wXT1CkWrK_tMT21HY0XYG1xKoP7QnVZP9YBszArs/s400/peduto-act-47-tweet.jpg" //a/centerbr /br /Guess I'll be watching the City Channel this morning . . .br /span style="color:#ffffff;".br //spandiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8213262-5908778479695728873?l=2politicaljunkies.blogspot.com'//div
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Obama and the LGBT Community
From Salon.com:blockquoteThe last time the president of the United States marked gay pride month with anything official at the White House, it was June 2006. George W. Bush decided to throw the weight of his office behind a proposal to amend the Constitution to ban gay marriage. After all, the fate of Western civilization hung in the balance. "a target="_blank" href="http://www.presidentialrhetoric.com/speeches/06.05.06.html"Our policies should aim to strengthen families, not undermine them/a," Bush said at the time. "And changing the definition of marriage would undermine the family structure."pOn Monday, 40 years and a day after the Stonewall riots began to bring the gay rights movement into the mainstream, Barack Obama took a slightly different tack. The administration brought nearly 300 gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered guests -- and, in some cases, their partners or children -- to the East Room for an open bar and some hors d'ouevres. "Welcome to your White House," the president said. "We have made progress and we will make more. And I want you to know that I expect and hope to be judged not by words, not by promises I've made, but by the promises that my administration keeps. We've been in office six months now. I suspect that by the time this administration is over, I think you guys will have pretty good feelings about the Obama administration."/ppOf course, part of the reason he hosted the event at all is that it was starting to become clear that the gay and lesbian community may not have had such good feelings about the Obama administration so far. After winning broad support from gay voters last year, Obama had promised to push Congress to overturn the so-called Defense of Marriage Act, which makes it possible for states to refuse to recognize gay marriages performed in the increasing number of places that allow them. He'd a target="_blank" href="http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2009/05/20/continued_discharges_anger_dont_ask_dont_tell_critics/"sworn he would end the Pentagon's "don't ask, don't tell" policy/a, which has forced more than 13,000 people out of the military since 1993. But he followed up by inviting the a href="http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/12/19/rick_warren/"Rev. Rick Warren/a -- a prominent supporter of California's ban on gay marriage -- to speak at his inauguration. And then his Justice Department filed a brief defending the DOMA, using language that some activists read as a href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/06/17/gay_rights/"lumping homosexuality in with incest and child marriage/a (a href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/06/19/gay_rights/index.html"though that point has also been disputed/a). By Monday, Obama had some damage to repair./p/blockquote a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-obama-gays30-2009jun30,0,949841.story"/aa href="http://advocate.com/news_detail_ektid94263.asp"The Advocate/a on some of the damage:blockquoteThe president acknowledged the frustration felt by many LGBT activists who have felt that his administration has not moved quickly enough on key pieces of legislation, such as repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” and overturning the Defense of Marriage Act. p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" “We've been in office six months now,” he said in an assured, matter-of-fact tone, “and I suspect that by the time this administration's over, you guys will have pretty good feelings about the Obama administration.” /p p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" On policy, the president called on Congress to repeal what he called the “so-called” Defense of Marriage Act, but he also stopped short of repudiating the Justice Department’s brief supporting DOMA, which drew intense reaction from activists when it was filed earlier this month. /p p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" “I want to add, we have a duty to uphold existing law, but I believe we must do so in a way that does not exacerbate old divides,” he said, “and fulfilling this duty and upholding the law in no way lessens my commitment to reversing this law.” /p p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" Obama also urged passage of Domestic Partner Benefits and Obligations Act, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and a fully inclusive Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes bill. /p p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" The president reiterated his campaign contention that the discriminatory “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy undermines the effectiveness of the nation’s military. /p/blockquote Salon has some background on the event:blockquoteLike every event it puts on, the White House carefully managed the stagecraft at the LGBT reception. Invitations went out about a week ago, shortly after aides began to realize the grumbling among gay activists was teetering on the edge of becoming a real political problem -- the reception was the second move to ease concerns, after an order Obama issued two weeks ago a href="http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2009/06/16/benefits/"to give some domestic-partner benefits to some gay and lesbian employees of some federal agencies/a. Media access to the event was limited; a small group of reporters and a camera crew were allowed in, but officials directed attendees to leave through the White House's East Wing, which meant there was little danger they would wander past the press workspace attached to the West Wing on the other side of the building. Perhaps as a result, the media's interest was also limited -- cable networks didn't bother carrying Obama's full remarks live./blockquote And they point out the event "may have helped buy him some, well, patience" but the LA Times adds:blockquoteObama is hoping his gay supporters will wait. But patience is starting to ebb.br /br /"People feel they've been patient for a long time," said Leslie Calman, executive director of the National Lesbian Health Organization's Mautner Project. "They feel President Obama is on our side and want to see something concrete as soon as possible." /blockquoteFrom Salon:blockquoteStill, the message Obama was trying to convey -- relax, I'm with you -- seemed to sink in. "He's been in office six months, and in six months, not much has happened to help us," said Jerry Hoose, one of the two Stonewall veterans who met Obama privately before the meeting, and a founder of the Gay Liberation Front in New York not long after Stonewall. "But again, six months. I mean, what do you expect? The man is president, not a miracle worker." If nothing has changed a few years from now, keeping gay and lesbian supporters in Obama's corner may indeed take a political miracle. For now, though, the White House is hoping some kind words will do./blockquote The full text of his remarks can be found a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-at-LGBT-Pride-Month-Reception/"here/a.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8213262-931947440949763126?l=2politicaljunkies.blogspot.com'//div
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Treason against the planet and treason against U.S. states
With 212 traitors in the U.S. House of Representatives.br /br /Paul Krugman a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/opinion/29krugman.html"didn’t mince words yesterday/a in discussing last week’s Waxman-Markey climate vote, talking about “treason against the planet.”br / br /And, if we don’t want to stop at calling the 212 traitors against the planet, folks in more northern states might call any of the 212 in their area traitors against their home states:br /blockquoteTemperature increases on the scale predicted by the M.I.T. researchers and others would create huge disruptions in our lives and our economy. As a recent authoritative U.S. government report points out, by the end of this century New Hampshire may well have the climate of North Carolina today, Illinois may have the climate of East Texas, and across the country extreme, deadly heat waves — the kind that traditionally occur only once in a generation — may become annual or biannual events./blockquotebr /Hope you downstate Illinois “Little Egypt” Republicans like 40 100-degree days a year. And six months of chiggers. And tiny, but 24-hour swarming, skeeters. And fire ants moving north. Want anything else from down here?div class="blogger-post-footer"There is no god and I am his prophet.img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7532871-6689552221301204772?l=socraticgadfly.blogspot.com'//div
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Najib, Meritocracy, Quotas The NEP
At a dinner organised by the MCA and the Associated Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (ACCCIM), the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak has not only announced a new “National Scholarship” category that will be based on merit, but more importantly he had also hinted at a href="http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysia/30735-najib-to-introduce-merit-based-scholarships-hints-at-dropping-racial-quotas"removing quotas/a in all economic sectors in Malaysia by admitting that “having quotas is not the right way and is not good for Bumiputeras”.br /br /We fully supports all efforts to improve the economic livelihood of all poor bumiputeras and Malaysia, and believe that the quota system as has been implemented under BN's New Economic Policy (NEP) has failed the bumiputeras for it has promoted a rent-seeking culture, and entrenched cronyism and corruption among its politically connected beneficiaries.br /br /Therefore, we are willing to provide full support to the Prime Minister to eliminate the inefficient and ineffective NEP quota system, and in its place promote meritocracy, not only for scholarships, but in all sectors including education and the economy. The policy on meritocracy should be complemented with an affirmative action policy based on needs, and not race.span class="fullpost"br /br /However, the goodwill and sincerity of Najib's statement is put to question when on the very same evening, his Deputy Prime Minister, continued to a href="http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/6/28/nation/4214454sec=nation"stir Malay racial sentiments/a with the clarion call that “Umno will fight to the last drop of blood to protect Malay rights” in his speech in Pagoh, Johor. Taken together with the Prime Minister's own persistence in Malay and Muslim unity talks with PAS, raises the question as to whether the Barisan Nasional government is continuing the policy of singing a different song to a different racial audience.br /br /This divide and rule concept also clearly flies in the face of the 1Malaysia concept being preached by Najib, as UMNO continues to place Malay unity and Malay rights above everything else under its “ketuanan Melayu” concept where all other BN component parties and ethnic groups are subjugated to the authority of UMNO.br /br /We would like to call upon the Prime Minister to put his words into action by delivering a Ministerial statement in Parliament to call for the removal of the quota-based New Economic Policy and to replace it with a New Economic Agenda which promotes meritocracy and a needs-based affirmative action policy to help all poor, regardless of race, creed or religion. br /br /I'm sure Pakatan Rakyat will give the Prime Minister our full support in Parliament to ensure that such a New Economic Agenda bill is approved as the new economic paradigm for Malaysia. We believe that a just, fair and equitable economic foundation will serve the interest of all Malaysians and will be the best approach to improve the competitiveness, competence and livelihood of the bumiputeras./spandiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/37045477-2337729741975319341?l=tonypua.blogspot.com'//div
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Question the timing
a href="http://alterdestiny.blogspot.com/2009/06/coup-in-honduras.html"Erik Loomis/a happened to be in Honduras the other day, just as Kermit Roosevelt happened to be in Iran during the summer of 1953.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7163938-2668385050519747384?l=lefarkins.blogspot.com'//div
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Giving Away The Show
I'll have more tomorrow, but like a href="http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2009/06/justice-alitos-disgraceful-concurrence.html"Publius/a I was amazed to come home and read Alito's remarkable-and-not-in-a-good-way a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-1428.ZC1.html"concurrence /afocusing on the Scary Black Guy who allegedly caused New Haven to jettiosn its testing process for promotions. As Adam a href="http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=06amp;year=2009amp;base_name=rebuking_alito"also points out/a, Ginsburg was devastating in noting that Alito's stories were strikingly unencumbered by any evidence that Kimber actually had any influence at all on the politically insulated commission that reached the decision, let alone more influence than the other interests that strongly supported the lawsuit. Indeed, not only is there no evidence, there isn't even a plausible chain of causation; it's just wingnut innuendo all the way down.br /br /At any rate, I'm sure Alito's excessively candid sharing of beside-the-point race-baiting Republican talking points should provide some comic relief when Republican Senators claim that Sotomayor is insufficiently impartial, what with her "empathy" and all.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7163938-7406062679757428830?l=lefarkins.blogspot.com'//div
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Monday, June 29, 2009
SOFA - Step II
Last fall, coalition forces began to turn over major military bases in Iraq to the Iraqi Security Forces.br /br /Today marks the second major step towards fulfilling our obligations under the Status of Forces Agreement that has all combat troops out of Iraq by 2011. Today, the last bases inside the cities of Iraq will be turned over or closed. a href="http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-06-29-voa29.cfm"Today is one step closer to a free and sovereign Iraq. /abr /br /a href="http://en.aswataliraq.info/?p=114952"br /It is not a day without trepidation./a Many Iraqis worry that the security forces will be up to the task of securing their safety. Some most likely worry that the simmering crisis in Iran will boil over, and refugees will spill over into an Iraq just barely beginning to come out of a al-qaeda inflamed sectarian crisis. br /br /If you pray, pray for the people of Iraq, that peace and freedom may come quickly.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/34649397-713749422319015335?l=acutepolitics.blogspot.com'//div
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J. L. Carr and St Faith's, Newton in the Willows
a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx723euVUZ04xDrA5KoJ4ZsMdhUms7XwsbhU49_9CKBG2O4nZENTlP9kG88b49-I75bVD6LUWAJeD9AbLUl5YaCxXwoG790KvOT2X8pVgxkbB4mqSVEEksMVsy99SVDmNgKxtaT_gDPHT0/s1600-h/newton1.jpg"img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5352891172463754194" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 291px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx723euVUZ04xDrA5KoJ4ZsMdhUms7XwsbhU49_9CKBG2O4nZENTlP9kG88b49-I75bVD6LUWAJeD9AbLUl5YaCxXwoG790KvOT2X8pVgxkbB4mqSVEEksMVsy99SVDmNgKxtaT_gDPHT0/s400/newton1.jpg" border="0" //abr /A few years ago a a href="http://disgruntledradical.blogspot.com/"friend/a gave me a copy of a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Last-Englishman-Life-J-L-Carr/dp/1854108387"The Last Englishman/a - Byron Rogers' biography of J. L. Carr. A Yorkshireman, Carr was a primary school headmaster from Kettering who had great success late in his life as a novelist and publisher of eccentric small books.br /br /One chapter of the biography deals with Carr's attempt to save the Medieval church of St Faith's at Newton - Newton in the Willows, if you prefer its more romantic name - near Geddington. When he discovered it in the 1960s it was in the process of being closed down by the diocese of Peterborough. The fittings were moved to other churches or stolen by intruders and the interior was further damaged by archaeological excavations.br /br /Thanks to Carr's efforts the building was saved and is now a a href="http://www.newtonfieldcentre.org.uk/"field centre/a, run by a charitable trust. I approached it across the fields from Geddington last Saturday and found everything padlocked when I arrived. Even when an operating church is locked you are allowed to sit in the porch to shelter - I have even been taken home and given a cup of tea by a woman doing the flowers.br /br /Newton was also the site of a great house owned by the Treshams - whom we met recently at a href="http://liberalengland.blogspot.com/2009/06/rushton-triangular-lodge.html"Rushton/a - but the only thing left from that estate is the 17th century dovecote near the church.br /br /br /a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn5cUViBvMAsY33PJIqY_Q9zO2zjk4uebG5D_JS_KinI1mVEsB-juPEeWMNkASmtNjG4XcdtQTyl1nJg5l2gEZftOe1d-c_RqE8M6HZklorCsTA9mlsBU5CAi0kw4XI20fIGgJeGVd3d81/s1600-h/newton2.jpg"img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5352883660788594194" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn5cUViBvMAsY33PJIqY_Q9zO2zjk4uebG5D_JS_KinI1mVEsB-juPEeWMNkASmtNjG4XcdtQTyl1nJg5l2gEZftOe1d-c_RqE8M6HZklorCsTA9mlsBU5CAi0kw4XI20fIGgJeGVd3d81/s400/newton2.jpg" border="0" //abr /There is another, darker story from Newton in the Willows: the story of the a href="http://www.newtonrebels.org.uk/rebels/history.htm"Newton Rebels/a:br /divdivblockquotep1607 was just a few years into the reign of James I. Times were hard. Harvests had been poor, the weather bad, and the population was growing. Food was expensive and hard to come by. The enclosure of common land by local landowners, especially the Treshams of Rushton, a notorious Roman Catholic family – hard up since the involvement of Frances in the Powder Treason only two years earlier - and their cousins at Newton, was the last straw./ppTrouble had been building up in Northamptonshire since May Eve, probably after a few drinks to celebrate May Day, a traditional festival which also marked the beginning of the season when animals had been permitted to graze on the common land in nearby Rockingham Forest./ppDiscontent spread across north Northamptonshire, and to Leicestershire and Warwickshire throughout May. The events at Newton were the culmination of the Midlands Revolt when King James feared that after hearing reports of 3000 at Hillmorton in Warwickshire and 5000 at Cotesbach in Leicestershire, the situation was becoming out of control. A gibbet was set up in the city of Leicester as a warning not to get involved. It was torn down by the people./ppThe protesters called themselves diggers and levellers – terms that would be more familiar when heard again in the Civil War./p/blockquoteOver 1000 peasants gathered from Rockingham Forest - men, women and children - led by a href="http://www.dta.org.uk/ourlongandlivelytraditionUNPUBLISHED/historycontentsummary/captainpouch.htm"Captain Pouch/a. He was a tinker whose real name was John Reynoldes. He claimed to have authority from the kingdom of Heaven and to have a pouch which contained "that which shall keep you from all harm". Following the events of 8 June, it was found to contain nothing more than a piece of green cheese./divbr /divThe armed bands formed of local men were reluctant to be involved and the gentry had to rely on their own servants to support them. The rebels refused to obey the orders to disperse, and continued to pull down hedges and fill in the enclosing ditches. The King's proclamation was read twice. Still the rebels refused to give way./divbr /divFinally, the gentry and their troops charged, and over 40 peasants were killed. Prisoners were taken, imprisoned in St Faith's Church, and the ringleaders tried, hanged and quartered. Their quarters were hung in towns across Northamptonshire as a clear message./divbr /divAt St Faith's today there is a memorial to the men who were executed: "May their souls rest in peace."/divdivbr //diva href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjboWL2HBomNql3TayYYdpxRtMAFbW2KDscBNuaoGqf-xCkGH7kPOlYgSCzzfqb_ZY09iilmWXxeHnf1w2eMsXQ3Rt9oSqF6zZFH4PvppLTTe2-u_fJ2rjAPpRfnE4mfZqdnboX0_JD6M_w/s1600-h/newton3.jpg"img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5352883915114812338" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjboWL2HBomNql3TayYYdpxRtMAFbW2KDscBNuaoGqf-xCkGH7kPOlYgSCzzfqb_ZY09iilmWXxeHnf1w2eMsXQ3Rt9oSqF6zZFH4PvppLTTe2-u_fJ2rjAPpRfnE4mfZqdnboX0_JD6M_w/s400/newton3.jpg" border="0" //a/divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6606798-5052011943211859076?l=liberalengland.blogspot.com'//div
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‘Change without change’ the real Obama mantra
In Financial Times, a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/706bbcde-640d-11de-a818-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1"Clive Crook says it perfectly/a, as the Fort Worth Police Department claims it was just doing its job.br /br /In case that’s not clear, let’s let Clive speak in detail:br /blockquoteThe cap-and-trade bill is a travesty. … The Waxman-Markey bill, while going through the complex motions of creating a carbon abatement regime, takes care to neutralise itself. …br /br /If you regard universal access to health insurance as an urgent priority, as I do, the draft healthcare bills are easier to defend as at least a step in the right direction. Nonetheless, the same evasive mindset – the appetite for change without change – has guided their design. If you are happy with your present insurance, the bills’ designers keep telling voters, you will see no difference. …br /br /The president has cast himself not as a leader of reform, but as a cheerleader for “reform” – meaning anything, really, that can plausibly be called reform, however flawed./blockquotebr /Clive has a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/706bbcde-640d-11de-a818-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1"plenty more/a like that, ending with this bottom-line question:br /blockquoteFirst one must ask whether the bills really do represent progress, however modest./blockquotebr /On the two biggest issues, the answer is clearly no.br /br /Obama is lying out his ass with his claims to be able to get a future, second, climate-control bill passed when he didn’t do more of a leadership job on this one.br /br /As for national healthcare? “Change” without a single-payer option isn’t change.div class="blogger-post-footer"There is no god and I am his prophet.img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7532871-2535699502969199788?l=socraticgadfly.blogspot.com'//div
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Norwich North by-election to he held on 23 July
a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8125531.stm"More from the BBC/a.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6606798-3858133286483027835?l=liberalengland.blogspot.com'//div
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Fort Worth PD brutes have no sense of gay history
For whatever reasons, though police targeting of gays could well be part of the problem, a Fort Worth Police Department and Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission inspection of the Rainbow Lounge, reportedly over concerns it was serving intoxicated patrons, a href="http://www.star-telegram.com/804/story/1458831.html"turned into a full-blown raid/a, including a cracked skull for one patron.br /br /And, the brutality of this raid, coming just before the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots? For the Fort Worth PD to still not have a PR clue so far is ridiculous.br /br /The Fort Worth PD claims it’s not targeting anybody, a href="http://media.star-telegram.com/smedia/2009/06/28/19/219-FWPD.source.prod_affiliate.58.doc"just doing a job/a. br /br /a href="http://www.dallasvoice.com/artman/publish/article_11499.php"Dallas Voice has more/a.div class="blogger-post-footer"There is no god and I am his prophet.img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7532871-4764826628418257525?l=socraticgadfly.blogspot.com'//div
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New Alan Bennett play looks at Britten and Auden
While I consider a posting on the parallels between Michael Jackson and Benjamin Britten, a href="http://www.praguepost.com/night-and-day/cinema/1605-from-stage-to-screen.html"The Prague Post/a brings news that Alan Bennett has written a play on the relationship between Britten and the poet W. H. Auden.br /br /Called "The Habit of Art", it will star Michael Gambon, Alex Jennings and Frances de la Tour and open at the National Theatre. It will also be broadcast to selected cinemas as part of the theatre's NT Live programme.br /br /a href="http://theater-ticket.conciergedesk.co.uk/articles/2009/04/30/the-habit-of-art/"Concierge Desk/a explains a little more about the play:br /blockquoteThe play tells the story of an imagined meeting as Auden and Britten meet in the 1960s towards the end of their lives. The two had worked together on the documentary ‘Night Mail’ and the operetta ‘Paul Bunyan’ but fell out with each other in the 1940s./blockquoteAnd a href="http://www.playbill.com/news/article/129324-National_Theatre_Announces_Additional_Broadcasts_in_NT_Live_Series"Playbill/a will tell you more about NT live.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6606798-937379393891236549?l=liberalengland.blogspot.com'//div
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Hot weather is good news for the vineyards of Market Harborough
Today's a href="http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/news/Signs-good-vintage-wine-year/article-1119084-detail/article.html"Leicester Mercury/a says:br /blockquotepVineyard owners are keeping their fingers crossed for a bumper crop in the county this year following forecasts of a hot summer./ppWet summers in the past two years have seen some vineyards producing only a quarter of their best crop – or less./ppNow, owners say the recent hot spells mixed with wet weather have produced excellent growing conditions./p/blockquoteIt goes on to report:br /blockquoteDavid Bates, who has run Welland Valley Vineyard, at Marston Trussell, near Market Harborough, for 20 years, said: "The portents are there for a good crop, but you never count your chickens."/blockquotea href="http://welland-vineyard.com/index.php?option=com_contentamp;task=blogcategoryamp;id=7amp;Itemid=2"Welland Valley Vineyard/a has its own website, but I can't see where the chickens come into it.div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6606798-5606872667811434200?l=liberalengland.blogspot.com'//div
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An old Lancaster ISD dog won’t learn new tricks?
The Lancaster School Board is slated one finalist for its new superintendent June 29. br /br /That’s after the district selected three semifinalists the week before but refused to release their names when asked. Given Lancaster’s history in this area with superintendents, I think the district would want to take a different tack.br /br /In 2006, when Cedar Hill ISD wound up hiring Horace Williams, the district not only named all three semifinalists by name, but, had open meet-and-greet times for the public with each of the three.br /br /For a school district that, from where I sit, pretty much inflicted its previous superintendent, Larry Lewis, on the public as a lone finalist, the public relations on this looks bad even if it isn’t illegal. After five years, the board finally fired Lewis, then came to a settlement agreement on a lawsuit he fired.br /br /And, given that Board President Carolyn Morris had the most acrimonious relationship with that former superintendent, Lewis, of anybody on the board, you would think that she, if anybody, would know better.br /br /So, there you go, Lancaster residents, especially parents of school children. Your board, more than five years after a hiring disaster, and with the example of another local school district on how to do things right, has given the impression it still doesn¹t care about you.div class="blogger-post-footer"There is no god and I am his prophet.img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7532871-2949439630686024606?l=socraticgadfly.blogspot.com'//div
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The wrap on Gov. Sanford’s self-inflicted wounds
The State, Columbia, S.C.’s paper, has a set of great articles on how Gov. Mark Sanford wrecked his political career. First, from Sunday, the paper says a href="http://www.thestate.com/sanford/story/844260.html"five things brought Sanford down/a. Then, if you can’t remember anything, it has a href="http://www.thestate.com/sanford/story/838623.html"a handy timetable/a. And today, we get the latest in the South Carolina GOP a href="http://www.thestate.com/sanford/story/845265.html"Sanford death watch/a.br /br /I still doubt Sanford will resign, but who knows?div class="blogger-post-footer"There is no god and I am his prophet.img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/7532871-8275715228159205651?l=socraticgadfly.blogspot.com'//div
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