This is really sad. What a vibrant community this was.
If Barack ever wants to get this community really behind him ever again (in 2010 or 2012), he really needs to get a public option through on the healthcare bill. Not a trigger, not any other lame replacement. Yes, the rest of the reforms are important, but the public option is a litmus test.
Anything less will be considered a Republican victory, or at-least they will say it is (and be heard).
If there is to be vigorous Democratic support in 2010 or 2012 there MUST be a public option passed.
Dear President Obama,
You inherited something else -- the infrastructure problem, and it may not be as bad as they say it is -- it may be much, much worst.
You're responsible for one of the largest capital asset portfolio's on the planet; including America's roads, dams, schools, colleges/universities, hospitals, drinking water infrastructure, sewer systems, landfills, military bases, airports, police stations, fire stations, transit systems, electrical distributions systems, levees, parks, ports, borders, and more.
How much stuff is there? What is it all currently worth? How old is it? and How long do we expect it to last?
Open, transparent, and accurate data is required to address these questions, which may be the first step in solving America's rapidly approaching infrastructure crisis -- until then, should I hazard some guesses?
Here is some food for thought.
Let’s say we took 200 billion dollars and built 40 nuclear power plants. Say 20 by GE and 20 by Westinghouse. All steel and parts would be required to be manufactured in the United States of America. We would locate them on Government land like the INEL, NTS, ORNL, Hanford and other location that are part of the DOE complex. The power generate by these plants would be sold to the grid to recover the cost of building these plants. This would jump start an industry that we are the best in the world and we could then export the technology to reduce are trade deficit.
Please commit
If need to make smart decision with the money we spend on the recovery plan.
Cable news and right wing blogs are swarming with the revisionist history on the New Deal. Arm yourself against lies, spin and propaganda by reading info from a number of sources.
Here down a article about this topic. [Media Matters is a progressive media watchdog and fact checking organization which has received accolades from numerous sources (except the right wing media which often gets debunked by Media Matters).]
The link to digg it and for article: Conservatives Cherry-Pick 1930s Unemployment Figures
Summary: Columnists Mona Charen and George Will continued a trend among conservative media of responding to comparisons between the current economic situation and that of the 1930s and between Barack Obama and FDR by attacking the New Deal. In separate columns, both Charen and Will cherry-picked unemployment figures to assert that the New Deal did not reduce unemployment. But historians and progressive economists have noted that unemployment fell every year of the New Deal except during the 1937-38 recession; further, Nobel-laureate Paul Krugman has said it was a reversal of New Deal policies, not a continuance of them, that contributed to rising unemployment in 1937 and 1938.
Yes we can! Best wishes, Steffen
http://changeforbetterworld.blogspot.com/2009/01/my-way-to-say-goodbye-to-neocons-bush.html
Formal Petition to Attorney General-Designate Eric Holder to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute any and all government officials who have participated in War Crimes.
You can Digg it: My_way to say GOODBYE to neocons, Bush and Cheney!
A picture from me to say goodbye from most bad president of US and all neocons.We can only hope many people will long enough remember. Bush had a lot bad gifts for the change! Let's take care the poor and normal people will not have to pay now too much after the rich made profit in good time!And what's with impeachment now?! What's with hidden knowledge of Sept. 11 2001?[ Maybe an explanation of picture: it's made like an "egg laying wool milk sow" a metaphorical-idiomatic term in Germany]
Yeah, and here you can see something new about neocons were bringing to us - for me to say: don't forgive Bush and neocons and there is still a lot to work of. We will and can do this too - Yes we can!I got now message too like "If anybody can clean up the mess bush left, it's President Obama." - Yes and Obama likes people helping still to do the work - help him! We were a big and strong movement and so people got knowledge back how strong people can be together! Whistleblower: Bush's NSA spied on EVERYONE (already 4255 Diggs) The NSA had access to ALL YOUR COMMUNICATIONS, regardless of who you were or whether or not you were communicating internationally.
I think it’s time to get our hands down from the air, leave the ecstasy of Super-Tuesday, and get down to some working. I believe being a member of this group means that we generally agree about the politics set by the coming administration. So this writing is not so much about discussing the politics, but to find applicable ways to implement the defined strategies into our daily lives.
Today's news from Mexico is grimmer than ever: in the past two months gangs of thugs have gunned down 50 people in Tijuana, apparently in random terrorist attacks. This should remind us of the rampant violence in Nuevo Laredo in which at least 21 Americans were among those missing or were eventually found dead, thanks to a different drug cartel. Recent statistics credit as many as 5,400 deaths annually to the Mexican drug cartels, whose activities are primarily aimed at smuggling drugs into the U.S.
If we leave this issue to the traditional right wing, we know what they will offer us: higher walls, more border patrols, more money to Mexican anti-drug efforts. Never mind that the smugglers dig tunnels and many of the elite anti-narcotics officers trained at Fort Bennett are now called "Los Zetas", the vicious group responsible for the Nuevo Laredo trouble. The more money we throw at the problem the more violence and mayhem will ensue, but as long as those in power can tell their constituents that they are doing something, as long as they tell themselves that they are reassuring the public.
Unfortunately, wishing doesn't make good policy. Look at the history of China, which for millennia was the greatest empire on Earth. In 1729 the Emperor was annoyed by a few nobles smoking opium at court. By 1840 he was signing Unequal Treaties giving power to the drug smugglers. The harder the Chinese fought to ban drugs, the more profitable it became for the British to smuggle them in. The only thing that ended the nightmare was that the British, apparently no wiser than the Chinese, demanded after the second Opium War that the Chinese legalize the drug. About 40 years later the Chinese were producing all the opium they wanted, their opium usage began to decline, and other countries around the world started passing laws to prohibit the importation of opium... at which point, drug crimes began to plague the rest of the world.
After ninety years of Prohibition, groups like the Zetas have advanced military weapons and are beginning to pose a real threat to the U.S. that local police departments are hard-pressed to fight. Where will things go from here? Will we wait until they are crossing our borders and devastating whole towns, then copy the "security zone" policy Israel used in Lebanon and invade parts of Mexico? Will we wait until they have subverted branches of the government and have full use of weapons of mass destruction? Will we see the day when our country suffers the same national humiliation as the Chinese?
There is a better way. Though I think we should, we don't even have to legalize drugs. All we need to do is recognize a basic symmetry that is as clear as day to the source countries plagued by drug violence: in the international community, it is as irresponsible for a nation to be a net drug consumer as it is to be a drug producer. We should recognize that the extremely tough measures taken against people who grow or manufacture drugs in the U.S. have an effect on our neighbors to the south - a hill of corpses of innocent people from Tijuana and Laredo. We don't need to declare a full legalization to end this - just dial down enforcement against small scale domestic production of whatever people currently smuggle over the border from Mexico.
According to a 2007 San Francisco Chronicle article, smugglers buy marijuana in Mexico for $500 per kilogram and sell it for a little more than double that price in the U.S. All we have to do to put a complete stop to the smuggling is allow enough domestic production to lower the price here to $500 per kilogram. That isn't like a border interdiction policy where you stop 5% and 95% gets through - if the price is too low, no one can make a living by smuggling. All of these vicious gangs will be left with nothing to fight over. Smugglers also bring in methamphetamine, thanks to restrictive legislation that forces common cold medications to be sold behind the counter in the U.S. Since Mexico can't control precursors so carefully, a market has been created. Let's roll back those restrictions. I'm not saying that local "meth cooks" in American communities aren't a nuisance and a fire hazard, but according to an interview on A&E one of the more diligent drug makers was making $800 per week selling to 20 customers. That's not even a very good salary, let alone a threat to national security!
On the other end, we need to make sure that well-meaning efforts to be more compassionate on drug issues do not lead to increases in demand. However sensible it may be to allow drug users to get by with little or no penalty, it is not sensible to set this up while maintaining draconian penalties for those who fill this demand. Such a shortsighted approach can only lead to more crime and a backlash against "legalization". We must also speak out against cheerleaders for drug use, who are apt to turn up in the strangest places. For example, there has been an ongoing discussion of "neuroenhancement" at the leading scientific journal Nature, in which survey respondents and editorialists alike have been claiming that taking amphetamines like Adderall and Ritalin is a harmless way for college students to enhance their academic performance. I've added my comments to oppose this wild excess of misplaced enthusiasm - it's not easy to improve on evolution - but this cheerleading for amphetamine and related drugs has shown up in many news reports. Eventually this kind of glowing optimism will wind up in random shootings over trade routes to bring crude methamphetamine to people who have gotten addicted, unless we do something.
Obama, please: declare a goal of "no net import/export" for all drug contraband through moderate relaxation of prohibitions on domestic manufacture for drugs that are imported, or consumption for drugs that are exported.
I'd like to make sure everyone here has heard the news about the Zimbabwe cholera epidemic. This has been covered very well by contributors at Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Zimbabwean_cholera_outbreak ). To summarize very briefly, most sources are saying that approximately 600 people have died, 12,000 people are infected, and the death rate of the infection is 10%. It is transmitted by impure water, and the water supply system has run out of treatment chemicals and the capital stopped receiving piped water on December 1. Only one of four major hospitals remains open and has no medicine. Cases have been reported in wards throughout Zimbabwe except in the far west, and cases have been reported in Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa and Zambia. Clearly this is a catastrophe of the first order, yet it is only a small taste of what is to come.
I can't guess at what is the best response here - fixing Zimbabwe seemed next to impossible without a deadline. Maybe we need people to talk to Zuma (who seems as well placed as anyone to get something done), try to get through to Mugabe, load a few cargo planes with chemicals, medicine, and bottled water and get them to Zimbabwe... and explore any other ways to end the wider humanitarian crisis in that country.
Even the most heartless Republican should realize that any case of this illness in Africa could become the source for a biological weapon that we could meet up with in our own cities at any time for decades to come. If people can dream that Mugabe and Tsvangirai could get together and arrange a power-sharing agreement, then surely Bush should be able to work with Obama to get some useful response under way before January 20. Stopping a great plague is in everyone's national interest.
Everyone here should know about the www.change.gov president-elect website. I was looking over the agenda again, and it is nice to see besides all of the more familiar ideas, a number of really nice, surprising ideas that stand out.
* We should know that during Clinton's administration the national rate of violent crime was cut in half. But could Obama possibly do that again? Well, with proposals like "Reduce Crime Recidivism by Providing Ex-Offender Support", maybe. Instead of leaving parolees to sink or swim, do more to give them a chance to transition to an honest living.
* We should know that mercury in the environment is a problem, but this surprised even me: "More than five million women of childbearing age have high levels of toxic mercury in their blood and more than 630,000 newborns are born every year at risk. The EPA estimates that every year, more than one child in six could be at risk for developmental disorders because of mercury exposure in the mother's womb. Since the primary sources of mercury in fish are power plant emissions that contaminate our water, regulation of utility emissions is essential to protecting the health of our children." And I still can't get used to the idea that now we could have someone in charge who could do something about it.
* When we read the civil rights agenda, white folks may be tempted to let our attention wander. But look at this: "Obama and Biden will fight job discrimination for aging employees by strengthening the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and empowering the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to prevent all forms of discrimination." This is something we all might benefit from. The additional proposal for expanding adult job retraining reinforces it.
* Though I briefly mentioned it in email on the "Scientists and engineers for Obama" group, I never even tried to propose the need for patent reform for the party platform, thinking it was too obscure a problem to attract attention. Yet here it is in the agenda! This will help pull American companies out of the tar pit - more research, less legal wrangling.
* My home state of Pennsylvania should benefit four-fold from the proposal to create millions of green jobs in developing and deploying clean coal technology: once from the jobs; once from cleaner local air that won't kill people with asthma; once from a reduction of continuing acid rain from the Midwest allowing forests and fisheries to recover; and at last from the reliable supply of alternative oil-free fuel from the coal-to-fuel refineries that Obama, governor Rendell and other Democrats have proposed.
On the other hand, there are a handful of proposals that may need a little more time in the oven.
* A proposal to "shut down the mechanisms used to transmit criminal profits by shutting down untraceable Internet payment schemes" makes me worry about what rights could be infringed. Besides, I'm not convinced it can be done. For example, if I bury a gold coin on public land, I could send the location as an untraceable payment - how could that be stopped?
* The plan to "set a goal that all middle and high school students do 50 hours of community service" yearly seems perhaps a poor reward for many of the young volunteers who turned out so enthusiastically to support us. While I think that educating kids about volunteering can be a good thing, this would ask them to do what would amount to $2,000 worth of community service at college student rates. Is it really fair to impose this much community service on all kids every year, rather than giving them nearly another two weeks of actual instruction? Let's plead this down to a misdemeanor.
* The phrase "Protect American Intellectual Property at Home" is potentially worrisome, though also an opportunity. In the past we have seen controversies where communication without surveillance, or even writing a program that allows communication without surveillance, has been presented as something illicit to be sacrificed to an archaic copyright system, rather than a right of free speech. This trend must not be allowed to continue.
Despite a few problematic terms, this agenda deserves credit for avoiding the most unappealing liberal issues, such as gun control, animal rights, and late-term abortions. We should all try to do the best we can with it, knowing how drastic an improvement it really is over what we faced so recently.
Note: After losing the my last version to it, here is the fix to the Firefox "feature" that pressing backspace is interpreted as a back arrow and an invitation to delete all your text: 1) type about:config as your URL; 2) select option "browser.backspace_action" and set its value to 2.
Obama's victory is a triumph for the pro-choice movement. But it could still be a victory for the pro-life movement also. During the campaign, I pointed to Clinton's success in reducing the number of abortions by 500,000 per year within the first few years of his presidency. If Obama's success is to be lasting, he must make every effort to ensure that progress with Democratic administrations becomes a visible trend. Every effort other than prohibition must be made to ensure that poor women are not economically coerced to seek abortions or led to this point by ignorance of contraception.
Additionally, there is Obama's promise to "sign FOCA" to deal with. In general, FOCA would seem to do fairly little to change the status quo and should offer a great political advantage of defusing the ability of Republicans to wield the issue in statewide controversies. But FOCA does not appear to contain definitions for such terms as the "health of the mother", which it assures the right to preserve by abortions of viable fetuses.
Now at this point the debate often derails, because abortion opponents are not sufficiently explicit about their fears. But the observable outcome if the law is signed without clarification will not be so easily avoided. I think that people are generally fairly confident in the ability of physicians to diagnose real medical reasons; the sticking point is the more questionable science of psychiatry. For example, the BBC documentary "Complete Obsession" documented the willingness of psychiatrists to write 'prescriptions' for "body dysmorphic disorder", approving the amputations of limbs of what in common language we would call crazy people who claim a psychological need to have limbs removed by the surgical methods of the day. So I think it is not an exaggeration to say that - so long as patients can pay - if psychiatrists are permitted to diagnose a health issue requiring any late term abortion, they will soon diagnose such reasons for every late term abortion. What this means is that FOCA, instead of being a small change in abortion policy, could become a drastic change to protect the sort of abortions that are seen on protest posters near the abortion clinic, with baby heads in forceps and pictures of a girl missing an arm after being accidentally born during a botched procedure.
I ask Obama, please, do not allow this FOCA to become a permanent liability to Democrats and to the defense of a larger number of more reasonable abortion procedures, contraception, and stem cell research that occur early in gestation before neuronal activity begins. Require a reasonable medical definition to be made of the "health of the mother" before any action is made on this bill.
The people (speaking charitably) behind the ultra-sleaze smear campaign, claiming that Vietnam veteran and triple amputee Max Cleland was a friend of Osama bin Laden, are at it again. Through the well-worn techniques of Republican vote suppression (http://www.gregpalast.com/the-steal-you-wont-see), Saxby Chandliss, winner of that "election", is ahead in this year's Georgia Senate race against Democrat Jim Martin.
But not enough ahead. He has fallen short of 50%, with the result that this contest is going to a runoff on Dec. 2. I don't know whether that is enough time to reregister those who were illegally thrown off the rolls, or to get a court to reinstate them, as in other states this year. I mean to find out, because Chandliss may well be the final obstacle to Democrats getting over 60 votes in the Senate and a filibuster-proof majority without Joe Lieberman.
This is where you come in. Just as we phonebanked all of the swing states in the Presidential election, now we have a new task:
Phonebanking Georgia
Bring the good ol' iPod folks! We'll sing another song,Sing it with a spirit that will start the world along,Sing it like we used to sing a hundred thousand strong,While we were phonebacking Georgia Hurrah! Hurrah! We bring the Jubilee.Hurrah! Hurrah! The ballot makes you free,So we sang the chorus from Atlanta to the sea,While we were phonebacking Georgia. "Barack's all-inclusive crew will never make the coast!"So the saucy sleazeballs said and 'twas a handsome boastHad they not forgot, alas! to reckon with the HostWhile we were phonebanking Georgia.So we made a thoroughfare for freedom and her train,Sixty miles of latitude, three hundred to the main;Oppression fled before us, for resistance was in vainWhile we were phonebanking Georgia.
next post in my main blog about "Change for better world" - here i collected some movies from this day and shortly before.
(And i saved it to hard disc too. If some original will not be longer responsible in YouTube i will bring it new.)
Please, ckick this link to see the movies:
The change - Obama Acceptance Speech - Change is come to America
[But of course - it's just beginning with the change, there is a lot to do. Please stay in touch, however we do that, through these groups or some other way. ]
I love it. I want to cry. This is the moment I've be waiting for for the last eight years. I have been wondering how it would be, how it would feel. It's so great. It feels like someone has taken a heavy load of my chest, a big rock. I finally can breathe again. It feels so good. I have seen a lot. I was in Berlin in `89 when the wall came down, but this is better. The American Dark Ages are going to be over, the American people have voted with their feet! They have voted against prejudice, intolerance, and hate. It's all going to be OK now. This country is great. Barack has done it, he has done it, and I was there, I was right in the middle of it all. After all those years, I finally can say again "I am proud to be an American".
Welcome back to the land of the free and the home of the brave!
As I note and hope to document the experience and change I've experienced since getting on this campaign, I find my personal story unravelling before my very eyes.
Today, I have answers as I continue to move forward against forces creating obstacles that seem mountainous, but with the right attitude and force, become successful targets for success. For those of us who see the change and are in the midst of it, actually at the vortex, may our connections only grow stronger.
Those who see and feel the need for change to pray, vote early, reach a friend, and continue to do what must be done. As a former field officer told me, this election will be like no other. She advised that this election would be Fannie Lou Hamer all over again. I see that although the elements are different.
As the media rolls into the last four days, they are doing their jobs like they should have been doing perhaps eight years ago. As last four days tick away, may we all bond and make the change which will not only be historical. yet phenomenal. A spiritual, psychological, astronomical, quintessinal change is taking efrect and we must concentrate it over the next four days like never before.
Palin also has indicated that science, to her, is a point of view, not a process, and that school children should get to hear other points of view, such as intelligent design. This would be bad for science and bad for the economy. The Bush administration has muzzled scientists and other professionals and has ignored reports about climate change and environmental hazards. A McCain/Palin administration may be even worse. Vote for Obama/Biden.
Beginning at the Republican National Convention in August, the McCain-Palin ticket has touted a 715-mile pipeline to bring natural gas from Alaska to the Lower 48 as an example of how it would help America achieve energy independence. As it looks now the bidding process was flawed, narrowing the field to a company with ties to her administration.
Link: AP INVESTIGATION: Palin pipeline terms curbed bids
Palin was introduced to the American People as an honest, down-to-earth reformer who curbed corruption in Alaska and brought common sense into politics. What a lie.
During the few weeks after the RNC convention a picture of her has emerged, showing a mini-dictator, who relentlessly filled positions with devoted followers, fired qualified staff, mixed family issues with politics, billed the State for hotel stays she never took, brought her kids to conventions and billed the State for their traveling expense, spent $ 150k for luxury outfits, stonewalled freedom of information act-issues, violated Sunshine Law principles, used secret email accounts to carry out State business, and has little more to show than vile attacks on her opponents, coming out of the bottom drawer. More than once she gave a desperate picture in interviews, showing a small-town politician who is hopelessly out of her league.
By picking such an unqualified candidate without proper screening, John McCain has proven that he is not the maverick he claims to be. He has shown bad judgmement, which disqualifies him for any voter other than the bottom dwellers of republicanism, who would probably vote for Geoffery Dahmer, as long as he was a Republican.
Eventually, after election day, someone will try to blame Mrs. Palin for the loss. Let's remember: McCain picked her, she didn't pick him.
This morning, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) gave her first policy speech urging the federal government to fully fund the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), “a law ensuring services to children with disabilities throughout the nation.” In the speech, Palin cited the need to do more for children with disabilities such as autism:
For many parents of children with disabilities, the most valuable thing of all is information. Early identification of a cognitive or other disorder, especially autism, can make a life-changing difference.
Palin claimed that the amount that Congress spends on earmarks “is more than the shortfall to fully fund IDEA.” She then ridiculed some of the projects — such as “fruit fly research” — saying they have little or no value:
Where does a lot of that earmark money end up anyway? […] You’ve heard about some of these pet projects they really don’t make a whole lot of sense and sometimes these dollars go to projects that have little or nothing to do with the public good. Things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not.
Palin did not specify what fruit fly research earmark she was referring to (presumably a grant for olive fruit fly research), but she is apparently unaware that scientific research with fruit flies has led to valuable discoveries that have boosted autism research, as a study at the University of North Carolina demonstrated last year:
[S]cientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine have shown that a protein called neurexin is required for..nerve cell connections to form and function correctly. The discovery, made in Drosophila fruit flies may lead to advances in understanding autism spectrum disorders, as recently, human neurexins have been identified as a genetic risk factor for autism.
[S]cientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine have shown that a protein called neurexin is required for..nerve cell connections to form and function correctly.
The discovery, made in Drosophila fruit flies may lead to advances in understanding autism spectrum disorders, as recently, human neurexins have been identified as a genetic risk factor for autism.
The study of fruit flies has also been used for other autism research and “revolutionize[d]” the study of birth defects.
He will make improvements in the delivery of health care, including lower-cost health insurance for the currently uninsured. This will be a substantial effort, but it is not instituting socialism in our country. Historically, the government has cleaned up oil spills and provided other, more subtle support for the oil industry. No one called it socialism.
Obama's plans provide incentives for wind, solar, bio-fuel, and other alternative energy sources, as well as advance policies to encourage reduction in use of fossil fuels, such as stricter standards for gas mileage. These measures are in line with what our government has done in other areas. They will achieve multiple goals: provide jobs here in the USA; reduce dependence on foreign oil; reduce total consumption of oil, thus reducing income to several unfriendly, non-democratic countries; and reduce effects causing climate change.
Obama is for reasonable regulation of the financial industry. The Bush administration, with strong support from McCain and his advisors, has promoted deregulation, encouraging a financial bubble on top of a housing bubble, leading to the current disastrous collapse. As a result, it has become necessary to make the largest investment ever of government funds into private firms. This bailout certainly comes closer to socialism than the programs in health care and energy Obama proposes.
Obama is the one to trust to reform the system, protect the taxpayer, and revert back to the non-corporate socialism, American way.
