June 17, 2011 archive

Report From NN11 Minneapolis: Friday

Cross posted posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

Yesterday was a busy day here at NN11 in sunny, warm Minneapolis, MN. There are so many really interesting panels that choosing which to attend is tough. I’m also here in a different capacity than I was in Pittsburgh two years ago, I have two webs sites that I administer. I’ll talk about that later probably when I get back.

On  of the outstanding panel I attended was with Jane Hamsher of FDL, John Aravosis of AMERICAblog, DADT, LGBT and Army veteran Lt. Dan Choi and Dream Act activist Felipe Matos. They discusses what progressives could do when the president is not into your issues and how to get the administration to take the lead. When the floor opened to questions, the first person to a approach the stage was a young an who said he was a member of Obama For America (OFA) who managed to cause an incident that has gotten quite a bit of attention from the internet and on-line news media:

Lt. Dan Choi, who was discharged from the military for running afoul of its anti-gay Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, provided a visual when an Organizing for America volunteer stood up and asked him to support Obama in 2012. The man said he did not support gay marriage — “civil unions?” he offered weakly — and Choi promptly ripped up an Organizing for America flyer he had been given and threw it back in the man’s face.

I also had the pleasure and honor of saluting Lt. Choi and giving him a hug. Here’s is the video of the full panel which was quite a lively conversation

Watch live streaming video from freespeechtv at livestream.com

Leveraging the Ron Paul – Ralph Nader Mutual Admiration Society in 2011-20

( cross posted at ronpaulforums.com)

An encouraging video with Ralph Nader and Ron Paul, showing the considerable overlap on MULTIPLE, MAJOR issues, was posted some months ago at youtube, and recently written about here at MyFDL.

Now, while I would expect him to avoid being too upfront about it, I have to believe that Ron Paul knows that he’s extremely unlikely to win the Presidency in 2012. So, why is he running? I believe he’s running because he’s a patriotic American who wants to alter the political climate in America, and he realizes that a run for Presidecy gives his ideas a large forum, from which those ideas can germinate and further grow in the American mind. Such a calculus is not totally unlike the efforts of the New Progressive Alliance (NPA) to run a challenger against Obama in the Democratic Primary. Beating Obama isn’t the point. Fighting back against Obama’s corporatism and banksterism is.

Good on Ron Paul. However, I want to make a couple of suggestions that, I believe, would both help maximize Ron Paul’s efforts to build up a libertarian-ish Republican faction, but that would also help make the sort of coalition that Ron Paul calls for, in Congress, larger and more effective. As an added bonus, these suggestions might help prepare the groundwork for a fusion party.

Krugman on Macroeconomics

Crossposted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

I often quote Herr Dockor Professor when I agree with him because he’s got a Nobel Prize and I…

Well, I have many accomplishments I’m quite proud of but a Nobel Prize in Economics is not among them.

Recently he’s published two summaries of his pieces on macroeconomics that I’d like to draw to your attention before they scroll away and get hard to find-

Macro Readings, Self-Referential Edition, June 10, 2011

Macro Readings Update, June 13, 2011

(note: He includes some duplicates I have omitted.  Also I have arranged them chronologically.)

Now just because I’m drawing them to your attention does not constitute endorsement.  I think Krugman’s criticisms of Modern Monetary Theory miss the mark almost entirely and he makes frequent category errors, too charitably ascribing to ignorance positions that are mercenary at best and motivated by pure evil in other cases.

Still, it’s not every Nobel Prize winning professor who gives away his lectures for free.

Six In The Morning

Obama pressed for swift U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) urges president Obama to quickly pull out at least half of the 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, another sign of Congress’ unease with the conflict.

By Lisa Mascaro, Washington Bureau  

Reporting from Washington– A leading antiwar congresswoman established a new marker in the Afghanistan war debate Friday, calling on President Obama to swiftly withdraw at least 50,000 U.S. troops in a further indication of Congress’ growing unease with the 10-year-old military operation.

The push from Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) offers the president a view from the political left as the White House engages in internal deliberations over the scale of the drawdown Obama plans to announce in July. Lee said anything less than a halving of the 100,000 U.S. troop presence would be too modest.




Saturday’s Headlines:

Drought and poachers take Botswana’s natural wonder to brink of catastrophe

Saudi women take to the road in show of defiance

Paris and Berlin unite behind new Greek aid package

TEPCO documents show problems encountered in venting, pumping water to damaged reactors

Deploying New Tools to Stop the Hackers

Six In The Morning

Egyptian revolution’s unsung heroes languish in hospitals

An estimated 11,000 people were injured in protests that toppled Hosni Mubarak. But months later, as many still undergo costly treatment, officials have done little to compensate their families or prosecute their attackers.

By Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Los Angeles Times

June 17, 2011

Reporting from Cairo– When Rahma Mohamed steps out of her son’s line of sight, he begins to tremble. She rushes to cradle the 23-year-old’s thin frame, kissing his stubbly cheek.

“Relax,” she murmurs. “I’m here next to you; you’re all right. Don’t cry.”

Since Jan. 28, when security forces beat him and ran him over during the protests that toppled President Hosni Mubarak, Mahmoud Mohamed has been unable to speak, walk, eat or use the bathroom on his own. His head is a tapestry of scars and bandages, tubes sprout from his neck, and his palsied hands are clasped in front of a now-bony chest.

He was trying to protect two friends. His mother says both were shot to death by security forces.




Friday’s Headlines:

Tunisia woos tourists with controversial advertising campaign

Athens on ‘political suicide mission’ to pass cuts after €12bn loan deal

Syria crisis: Troops move into towns in north

Nato pounds Tripoli as rebels reject election offer

Vietnam-China Spratly Islands dispute threatens to escalate

Muse in the Morning

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Muse in the Morning

Time for a break from poetry…in order to create some art.

We are sun and moon, dear friend; we are sea and land. It is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognize each other, to learn to see the other and honor him for what he is: each the other’s opposite and complement.

–Hermann Hesse



Kaboom 1

Late Night Karaoke