Oct 29 2008
December 21st 2012, the end of this Mayan Cycle, which is prophesied as the end of times… could it be a Palin election, global warming floods or just World revolt against the poverty into which we have been stricken?
into this:
No matter how many times we repeat the form, it never makes sense.
Oct 29 2008
This is an open thread. Chat away. Please do not rec the open thread.
Oct 29 2008
Original article, subtitled Their system creates recession, hunger and climate chaos, but they want you to pay, via Socialist Worker (UK):
Until A few weeks ago, supporters of free market capitalism were confident enough to proclaim that their system was the only way that the world could be organised. Now their certainties have vanished.
Oct 29 2008
A whole bunch of vital races tend to get lost amidst big media’s obsession with the minutiae of the ‘big’ races, especially in presidential years. One of those races is mentioned this morning in the Seattle P-I –
The campaign to be the state’s next commissioner of public lands is one of the tightest and most polarized political races this year.
It is also the least understood, though the office determines the management of 5.6 million acres of state timber and aquatic lands, shorelines and agricultural fields for a trust that funds public schools and universities throughout Washington.
Crossposted from La Vida Locavore, more below the fold…
Oct 29 2008
I turned thirty-two years old today. And one week from today, I will do something I have never done before: cast my vote for the winning candidate for President of the United States, Senator Barack Obama. It will be an interesting change to have a President who has my actual endorsement.
It has been an interesting political season, as well. The prospective election of a multi-racial man to the Presidency has brought out much of the worst of Americans. All of us are familiar with the reprehensible public statements, the shouted epithets at crowds and rallies, the slanderous emails which many of us have received. A loud, angry minority perceives that they have lost their grip on the country, and fear what it means for the “Real America”, which they define as excluding me, you and pretty much everyone we know.
All of this has offended many of you; it has offended me as well. It offends me to hear believers in other political principles than I describe where my friend Summer and her husband and daughter as not being the “real Virginia”, although I imagine that Summer herself was fairly enthusiastic to hear it. It offends me to hear that my friends and I in New York City are not among the “best of America” because we don’t live in small towns in Republican states. I may have spent the bulk of my life on the East Coast of the US, but that has not diminished my appreciation for Texas, where my aunt lives, or Louisiana, where my father is from. Indeed, my political representatives have shared that view as well. There was no diminished distress when Louisiana, among the “reddest” of states, was drowning from government apathy while the President took time out to celebrate John McCain’s birthday.
Many notable voices have deplored these offensive and divisive remarks. But I am glad for them, both because sunlight truly is the best disinfectant and because that these voices are so willing to speak openly is proof that they know they are losing, and are desperate because of it.
And in this moment, I want to take a minute to thank all of you.
Oct 28 2008
A week to go before the general election. On Sunday, Barack Obama appeared before more than 100,000 people in Denver making it the largest U.S. crowd to ever attend one of his campaign rally. He has been maintaining he lead in the polls, while John McCain has been spinning the Despite the polls, the race will be tight. If McCain is right, it will be the first time this whole campaign.
Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported on Monday that as he makes his closing argument, Obama avoids partisan rhetoric and focuses on unity.
There’s no point, he says. “We’re all in this together,” the Illinois Democrat assures the crowds who flock to his events… “We don’t have the luxury of relying on the same political games and the same political tactics that are used every election to divide us . . . by who we are or what policies we support.”
In this final week of the campaign, the LA Times suggests to look for both candidates to Soften their blows. As part of his closing argument for why we should elect him president, Obama explains:
We have always been at our best when we’re called to look past our differences and to come together as one nation, leadership that rallied this country to a common purpose, to a higher purpose.”
Four at Four continues with two stories about the global food crisis and some stories about Barack Obama from people who have known him at various parts of his life.
Oct 28 2008
Crossposted from the WWL
Americans are like the retarded offspring growing at the edge of a lush and healthy European field. You know, the row of corn too close to the road commission’s weed kill spray to flourish, but not close enough to die out completely.
We just don’t get it, but think all corn should look like us. USA! USA!
When I used to speak daily with people in Sweden, Germany, and Belgium working as an Atlas Copco distributor (tooling for auto plants) they were amused and disgusted by our working conditions.
You don’t have a year off paid with your new baby? 9 weeks, unpaid? Your husband has no time off with his baby either? You don’t get a month paid Holiday in the summer? No free health care? No free College? The option for a 4 day work week?
You Americans let them treat you like slaves.
I was STUNNED, had no idea how good they had it.
Oct 28 2008
Just imagine what our educational system might look like if we really did believe that children are our future.
Oct 28 2008
One week! One short, but now infinitely long, week to go! Seven days, or 168 Hours, 10080 minutes, or 604800 seconds!!!
But however you count it, it is gonna be a bad, BAD week to be a Republican!
So Where are YOU at, one week out? How do you feel? What are you seeing? What is striking you, as we stand poised here, on the brink of history? Or as the recent brilliant Obama ad asked…..Wassup?
Oct 28 2008
Ah yes, us loony bloggers, fighting for universal health care, to protect social security, to keep our government from unconstitutionally spying on us, and to promote a sane foreign policy that doesn’t unnecessarily cost us blood and treasure. You know, loony things supported by a majority of the (apparently also loony) American people.
Here’s what too many people still don’t understand — there’s nothing loony about the netroots. This isn’t fertile territory for the McKinneys and Kuciniches of our party. This is fertile territory for the Howard Deans of our party — sensible, pragmatic progressives who aren’t afraid to be Democrats. Why? Because we’re the nation. We’re not clustered in DC and NYC, we’re spread out over all 50 states, and we know better than anyone what it takes to win in our own backyards.
We didn’t rally around Webb, Tester, Schweitzer, Trauner, Brown, Massa, Burner and so many other moderate Democrats because they were little Kucinich clones, but because they were perfectly suited for the states and districts they seek to represent. It’s that simple. Howard Dean wasn’t an anomaly. He was our ideal.
We are not the elites, we are America, and we’re situated squarely in its ideological center. We proved it in 2006, and we’ll prove it again next week.
Oct 28 2008
Be excellent to each other.
I take that to heart.
I also take to heart the futures of my children and of my country.
That is why I think it is extremely important that Americans become more thoroughly aware of people who have been extremely influential in shaping American foreign policy in the Middle East, and who are striving mightily to keep America in the same unbalanced situation, particularly vis a vis Israel and Iran, that the US is in today.
One such person is Dennis Ross. Ira Glunts has surveyed Ross’s career as a diplomat being paid by US taxpayers, while deftly advantaging Israel and simultaneously embroiling the United States in costly, bloody, and morally destructive relationships with other nations and peoples in Israel’s neighborhood who used to be America’s friends, allies, and partners.
First, who is Ira Glunts, second, what did he say about Ross, and third, what other involvement has Ross had in US-Middle East affairs?
Oct 28 2008
* updated 1x to add another word added to title
** updated 2x to point out typo in first update. free music video dedicated to whoever spots the typo, which isn’t really a classic typo, more along the lines of a mistake in grammar.