August 24, 2010 archive

Aug 24 2010

DREAM Now Letters to Barack Obama: Carlos A Roa, Jr.

Originally posted on Citizen Orange.

The “DREAM Now Series: Letters to Barack Obama” is a social media campaign that launched Monday, July 19, to underscore the urgent need to pass the DREAM Act. The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, S. 729, would help tens of thousands of young people, American in all but paperwork, to earn legal status, provided they graduate from U.S. high schools, have good moral character, and complete either two years of college or military service.  With broader comprehensive immigration reform stuck in partisan gridlock, the time is now for the White House and Congress to step up and pass the DREAM Act!

Dear Mr. President,

My name is Carlos and I’m a 23 year old undocumented immigrant from Caracas, Venezuela.  I want to legalize my immigration status in this country through the passage of DREAM Act this year.  For too long have I lived in the U.S. without papers.  It has been over 20 years, now.  I want to legalize my immigration status in order to fulfill my dreams of becoming a young professional in architecture.

Aug 24 2010

It’s California Budget Crisis Season again

  It’s that time of the year again.

No, not Christmas. It’s the time of the year when the state of California starts paying its bills in IOU’s.

 California lawmakers passed a bill to let recipients use state IOUs to pay fees and taxes owed to the government in Sacramento, if the warrants are issued.

  The bill, from Assemblyman Joel Anderson, a San Diego Republican, passed the Senate unanimously. It requires all state agencies to accept registered warrants issued to pay for goods and services. The Assembly unanimously approved the measure in September.

 The state could start handing out these IOU’s as soon as two weeks from today.

 One thing you can count on is that blame and suggestions on how to fix the budget mess will start flying fast and furious. Some ideas will be crazy. Some reasonable, but long on image and short on impact. Many good ideas will never be considered.

  What is also sure to happen is you will see a blizzard of numbers. Some will be created out of thin air. Most will be half-truths. Almost none of them will give you an honest perspective on what the actual problems are.

 That’s why I am presenting this essay, so that you can make a rational judgment for yourself.

Aug 24 2010

Open Cash

Photobucket

Aug 24 2010

News at Noon

From Reuters

Court rules against Obama’s stem cell policy

By Jeremy Pelofsky and Maggie Fox

August 24, 2010

(Reuters) – A district court issued a preliminary injunction on Monday stopping federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research, in a slap to the Obama administration’s new guidelines on the sensitive issue.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth granted the injunction because he found that the doctors who challenged the policy would likely succeed because U.S. law blocked federal funding of embryonic stem cell research if the embryos were destroyed.

“(Embryonic stem cell) research is clearly research in which an embryo is destroyed,” Lamberth wrote in a 15-page ruling. The Obama administration could appeal his decision or try to rewrite the guidelines to comply with U.S. law.

Aug 24 2010

Docudharma Times Tuesday August 24




Tuesday’s Headlines:

Billions of aid dollars buy U.S. little goodwill in Pakistan

Inside a celestial super-volcano

USA

Pesky shareholder activists gain influence

State Department details Blackwater violations of U.S. laws

Europe

Prosecutors may decide today on charges against WikiLeaks founder

British critic unlikely to find leniency in Singapore court

Middle East

Egyptians prepare for life after Mubarak

Iraqi Army trains Kurdish forces as part of U.S. integration plan

Asia

Pakistan in political crisis amid allegations of flooding aid corruption

India rejects Vedanta mine plans for Orissa

Africa

Zuma’s media censorship ‘is like going back to Apartheid era’

Reports of mass rape by DRC rebels

Latin America

Trapped Chile miners receive food and water

Aug 24 2010

Muse in the Morning

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Muse in the Morning

An Opened Mind IX

If a Man will begin with certainties, he will end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he will end in certainties.

— Francis Bacon

Star Dance

The Flow of Life

once
upon a time
stars burnt
creating elements
molecules
this and that
chemicals organized
life
began
life
began
on this planet
we are star stuff
organized chemicals		 life
began
it has
not ended
yet
from the stars
we come
into them
we will
eventually
go


–Robyn Elaine Serven
–December 29, 2005

Aug 24 2010

Late Night Karaoke

Aug 24 2010

Living with Taliban from Channel 4

Now imagine that on CNN.

Just saying.

Aug 24 2010

Progressives. Meek Greene. Strangers in Strange Place



Campaign ’10: Meek v Greene [1st Debate Overview]

copyright © 2010 Betsy L. Angert.  BeThink.org

More than a month has passed, actually now it has been two.  In the third week of June, I heard the song in my head for the first time. With each day that passes the volume increases.  Friends, family, and familiars were privy to what has been a curiosity for me. Still haunted by what I know needs to be shared farther and wider, today I tell you my tale.  The story begins with two Florida Democrats.  Each aspires to fill the one open United States Senate seat.  The date; June 22, 2010.  I was amongst those invited to attend the initial Meek Greene debate.. The place?  The Palm Beach Post headquarters.   The time? Midday.  The reality realized and the reason my mind marinated in the melody titled It’s About Time. Today, Democrats, Progressives are not as they were.