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WIRE For 4/28/08 Workers Memorial Day
Linked to groups: Brevard Workers for Democracy, Democracy for Brevard North, Central Florida for Democracy
"30 Years Ago: 51 Workers Die at Willow Island « The Pump Handle
John McCain gets tax-free disability pension - Los Angeles Times
Disability and Democracy Posted by Michael Bérubé
except from article
Oh, and the rhetorical appeal to “my friends” reminds me! I’d almost forgotten all about that John McCain fellow. Apparently he’s become the nominee of the Grand Old Party, on the grounds that he is not a barking lunatic who will promise to double Gitmo and build a tall fence to defend us against the Gay Immigrationist Mexislamofascist Menace. Yes, well, McCain’s disability policy is much easier to summarize: (a): we need to cut costs; and, following from (a), (b): don’t become disabled:
Controlling health care costs will take fundamental change—nothing short of a complete reform of the culture of our health system and the way we pay for it will suffice. Reforms to federal policy and programs should focus on enhancing quality while controlling cost.
This means you, solider – and you too, person with autism, you, person with Alzheimer’s, and the rest of you malingerers. Buck up! Your job is to control health care costs for the rest of us.
Taking a toll on the CSX debate by Aaron Deslatte Orlando Sentinel
Vouchers get back on the ballot | floridatoday.com | FLORIDA TODAY
As Longevity Declines in Poor Areas GoozNews:
For more visit http://spacecoastaflcio.org
Which blog entry is on First ?
Well, yesterday I was driving in my town I've lived in for the past 25 years and I can't recall ever seeing someone with a hand-drawn poster that blocked their rear view.
The poster read "Real Americans don't protest; We support our troops."
Well, when we started to pass the pickup truck, my wife rolled her passenger window down and yelled to the driver "Hey, it's illegal to have a sign that blocks your rear view".
But it seems the new blog can't read my name and is posting my email link instead. Any suggestions?
ok, it seems that the reply to a comment function has been temporarily disabled and they're working on it. There is no tool bar on this comment box that I'm using.
I think I have an answer for the weird blog posts that are showing up when a user first logs in. Actually, it was my son who suggested that the re-direct server or ISP provider may be caching posts and providing stuff from cache, instead of serving up the dynamic page. The reason that happens is because the default is to go to cache cause that's more efficient from a band-width perspective. To get around it, DFA needs to send code to make sure only the most recent page gets forwarded.
btw, I've switched back to the MAC. Firefox on the linux box wasn't having any problems, but I did have to refresh the page after logging in to get today's most recent. The first page that came up was from April 8th.
I was at the Washington Nationals game yesterday, and in the 7th inning stretch they asked everyone to rise for "God Bless America". I understand lots of baseball teams have been playing this song (one of the least of Irving Berlin's repertoire) but we rise for the national anthem, not some random song.
This probably annoys me more than it should (and my being a nonbeliever contributes to that).
It seems the reply function works after the first comment is posted. Also, the tools are present. It's hard to know what's being changed by Tim Watson and what the program sorts by itself.
Anyway, Rich, I always take invitations for all to stand as an opportunity to be ornery and stay seated. Getting people to jump through hoops is not how humans should get their jollies.
I would note that both comment boxes are currently open on my MAC and, unlike earlier today, both have tool bars and on both the "format" pull-down reads "paragraph" Also, on both the toggle thingy is active and yet the wrap is doing fine and not being discombobulated by my use of the hyphen or a hard return. So, perhaps that was a bug that got addressed.
Now I need to go off and send a message to one of our members with an unemployed spouse (laid off by IBM) who might be able to help elder son, whose company keeps losing IT people to better jobs.
Rich--it's the same jingoistic crap as the flag lapel pin. In-your-face bogus patriotism that the right wing loves.
Yep! Vouchers are once again on the menu of the November ballot. Our state constitution prohibits them, yet now we are to vote on an amendment to invalidate the amendment we voters approved of long ago.
Then there is the new legislation that will allow teachers in Fla. to allow students to debate the "theory" of evolution in their classrooms, a theory that has evidence out the ears that is undeniable and that no credible scientist would oppose. But of course that isnt' good enough for our state.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/guy-t-saperstein/hillary-is-nasty-but-she_b_98719.html
Hillary Clinton's current ads seek to portray her as the tough leader who is ready on Day One to handle crises. Borrowing from a line made famous by Harry Truman, the tag line trumpets, "If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen." The sub-text, of course, is that she will dish out a full plate of heat and if Obama can't respond on her gutter level, he can't handle heat.ﾠ
The truth is almost exactly the opposite. Hillary is nasty, but she is not tough. In fact, Hillary is a classic whiner. She and Bill whine about everything that doesn't go well for them. Unlike Harry Truman, who also said, "the buck stops here," she and Bill accept responsibility for nothing and blame others, especially the media, when things go wrong or their deceptions are exposed.ﾠ
The man in the photo with the Obama llama parade ready beast of burden is not me, it is our Obama captain for the county. That was the one that was front paged in the Dubuque Telegraph Herald.
Hillary Clinton gave a very good speech on health care and the economy in Evanston Indiana;and needs to be beaten in a race to the mountaintop and not let the swifties in her campaign distract Obama himself from that race.
What will the Brewers do without the sausage races, rich? Have a flyover by the thunderbirds?
we have snow again this morning and I can't quite get into the baseball mood yet
bbl
In DC it's the "Racing Presidents" - George, Tom, Abe and Teddy. Teddy has never won. At yesterday's game he had a big lead, but slipped on a banana peel.
test by clicking on it and see if the rest of you can get to his post for a recommendation
I also don't know if the rating system of individual posts is a good idea, but here we go again.
Hillary Clinton has been tireless (or relentless) in pusuit of her goal of being the nominee and is giving good appearances around Indiana. Barack needs to do the same.
rather than play four corners because he does have the big lead he needs to go back to running his regular offensive set and try and score a few points (Hoosiers will get the analogy)
he needs to win half or more of the remaining contests, match her point for point not run out the clock
<em>and is giving good appearances around Indiana. Barack needs to do the same.</em>
<em>+++</em>
Phil -
Barack has been doing plenty of appearances in Indiana. I posted last week all the links (appearances for Barack and Michelle) in Indiana.
I usually like your posts but you're getting on the Indy Steve high horse again, directing Obama what to do (as if Obama is some child).
the politics of destruction:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/28/hillaryclinton.usa?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront
Hillary has cynically turned to the one argument she has left: race
She failed to convince the electorate of her own viability. Now her team claims that voters won't back a black candidate
It is one of the enduring paradoxes of American racism that those black Americans most likely to exercise their full rights as citizens - to vote, to stand, to speak out - are the most likely to be branded as unpatriotic.
...
Unable to beat Obama on delegates and still unlikely to beat him in the popular vote, Hillary Clinton has just one strategy left - to persuade superdelegates that Obama is unelectable. She has tried branding him as inexperienced and slick-tongued, and neither of those have worked. At this stage she has just one argument left: his race. For several months now, her aides have been whispering to whoever would listen that America would never elect a black candidate. In desperation, some are now raising their voices.
But their accusations are not only cynical - by most accounts they also seem to be wrong. It seems they have underestimated the potential of the American electorate. Polls show that in the states won with less than a five-point margin in 2004 Obama does far better than Clinton against McCain.
The problem is not that Hillary Clinton is still in the race. She has every right to be. It is that she is running the kind of race that she is. Having failed to convince voters of the viability of her own candidacy, she is now committed to proving the unviability of his.
Hillary once said it takes a village to raise a child. Now she seems determined to destroy the village in order to save it.
African Americans are annoying because they refuse to be subjugated or obey irrational demands. By insisting on their independence they demonstrate themselves as untrustworthy. African Americans glory in their liberty; it's what makes them liberals.
And yes, they are unpatriotic in the sense that they are not subservient to the
authority of the pater. They're more likely to be matriotic.
Here's some background on Rev. Wright. Check out his military service. He just served Cheney a few minutes ago. When asked about his patriotism - he talked about how long he served in the Marines and asked how long did Cheney serve?
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/28/63127/8878/756/504695
Good morning all! I wish this primary was over already!
Home » Blog » What should we ask?
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What should we ask?
Written by: rich^kolker on Apr 28, 2008 8:47 AM
There are two remaining candidates for the Democratic nomination. They ask for our money, our support and our votes.
What should we ask of them?
After all, they will work for us if they are elected President. They are our highest elected representative. We deserve a say in what they want to do. Instead, I think the impression is that we need to conform to their policy positions. This is just plain wrong.
This is some of what I ask.
(more)
Universal health care means universal. The only way that is feasible is if we are all part of a system that shares costs. If anyone gets to bail out of the system, then we don't get to share the cost of health care across the sick and the well, the young and the old, the well off and the less well off. Personally, I think the best way to do this is with a single-payer system, but I'm willing to lok at alternatives.
Pay the bills. Taxes are the price we pay for civilization. If we want big government services, we need to pay for them. We need to look at a tax system that is simple, fair, progressive and raises sufficient money for the services we demand.
Be honest about what constitutes national defense. The United States plays a unique role in the world. That means we're going to spend more on defense than a lot of other places. But that doesn't mean we should go out looking for a fight. It doesn't mean every tinpot dictator who calls us a name is worthy of being a member of an "axis of evil." We can ignore most of them. Also be honest enough to say that if we pull out of Iraq tomorrow, the costs of the recovery of our military from the Iraq experience will last a while, and be larger than we'd like (that taxes thing again).
Becoming less energy dependent will involve investment and costs. That doesn't mean opening the government pocketbook willy nilly to corporations who want to play with technologies, but it does mean promoting alternative energy resources, mandating energy savings (like a major increase in CAFE standards) and communicating to we Americans that it is part of being patriotic to walk away from wasteful practices. At the same time, our goal shouod be an increasing quality of life while decreasing energy use, not a return to the "dark ages."
The same thing with the environment.
I could go on, but the message isn't what I think we should ask of our candidates, but the idea that we need to ask them at all. If you're in Indiana or North Carolina, and you get a chance to ask Barack or Hillary something at a town hall meeting, tell them what you want, don't just settle for what they will give.
rdorgan
when Obama's campaign calls me for advice (which has happened occasionally) I give it, and I might as well share my thoughts here
but I also want to share how super delegates think since I had lunch with one yesterday and that was the gist of the conversation
The reply box appears then the page changes to 'can't find this file'. It then tells me to refresh the page. A lot of nonsense.
...the threads all close and then I need to go to the top and re-open the expand.
When I came back to the blog, it crashed opera three times, until I finally let it start with home page, instead of go back to where it had been. Now, the comment box on opera has no tool bar.
... I have to go to the top, open all the threads and then I can't reply to a thread. I have to make a new one. IMHO, it's kind of wasted space and time.
Phil -
Well, the superdelegate needs to wake up, IMO.
Some of the recent Barack appearances in Indiana:
Apr 26 - Anderson, Marion, New Castle
Apr 25 - Indianapolis, Kokomo
Apr 24 - New Albany
Apr 22 - Evansville
perhaps the cache function on the servers or the ISP re-direct is off and that accounts for people getting old stuff. This is a very dynamic site where everything is changing all the time.
- That happened to me yesterday B4 I re-registered under a different name/address
By Fred from Oregon on Apr 28, 2008 10:34 AM EDTEverytime I make an entry...
By Susan Rowe on Apr 28, 2008 10:13 AM
...the threads all close and then I need to go to the top and re-open the expand
by Granny Doc
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/4/28/92734/8108/706/504737
First time I didn't have to go through my dfa to comment. Small steps...
...all of the icons are cut off. The page doesn't condense to fit the screen. The ticker at the top has a very long white space after the text. The space trails on forever.
This reply box has no tools. Some do some don't.
I miss the plain text alternative - I wonder how this is working with dialup - maybe I'll try - this is a pretty complicated setup, I hope they can get the bugs out. I liked the old blog, except for the time stamp and sequence bugs.
ok, tools are back and the subject line is missing some words including "bogus"
******************************************
On topic, I just want to observe that I think conservatives are really committed to the proposition that some humans are just not "fit" to survive and that it's somehow immoral (inconsistent with the welfare of the community) to provide subsidies (education, health care, safety) to compensate for individual deficits--i.e. if it is beyond the capability of parents to "correct" the deficits of their off-spring, then those off-spring deserve to languish/die.
Or, more bluntly--humans are conceived in sin and if they don't shape up, off with them.
This perspective/prejudice is, of course, consistent with their commitment to a natural human hierarchy which assures them that those who overcome adversity and survive are good and everyone else is not. The thing about such a dicotomoy is that you can't have one without the other. If some humans are inherently good or superior, then there have to be others who aren't. And if wealth is associated with goodness and poverty with badness, then there have to be some people who are poor. There's a social imperative to have poor people, if having rich people is a good. We make poor people so the rich people can feel more important.
I'm running the new blog on Firefox 3 Beta 5 and it's working fine. I did have the initial problem of getting old stuff, but it cleared up.
Firefox 3 Beta 5 is also blazing fast, I guess because of the new rendering engine.
We now return to normal programming.
Some of the recent Barack appearances in Indiana:
Apr 26 - Anderson, Marion, New Castle
Apr 25 - Indianapolis, Kokomo
Apr 24 - New Albany
Apr 22 - Evansville
Apr 19 - Ft Wayne
Apr 12 - Muncie
Apr 11 - Bloomington, Columbus
Apr 10 - Gary, Lafayette, South Bend
I can't gain access anywhere to change my settings or update my profile - when I hit 'display settings' it thinks I'm susan rowe and denies me access. when I try it from my dashboard it tells me I have an inactive account, but yet it states that I'm logged in. it makes me log in each time I visit the blog and insists I have an inactive account each and every time, yet lets me post.
thanks, dfa. I can see you're getting there, slow but sure. good luck with the tweeking. perhaps when I get back from puttering around in the spring sprinkle it will be one step better!
(Tool bar came up again with this reply)
My re-registering<em> (under a changed blog name and different email address)</em> really helped most of the many problems I had with logging-in, thread downloading, displaying etc. within a thread <em>(except the disappearing/reappearing toolbar problem)</em>. Of course, it did not solve the problem of dissapearing/reappearing threads.
Not sure if I different email address is needed to re-register under a different name, but I had another address so I used it.
The presence of my toolbar seems to alternate every time (or every other time)I enter a post or refresh the thread. Less likely to come up when I refresh.
Good Morning Folks,
It looks like the fine turning is going on and stalwart souls are helping iron out the kinks.
Just a thought, PHil, and by the way, your posts are always worth reading. I think a fine speech is a good thing, details in policy are good, but if we've learned nothing from the Clinton presidency and the Hillary Clinton campaign, character counts. Anyone can speak a good speech with the speech writers and experts, but the Bush Presidency and this campaign have shown us that we can't afford dubious ethics, can't afford duplicity, complicity, and ends justifying means. I'm hopeful that Americans have learned something about that.
Then off the topic, the new Stephen King novel, Duma Key, seems to be good, maybe up there with The Stand. My husband finished it, and though I haven't been much of a novel reader these past few years, I think his assessment is probably right.
In expository prose we gets facts and logic, but in fiction we get human truths. This passage I think may be illuminating, page 52 "But the surface events of a country laboring under a dictatorship can appear boring too--dictators like boring, dictators <em>love</em> boring--even as great changes are approaching beneath the surface."
It appeared almost out of the blue. In American Studies we examined the proposition that artists sometimes see trends and events as much as ten or more years ahead of the rest of us. The insight that Stephen King may have alluded to is something that may be happening in our political system here now.
Have a lovely day, folks.
The text between that <em>'s in the last post was supposed to be italized text
Hi folks.......this web site is wacky. Anyways, Rev. Wright last night on CNN wont help BO much, in fact thats the start od the collapse IMO. Wright is a smart guy, knows his history, but syas things that are truthful but many Americans are not yet ready to accept.....some of the wording in controversial too.
Making fun of leaders like JFK and caucasians in general wont help his cause much and I think he has forgotten in BO there WAS a candidate that may have helped the cause of the AA people, but Wright has not helped much.
It was a good run by BO........he should debate HC also..one on one..manao on mano........
Mccain has an easy path now........
Don't jump to conclusions - the Rev. Wright thing could beat itself to death - it's a couch potato phenomenon. After a while it goes over their heads, it becomes passe.
<em>Don't jump to conclusions</em>
+++
Fred -
I know you're trying to be nice with Michael but IMO he's attempting to jump ship from a ship he never embarked on - <em>RMS Obama</em>.
His <em>doom and gloom </em>posts I frankly don't pay much attention to.
Too many logical inconsistencies here to let them pass. The vast majority of the American electorate doesn't watch CNN and its programming is not likely to be a water-cooler topic.
Jeremiah Wright is irrelevant to Barack Obama's popularity or lack thereof. He definitely has nothing to with his rise or "collapse." The idea that one person is responsible for what a whole lot of other people do is a fallacy much loved by Republicans because it makes them feel important. But there's no basis in fact.
Predictions have been fun and are popular because they let people believe that they have more control than they do. But, practically speaking, they're worthless except as motivators.
African Americans are not looking for help. They do not have a cause that is different from anyone else's that doesn't want to be subservient. The Clintons' biggest mistake in their relationship to African Americans was in revealing their belief that African Americans need to be helped--that they need a president while the more affluent populations really don't. African Americans don't want help; they just want their due respect. They are fully aware of what they have accomplished; they just resent having it dismissed.
If, as you conclude, it's all over for Barack Obama, why bother to tell him what to do? Do you see how inconsistent you're being?
Btw, as I keep telling my grandson, sloppy writing and spelling send a message to the reader that the writer is not serious or respectful of his readers. So, why should the reader give any credit to the offering? You've been posting here long enough to start paying attention to your spelling, grammatical structure and punctuation. Typos are inevitable. Ungrammatical offerings are just plain rude, especially from someone who claims to have authored and published whole books.
BO may have had the same goddesses present at his birth that Reagan did. I heard at least one pundit use the word TEFLON with regard to Obama
up on deck in NC early this week:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/wilmington
Town Hall with Barack Obama
Trask Coliseum
679 Wagoner Drive
Wilmington, NC
Monday, April 28th
Doors Open: 11:00 a.m.
- Howard Dean
By rich^kolker on Apr 28, 2008 9:06 AM EDTThe good doctor is first, as always.