December 4, 2008
Article by Stephanie Brien: City Council will wait on Prayer Decision
The city I live in is going to vote on the issue of praying before city council meetings, apparently the vote has been postponed until next year. An alderman by the name of Jim Kaplan has proposed the council say a prayer or have a moment of silence prior to start of every city council meeting. It appears there is already a split, as some alderman have come out against praying before each meeting.
“9th District Alderman Terry McCarthy said religion should be kept private and said they should leave the meetings the way they are.”
Although I agree religion is a private matter, one could argue this prayer or “moment of silence” to be used as a way for some people to prepare for the meeting. The problem I have is, why implement this as a part of the council meeting when you are more than welcome to take a moment of silence or pray on your own?
The Jim Kaplan argument is; “Kaplan has watched the way that Congress has conducted a prayer and he believes a moment of reflection is a good thing for the City Council. “If it’s good enough for both houses of Congress … then I don’t see why we should be any different,” Kaplan said.”
Here is the problem with this argument Jim, this assumes there is a connection bewteen a “good thing” and the houses of Congress. Furthermore, this assumes what the houses practice is actually the right thing to do. I know from personal experience, and suspect you have to, the houses of Congress are often far from right. And more often than not, they are far from representative of the People.
Personally, I like a moment of silence from time to time. I’m agnostic, so praying is not really my thing, but I know it is for others. I certainly would not want to take prayer away from those who feel it enlightens them or serves a purpose in their lives. However, is there not a short period of time prior to your city council meetings in which you could say a few words to yourself, or whomever it is you pray to? Why impose extra time on what I can only assume is a very tight schedule for the city council - considering all the things wrong with our city, I hope the time is used wisely to address really important issues taxing our city-folk.
December 2, 2008.
Commentary from CNN: Rove says ‘marketplace of ideas’ will decide Palin’s fate
I snuck a look at this article in CNN this afternoon and felt compelled to share some of the commentary from readers. I will pipe in where necessary, but most of it speaks for itself.
Jorge says: “In four years Ms. Palin will be an afterthought. Todd will have left her for one of Willow’s friends and she will be living in a trailer park outside of Fairbanks with her 25 year old boyfriend, Bud.”
Lip says: “Sarah Palin…to bad Sarah isn’t black. Had she been black, there never would have been all the sexist ,slanderous remarks made of her. Had she been black, the media would have been sucking up to her rather than taking pot shots at her. Even Leno would have been good to her. I personally think that the level of hostility was due to the fact that the Democrat nominee was black and the media needed a scapegoat or target to shoot at and didn’t dare say or do anything that would reflect poorly on themselves.”
Nevermind she is a complete idiot. Really though; sexists, mysogynists, racists, whatever else people may be or how the media interprets a person is not very relevant. Sarah Palin is an idiot, with fundamentalist values, and absolutely no skills to be vice preident or president of the United States. Not now, not in 2012.
Jim Young says: “Get serious. We Republicans got the whooping we so soundly deserved for fielding a terrible ticket. Never forget “you can see Russia from my State” as Gov. Palin’s trump card on foriegn policy. Let this fuse burn out, and 4 years from now bring out some new blood with serious credentials.”
Couldn’t agree with you more, Jim. I’d love to see the Republicans field a candidate that may swing my vote - or at the minimum make it difficult.
Kathy in NC says: “Who cares about what Karl Rove thinks? Bush bought his ideas and now has the lowest approval rating ever. Karl Rove is irrelevant, and quite frankly so is Sarah Palin…”
Karl Rove may be hated, but he got George Bush elected…twice. Consider that.
Tom in Delaware says: “Karl makes a good point about only knowing Sarah Palin for 9 weeks.”
Yet, she insisted we need to know who the real Barack Obama was. Hmmmmm.
Lu says: “Lynn says “What happened to all of the smart people in the GOP?” well they voted for McCain; too bad there are not many smart people and the dumb ones outnumber them and got to elect our president…”
Using this theory, can we assume all the smart people voted for Bush, twice?
EW says: “Guys, ever notice how your wife or girlfirend always criticizes other women for the most petty things, like what she was wearing? Women can be some of the most loving and the most hateful creatures on earth all at the same time. Women hate each other, that’s all there is to it.”
Could you be anymore sexist in your remarks?
Linda from WI says: “I suspect that once the Republican Party has a chance to regroup and look more closely at potential leaders, they’ll find they can do much better than Sarah Palin.”
Bobby Jindal, for starts.
Blossum says: “But Palin doesn’t have any ideas, just talking points. Her followers are downscale whites with no education or they are religious fanatics. That’s not enought to win.”
Then how did Bush do it?
2 December 2008 in
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December 2, 2008.
Article from CNN Money: Ford unviels turnaround plan
Nothing gives me more confidence than seeing auto industry top execs taking big paycuts. Can you cut through the sarcasm yet? In the case of Alan Mulally, and apparently other big American auto companies, he will work for $1 a year…
“The company announced that the salary of Ford CEO Alan Mulally would be cut to $1 a year if Ford (F, Fortune 500) actually borrowed money from the government. When Mulally appeared before the House Financial Services Committee last month, he did not agree to the suggestion of such a paycut.”
Apparently, the big three are dumping the corporate jets too…
“Ford also announced that it would sell its five corporate jets. Mulally, Wagoner and Nardelli were roundly criticized for flying their own corporate jets to Washington to ask for help last month.”
Now for me, I couldn’t care less about the corporate jets. I mean really, they aren’t the only big company execs who use corporate jets to get around. The problem is, they represent an industry which is now veiwed as a pariah. And let’s face it, American auto companies are a pariah. How come the Japanese are able to adapt? Because they have good leaders who were able to understand what the future held.
It is quite possible American auto execs knew what the future held, too. However, they are so tightly bound to the oil industry and this connection which generates gobs and gobs of money in the short term, they lost sight of what is not only important to the consumer, but what is important for our environment as well. Oh, let’s not forget their employees. Glad I didn’t.
Auto industry execs have not represented leadership. they have represented greed.
Taking a pay cut is a gimmick, just like drilling for offshore oil.
Keeping these idiots at the helm of these companies is a travesty.
The only ones who will suffer are the blue collar workers who will lose their job and their retirement. Do you think by taking a pay cut this will adversely effect the lives of these top execs? Dont’ kid yourself.
Rant by Me: Definition from WiKipedia
Although there are number of variations of spam (excluding the ever-popular lunch meat), I would like to focus on email spam, which is defined as follows;
“E-mail spam, known as unsolicited bulk Email (UBE) or unsolicited commercial email (UCE), is the practice of sending unwanted e-mail messages, frequently with commercial content, in large quantities to an indiscriminate set of recipients.”
“E-mail is an extremely cheap mass medium, and professional spammers have automated their processes to the extent that millions of messages can be sent daily with little or no labor costs. Thus, spamming can be very profitable even at what would otherwise be considered extremely low response rates.”
If you notice the last part, in bold, implies there is good money to be made even though most spam email is not responded to. This means there are a small number of “idiots” who are responding to these spam emails. If we could address the small number of people who respond to these emails to stop - i.e. cut them off completely from an email account - we could stop spammers cold in their tracks. Likliehood of making this happen…nil.
However, if we could convince business owners from avoiding these criminals we may be able to make some headway. You see, the other part to this story is spammers make money from the businesses the advertise for through their spam email campaigns;
“…even though spam appears not to be economically viable as a way for a reputable company to do business, it suffices for professional spammers to convince a tiny proportion of gullible advertisers that it is viable for those spammers to stay in business.”
It is virtually impossible to stop the spammers as networks are now commonly setup in such a way they are not traceable - or very difficult to trace. For example, an undetected trojan horse could be sitting on your home computer right now, proliferating spam from your own network. And you are not the only one, as millions of unsuspecting people are being used as pawns in this very profitable game.
So the best way to address the problem may not be at the root. Nailing down the idiots who respond to these emails is just as far-fetched. But we may be able to make headway by confronting the business owners who use spam as an avenue to promote their products and services. Now, it is true many of these businesses may not know they are using a spammer to promote their products, but if we actively contact and pressure the businesses which are listed in the spam emails we receive, then perhaps we can make the point to enough of them to make a difference.
November 24, 2008
Article by Julien Zelizer: Bush should do something to stop crisis
I have to disagee here, Bush should do nothing at this point. All this guy does is fuck things up.
“The lame-duck president is believed to be one of the more impotent figures in American politics — a commander in chief who is unable to do much because he lacks political muscle.”
Bush lacks no muscle, let alone political muscle. He may be a good politician, but he is of below average intelligence and has been taking this country for the fool the past eight years. Who voted for this idiot in 2004?
“The president finishes his term as one of the most unpopular presidents in modern history. Democrats won control of Congress in 2006 and this year, they expanded the size of their majority significantly.”
He will go down as the worst president between 1 and 43, no doubt. And Republicans will use Democratic victories in 2006 and 2008 as fodder to claim that’s why everything is fucked up. As if this ecxcuses the first six years..
Russ says: “And why should Bush do anything? Anything he does is compromised and undermined by the left. And what is Pelosi or Reid doing? They are the so-called leaders of Congress, an oxymoron if there ever was one.”
Russ, this isn’t about left and right, it is about right and wrong. Bush has been on the side of wrong from the start.
“President Bush started his term on the promise of bringing new civility to Washington and boasting of his ability to reach across the aisle in Texas. Early in his presidency, he displayed some flashes of this new tone with No Child Left Behind and with his initial response to the September 11, 2001 attacks. But that bipartisan approach quickly faded into Karl Rove’s strategy of playing to the base of the party.”
The Bush legacy in a nutshell. Problem is he never pulled through for the “fundies” (fundamentalists) either.
Tillzen says: “Bush should NOT act! It his actions that are the problem. Benign neglect becomes him, and when he acts he only makes it worse. “The decider” only helps if he decides correctly, and we need only look at the War / the Economy, and the Nation to see his track record. He should go home, and clear brush. Deep thought is not his “thang.”"
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