Obama/Biden 2008 - sfinboston52's Blog - Bakersfield.com

Electoral College Polls

The Electoral college polls are showing a very clear lead for Obama having over 300 electoral votes compared to McCain only have around 200 or less.

http://www.electoral-vote.com/

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/search/label/today%27s%20polls

Thus explains the smear & lie tactics of Palin, McCain and his adulteress wife Cindy. The lies and smears show that McCain/Plain do not have a real plan and know they can not win discussing the economy, middle class, health care, SSI, War in Iraq.

In 2000 I respected McCain, but then he sold his soul to Dubya to get in his good graces and those of the RNC.

Keating 5 & John McCain

So finally someone is bring up John McCain's involvement in the Keating 5 scandal which cost the taxpayer billions duirng the Savings & Loan scandals of the 80s. This cost the US taxpayers over 100 billion.

http://keatingeconomics.com/

Is this the type of man we want or need in the Whitehouse?

Electoral Vote Breakdown

Found this site which breaksdown the electoral votes based off polls.

http://www.electoral-vote.com/

Obama 278 & McCain 247 & 13 Tied

Also breaks down senate and congress.

latest Poll numbers: Good News

Here are the latest numbers of the race for the whiteshouse. These numbers capture the bounce coming out of the DNC convention. What has to be seen is the how they will compare to the RNC numbers coming out of their convention next Monday/Tuesday.

A Hotline/Diageo poll out this morning gives Obama a 48 percent to 39 percent national lead over Republican John McCain, up from 44 percent to 40 percent in the previous poll. And a USA Today/Gallup survey released on Monday gave Obama a 50 percent to 43 percent lead, up from a 4-percentage-point edge before the convention.

Also it appears the Clinton backers are moving over to Obama camp.

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/09/clinton_backers_3.html

Palin - Senator McCain is that your final choice?

One has to wonder if this is McCain final VP Choice, since there are currently 2 strikes for Palin.

1. Trooper Gate:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/09/01/politics/p013049D16.DTL

2. Daughter Prego:

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/09/palin_says_her.html

Strike 3, what will it be, one has to wonder what else is hiding in Gov. Palin closet.

If Bush told the truth

Found this on another blog today:

If President Bush Told The Truth:

.I attacked and took over 2 countries.

.I spent the U.S. surplus and bankrupted the US
Treasury.

.I shattered the record for the biggest annual
deficit in history (not easy!).

.I set an economic record for the most personal
bankruptcies filed in any 12 month period.

.I set all-time record for the biggest drop in
the history of the stock market.

.In my first year in office I set the all-time
record for most days on vacation by any president
in US history (tough to beat my dad's, but I
did).

.After taking the entire month of August off for
vacation, I presided over the worst security
failure in US history.

.I set the record for most campaign fund raising
trips by any president in US history.

.In my first two years in office over 2 million
Americans lost their jobs.

.I cut unemployment benefits for more out-of-work
Americans than any other president in US history.

.I set the all-time record for most real estate
foreclosures in a 12-month period.

.I set the record for the fewest press
conferences of any president, since the advent of
TV.

.I presided over the biggest energy crises in US
history and refused to intervene when corruption
was revealed.

Should McCain be swift boated

Should McCain be swift boated the same way as Kerry was or the way Bush attacked McCain back in 1999?

Just wondering, if it was right for the GOP to attack Kerry's record, then shouldnt McCain in the same boat to speak.

Also, I dont believe McCain is a war hero, he was a pilot who was shot down and held as a POW. What did he do to make him a hero? Did he save someone or do some act to protect others? Being a POW does not make a person a hero.

I also respect all those who served in the Vietnam war and who were held as POWs. My own father and father inlaw did tours in Vietnam, I do honor them for serving their country, but I would call them heros.

Too Good is bad???

I saw this article and that they had to be joking. A kid banned because he is too good of a pitcher!

Nine-year-old Jericho Scott is a good baseball player -- too good, it turns out.

Jericho Scott, 9, warms up on the pitching mound in New Haven, Conn. Saturday Aug. 23, 2008....

(Douglas Healey/AP Photo)

The right-hander has a fastball that tops out at about 40 mph. He throws so hard that the Youth Baseball League of New Haven told his coach that the boy could not pitch any more. When Jericho took the mound anyway last week, the opposing team forfeited the game, packed its gear and left, his coach said.

Officials for the three-year-old league, which has eight teams and about 100 players, said they will disband Jericho's team, redistributing its players among other squads, and offered to refund $50 sign-up fees to anyone who asks for it. They say Jericho's coach, Wilfred Vidro, has resigned.

But Vidro says he didn't quit and the team refuses to disband. Players and parents held a protest at the league's field Saturday, urging the league to let Jericho pitch.

"He's never hurt any one," Vidro said. "He's on target all the time. How can you punish a kid for being too good?"

WHAT SOME OF THE PEOPLE WHO KNOW HIM BEST SAY ABOUT JOHN MCCAIN

Came across this list of what some of the GOP leaders and faithful have said about John McCain over the years.

"He is a vicious person"
Former representative Charles LeBoutillier R-NY
---------------
"An embarrassment to the party"
Arizona GOP state senator Susan Johnson
---------------
"There is nothing redeeming about John Mccain...he's a hypocrite"
Former house GOP whip Tom DeLay
-----------------
"The thought of him being president sends a chill down my spine. He is erratic"
Senator Thad Cochran, R- MS
------------------
"Hard headed is one way to say it. Arrogant is another way to say it. It's a quality about him that disturbs me".
Larry Wilkerson, former chief aide to Colin Powell
------------------
"What happens if he gets angry in a crisis...? It's the presidents job to negotiate and stay calm. I just don't see that he has that quality".
Former Arizona GOP chairman John Hinz
-------------------
"His temper would place this country at risk...and the world perhaps in danger. In my mind that should disqualify him"
Former Senator Bob Smith, R-NM
-------------------
"I decided I didn't want this guy anywhere near a trigger."
Senator Pete Domenici, R-NM

As MA goes so goes CA

Latest polls show majority in MA support marriage equality and that can and will be the senario for CA.

Mass. Poll: Most Support Opening Up Gay Marriage

By 365gay Newscenter Staff
08.07.2008 11:59am EDT

(Boston, Mass.) Massachusetts voters support Gov. Deval Patrick on extending same-sex marriage rights.

Add Comment

Last week, Patrick signed legislation allowing out-of-state same-sex couples to marry in the Bay State. The bill repealed a 1913 law that said marriage licenses could not be issued to couples whose weddings would not be recognized in their home states.

The poll, by Suffolk University for a local television station, found that 59 percent agreed that same-sex couples should be allowed to legally marry in Massachusetts, even if their home state prohibits gay marriage, while 37 percent disagreed.

The survey was conducted Thursday, July 31, 2008, through Sunday, Aug. 3, 2008. The margin of error on the study of 400 is plus or minus 4.90 percent at a 95 percent level of confidence. All respondents from the statewide survey were registered voters in Massachusetts

When the highest court in Massachusetts struck down the state ban on same-sex marriage in 2003, then-Gov. Mitt Romney (R) dusted off the 1913 law, threatening to charge local clerks if they issued marriage licenses to out-of-state same-sex couples.

The old law was originally passed when interracial marriage was legal in Massachusetts, but not in most other parts of the country.

When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned state bans on interracial marriage, the Massachusetts law fell into disuse.

While gay and lesbian couples in the Bay State were allowed to marry, the old law effectively closed the state border to couples from elsewhere in the country.

Is "black hole" a racially insensitive term?

So just read this article and you have got to be friggin joking!!!!

Is "black hole" a racially insensitive term?

Apparently to some. From the City Hall Blog at the Dallas Morning News:

A special meeting about Dallas County traffic tickets turned tense and bizarre this afternoon.

County commissioners were discussing problems with the central collections office that is used to process traffic ticket payments and handle other paperwork normally done by the JP Courts.

Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, who is white, said it seemed that central collections "has become a black hole" because paperwork reportedly has become lost in the office.

Commissioner John Wiley Price, who is black, interrupted him with a loud "Excuse me!" He then corrected his colleague, saying the office has become a "white hole."

That prompted Judge Thomas Jones, who is black, to demand an apology from Mayfield for his racially insensitive analogy.

Mayfield shot back that it was a figure of speech and a science term.

Judge Jones should be very glad that the central collections office has not become a white hole, a theoretical object that ejects matter from beyond its event horizon, rather than sucking it in. It wouldn't be fun for Dallas to find itself so near a quasar.

Anyone wanting to know a good deal about black holes should read the excellent new book, The Black Hole War, by Leonard Susskind, which has just been released. I'm in the middle of it, and the book's a fascinating tour of modern physics written for the layman. It's just been marvelous so far.

America & Religion

Here is recent poll out on Americans and their beliefs. Some interesting findings from the poll & research.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2008/06/pew_study_finds.html

And the changing face of religion in this country

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/02/26/us_religious_identity_is_rapidly_changing/

Your thoughts?

GOP Racist? Really? Who would have thought?

Why am I not surprise to see that this was sold at the GOP State Convention in Texas. It sure smacks of racism!

The Question Texan Republicans are Asking

On sale at a booth hosted by Republicanmarket at the Republican state convention in Texas.

Marriage Equality in CA

Been reading several articles via towleroad.com blog today and thought I would share some of the profiles and links.

First couple to wed have been together for over 50 years!

At 5:01pm today, history will be made as gay and lesbian couples begin marrying in California, led symbolically by the marriage of Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, the couple of 50 years who were first married in San Francisco City Hall in 2004

Profile of some of those on the front lines of marriage equality:

Profiles of some of the key figures in the same-sex marriage struggle (both for and against) including Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, Hillary and Julie Goodridge, Gavin Newsom, and Ronald George.

Latest Poll:

A new CBS poll shows reveals America's shifting views on same-sex marriage: "Twenty-eight percent think same-sex couples should be permitted to form civil unions, but more than a third - 36 percent - say there should be no legal recognition of a gay couple’s relationship. Last month, the California Supreme Court struck down that state’s ban on same-sex marriage, paving the way for gay and lesbian couples to marry there. Americans’ views on this issue have changed since 2004, although opinion has not changed substantially in the last two years. In November of 2004 (soon after the presidential election) just 21 percent of Americans supported the idea of same-sex couples being allowed to marry."

Additional Information:

The San Francisco Chronicle visits the town where the highest percentage of residents (83%) voted for Proposition 22, the successful state ballot initiative that limited marriage to a man and a woman, and gets its take on the same-sex marriage laws: "Most residents still don't like the idea of allowing men to marry men and women to marry women. Some residents say they don't know any openly gay people, and others have trouble even saying the word 'gay.' One man called it being 'of the homosexual persuasion.'"

California businesses are poised to receive a windfall: "Faced with a wilted economy, water shortages and sticker shock at the gasoline pump, many California businesses are welcoming 'the dinks' (double income, no kids) with open arms. 'It’s basically a godsend,' said Daniel Doiron, the general manager of the Ingleside Inn in Palm Springs, which is offering honeymoon specials from $479 bargain basement (boutonnieres, 15-minute wedding, 20 guests) to the 'Elizabeth Taylor' at $29,999 (poolside villas, wedding cake and reception, ice sculptures, flowers, sit-down dinner for 200 and three nights in the honeymoon suite). 'We’re just blessed to help.' Ten couples from New York, Las Vegas and Phoenix have signed up for the options."

A California business specializing in interchangeable figures for wedding cakes is seeing a windfall. More on the business boom, below.

What churches are participating? "Episcopalians, Unitarian Universalists, rabbis, a Methodist and even a Catholic priest are planning to bless some same-sex marriages when they are set to become legal in California on Monday. 'I believe the family is a cornerstone for a strong society, and I'm all in favor of everything we can do to build up the values that make strong families,' said the Rev. Susan Russell of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, which has been blessing same-sex unions for 16 years. 'I think the values matter more than the gender of the people making up the heads of those families,' Russell said." NPR reports on the coming clash between equal rights and religious expression.

Some couples don't plan on rushing to the altar: "As of yesterday, more than 700 same-sex couples had made appointments to get a marriage license in San Diego County, including 190 for Tuesday. Michael Kimmel, a Kensington psychotherapist who counsels gay couples, said the pressure to wed is prompting some couples to re-evaluate the strength of their relationships."

Thanks to Towleroad.com for providing links on this information.

Hope this helps as people watch the wedding take place during the next few months.

Summer of Love & Winter of Struggle

This is an article from the Advocate one of the oldest gay newspapers in America.

Great Read!

Summer of Love, Winter of Struggle

Even as we celebrate our new right to marry in California, our opponents are preparing to give us the fight of our lives at the ballot box in November. Sue Rochman sizes up the situation.

Who knew the path to marriage equality would be such a roller-coaster ride? The California supreme court’s epic decision on May 15 had gays and lesbians dancing in the streets. But that same day the LGBT leaders who won this fight were gearing up for a battle royal with social and religious conservatives. The stakes couldn’t be higher. Anti-equality forces will field a voter referendum this November to strip marriage rights away. And with public opinion split almost right down the middle, that referendum could pass.

One strategy for swaying voters to our side is as simple as can be. Speaking to The Advocate amid the May 15 celebration, San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom explained it this way: “With this decision comes a new reality, and it will be advanced, we hope, with tens of thousands of couples getting married between now and November.” Here’s his thinking: The more happy weddings they see, the less people will want to tear us apart.

If that’s the case, then gay couples who get married in California this summer are taking an action that’s as political as it is personal. Cary Davidson and his partner of 18 years, Andrew Ogilvie, understand that. Like many of the couples expected to declare their vows in this California marriage rush, Davidson and Ogilvie have already had a commitment ceremony. This time around, in lieu of gifts they’re asking friends and family to contribute to the campaign to fight the initiative.

In an already remarkable year for political campaigns, no one knows just how the battle will unfold. But virtually everyone agrees that keeping marriage on the books in California is going to involve one of the most scorched-earth political showdowns in the history of the LGBT movement. If gay rights groups can win in the country’s most populous state, both sides agree there will be a ripple effect nationwide. But if they lose at the ballot box after having won in the courts, the victory dissolves in a morass of legal questions. “Anyone who tells you what will happen,” says Lawrence C. Levine, a professor at the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, “doesn’t know what they are talking about.”

A Long and Winding Road

The pending ballot initiative got under way in October 2007 when Protect Marriage -- a coalition of social and religious conservative organizations -- filed paperwork to begin collecting the signatures that would put a voter referendum on the November 2008 ballot to amend the state constitution. In contrast to the size of the task (about 700,000 signatures were required), the ballot’s intended edit to the constitution would consist of just 14 words: “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”

At the time no one could have known when the court would hear oral arguments -- or rule on the constitutionality of denying same-sex marriage in California. But Protect Marriage did know that, if it passed, the initiative would codify the court’s ruling. If it failed, it would at least keep the gay marriage battle alive. That’s why the $1.8 million that Protect Marriage spent on its signature-gathering campaign through March 30, 2008, seems worth it. The initiative’s two largest donors -- the National Organization for Marriage, California; and Fieldstead and Co., the philanthropic organization of Howard Fieldstead Ahmanson Jr., sometimes called the “paymaster of the political right” -- account for $1 million of that total, according to state election records. Now that the initiative has qualified, Protect Marriage’s fund-raising effort will go into high gear, says legal counsel Andrew Pugno: “It takes at least $10 to $15 million to communicate with the voters in California.”

Equality for All -- the coalition of LGBT, civil rights, faith, choice, labor, and community of color organizations working to defeat the ballot measure -- knows that too. That’s why, says Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights and a coalition member, Equality for All intends to match the opposition “dollar for dollar.” To pull that off, it’ll need to raise between $10 million and $20 million -- more than has ever been raised to fight a gay ballot initiative. (As we went to press, the Human Rights Campaign announced it would donate $500,000 to this enormous effort.)

Another Election, Another Initiative

Anyone at all familiar with California politics knows that the state is a hotbed of ballot initiatives. “Putting an initiative on the ballot to amend the California constitution is notoriously easy,” says Kendell. “And battling such an amendment is outrageously time-consuming and expensive.”

When Protect Marriage’s signature-gathering began, Equality for All organized a “Decline to Sign” campaign to look out for improper signature-gathering and to educate voters about the initiative. Through this effort, says Geoff Kors, executive director of Equality California (a coalition partner of Equality for All), more than 80,000 supporters of same-sex marriage were identified who were not discovered before -- and who will be crucial in a win this November.

But Equality California also knew it would be nearly impossible to keep the initiative off the ballot. “Decline to Sign efforts are rarely mounted in California, because it is usually so easy to qualify a measure,” says Kendell. “In a state that has almost 16 million registered voters, you can sneeze and generate over a million signatures. And p

they only needed 690,000 valid signatures to qualify the measure for the ballot.”

Lambda Legal and other gay rights groups heard accusations that Protect Marriage took part in improper signature-gathering procedures. Such charges, however, are incredibly hard to prove in California because of the type of signature-gathering the state allows. Signature gatherers, explains Kristina Wilfore, executive director of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, a progressive think tank, often work for companies that drive them from city to city or state to state. So while you assume the people you see in front of the grocery store are collecting signatures because they care about an issue, that’s an illusion. Often, it’s just what they do for a living. And in states like California, where signature gatherers are typically paid by the signature rather than by the hour, it’s easy to see there’s an incentive to forge signatures or copy them from one petition to another.

What’s more, California’s privacy laws restrict access to the signatures. That’s in contrast to states like Oregon, Florida, and Massachusetts, where the names are public information, which can help outside groups monitor the extent to which signature fraud occurs. (In California the secretary of state’s office performs only a random check of names, unless the sample reveals irregularities that merit a review of all the names.) “It’s shameful,” says Wilfore, “that Californians don’t have access to these petitions.”

A Tough Fight

Both sides will be working hard to win the hearts and minds of California voters. Both will launch media-savvy, message-tested, multimedia campaigns. And both will likely use the state supreme court ruling as red meat to get their supporters out to vote.

“Our major theme,” Protect Marriage’s Pugno says, “will be that this is an opportunity for the voters to speak out against the judicial activism that occurred here, with the court going beyond its role as an interpreter of law to create new laws.

“I think the fact that the court has already ruled on this increases the likelihood of the marriage amendment passing,” he continues. “In the absence of a court ruling, or if the court had upheld traditional marriage, it would be less clear that we needed this amendment.… Folks who support traditional marriage could have voted no, thinking it was unnecessary, but now they know they must vote yes or the court decision will be allowed to stand.”

Gay rights groups, however, see it differently. They believe the court ruling puts the momentum on their side. “Having won, we have a much better shot at defeating the amendment,” says Kendell. “For the next six months, everyone in California will have the experience of knowing gay people who get married. Just that day-to-day interaction is going to propel us toward defeating this amendment.”

Gay rights groups also note how much attitudes about gay marriage have changed over the past eight years. In 2000, says Kors, when California voters passed Proposition 22 -- which changed the state’s civil code by adding those same 14 words about recognizing only a marriage between a man and a woman -- it won by an overwhelming majority (about a 23-point margin, with 61.4% of the votes in favor, 38.6% against.) But since then, support for gay marriage has increased in the state, with the most recent poll findings, published in June 2007, showing a virtual dead heat (49% opposed to same-sex marriage, 45% in favor, and 6% unsure.) And since the initiative needs only a simple majority to win, it really is anyone’s game.

The Alliance Defense Fund, one of the groups that argued against same-sex marriage, has filed a request for the court to stay its decision until after the November election. ADF’s argument, says senior counsel Glen Lavy, is that if the initiative were to pass, the result would be legal chaos because it will be unclear not just in California but nationwide -- since couples from any state could marry here -- whether those out-of-state couples’ marriages were still legal.

NCLR, the San Francisco city attorney, and others have filed a response, but many legal scholars think the court is unlikely to stay the decision. “The best their side can come up with is that, if the initiative passes, there will be some uncertainty about the status of the same-sex marriages that took place between June and November,” says Levine. “And that doesn’t seem that moving to me. It would also be rather remarkable, because the stay would be in conflict with the court decision,” which was issued with complete knowledge that the ballot measure was in the works. As a result, most people right now believe the marriages will begin at the end of June.

Uncharted Territory

Overcoming the amendment would have a far-reaching effect. “If we win by even two or three percentage points,” says Kendell, “this would be the last gasp of ardent antigay forces in the state.”

But conflicting theories are flying as constitutional scholars and legal strategists try to wrap their brains around what might happen if the initiative passes. Legal scholars agree that if the measure were to win, its 14 simple words would theoretically override the court’s nuanced 121-page decision. Here’s why: The court’s ruling in May was possible because there was nothing in the state constitution to keep same-sex couples from marrying. By inserting prohibitive language in the constitution, the initiative would alter the groundwork the court used to make its ruling. With the groundwork changed, the decision would not stand.

At least that’s usually how it works. But according to Beth Hillman, a professor at University of California Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, this situation is unprecedented. No state has ever passed a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage after the court has granted same-sex marriage rights. “In general, constitutional amendments are not used to take away rights but to extend civil rights,” explains Hillman. “Plenty of initiatives have changed rights that individuals have, but none has been this specific in eliminating them.”

If it does pass, the initiative will go into effect on November 5, the day after the election. But that won’t invalidate existing marriages, says Joan Hollinger, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law. “Constitutional scholars agree that the amendment cannot be effective retroactively, so anyone married before November would be protected.”

If the initiative passes, gay legal groups say they would immediately ask the court for a stay, arguing that the initiative conflicts with the court ruling. While the court was weighing that request, couples could not marry. Without the stay, no more marriages could take place without further legal action by gay rights groups. But if the stay were granted, marriages could continue while both sides fight it out in the courts.

Legal scholars say the case might have to go back to a California trial court. It could, theoretically, end up before the state supreme court again. Gay rights groups could also argue that the initiative conflicts with federal law, which would put the legal battle on the path to the federal Supreme Court. But it would take years to get that far, and even then the federal Supreme Court could decline to hear the case.

Still, if voters put those 14 words into the state constitution, getting them excised would be tremendously difficult. Even though the California legislature has twice extended marriage rights to gay couples and Governor Schwarzenegger has said he’s against the initiative, their hands would be tied. That’s why, says Kendell, “we can’t depend on some later legal action or intervention to save the draconian effect of this amendment. It must be defeated.”

Hands Across the Nation

Although the heart of the battle will be fought in California, both sides say they are going to need -- and seek -- the support of people throughout the country to win. “This is a national battle, no question,” says Kors. “The national implications are enormous, because if we can [beat the initiative] in November, it will have an impact throughout the country.”

Tom Lang, cofounder of Know Thy Neighbor, an organization working to protect marriage for all families nationwide, puts it this way: “Right now we are all Californians.”

Kors and others believe we’re in a good position to beat the initiative. “We have a strong court ruling from a court where six of the seven justices are Republicans,” he notes. “We have a Republican governor who supports us, and a legislature that has voted in favor of us.” Moreover, presidential candidate Barack Obama has said that he opposes all divisive constitutional amendments like the one on the California ballot.

Voters will have these gay-positive considerations in mind when they head to the polls in November. After all, over the past 10 years Equality California has seen the legislature pass 45 of its organization’s bills advancing LGBT rights -- and California has yet to fall into the sea. As Kors puts it, “People in California are used to LGBT people.”

But, he adds, “we need to be careful that we don’t assume that the people we are friends with and work with are necessarily supportive. We need to have those conversations with them. We need every LGBT person in California -- or who knows someone in California -- to pick up the phone and talk about why this issue is important. We have to do that.”

And our own happiness will move us forward. In ways we can’t yet imagine, California will impact all our feelings about marriage. That’s why, even after 18 anniversaries and a Jewish wedding, Davidson suspects he’s going to feel new joy after going to the county clerk’s office and getting a marriage license. As for Hillman, the ground shifted when she picked up her two daughters from school. “I told them about the court decision,” she says, “and they went running down the hall of their preschool, singing ‘Mommy and Mama are getting married.’ And they looked at me with such happy eyes.”

Calling Noah the boat builder

Now this is something we should be talking about and think of ways to help out all these people who are losing their homes and lively hoods.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/06/13/national/a061457D37.DTL

Our Country

I have recently been listening to John Mellencamp on my Ipod and this song came up. I liked the words and like what they stand far.

What are your thoughts on his song "Our Country"?

Well I can stand beside
Ideals I think are right
And I can stand beside
The idea to stand and fight
I do believe
There's a dream for everyone
This is our country

There's room enough here
For science to live
And there's room enough here
For religion to forgive
And try to understand
All the people of this land
This is our country

From the east coast
To the west coast
Down the Dixie Highway
Back home
This is our country

That poverty could be
Just another ugly thing
And bigotry would be
Seen only as obscene
And the ones that run this land
Help the poor and common man
This is our country

From the east coast
To the west coast
Down the Dixie Highway
Back home
This is our country

The dream is still alive
Some day it will come true
And this country it belongs
To folks like me and you
So let the voice of freedom
Sing out through this land
This is our country

From the east coast
To the west coast
Down the Dixie Highway
Back home
This is our country

From the east coast
To the west coast
Down the Dixie Highway
Back home
This is our country

Countdown to June 17th!

Only 3 days left until same-sex marriage is recognized in my home state of CA. Looking forward to seeing lots of couples getting married over the summer.http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24969197/

some links to articles:

http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/x1880506715/Natick-chu

rch-marks-anniversary-of-same-sex-marriage-ruling

http://www.massequality.org/news/story.php?

http://www.lawlib.state.ma.us/gaymarriage.html

And someone should have kept their lips in the close position

Was she on medication, drunk? What on earth would someon say somethign as stupid as this???Sharon Stone Calls Chinese Earthquake "Karma"

Posted May 26th 2008 2:06PM by TMZ Staff

When is a natural disaster a good thing? When the afflicted country commits human rights violations -- at least according to Sharon Stone.

Stone gave an interview while on the red carpet at Cannes this weekend in which -- after recounting all of China's atrocities -- she wondered, "All these earthquake and stuff happened and I thought, 'Is that karma?' When you are not nice that bad things happen to you." My name is Sharon!

Sharon went on to say she has come around and no longer thinks the death of over 60,000 people is cosmic payback. "Basic Instinct 2" is a whole other story.

Say What????

Just saw this,

'Save California' group says issuing marriage licenses to gays is the moral equivalent of gassing Jews: "Ask your county clerk if they were a Nazi officer during WWII and had been ordered to gas the Jews, would they? At the Nuremberg trials, they would have been convicted of murder for following this immoral order."

Link to org site.: http://www.savecalifornia.com/getactive/alertmain.php?alid=201

Valley Plaza

Recently I and my spouse were in Bakersfield, visiting family. We went shopping at Valley Plaza during our visit. WOW has it changed, large groups of youth, who seem to be in gangs and loud music etc. What was real interesting as we bought some T-shirts at JC Penny's, we were witnes to 3 youths attack the young man in front of us waiting for the cashier to ring his purchase up. One of the 3 youths even attempted to bash in the young mans head w/ stantions near the cashier. Didnt realize how much Bakersfield has changed.

Which Side are you on

Heard this song recently and thought I would post the lyrics. My grandfather was a coal miner and a union man.

Which Side Are You On?

by Florence Reese

Come all of you good workers
Good news to you I'll tell
Of how that good old union
Has come in here to dwell

(Chorus)
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?

My daddy was a miner
And I'm a miner's son
And I'll stick with the union
Till every battle's won

They say in Harlan County
There are no neutrals there
You'll either be a union man
Or a thug for J.H. Blair

Oh, workers can you stand it?
Oh, tell me how you can
Will you be a lousy scab
Or will you be a man?

Don't scab for the bosses
Don't listen to their lies
Us poor folks haven't got a chance
Unless we organize

Torture - Should never be allowed

With the discussion on using torture here in the US, on humans who might or might be be terrorist, criminals, we should not lose our souls and morality by committing torture.

I am looking forward to watch the report by Christiane Amanpour.

Christiane Amanpour is currently in production on a major CNN documentary that focuses on those people who stood up and said, "Listen! We must stop the killing. Stop the genocide."

Cambodia's notorious Tuol Sleng Prison, where some 14,000 were held, is now a museum.

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PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (CNN) -- A recently disclosed memo gave U.S. interrogators the ability to use harsh methods -- what many call "torture" -- to extract information from terrorist suspects after 9/11. Around the world, critics saw it as another blow to American prestige and moral authority.

The 2003 document also invokes wartime powers to protect interrogators who violate the Geneva Conventions, for example, by the use of waterboarding -- when a prisoner is made to think he is drowning.

Half a world away, the divisive debate over whether waterboarding constitutes torture comes into sharp relief at the infamous S-21, Tuol Sleng Prison in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

This is where the genocidal regime of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge imprisoned and brutalized its enemies from 1975 to 1979. I visited the once secret S-21, now a museum, with Van Nath, a former inmate. He remembers being brought here blindfolded and terrified:

"I thought that was the end of my life," he told me. "In my room people kept dying, one or two every day."

Van Nath was kept in a room packed with 50 other inmates, shackled together and forced to lie down.

"We could not sit. If we wanted to sit, we had to ask permission first. No talking, whispering or making noise," he told me.

Van Nath described how male prisoners were whipped raw, their fingernails were yanked out, they were hogtied to wooden bars. Prison guards mutilated women's genitals, ripped off their nipples with pliers. And worst of all, babies were ripped from their mothers' arms and slaughtered. Watch the former prisoner recount the brutality »

Van Nath was accused of being a CIA agent and given electric shock torture, but he survived when his jailers found out he was one of Cambodia's most prominent painters. And what did they make him paint?

"Pol Pot's picture. Big pictures," he told me. "I had to paint the same one again and again. If they didn't like my painting, that would have been the end of my life."

So when Pol Pot finally fell in 1979, Van Nath returned to paint what he had really seen and heard at S-21. He did it as a memorial to the 14,000 who had been tortured and executed in the prison. It's one of the few public reminders of the regime's crimes.

Take water torture, for instance. Van Nath remembers it as if it were yesterday. I gasped as I entered a room filled with his vivid depictions.

One of his paintings shows a prisoner blindfolded and hoisted onto a makeshift scaffold by two guards. He is then lowered head first into a massive barrel of water. Another shows a prisoner with cloth over his face, writhing as an interrogator pours water over his head.

Van Nath still remembers the accompanying screams: "It sounded like when we are really in pain, choking in water," he told me. "The sound was screaming, from the throat. I suppose they could not bear the torture.

"Whenever we heard the noises we were really shocked and scared. We thought one day they will do the same thing to us."

As he talked and showed me around, my mind raced to the debate in the United States over this same tactic used on its prisoners nearly 40 years later. I stared blankly at another of Van Nath's paintings. This time a prisoner is submerged in a life-size box full of water, handcuffed to the side so he cannot escape or raise his head to breathe. His interrogators, arrayed around him, are demanding information.

I asked Van Nath whether he had heard this was once used on America's terrorist suspects. He nodded his head. "It's not right," he said.

But I pressed him: Is it torture? "Yes," he said quietly, "it is severe torture. We could try it and see how we would react if we are choking under water for just two minutes. It is very serious."

Back then, Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge cadres recognized this for what it was and used it with brutal efficiency. The Cambodian genocide ultimately killed 2 million people.

Fourteen thousand of them had passed through the gates of hell at Tuol Sleng Prison.

So, you want to be a McCain Democrat?

Great Article in the Boston Globe...Think before you vote for McCain over a Democrat

So, you want to be a McCain Democrat?

By Dan Payne | April 3, 2008

AN ALARMING number of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton supporters are telling pollsters they won’t support the Democratic ticket if their candidate doesn’t win the party’s nomination. This, my friends, could mean four more years of Bushist backwardness.

Look before you jump. Democrats thinking of voting for John McCain should ask themselves if they want a hot-tempered, right-wing Republican in the White House - keeping his foot on the gas in Iraq, sentencing women to illegal abortions, and pouring cement around President Bush’s tax cuts for the rich.

A Republican in Republican’s clothing. McCain is, my friends, a Republican, a self-described "foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution." He voted against expanding the children’s health insurance program and against an assault rifle ban.

Stiff the little guy, save the big boys. He’s against the federal government helping thousands of people who lost homes in the subprime mortgage debacle. But he’s OK with the Federal Reserve lending $30 billion to salvage Bear Stearns.

He’s the eighth-most conservative senator in Congress, after being the second-most conservative senator the preceding session.

The Washington Post found that he has voted with a majority of his Republican colleagues 88 percent of the time this session. Some maverick.

Can’t tell Shi’ite from Shinola. Our foreign policy expert, while in Iraq, said over and over that Iran was training Al Qaeda in Iraq. No such thing is happening. Iran, a Shi’ite country, has been training and financing Shi’ite extremists, not Al Qaeda, who are Sunni insurgents. No wonder McCain says we’ll have to be in Iraq for 100 years. He doesn’t know who’s fighting whom.

Roll over, Darwin. On teaching "intelligent design," he said: "I think that there has to be all points of view presented. . . . There’s nothing wrong with teaching different schools of thought."

John Hagee, McCain’s cross to bear. If Obama has to answer for the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., McCain should have to answer for John Hagee.

Last month, McCain said: "I was pleased to have the endorsement of Pastor John Hagee," who runs a 19,000-member church in Texas.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue said: "Hagee has waged an unrelenting war against the Catholic Church. For example, he likes calling it ’The Great Whore,’ an ’apostate church,’ the ’anti-Christ,’ and a ’false cult system.’ "

Hagee has preached that God is going to use Muslim terrorists to create "bloodbaths" to punish us for our sinful policies toward Israel.

He felt that New Orleans had it coming when Hurricane Katrina struck. "New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God." How would he know?

Et tu, Hillary? Clinton has been active in The Fellowship, a secretive, conservative Bible study and prayer group on Capitol Hill, Mother Jones reported last year. This explains her working with right-wing zealots like Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas and former senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. OK, I have now officially had it up to here with religion and politics. Can I get an amen?

The Supremes. The day the next president takes office, five of the nine Supreme Court justices will be over 70. John Paul Stevens will be 88; Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 75; Anthony Kennedy, 71; Stephen Breyer, 70; and, I smile as I write this, Antonin Scalia is 72.

The next president will probably pick one or two of their replacements; maybe more, if he or she is reelected. McCain, who favors the repeal of Roe v. Wade, promises conservative audiences, "We’re going to have justices like [John] Roberts and [Samuel] Alito."

Mini-me and the turncoat. Would President McCain put his Senate pals on the Supreme Court, his mini-me, Lindsey Graham, or Joe Lieberman? They would sail through the Senate; senators like to confirm fellow senators.

Throwing lobbyists into the bus. McCain chairs the Senate committee that oversees the telecommunications industry. Charlie Black, McCain’s lead strategist, admits to lobbying on his cellphone for his telecommunications clients on McCain’s so-called Straight Talk Express bus. Campaign manager Rick Davis also on the bus, founded a lobbying firm that carries water for major telecommunications clients. At last count, a whopping 59 lobbyists are raising money for McCain.

Favorite sing-along on the bus: "99 bottles of Dom Pérignon on the wall."

Dan Payne is a Boston area media consultant who has worked for Democratic candidates around the country. He does political analysis for WBUR radio.

The great inflation cover-up?

Gas prices up, food prices up, Ultities price up so why isnt this reported as inflation? Or would it be stagflation..since salaries are not keeping pace w/ the rise of costs?

The great inflation cover-up

If the price of dinner is pinching us, why don't the CPI numbers acknowledge it?

By Elizabeth Spiers

(Fortune Magazine) -- My friend Dana, a former real estate investment banker who got out of investment banking comfortably before subprime mortgages hit the fan, has a personal inflation index. It's pegged entirely to the price of filet mignon at the Palm Too, his favorite steak house on the East Side of Manhattan. If the filet mignon is reasonable, all is right with the world. If it seems unduly expensive, Dana gets worried that inflation is spinning out of control. So a couple of months ago he returned from a month in Paris to find that the price of pricey steak had jumped to $38, up from $36. To hear him tell it, not since the Last Supper has an evening meal emanated so pervasive a sense of impending doom.

To be fair, Dana's professional background lends itself to price scrutiny of nearly everything, and being able to afford high-end steak at all puts you in that segment of the population that isn't relying on inflation-sensitive Social Security checks. But it's a little frightening when a guy who just spent several weeks spending euros (now 1.58 to the dollar and climbing) comes back to New York, switches to dollars, and finds himself "aghast" that everything's so expensive.

And Dana's not alone. A March CNN poll indicates that 91% of the population is concerned about inflation. I'd ask a member of the remaining 9% what they're thinking - and what levels of relative fiscal comfort allow one not to be concerned about inflation - but I'm entirely surrounded by 91-percenters. So how do we account for the discrepancy between the Federal Reserve's recent assurances that inflation is under control and the 91% of the population that's worried it isn't?

There are several possibilities: The first is that we're all paranoid. We simply need reassurance from the authorities: Inflation rates are fine, nothing to see here, move along quietly. The second is that the Fed's insistence on focusing on "core" inflation - a measure that strips energy and food from the consumer price index (CPI) because they're theoretically subject to short-term volatility - makes inflation seem smaller than it is, or than we feel it to be when our gallon of milk that was 12% cheaper last year gets swiped across the grocery store scanner, beeping ominously like a tiny alarm bell. (While core inflation was just 2.3% in February, the CPI was 4%.) The third and most disconcerting possibility is that the CPI systemically understates inflation, in which case we're paying for it taxwise, and the government is underpaying Social Security recipients. In the words of many a UFO spotter, it isn't paranoia if they're really out to get you.

The first possibility is not to be completely discounted. Thanks to financial paranoia, Bear Stearns (BSC, Fortune 500) found itself hemorrhaging cash a few weeks ago, prompting a rare but always terrifying run on the bank and the eventual sale of the firm at a price that led one anonymous observer to tape a $2 bill to the front door of Bear headquarters, a tongue-in-cheek bid for the remaining assets at a competitive rate. And while merely thinking that inflation is going up is unlikely to cause it to do so, there are certainly real-world consequences from misplaced anxieties. Consumer confidence is the first casualty. When they think their money's not going as far in the future, nervous consumers pull back spending.

But are nine out of ten of us really just paranoid? Or are we just irritated at the Fed's insistence that if we hold still, interest-rate cuts won't hurt a bit, when historical experience tells us the resulting inflation will hurt like hell? If we focus on core inflation, we're told, the underlying trends aren't so disturbing. Take energy and food out of the basket of goods used to calculate the CPI, which is what the Fed does when it reports the numbers to Congress, and things don't look so bad. Just look at the spot on the wall, says the Fed, and ignore the giant needle.

It's true that by focusing on core inflation we can detect certain underlying trends that may be masked by the price volatility of some of the goods in the CPI basket. Post-Katrina natural-gas spikes, for instance, would have distorted long-term CPI trends, even though they were event-related outliers. It makes sense to remove such rarities when looking for underlying patterns in the natural-gas market. But does that mean the entire energy category should be removed? Food and energy are more subject to short-term price fluctuations, but not taking them into consideration at all when thinking about underlying trends precludes the possibility of significant long-term changes that aren't consistent with long-term trend lines for core goods and services. The fact is, food and energy have been going up for quite a while. At what point does a consistent trend upward stop being "price volatility" and start being a material "trend upward"? And what if some of those trends - particularly in the energy sector - are irreversible?

As the usually grim-and-bearish Merrill Lynch (MER, Fortune 500) economist David Rosenberg noted recently to the firm's clients, we've seen similar sustained increases in food and energy before. In the mid-'70s. Just before the Big Recession. But they're not materially important, says the Fed. Pay no attention.

One of my favorite 91-percenters, Fusion IQ's Barry Ritholtz, puts it amusingly: "If you take everything out of the CPI basket that's going up in price, sure, you have no inflation!" Which is sort of like suggesting that if you take away insurgent fighting and the large U.S. military presence, there's no war in Iraq. Not that I want to give anyone in the Oval Office ideas for creative rhetorical devices.

But Ritholtz is more concerned about the third scenario, in which the CPI isn't accurate in the first place. And the difference between the second and third scenario is the difference between miserable and horrible. People like Ritholtz are thinking of the 1996 Boskin Commission, which was established to determine the accuracy of the CPI. The commission concluded that the CPI overstated inflation by 1.1%, and methodologies were adjusted to reflect that. Critics of the Boskin Commission suggest that the basis upon which the CPI was revised doesn't account for the way people actually purchase and consume products. The commission pointed to four biases inherent in the way the CPI was determined that supposedly contribute to overstatement - among them, a bias that doesn't take into account substitution of one good for another and a bias that fails to take into account increases in quality that are reflected in price increases.

But the Boskin critics note several reasonable exceptions to those biases. The Boskin Commission suggests that when customers substitute one good for another, the CPI should treat those goods equally. If Dana orders a hanger steak instead of his beloved filet mignon because the hanger steak is cheaper, Boskin argues that the hanger steak prices should be compared with previous filet mignon prices. It's all beef, right? But critics of the Boskin report point to areas where substitution is so price-driven that consumers are pushed out of the category altogether. What happens when the consumer gives up steak entirely and switches to chicken? (Or to use a scarier example, goes from some health insurance to no health insurance?)

Boskin also says that whatever you're paying in price increases is offset by the additional pleasure you get from better goods. To put it another way, you adjust for improvement in quality over time - a practice called hedonic pricing. So, for example, energy price increases due to federally mandated environmental measures are offset by how much we all sit around enjoying the cleaner environment. (And there's a lot of sitting, because it's not like we can afford to go anywhere anymore.) But, as critics note, quality increases over time are also a reflection of the fact that increased production typically means lower prices, thanks to economies of scale. This may be a matter of splitting methodological hairs, but if it isn't, aggressive estimates put the non-Boskinized actual inflation rate north of 7%. (The We're All Gonna Die estimate is more like 10%, but let's not push it.)

Lest you worry about your future purchasing power, rest assured that your $600 Bush-administered tax rebate will be in the mail shortly, at which point you may be able to afford filet mignon at the Palm. On the downside, it may cost $600 by the time you get that check.

Elizabeth Spiers is the founder of financial Web site dealbreaker.com.